When I was a teenager, I was definitely influenced by George
Herriman and Peter Max.
Now I don't know, it seems I am often inspired by my dreams, or physics equations, or things in nature, or science fiction stories, but here are
some artists whose work I like: Diane Arbus, Balthus, Ernst Barlach, Aubrey Beardsley, Ivan
Bilibin, George Caleb Bingham, Hieronymus Bosch, Arnold Bockland,
Bill Bowers, Brassai, Pieter Bruegel, George Carlson,
Mondor Cotter, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Salvador Dali, Walter de
Maria, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, M C Escher, Douglas Farmer,
Virgil Findlay, Antoni Gaudi, John Glashan, Francisco Goya,
Grandville, Robert Grossman, George Grosz, John Held Jr,
David Hockney, Edward Hopper, Gustav Klimt, Cheyco Liedmann, Rene
Magritte, Winsor McCay, Gustav Moreau, Odd Nedrum, Steven Nelson,
Isamu Noguchi, Maxfield Parrish, Maud & Miska Petersham, Jay Rath, Man
Ray, Odilon Redon, Ed Ruscha, Ralph Steadman, Saul Steinberg, Jan
Vermeer, Sulamith Wulfing, Andy Warhol, Grant Wood, Lisa Yuskavage
Other likable or influential items include the shapes, lines, surfaces, and concepts of the following:
the flat black and orange drawings on ancient
Greek vases and bowls, Northwest Indian design (Chilkat blankets,
Alaskan totem poles...), simple, elegant Tantric sculpture,
Japanese prints (Hokusai, Hiroshige...), Samoan and Maori tattoos,
Chinese communist happy worker posters, physics, astronomy, mathematics, buildings, ruins, and earthworks
like Stonehenge, Angkor Wat, the statues on Easter Island, Walter
De Maria's lightning field, North American Indian effigy mounds,
radio telescopes (Arecibo, VLA, Nancay...), big blocky red brick
Romanesque revival courthouses & school buildings, miniature
golf courses, greenhouses (traditional, geodesic...), the sets in
The 5000 Fingers of Dr T,
crumbling old industrial areas, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, moss, millipedes, lichens, algae, worms, phosphorescent ocean waves, concrete, large sheets of plastic, spring shoots, rain puddles, vacant lots, icebergs, baby toys, sod, sandbags,
sashweights.
Music often inspires me; semi-synesthesiaic shapes and colors, associated stories and whatnot. Musical influences (incomplete alphabetical list):
bagpipe, baroque, blues, calypso, Chinese opera, electronic, gamelan, Gregorian chants, industrial, Irish, 1920s-1950s jazz, klezmer, Native American, Peruvian, polka, psychedelic, punk, reggae, rockabilly, ska, samba, swing, J S Bach, Ross Bagdasarian, Beethoven, Alpha Blondy, Boswell Sisters, Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir, Cab Calloway, Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem, Johnny Cash, Johnny Clegg, Jimmy Cliff, The Coup, Deep Purple, Deller Consort, Brian Eno, Exuma, Fairport Convention, Four Tops, Philip Glass, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Dr. John, Jimmy Johnson, Kinks, Kraftwerk, Love, Taj Mahal, Felix Mendelsshon, Darius Milhaud, Mothers of Invention, Mozart, Mussorgsky, New York Pro Musica, Perrey-Kingsley, Edith Piaf, Raincoats, Residents, Sabah, Eric Satie, Sex Pistols, Sibelius, Smentana, Smokey Robinson, Specials, Spike Jones & the City Slickers, Steeleye Span, Stravinsky, Yma Sumac, Tchaikowsky, Velvet Underground, Village People, Wagner, Ethel Waters, Paul Whiteman Orchestra, Hank Williams, Bob Wills & Texas Playboys, Iannis Xenakis, Yardbirds, Dwight Yoakam, among others.
(My all-time favorite song is Venus in Furs by the Velvet Underground.)
Parts of movies, including concepts and images (the "underworld" fan and papers in Black Orpheus, or the flashing sign at night in the park in Blow-Up, for example) or special effects and techniques (the computer landscapes in Tron), stories (odd love stories such as Mothra and the Twin Fairies, Sunset Boulevard, King Rat), dialogue, sets, costumes, etc. impress me, and turn up in artwork filtered through dreams and faulty memory.
Some influential/likeable movies: The Wizard of Oz, Juliet of the Spirits, Sunset Boulevard, Beauty and the Beast (black & white French), Black Orpheus, Walkabout, Dumbo, Snow White, Ghosts Before Breakfast, Blood of the Poet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (black and white 1950s), Elevator Girls in Bondage, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Pink Flamingoes, Mothra, Nosferatu (black and white silent), 2001, Blade Runner, The Last Wave, Blow-Up, King Rat, Crimson Tide, Thief of Baghdad (with Sabu), Legend, The Matrix, All About Eve, Busby Berkeley extravaganzas, Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers movies, The Thin Man series, old Japanese monster movies, Tron, Alien(s), the Lord of the Rings movies, Pirates of the Caribbean ...
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