About Me
This is a Tomaselli tribute page, as i could find another i decided to set this one up...
Fred Tomaselli first emerged as an artist in the late 1970s out of the underground punk-rock scene in Los Angeles. The drug-centered culture of his youth served as an important influence on the development of his art, as did his abiding love of the wilderness. His pictures often give the impression of a psychedelic black light poster. Upon closer inspection, these intricately patterned paintings reveal their composition of very unusual things embedded in multiple layers of highly polished resin. In the Gallery’s picture, Echo, Wow, and Flutter, jewel-like strands of actual prescription pills, real marijuana leaves, cut-out pictures of birds, flowers, human hands, painted flames, and patterns of painted pills are arranged in an interlocking elliptical web that suggests sound waves and the orbits of planets. The overall effect is dizzying as one constantly moves from looking at the details of the parts to admiring the decorative patterns of the whole.Tomaselli combines the world of nature (leaves, flowers, birds) with contemporary culture, creating beauty from the flotsam and jetsam of American consumerism. His work often evokes the abundance of "stuff" in our lives, but without overt comment or condemnation. Instead, his paintings exude a visionary quality. While the drugs included can no longer alter consciousness by being ingested, the artist suggests that perhaps now the paintings themselves have the power to change consciousness
