Spring Break

Single Edition 1/1 NFT Art Collection by Alann J.

The Penn State oil can puts this genre of this painting into the realm of college age youth or college grads who know the “true meaning” of Spring Break. All the cans are painted using references from real life oil cans. The names of the oils are “suggestive”; Lube, Trojan, Beaver, etc. The robot has drank too much, played too hard, and is now left broken and friendless amongst the clutter created in the throes of a “good time.” The iHop sticker on his leg is a typical “Dad joke”, I have one leg, therefore "I Hop" to get around. The "Oil’d No. 7” sticker on his thigh marks the first time I used a number in a painting as a delineation of how many paintings I had done up to that point. This being the seventh painting of robots that I had done. You might say it marks the exact moment in time that I decided that I was going to be painting robots for a good while into the future.

It was with this painting that I found that the robots could be effectively utilized as a “Trojan Horse” of sorts to one’s imagination. You see the painting, you welcome it into your head, you study it closely laughing and smiling at what you see. But what you didn’t realize is that it contains a story that once revealed, can never be unseen by your mind. Therefore it becomes a part of you. If I could teach, preach, educate, or enlighten one through what appears to be an hapless painting of a whimsical robot, then I consider it a success. Art should mean something. When an artist sits down to paint, they are expressing emotion. They may not realize it, but they are acting out their feelings as they create. This should also be the case of the observer who is unknowingly looking for something to satisfy something inside them that can’t be explained. Why does one hang art on a wall? Except that they are happy with it and want to have it around to keep them feeling happy. For some reason people are drawn to art, they like it, they love it, they are acting primarily on the emotion they seek to sooth, whether that is happiness, sadness, fear, or love, they are drawn to the art like a moth to a flame.

My paintings are intended draw in the people who like to laugh. The people who seek out fun places and things. Thinking people with wild imaginations who are complicated thinkers and imaginative problem solvers. When they look closely they KNOW there is something beneath the surface of the painting’s image that requires deeper exploration, so they let it in, and they unravel the mystery. You might say they are somewhat interactive in that respect. Ahh, but I have digressed.

Although Alann attended the Colorado Institute of Art for Advertising design, he is self-taught as a painter. Formerly a Super Realist, Alann has recently turned his brushes in a new direction, creating a completely new genre he calls Mechanical Surrealism. Known in the art circles for his rusted robots living life in much the same way we humans do, he has been nicknamed the "Painter of Rust". Alann's work is typically oil on canvas (or wood since painting #26) infused with found and harvested objects he collects specifically for his art. You will see nothing else like it anywhere you travel, and anywhere you look, because there is only one "painter of rust".