Non-Pretentious Art

[Martin Hash]

I know it’s pretentious to use the word “pretentious” to describe anything, but there’s just no other way to say I don’t like pretentious art, and almost all art is pretentious art. In fact, whenever a pretentious artist refers to another artist as a “draftsman, “ I know who to look for. Typically, advertising art, and cartoon & comic book artists. I never really noticed my affinity for “draftsman” (non-pretentious artists) until I considered my own considerable collection of “art,” all produced by extraordinary draftsmen.

Alex Ross Original Art.JPG

That’s probably why we have so many paintings done by animals prominently hanging in our house: elephant, gorilla, giraffe, tiger, penguins, and more. There’s also another cadre of guaranteed non-pretentious source of art: art created by kids. Even when they try and copy pretentiousness, they end up only being cute. We’ve got several paintings by kids, some from a Caribbean orphanage my wife, Gwynne, volunteered at, but other paintings from more random origins.

Grenada.jpg

Vic's Kid.jpg

This preference for non-pretentious art probably goes back to my own art. At last year’s Christmas party at our house, an older woman, seeing framed children’s art in the anteroom, told Gwynne that it was quite good, and asked if our children had done it. Gwynne got that quirky smile of hers and answered, “no, my husband did it when he was young.” Apparently, the lady was much impressed because she came up to me, introduced herself, and proceeded to encourage me to pursue my artistic ambitions. The comment was both bizarre & surreal, seeing how long since I was a 6-year old.

Martin's Submarine.jpg

Martin's Airplane.jpg

Martin's Tyranosaurous.jpg

[heydaralon]

When I was a lot younger like 5-9ish I used to draw sharks. They were not very good drawings looking back.

Isn't the bottom one a drawing of a tricerotops?