Examining my artistic influences amid the ‘snowpocalypse’

We’ve made it through the snowpocalypse! 

Being from Colorado, snow isn’t a rare sight, and I’ll admit I missed it here. I hadn’t seen snow in five years, and I was excited to play outside and unlock the childhood wonder I had while building snowmen and pelting my brother with snowballs. That lasted about five seconds, then I remembered I had heat and warm soup inside. 

While I was in the house, I started thinking about my last column. Excited to create, I asked Google Gemini (my AI art critic) for inspiration. It knows me so well. It suggested pulling inspiration from my dreams. I wish I hadn’t listened to that advice. I made a painting of a fish with Buzz Lightyear’s face. 

So it seems I’m still into surrealism, and it got me thinking, do my favorite artists align with my surreal style? My college years, where I had most of my training, had lessons in art history, exposing me to plenty of famous artists and inspiration.

So, I compiled a list of 10 that I’m currently into (you’ll notice some popular names and a few obscure ones, but all of them create amazing pieces that are worth experiencing.)

My all-time favorite artist is Salvador Dali, known for the melting clock painting: The Persistence of Memory. It’s no mistake he was eccentric, but I think the best artists have a little touch of that. His work to me is unique, thought-provoking, and weird, but so very beautiful. It’s no surprise to me that I have so much surrealism in my body of work, and that is largely attributed to Dali’s influence.

In no particular order, my other nine favorites are: 

Kasey Golden: a YouTuber who creates whimsical, cartoonish and colorful illustrations of people, animals and mythical creatures.

Frida Kahlo: a renowned painter who primarily created self-portraits that explored her identity, pain and the female experience, influenced by Mexican folk art.

Kiakshuk: an influential figure in Canadian Inuit art, whose prints and sculptures depicted Inuit life, mythology and hunting.

Yayoi Kusama: considered one of the most influential living artists, known for her use of polka dots in paintings, sculptures and installations.

Roy Lichtenstein: a painter and a central figure in the 1960s pop art movement, widely known for paintings based on comic strips.

Frank Moth: a creative duo based in Greece that creates surreal photocollages, combining vintage imagery, geometric shapes and vibrant colors.

Bob Ross: a painter and television personality who made art more accessible to the masses through his famous TV show “The Joy of Painting.”

Vincent van Gogh: considered to be one of the most influential figures in Western art history, famously known for his iconic “Starry Night” painting.

Melanie Willhide: a photographer known for pieces that are digitally manipulated. Her exhibit “to Adrian Rodriguez, with love” resulted from corrupted photos after her computer was stolen.

Of course, I had to ask Gemini which styles of art they fell under and some were tagged under multiple movements and styles.

Four artists were considered surrealists: Dali, Kusama, Moth and Willhide. It’s important to note that Kahlo was considered a surrealist, too, but she rejected the label.

Three were considered pop art: Kusama, Moth and Lichtenstein.

The rest were a mixed bag of movements: from cartoons to magical realism, post-impressionism, naturalism and Inuit art.

I wanted to dig even further into what appeals to me, so I picked five of my favorite works from each artist and asked Gemini to analyze them.

Most of the pieces, surprisingly, came from the 2010s and the 1960s. I think Golden and Moth have a lot to do with that since they currently create art. Other popular decades were the 1980s (thanks to Kusama and Ross) and the 1880s (due to van Gogh.)

As a painter, it’s no surprise my favorites were mostly paintings (28 pieces out of 50.) Quite a few were digital as well (once again, because of Golden and Moth.)

And to nobody’s surprise, 15 pieces were tagged with surrealism, nine with pop art and five as impressionism.

Gemini describes surrealism as “an art and cultural movement that emerged in Europe in the 1920s,” focused on the unconscious, dreamlike imagery and challenging conventional notions of reality.

Gemini says pop art is “an art movement that emerged in the mid-20th century, primarily in the United Kingdom and the United States,” that uses images from popular culture, bold colors and satire.

Finally, Gemini labels impressionism as “a 19th-century art movement that revolutionized painting,” with heavy emphasis on light and atmosphere, visible brushstrokes and everyday subjects, like people, landscapes and cityscapes.

Once again, I was blown away by how much my AI art buddy knew about all of this, and I was confident that I was indeed a surrealist. I’m thinking about incorporating more pop art into my style now that I’ve discovered how much I like it. Maybe I was onto something with the Buzz Lightyear fish.