Massurreal Landscape

Alan King – Massurreal Landscape

Alan King was born in Greenwich, South East London, in February 1952. At a young age, he started drawing complex buildings and was ‘experimenting with perspective.’ When he shifted his school to Eltam Green School, his art teacher allowed him to develop their own art and this is when Alan discovered his creativity. He introduced the Surreal Art of Dali, and the groundbreaking surreal photography of Herbert Bayer.

After finishing school, he went into the field of commercial art which ended fairly quickly because he was transferred to the accounting department. During the 60s-70s, he was awarded commissions in which he could exhibit his artwork in local shows in London but soon moved out of London. His current form of artwork is experimenting photography with geometric illusionary pieces with computer software in 1999. His strange style was accredited when he was invited to the Massurreal group 2004. He moved to Dorset during the summer of 2005, after living in Milton Keynes for 28 years.

So what kind of art does Alan King create? His created are based on two common mediums, the traditional and the computer-generated art. He has created more computer-generated art. Alan King's art is defined by his fascinating creation of landscape compositions. Executed in a style recognized as Massurrealism (“based in further evolution of surrealism with technology” wikipedia.org), these distinctive works bring-to-mind the landscapes of well-known Surrealist painters, but have a definite contemporary edge to them.

Lets have a look at his art process. The following images are done as a sequence for the final picture.

As we can see in the above picture, sketches are made. This, of course is his first original idea of the art, The Gate. As of yet, he hasn't used any form of technology with the art, just the traditional form of paper and pencil.

Once he got the basic idea of what he is going to create, he moves on a more detailed view of his art. Specific and accurate, as you can see in the above picture, has been created through line drawing. This is basically the final version of the art and in the next process, he has only added colour to his art.

Once created the full outline in the line drawing, he has now moved to hand colouring using simple colours to start filling up his art. We can see that he as his first colour to this art.

After adding all the 'first-color,' he has completed the picture using calligraphy ink (hand made). Since the art process of the art is done, we can have a look at the computing process.

42 x 30cms (A2) - Sealed Giclee on Canvas

Once the traditional artwork is finished, he then transfers his art to a computer and then maniplulate and convert it into digital art. He hasn't listed out what kind of software that he uses to make his digital art but according to some websites he uses image manipulation software. To convert a painting into digital art, Alan has applied a printmaking process on an inkjet printer to make reproductions of a photograph of a painting. This led him to develop his own uniqe style through drawing on his knowledge of computer and commercial design techniques.

Lets look at his other computer-generated artwork

Sundomes - 36" x 12" Professional Laser Print

Room of Illusions 59.4 x 42cms - Sealed Giclee on Canvas

These two above artwork seemed quite interested from his gallery. I really like the room of illusions because is shows the that there are unlimited opportunties out there (sky background). The Sundome looks a bit dark to me because it shows an unstable path to a place and the picture looks very empty which could resemble the non-energectic environment.

There have been quite a few critical analysis of this artwork from critics on his site. I have seleced two statments:

"Brilliant and well thought out, the artist uses the obvious and yet almost un-noticed method of placing objects in such a way as to arrive at these surreal pieces, which appear to float."

"Not just another Digital artist, I would say Alan King is one of the best for abstract landscapes I have seen in a while. A Must see……."

He has also published many of this works in exhibtions and art gallery. For example, 'The Peakcock Gallery" which was an exhibition of Massurreal Artist.

References: Wikipedia , Alan King's Homepage