Chris Simonite's Cubo-Weirdism Blog! A Blog about Chris Simonite's Art by Chris Simonite. Who the Hell else?

On occasion I’m asked: “when do you consider a painting to be finished?” Of course that’s a question that a lot of painters get. And I guess the answer if kind of simple: when it looks finished. When I can stand back and say: “that’s what I wanted.” Well, maybe it’s more like” “that’s pretty much what I wanted.” I don’t think I ever get a painting exactly the way I want it, because I don’t think I know from the outset exactly what I want. George Condo, my favourite contemporary painter (or at [...]

Last week I told you a little bit about my weird history with TV. I’m pretty sure my history with movies is not quite as weird as that, but I’m also pretty sure I don’t fit the stereotypes that exist of men and their relationships to movies. Lets start withe the geeks, who love Star Wars; Star Trek; comic book movies; Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Essentially this stereotype loves a lot of explosions, special effects and magical powers. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen a lot of movies in those [...]

So there was a time that I was one of those people. Well, kind of. You know the people I’m talking about. The I’m-too-good-for-TV people. The ones who proudly tell you “I don’t own a TV.” Now I’m not gonna lie, there’s never been a time when I didn’t own a TV. But there was a time when I watched very little of it. I might watch a half hour here or there, but I remember saying that I didn’t have the time to dedicate an hour to a TV show. And I would proudly [...]

So last week I wrote a kind of rambling post about my connection with Popular Culture in which I intended to tell my reader(s) about my favourite things in that realm. But that didn’t happen, so I’ll do that this week, starting with music. The problem with doing so, is you dear reader(s) will see just how cool I am not.   I mentioned last week that my favourite thing about music is singing along to it. And that’s really pretty embarrassing. You’d think that someone who sings all the time would realize he’s not very good. [...]

For the last few years I’ve spent most of my time working on becoming a decent oil painter. Before I did that, during my BFA and my MFA, I focused on drawing, clunky cut-out animation and performance. I’ve mentioned before that, in the back of my mind, I always knew I’d end up painting. But art school often leads students in surprising directions and painting was simply not to be for me during that period of time.   The clunky cut out animations, some of which I’ll no doubt share on this platform one of these days [...]