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

I never thought this day would come. When I started making Cubo-Weirdist paintings based on pop culture, I reckoned that subject matter would be a bottomless pit of ideas. I'd never run out! And I don't think that has happened. At least not yet. But it's starting to feel like it's getting close. I guess what I'm really thinking is that I'm running out of ideas for particularly iconic pop culture characters. But I guess one of the things that I really want to know is what my audience wants to see. Every now and then I'll ask that question in my Instagram posts, but I rarely get an answer. Of course, sometimes I get commissions of particular characters, so that is one way of letting me know. And I appreciate those of you who have commissioned me! But of course, characters from pop culture (movies and TV) have been my main source of inspiration, but they are not the only ones. I have also done series of rock/pop/soul/etc stars and comedians. In addition, I did a series of beloved figures from pop culture that most of us think of as national (or international) treasures. [...]

I have a confession to make. For the last few years my Instagram strategy has had far too much influence on what I actually make in my art practice. The strategy has been thus: do at least two paintings a week so that I can post two new works a week on Instagram. Sometimes I would sit on some of these paintings for months before posting them, but I always had a few in the queue ready to post at a moments notice. And for the most part this was working for me for around two years. But then Instagram, or Meta or whoever, messed around with their algorithm. And suddenly these new works were not getting seen by as many people as they once were. I would estimate that an average post is getting in front of about a third of the eyes that it once was. At best. These posts are especially not being shown to non-followers. And getting your work in front of non-followers is how social media helps you grow your reach and connect with new audiences. So when I post a new painting, it is almost exclusively my followers who see it. [...]

To blog or not to blog. That is the question. And the answer for this week, is to blog. As you know, I've been told blogging is a thing of the past and doing it in 2023 is a waste of time. And, maybe that's true, but after taking two weeks off from blogging I learned that fewer people visit my website during those weeks I don't blog. So there's that. Having said that, maybe updating my site more often with new work would solve that problem. I shall experiment. But for now, as I said I will write this here blog post here. I also mentioned in my last blog post that I've been told my approach to my newsletter and even my social media posts is not great. I need to be telling stories where the potential buyer is the hero as apposed to the hero being me. I made the art, but that doesn't make me a hero? Who knew? I digress… Anyway, I have to admit that I find this difficult to do. But last week I posted a video that really was about the subject of my painting. You see, while I was at art camp for adults, I did some portraits of my fellow artists and friends. Just as I was about to show the finished product to one of these artist friends, I had a thought about 'unveiling posts' on instagram. You know the ones. An artist stands there with the back of a painting showing and turns it around to unveil it to the world. It's been done a million times. So I had the idea that someone should take video of me doing just that but with a twist. The twist being, it would actually be the first time the subject of my work would see his portrait. [...]