Influences

This, for those who do not know, is HR Giger.
He for a large part is a very big influence on my art, and has been for a very long time. He also was the man behind 'Alien", and his painting"Necronom IV" and "Necronom V" convinced director Ridley Scott to hire him as the designer of the xenomorph that indelibly left a major impact on film and cinema goers for the last almost 40 years.
He passed away Monday at the age of 74.

The thing that made people notice his work,  was one of the main reasons that he was also looked at with disdain by some, but it was his trademark: His art was dubbed as 'biomechanical' a fusion of human and technology, often in very sexual way. As I grew in my faith I soon stopped paying attention to his work of late simply because of the nature of his work.

That doesn't change the fact that he is a major influence on my art, as I still find hints of the biomech in my work, and a majority of the artists who also influence me were influenced by him, and so the trickle effect goes one. He, I will still say, was an amazingly gifted person, who had a unique vision, who never let critics take away from that, and he never apologized for it. I still will hold him as an influence, albiet now my own style has evolved from biomech but that still finds ways of sneaking into my work. I do believe, were I to pick up an airbrush right now, my first thing I would do would be in that style, as when in high school (my really big Giger phase of art) that i what i did it with, my like he did. In cinema, he gave very interesting designs for many films, some that never got realized most famously, a film version of "Dune" by Alejandro Jodorowsky that would have starred Salvador Dali.

From all the books I read about him and his art, he had some influences that shaped him from a very early age. He was as a child very fascinated by occult and similar motifs, and explored themes of sexuality as a child and was very interested in the subject as a child, which goes into his work from his early ink drawings to his larger more ambitious airbrush painting. Themes that dealt with fear, childbirth, and isolation were also explored, and death also was a big thing in his work.
What is the point of this, beyond waxing nostalgic about a former artist?
We are all being influenced by people, even if we do not realize it. Therefore, we must be careful about whom we let influence us. If we emulate those who create an atmosphere of anger and hate around them, we too will start to create a similar environment, even it is subconsciously Ergo, were we to emulate someone who is humble and kind, we then will by nature of emulating them, do the same. So, as we go through life, who is influencing you? Is it the father who left your family, is it the teacher who makes condescending remarks to his class, the pop star who uses drugs and sex to ease their pain, your mother who works 2 jobs to keep food ont he table? Look to our Heavenly Father, who has nothing but love for those who are lost in sin, and not the broken people of this world to model your life upon. As for the art styles....well...I won't tell you who you should like. You go and make that choice. Both are yours to make on your own. Just be warned: Who you let speak into your life, will control the way your life goes.