Oliver Lake is quite a talented fellow, with a great gift for capturing the quirks and personae of our popular cultural icons. You all know that I can't get enough Alfred Hitchcock, so imagine how delighted I am by this fabulous black and white portrait of the directing master. You recognize this face instantly, but this portrait captures both the darkness of his work and the humor of his personality. Also, there's something about this print that reminds me a bit of a fingerprint from a crime scene, and isn't that apropos?
Ah, the genius of the young Robert DeNiro in Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Truly one of the most brilliantly disturbing films I have ever seen in my life. Isn't the color of this print marvelous? The acidic daisy yellow with the stark black, the intensity of Travis Bickle's gaze. The entire message of the movie is captured in this one image.
And this portrait of Beat Daddy Allen Ginsberg. Howl changed the literary world, with its reinterpretation of Walt Whitman's style. Ginsberg was truly one of the kindest, most talented writers of his generation. He believed that his love and his writing could change the world for the better. Lake's print captures his effusive spirit and warmth. Compare it to the DeNiro portrait's starkness. There is a similarity of style, but the way Lake handles his subject is entirely different, as the two figures could not be more opposite.
Look at this lovely, haunting landscape, House Where Nobody Lives. It's ghostly and gorgeous, and reminds me of the American Depression era, for some reason. The vaporous trees, the abandoned car, the encroaching darkness of the periphery. Even the house seems to have a facial expression. So beautiful.
And we can't leave this post without a Bob Dylan reference. "I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours" comes from Dylan's song Talkin' World War III Blues from the Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album from 1963. A fantastic quote turned into a print that reminds me of old time advertising posters. Wouldn't this be beautiful hung over your bed?
Honestly, I could list Lake Illustration's entire shop here. The prints run the gamut from Jack White to Virginia Woolf, Bettie Page to Johnny Cash. Vibrant colors, familiar faces, unusual landscapes, memorable quotations--Lake Illustration has it all.
Check out Oliver Lake's shop on etsy:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lakeillustration
No comments:
Post a Comment