Francis Bacon: 80/20 Rule
Written by Hally Bowman
F rancis Bacon seems to have referred to a relativity small set of images for his inspiration. His obsession with references: Pope Innocent X by Velasquez, Muybridge's The Human Figure in Motion, and Eisenstein Still from The Battleship Potemkin 1925 drove much of his output. It’s remarkable that so much of Bacon's oeuvre came from such a small set of images. Given that we live in a world of high turn over and disposable ideas, it’s a relief to note that one can build a large inventory of works by focusing on just a few things.
The 80/20 rule translates to the notion that most of our valuable output comes from 20 percent of our effort. This business rule of thumb known as Pareto's Principle can be applied to other aspects of life. As far as Bacon’s work goes, the actual 80/20 rule might be relevant as most of Bacon’s work over his lifetime seemed to be inspired by a few powerful images. In particular, this might serve as a counter to the modern day pressure to be constantly replenishing inspiration - an out with the old and in with the new mentality. The fact that one can continue to reinvent whilst building from the same foundation is strangely refreshing. In fact, if one's natural instinct is to mine from only a few sources in a lifetime, caving into a disposable approach could result in tragic distraction and lost opportunity.
While the projection of the 80/20 rule onto Bacon's artistic process might come across as a crass deconstruction, his story seems to follow Pareto's Principle at least as a coincidence. It's counter intuitive to think that an abundance of work can be generated as a consequence of obsessing over a few things. I find that Bacon's relatively small set of references is a unique example of relaxing the expectation on artists to constantly be reinventing sources by repeatedly clearing the slate when maybe you don't have to. Maybe there's still more inspiration yet to be found in the old without having to conjure up something new all the time.
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Justin Bua at Distinction Gallery
Written by Hally Bowman
D istinction Gallery is a great gem of Urban Surrealism. It's only a 40 minute drive north of San Diego in the town of Escondido which is also the home of the San Diego Wild Animal Park. The town itself might seem like a sleepy suburb, but Gallery Director, Melissa Inez Walker, has hooked into an emergent art genre that features contemporary and cutting edge artwork with an emphasis on figurative pop and urban surrealism. Much of this genre is realistic representational art that has roots in underground comics.
I had just been reading about artist, Justin Bua, that morning over coffee in the pages of Juxtapoz Magazine. Come to find out he was featured at Distinction when we visited later that weekend. It was the last day for Bua’s show and we felt really fortunate to see his Distorted Urban Realism; it really stopped me in my tracks – absolutely stunning work.
His latest book entitled, The Beat of Urban Art, captures Bua's characters in the stories of their urban culture which is also autobiographical. Bua shares his personal accounts growing up in harsh poverty on the streets of New York City and Brooklyn. His description of the projects, hip hop, b-boyin', poets, musicians, and graffiti offer another dimension and understanding to a phenomenally original and fierce collection of narrative and portraiture works.
Melissa graciously showed us all around the show and all throughout the gallery where the works of many other artists such as Josh Taylor, Nicole Deline, Tim McKinney, Josh Clay, Lynden Saint Victor, Anna Cangialosi, Tim McCormick and many more have been exhibited over the last couple of years. The gallery also hosts several artists’ studios where numerous works were placed along the corridor walls. We felt very lucky to connect with a gallery that clearly has a pulse on new emergent energy which is always an inspiration while pursuing adventures in the art world.
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