Crystal Lorton - United States of America
About the artist
Member since 2007-08-01
Artist Statement
Belief that creativity can be captured from any angle, in any realm and a piece of your existence can be seen and enjoyed for all to view is why I paint. As a painter I want to live the dream of being able to capture people's hearts and minds, but not in a completely fantastical way, with a hint of reality. I always believed that if you can grab one person's attention by your art, you have made it as an artist. That is why I am here doing what I love, to get people's attention and for them to be able to put themselves in my paintings. I aspire nothing less than being known as a great artist of my time, even if it is within a small circle.
To be completely honest, my ideas for my work always just seems to come to me. I look at a lot of pictures of people, objects, I am an observer of everything around me and I take snapshots of all my daily occurrences in my mind as well as on my camera. I feel that if you can capture simplistic things and take it on a new spin, you can make the world so much more exciting and really feel how lustrous everyday practical things can be. This is why I always tend to use bright vivid colors and lots of them. The world isn't always so colorful and for those days, a hint of color can go a long way in creating the right setting for a painting. I am innovative in my ideas and it comes thru in my paintings.
In a new series I have started entitled "Serial", I am starting to explore the idea of different ways to capture the lives and victims and places of serial killers from around the world. The idea of painting people who are of a different kind of notoriety than the norm, is the off beaten path I have always wanted to take with my art and creativity. Using different ways to explore their lives, such as using their place of dastardly deeds or showing them as young children, not quite as disturbed as we all know them, you can get a sense or feel for them as human beings. I also want to explore their victims and give them the chance to come through the canvas and speak the pain they never could in their last moments. A flash of time from their lives and we can remember how serial killers gain infamy for doing what their twisted minds told them to do and the victims lose everything. I want to give them the chance to be heard and show how we can remember.
When I have my paintbrush in hand and the freedom to express myself clearly, I am reminded that anything is possible.
Bio
I was always interested in art. From a very young age I started drawing pictures and instead of setting up a lemonade stand or something of that nature, I started my own gallery in my front yard selling my drawings for 25 cents. I sold alot of little strange pictures, but my artistic knowledge, seeing as how young I was, was not finely tuned yet.
I travelled with my mother all over Europe and gained worldly knowledge, that I wouldn't trade for anything. At 12 I was starting my own comic books and shortly after, I started doing portraits of friends and family, even family pets. I started seeking out a new way to explore my creativity and bought my first set of watercolor paints and dabbled in that for quite some time. The medium was not bright enough for me and I always wanted more texture to my paintings.
At 17, I finished my first piece, in acrylics, titled "Two Piece Nude". I then went on to more in the theme of nude women and got a proposal to do a small magazine cover for Big Bear Magazine. They originally wanted a landscape of the town or lake, (see "By The Lake" in my photos) , but instead they decided on a piece I had originally done for my mother, involving her dogs. I was on the cover again for this magazine a couple years later, an Anniversary Edition.
I have since been working on different styles of painting and I think you will notice the different mediums and styles. I am to be published a third time, come November '06 for CoffeeHouse Digest. Look for it in your local coffee shop. I have finished over 40 paintings in my lifetime and now, I am happy to say I am currently showing some of those pieces in a great gallery called AbstraxArt in San Diego. Hope you enjoy! Most of my paintings are on the market and I am working on getting some printwork done, so there will be prints available soon.
Skills
- Drawing
- Illustration
- Painting
- Digital Photography
- Fine Art