Ben Tour

I found out about Ben Tour, from looking at the key artists on David Barnes website (I love it when things flow like that). I had originally seen a piece by him, I couldn't locate who or where it was from, so I'm happy I've found it. I first saw this piece and fell in love with it. Tour is a thirty something painter and illustrator 'who has forged a successful career translating his fascination with human behavior into beautifully dense character portraits.'

Cold 1

I was interested in how he made it, it looks very digital, but then how did he make the splatter effect? Well it's not digital that's why! Tour paints with ink in the above piece. He often stretches to spray paint, water colour, acrylic and gloss.

Time Bomb Mural

This is an example of the use of spray paint and acrylic. I like the use of mixed media particularly when it works so well together. The way the paint has been applied creates a dripping affect, that almost makes the painting look as if it's been washed away - or being poured away. The work is incredibly emotive, even if the subject isn't the medium speaks.

In an interview Tour said:

“I would describe it as a visual diary of characters and personalities,” says the 29-year-old Toronto-born artist, in reference to his work. “My approach is different every time. But yeah, I steal parts of different things and bring them together—interesting people both real and imagined, and animals and objects that they connect with that are visually appealing. I think my most successful work has a definite mystery to it that lets the viewer interpret their own story.”

Original artwork for Omar Musa's album cover 'World goes to pieces' 2010

The above example is beautiful. The watery affect of the paint makes image have movement and flow. His style is definitely distinctive and very beautiful. The blue contrasts with the white and the red bringing out the most 'important' features. The paint looks as though it's been accidentally placed in areas, however looking at the arm makes me believe otherwise. It's as though everything is done on purpose, made to look effortless - this makes it more personal in my view. 

This is a quotation from his website that for me makes looking into his work and methods even more important to this particular brief.

"Canadian-born artist Ben Tour (b. 1977) channels a dark, often haunting sense of humanism in his work. 
His observations deftly inform his paintings, enabling him to capture the essence of a character, and then distort that view any way he desires. Frenetic lines, swaths of color, and intimate angles all convey a sense that Tour may not only be drawing inspiration from the lives of strangers he observes, but manifesting his own personal experiences as well. Ben Tour lives on the Sunshine Coast, British Columbia with his Wife and two children. "

Having read a number of interviews, I've decided that I like his personality as he's a lot more down to earth than you might expect. He leads a normal life and seems to have the same problems that a lot of people do. I think that sometimes when people become popular and start having less problems - what they do seems to become more 'perfect' and looses what it had before. I'm more interested in how he creates his work, how he gets new ideas etc. although a lot of his work is very stylised and similar - what I mean is you could easily divide his work into categories of how it's been done/what it's been done in should you want to. Below is a segment of an interview that I read that answers my question I suppose...

What are you trying to capture when making a new work? How often are you fully satisfied with your finished works?
Satisfaction for me with my art is very short lived, i tend to want to move on to the next piece in the middle of the one I'm working on. Only on a few occasions have i really loved a piece and even hung it on my own wall for very long. My art is very much about the Portrait and my subjects tend to be cold but with a unique individuality and strength. I just want to start making twice as much stuff as i make now.

For me, this is the same I start one thing- get half way through and want to start something else. Looking at his work I wonder if that's the reason people have no hair etc, it in my opinion enhances that what's removed doesn't need to be there, it isn't really the person. Portraiture is something I admire when done well, anyone can learn to draw, but it's capturing something about the person that makes a portrait truly good.