Do you see a wooden suspension bridge spanning across a purple canyon, with green fields and blue skies in the distance? If so, then you've briefly glimpsed into the world of jlikeart.
So what the heck IS jlikeart?
It's an important question, and one that will never have a definitive answer. It has taken me a lifetime to reach this point in my creativity, and yet I'm still learning more each day about the immense power of personal style. We all develop creativity from birth, piecing together bits of information and drawing our own conclusions. Even the simplest of tasks involve some level of subconscious planning in order to be executed competently in our daily lives.
Throughout my existence I've always had an affinity for flat planes and surfaces. Paper. Cardboard. Canvas. To take something that appears one dimensional and infuse another dimension upon it is a wonderful thing. If I can trick the eye and the mind and convey the illusion of depth, time, emotion--even if for just an instance then I've created an impressionable bond with the viewer. It's a fragment of a moment may never come or has already happened. That's what a painting or sketch is at its core: A slice of time on display for speculative interpretation. Be it abstract or still life; photo realistic or surreal. We see what we want to see, even if we don't completely know what we're looking at. This is why no two artists have the same exact style of painting or design, and why individuality is often coveted by critics and collectors.
So back to the beginning. What is my artistic style? The jlikeart style? Let's begin with the ambiguous blank canvas. One might look at its empty boundaries and see a void of white. But if you look at it closely, you'll notice a complex weave of threads, moving in and out in a meticulous pattern. This is not only the skin of the painting with which the medium adheres to, but also the foundation for the ideas we are constructing. It's Ground Zero: a tightly manufactured screen to catch all the dreams that pass through it. And no matter how many layers you apply, you'll always have some memory of what it once was--that clean untouched slate. This is why I've always felt that a blank canvas is never really empty, because it has such immense potential to be both anything or everything you want. It's from this position that I impress the snapshots of my imagination onto the canvas or paper. I use bold colors, graphic lines and organic forms to translate what's in my Mind's Eye. I employ organic forms and make geometric connections to give my abstract visions a rational quality. By placing myself in a perspective of isolation, looking inward outside the boundaries, I feel that my representations are just as real as a portrait, a still life or a landscape. If my paintings can speak silently to our inner selves and initiate curious conversation, then these works have truly exceeded my expectations.
Thank you for reading and please enjoy.
Joey Like
March 2, 2015
(Updated August 3, 2017)
Throughout my existence I've always had an affinity for flat planes and surfaces. Paper. Cardboard. Canvas. To take something that appears one dimensional and infuse another dimension upon it is a wonderful thing. If I can trick the eye and the mind and convey the illusion of depth, time, emotion--even if for just an instance then I've created an impressionable bond with the viewer. It's a fragment of a moment may never come or has already happened. That's what a painting or sketch is at its core: A slice of time on display for speculative interpretation. Be it abstract or still life; photo realistic or surreal. We see what we want to see, even if we don't completely know what we're looking at. This is why no two artists have the same exact style of painting or design, and why individuality is often coveted by critics and collectors.
So back to the beginning. What is my artistic style? The jlikeart style? Let's begin with the ambiguous blank canvas. One might look at its empty boundaries and see a void of white. But if you look at it closely, you'll notice a complex weave of threads, moving in and out in a meticulous pattern. This is not only the skin of the painting with which the medium adheres to, but also the foundation for the ideas we are constructing. It's Ground Zero: a tightly manufactured screen to catch all the dreams that pass through it. And no matter how many layers you apply, you'll always have some memory of what it once was--that clean untouched slate. This is why I've always felt that a blank canvas is never really empty, because it has such immense potential to be both anything or everything you want. It's from this position that I impress the snapshots of my imagination onto the canvas or paper. I use bold colors, graphic lines and organic forms to translate what's in my Mind's Eye. I employ organic forms and make geometric connections to give my abstract visions a rational quality. By placing myself in a perspective of isolation, looking inward outside the boundaries, I feel that my representations are just as real as a portrait, a still life or a landscape. If my paintings can speak silently to our inner selves and initiate curious conversation, then these works have truly exceeded my expectations.
Thank you for reading and please enjoy.
Joey Like
March 2, 2015
(Updated August 3, 2017)