Aliza and Her Monsters
  • Home
  • SHOP
  • About
  • Portfolio
  • Dog Portraits | Contact
  • Press
  • The Easel Weasel Blog
  • BeforeYouGo
  • Home
  • SHOP
  • About
  • Portfolio
  • Dog Portraits | Contact
  • Press
  • The Easel Weasel Blog
  • BeforeYouGo
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

Picture

8/31/2020

WIP “The Riot of Flowers is Incessant” after Life of Pi

Picture
WIP “The Riot of Flowers is Incessant” after Life of Pi
Oil on canvas 30x40”

Like wildflowers you must allow yourself to grow in all the places people thought you never would.
Lorde

⚠️Work in progress⚠️

8/28/2020

Revolutions Solo 2020

🖤Aliza and Her Monsters x @revolutionscoffee, Aug-Sep 2020.
.
.

​Artist Statement:
After people, animals are a relief. I’ve been making the same painting ever since I was a kid. I didn’t have the most wonderful family dynamic growing up: a very broken home from a young age with very angry parents. There just wasn’t a whole lot of space for my sister and I. Painting animals was always the get-away from how awful people can be to each other. It became a visual language for what I don’t have the vocabulary to write about.

I return to a lot of the same subjects, my monsters, and find a lot of comfort being able to revisit them when I need to. Sometimes it helps. Other times, well, shoot, other times you just feel like a raw pulverized garbage ball of emotions and you simply cannot paint your way out of it.

If you can paint something well enough, in a small way, it can never die. We are doing a fine job, here. The world is being totaled, our connection with the natural world of the wild all but disappearing. Animals are being lost, the earth is burning and our oceans boiling. I want to respond to what I see, particularly the things that break my heart or spark me up in such a way that I can't help but also tell my own story in the paint.

And maybe that’s what this is all about. This is me holding together and keeping alive the fragmented parts of the world and myself.

This is me in my small world, with my big paintings and hard feelings.
And, most importantly,
all my monsters.
.
.
.
I hope you can go see my first ever show.
🖼 curated by @analogsomer , frames by @kenkreisman , packaging stencils for everything by @glowfrienddesigns
.
Limited edition, signed prints (size options) of this piece, “Stay Wild, Moon Child” now available directly on my website: http://www.alizaandhermonsters.com

8/26/2020

What Somer Said , Revolutions solo show 2020

Portrait of me and all my monsters by @analogsomer 🖤

⚠️ALIZA AND HER MONSTERS X @revolutionscoffee , hanging until October ⚠️ 
.
Today was a big one. Currently, I’m still struggling to come up with the right words. So, for now, while *IM* speechless, here’s what my twin sister @analogsomer had to say, after earlier whispering to me in hushed tones while curating the entire show “I’m concerned we have too many left facing tigers”😆:
.
“Several months ago, I was in @revolutionscoffee , sipping an americano and checking out the art on the walls. @aliza.and.her.monsters had been regularly churning out large, beautiful paintings at this point. Suddenly, something clicked. What if these paintings I was looking at were… hers? I asked the barista for the appropriate contact info and quietly slipped Aliza the information. A gentle nudge. I saw a wave of apprehension wash over her as her expression dropped, “but who would want to see my work?”
.
My heart sunk down into my stomach. In her response I saw myself, an insecure art student who quit before she even really started just at the idea of not being good enough. I didn’t push back on her question, I just listened and waited. Good things take time.
.
Watching her hang this show today, with each piece inspired by so many hard feelings, brought me right back to that moment of looking at someone who was unsure and filled with doubt. Well, here we are. Aliza turns broken things into very beautiful ones. I hope you can make it to see her (very first) show. I could not be more proud of her.”
.
.

.....🙊I’m not crying, YOURE CRYING. More later 🥺
.

8/23/2020

More fire

Picture
The force of your work is directly proportional to the way you either hold back or put everything you have in to it. When you hold back, the work becomes anemic and shrinks itself, but when you commit
.
.
.
it comes on like the blazes. 🔥#More fire.
.
Art and fear. Read it.

8/22/2020

Riot of Flowers, beginnings

Picture
The Riot of Flowers is Incessant” baselayer on canvas 30x40”
.
After life of pi

Don’t push the river.

After throwing the book at the latest lion piece, I found myself completely spent. Did I finally out-paint myself? The following days I was idly mixing paint around but it wasn’t making it to the next canvas. What’s wrong? Am I done for? Is the spark finally out? Where did that bottle of lightning go??!!
Confused by this, I asked a very dear friend who is an exceptional painter what this was about, what are you supposed to do? Push through? Force the paint?
The answer was simple. “Don’t push the river.”

And so I didn’t. I started reading Life of Pi. It wasn’t until I got to the line “the riot of flowers is incessant” did the switch flip back on.
... here we go again. 
WORK IN PROGRESS, acrylic base layer on canvas. 30x40”.

8/18/2020

Long Love the Rose

Picture
“Long Live The Rose That Grew From Concrete When No One Even Cared.” Oil on canvas 30x40”.
After Tupac.

And so ends the never ending lion.

8/15/2020

Exhale

Picture
"Exhale" 
Acrylic and metallic nickel / gold / copper on canvas
30x 40”
Nothing lasts forever, not the good nor the bad.
Winter in Seattle, without fail, with her short days that are often bone-chillingly cold and gray, buries me head first, tail tucked, deep into a foxhole.
.
Down here, I hold my breath. I am frozen and numb. But atleast down in the dark, I can’t feel how cold it is above the ground.
.
I can’t feel... anything.
.
The numbness thaws at pace with the season, and I start to feel a warmth I am certain the sun knows nothing about.
.
I notice the days are becoming brighter, the gloomy winter sky welcomes back her sun.
I look up from the dark safety of my burrow where I have nearly forgotten what the sun feels like.
Nearly forgotten what anything feels like, for that matter.
.
Above ground, I see the cherry trees have started to blossom and the sun gets back to work sweeping the last of the winter frost away.
.
I can breathe again.
.
.
After a hard winter, I exhale.
.
.
.
I can feel again.

8/13/2020

Leopard Print, 24x18"

Picture
​Leopard Print. Oil on canvas 18x24”.
.

She wore a thousand masks, all to hide her own. – Anand Thakur

people would be scared if they saw in the mirror not their faces,
but their character.

8/11/2020

Follow the bears

Picture
​I followed the bears, and before they took me to the stars, they led me to the sea.🌊
.
Bear season: let go or be dragged.
.
.
.
✌🏻.
.
Oil on canvas 3’x4’.
This piece has been going on for quite some time. 🐻

8/8/2020

Rage on

Picture
⚠️WORK IN PROGRESS⚠️ Oil on canvas, 30x40”
.
All is not OK all the time. I do my best work when
my mind is in a bar fight with my soul. In periods of uncertainty, the one thing you can be certain of is failure in a painting. Every painting of mine fails before it gets better. The other thing you can be certain of, is it will get better. Failure is a bruise, not a tattoo. It’s important to me, as human and painter, to experience the entire rotation of life’s challenges. You have to experience everything in order to report to the world accurately.

As I go through these seasons, my work evolves. My approach to light and form and subject changes. At the end of a day spent at the easel, the only thing on my mind is “was I loyal soldier? Did I move forward, even just a little bit, the things that truly matter?

Too often, success is mistaken with popularity. If your work can connect with one person, then you have succeeded.
Our job, as I see it, is learning to wake up every morning with a rage for life and to go out on the boardwalk and walk in a straight line like there is no wind and there is no rain.

8/7/2020

Letters

Stephen King describing his writing:
“all novels are really letters aimed at one person.” I don’t see much of my work much differently.

Letters are perhaps one of the most sentimental things a person can leave behind them. I think maybe that’s what I’m doing. I’m finishing my letters. The ones that are most important. What a better moment than a pandemic to push me to get as much accomplished as I can while I am here, should I get sick, or worse yet, you. I am leaving unwritten everything you already know.
Right now I’m finding the visual language for all the things I never knew how to tell you.
​🐻

“Post script”. letter 1 of 3. 24x18” oil on canvas. ​

This one has taken me quite some time to figure out how to properly sign off and whether I was ready to send it.

All that to say,
I hope this finds you well.
Best regards,
Aliza
PS: ​
Picture

“Stationary.” letter 2 of 3. 16x20” oil on canvas.

Hi, it’s me again.
This one I had signed and sealed. I never sent it. I was too scared to say it at the time, scared maybe you wouldn’t write back. At that time, it probably mattered and you deserved to know how I felt.
I don’t know if you saw my last letter, but I’m sorry it was a bit harsh.

By the time you read this letter, these words will be those of the past.
Forgive me, I was afraid, but instead, I told you I just couldn’t decide on the stationary.
All my love,
Aliza
Picture

“Even Every Sunday.” Letter 3/3. Oil on canvas 16x20”.

Hi.
I know we didn’t talk after I left.
But maybe the best part about not seeing you anymore
is I can still write you these letters. Even if all we had left were Sundays, I’d still write. Because maybe these aren’t even letters anymore than they are the story
of how I found myself.
...
I don’t think I need to send this one, after all.

Picture

8/7/2020 0 Comments

You Find Your Birds

Picture

"Each must enter the nest made by the other imperfect birds.”-Robert Bly.
New Zealand is home to the Weka, a population of flightless birds. 🐥.
In February, I ran 83 miles in 4 days on the Queen Charlotte track and had many the encounter with these imperfect birds. And a lot of time to think.

Robert Bly’s Imperfect Birds is really about how these messy, raggedy nests that are our lives can be a harbor for other people. When you're a raw, pulverized garbage ball of feelings... where do you go?
You visit the nests made by other imperfect birds, you find other people who've gone through it.
​
You find the few people you can talk to about it.

.🐥.You find your birds. 
​

0 Comments

8/7/2020 0 Comments

Woman vs Wild

Picture


When you let people see you at your worst, you don’t have to wear the mask so much. Sad people often look exactly like happy people. The most exhausting activity is pretending to be what you know you aren’t.
We are so tangled up in a world of toxic positivity that I think many are ashamed to actually feel anything else.
I don’t know if I can count how many times
I was sad
But I told everyone
I was tired.

This collection of mask portraits is probably the most dangerous and revealing work I have done to date. It started with a portrait my sister had taken of herself. It was a mood, there was feeling but it was only telling half the story of this woman. There was something missing.

Every body has a little bit of goodness and a little bit of brokenness. Lightness and darkness. Ignorance and knowledge. Human and savage.  Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde.

The dual nature of humanity is something that has been explored by mankind for thousands of years.

“Some days
I am more wolf
than woman
and I am still learning how to stop apologizing
for my wild.” -N.Gill

There’s a Cherokee story where a grandfather teaches his grandson an important lesson:
“There is a battle going on inside all of us. It is a battle between two wolves that live inside us.
One is evil: anger, fear, envy, sorrow, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, ego
The other is good: joy, courage, peace, love, hope, stillness, compassion, love.
Which wolf wins?
...The one you feed.
"

Whatever wolf you choose there will always be someone to tell you that you are wrong. Fear and self doubt will eat you alive. Don’t give your power away. Stay aware of how you allow your thoughts to affect you. You always have a choice.

Feed the good wolf.
0 Comments

8/3/2020

Portrait from the Blue Period

Picture
“No Matter How Crummy You Feel, That Little Dog Gonna Love You. II” oil on canvas 16x20”.
Reference photo by: @analogsomer ❗️

“She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by-
And never knew.”- Shel Silverstein, Everything on it

.
.
.
✌🏻.
.
The only remaining blue portrait.
Forgot to post the finished version🙈 here she is.

    Author

    Aliza and Her Monsters

    Archives

    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    November 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019

    Categories

    All 2020 2021 Art Journey Art Marketing Business Oil Painting Series Studio Life Thoughts

    RSS Feed

Check out my Instagram!
DM or use contact page for inquiries about originals and commissions.
About Me
Privacy Policy

    Join my newsletter

Subscribe
© 2024 Aliza and Her Monsters. All Rights Reserved.