Wyatt Graff

So a bunch of us are posting in the Browns forum, lamenting the horrible state of our team, and landofcleve announces he's going to go paint. Paint what? I ask. One of these amazing things. Turns out landofcleve is Wyatt Graff, an artist now living in Savannah, and he creates these wonderful abstracts.

I find these pieces fascinating. You can see more by clicking the title of this entry. Wyatt creates them with a special enamel paint on multiple layers of Plexiglass, housed in a wood frame. You can reorder the layers, resulting in thousands of possible pictures. I'm stunned by the genius of it! It isn't just a painting; it's an interactive sculpture.

I told Wyatt that the paintings evoke many ideas: confetti, a garden in bloom, falling leaves, balloons, rain, and even crowds of people. Turns out I'm semi-brilliant too. He said crowds were his initial thought and inspiration for these unique designs. And it makes so much sense, given the shifting and changeability these pieces of art allow. The comings and goings. The distinct and the combined. The individual and the group.

Creating is good. I admire people who do it. I create a little. I write and sometimes I even paint very bad paintings. When you see the work of someone who really does it right, one can be tempted to envy, but I find more often that it inspires. And Wyatt has inspired me this week! It doesn't hurt that he's a nice guy in a forum populated by a lot of assholes. Smart guy too. He was an Academic All American in golf while at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and sported a 3.97 GPA. Pretty inspiring all around.

Wyatt is working on some new pieces for an upcoming show. I'll update when I learn more.