The Moment of Recognition Painting

Cory Basil is an American painter, filmmaker and author. His aesthetic blends gothic romanticism with the post-impressionists' trust in emotional honesty over the dubious truths to be gleaned from appearances. He conjures a world beyond our own with a renaissance artist's reverence for colour and light and has the soul of a baroque spectacle. He is a self-taught artist who started experimenting with filmmaking and animation in 2006. He is inspired by stop-motion animation's embrace of imperfection and its ability to imbue self-contained worlds with mood and tone both alien and familiar. In 2011, he created the paper doll animation style, further exploring the juxtaposition of truth hidden within creations, honesty in fiction, beauty in error. Basil first brought his distinct style to the public in a 35-piece watercolour and India ink exhibition, "Internal Exposure," 2011, in Nashville, Tennessee. The whimsical worldview of the exhibit captured imaginations, and more than half of the pieces were sold within two weeks. Since then, his work has been the focus of eight additional exhibits, including Poetry is Dead, 2011, Nashville, which have sold throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Paintings feature characters filled with innocence surrounded by an intrinsically unsettling darkness. This innocence of honesty and expression fill his paintings with hope despite darkness, exploration in the face of fear and the lurking danger of true love. His art is permeated with personal experience and seeks to portray the truth of his soul. The tie between creation and creator reflects his belief that art alone lasts and can live within people. In a culture that increasingly expects people to be sterile and dispassionate, Basil's art exists to provoke and inspire emotion. The worlds he creates tap into universal experiences and dreams - the inarticulate feelings and hopes we have taught ourselves to forget - allowing people to experience his art a thousand times over and still respond. A reoccurring theme in Basil's art is a wry and macabre homage to romantic love. In The Space Between (watercolour, 9 x 7 inches, 2011) a young man stands intently considering a dilapidated mailbox, all is silent and still. He stands alone in the flatness of space. Sepia tinted, muted colours imbue the moment with the import of personal history, all colour and hope lie through some future delivery.