Obi 2 Painting

I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in December 1946. I've always been an artist and have been fascinated with and worked with three-dimensional art. My first memory of creating art was in grade school sculpting, drawing and painting classes, while my urban playground was the Milwaukee Public Museum with its fascinating dioramas. In high school, with the encouragement of my art instructors, I became the sole artist/designer for my senior year book. At 20, I created a life-size hammered bronze wall sculpture of the Creation of Adam, commissioned by a church in West Allis, Wisconsin. Besides creating free standing and wall sculpture, the majority of my work over the next 30 years was acrylic and oil paintings with heavy impasto and strong 3-D canvases. I created mosaic sculptures and furniture for over thirteen years, and have been fascinated with the depth of color, texture and form this medium presents. The materials - fused glass, metals, cut marble, porcelain tile and natural stone, etc. – are endless and the variety of transformations is infinite. I started creating Illuminated Sculptural Paintings in 2013. I create my abstract paintings with a focus on depth, texture and details that glow from within. My use of paint, sculpting medium and glazes has forced me to view color, line, form, colored light and movement in a whole new way. The sculptures are illuminated within by LED RGB strip lighting that allows the viewer to control colors remotely. The challenge of these abstract, 360° sculptural paintings is to engage the viewer’s interest when only half the work can be viewed at a time. Viewing each new segment of the piece will have different interest. I'm not an artist who creates noisy or dark, foreboding work; social commentary, replete with bodily fluids, pain and suffering; or meticulous reproductions of nature more easily captured with a camera. There is enough of that in the world. I am proudly an abstract expressionist, a style that is extremely cerebral. My compositions should provoke the viewer's attention, have relevance, and provide a sense of correlation or involvement. If it doesn’t do any of that, it should at least make you smile. I like to believe my art will transcend time and each generation will see something new and relevant to their era, a style that will look as fresh tomorrow as it does today. Ray Zovar, Illusionist