JAKE BLAIS
JEG VENTER
2020, 76 x 100, Acrylic on canvas
Just before the Coronavirus outbreak took on global pandemic proportions, I woke one morning to find a photo of a sailboat shipwrecked off of New Bedford's East Beach, with Butler's Flats Lighthouse in the near distance. I recognized the boat immediately as Moon Wind, a Pawnee 26, I owned for several years prior to moving to Denmark. I was inexplicably sad over a boat, an inanimate object, and one I had no further responsibility or claim to. I knew I needed to express it , but painting sailboats is not really my thing.
Enter Covid 19 and the isolation of quarrantine. I quickly began to feel like the beached boat. Looking out over the bay, with no potential to sail over it. Jeg Venter (I'm waiting) is my expression of that moment. My usually adventurous avatar, sits on a rocky beach, seemingly unaware of the impending danger lurking just behind. Torn sails billow over the sea behind, flapping unstayed.
Da Jeg Var
2018, 100 x 76, Acrylic on canvas
This adventurous avatar of mine has strayed far from home and gotten into a bit of a tangle. The setting is Billund Denmark, the home of The LEGO Group and the setting is the nearly opened LEGO House, left intentionally unfinished in this painting, both because it was under construction, but also as a nod to LEGO House's unfinished Tree, which shows there will always be more to build.
Da Jeg Var is a shortened form of the painting's original title Da Jeg Var Langt Hjemmefra (When I was far from home). This was one of the first paintings I completed so far from my own homeland and being alone there, I was also feeling like my avatar, that I was facing some formiddible obstacles.
OVERGIV ALDRIG
20190, 70 x 92, Acrylic and Conte on Canvas
Humming birds seem to be just the right size to be harnessed as transportation for LEGO Minifigures. This piece is pure fantasy. I wanted to give my avatar an adventurous and heroic moment, soo here it is jumping from relative safety of a passing humming bird, on some mission. Crying out the call of the Humming Bird Corps "Overgiv Aldrig" (Never surrender)!
Eventyr Altid
2018, 100 x 76, Acrylic on canvas
Stay in motion is a light nod to my animation roots, but only on the surface. The elements of bouncing ball and Eadweard Muybridge's Animal Locomotion Plate are standards of animation, but this painting is about motion and the state of being simultaneously in motion and at rest.
Painted at a time of stagnation, it is a reminder to myself to keep moving, to keep making. As my little blue avatar might say, Always be adventuring.
Stay in Motion
2019, 80 x 120, Acrylic on canvas
An homage to one of the most adventurous guys I know, my good friend and colleague Scott Decoteau. This piece was meant to capture his adventurous spirit and his love of cycling. The setting is a spot on the Pacific Coast Highway, overlooking the sea, where I parked my motorcycle and had a few minutes meditating on the awesomeness of that amazing place. I thought of him and his adventures then and later set this avatar there, imagining he was with me in spirit.
The title is one I think he would agree with. Eventur Altid or Adventre Always. A credo he lived by.
Private Collection