About Upcycled Vintage Art

 

What is upcycled vintage art?

Upcycled Vintage Art is all about giving unloved paintings and prints a second life by subtly painting in unexpected elements to give them a bit of fun modern relevance.

I locally source art that is either mass produced or damaged. Many of these pieces would end up in landfill because they are too expensive or damaged to repair. 

Before any alterations, I first repair the artwork. From cleaning and patching holes in the art to repairing and rewiring frames, a lot of love goes into restoring each vintage piece. 

When I have decided on an idea, I spend some time studying the subject matter, often painting or drawing on repurposed surfaces like book covers and old textured paper. 

Then I delve into altering the artwork, thoughtfully matching the palette and style to the original so it is a subtle change. 

As I work, I brush the excess paint onto canvas or blotting paper to keep it from being rinsed down the drain… it makes for an interesting surface to work on for future studies, or as fun wrapping paper!

Each piece is filmed during the painting process... scroll through my reels on socials to see the old art transformed into something new! 

What is altered art?

This is a new trend, and I've had fun meeting a few others who do the same as me... it's basically taking an existing work of art and altering it to tell a new story. I've seen others beautifully and boldly dip the painting in a solid colour, humorously add cartoons and have mechs blast edges off with a blow torch! My niche of altered art is to add elements subtly in the original artist's style. Perfect for those who want to quietly celebrate their nerdiness!

Why paint elements of pop-culture into vintage art? 

Throughout history artists have documented their culture, events, and history through their paintings. In our slice of time, much of our shared popular culture exist in a fictional and digital world (tv, movies, video games.) As an artist, I want to capture my experiences by creating a tangible works of art that give those fictional elements of our popular culture a place in art history.

By painting fictional elements into a physical work of art, it bridges that gap between the virtual world and the real world. As they say, seeing is believing... and being able to see an old painting with those fictional elements of our pop culture in them, allows us to imagine that they actually existed and were captured by the artist long ago.

How did Upcycled Vintage Art begin? 

So this all started when I was at a thrift shop, looking at an ugly, brown landscape painting. It was dirty, had a damaged frame, was very dated and lifeless. It was only $4. I suddenly felt a bit sad thinking that this poor little painting (which someone lovingly painted and was once very on trend) was now worth less than a cup of coffee.

It got me wondering what could be done to make it art to be appreciated again. The big open space in the middle of a lake was smooth, and would be easy to paint something into. My mind randomly went to, it would be funny to paint a normally very small creature as a large, oversized creature soaking in the lake. Not long after, "Ode to a Toad" was proudly displayed on the wall in my studio. And just like that, I had caught the upcycling vintage art bug!