I recently posted a page of black and white fractal artworks titled Darkness and Light. As I was working to arrange the images, I realized how artists I admire from the past surface in the elements of my work.
In Dark Angels Dance, the flavor of surreal oddness of Hieronymus Bosch mingles with a graphic quality that is reminiscent of the fine linear repetition of Albrecht Dürer. These are two artists who have intrigued me for many years and are part of my submerged Art History mental file cabinet. I can't call it subconscious, but it is just under the surface of my thoughts.
The next image is titled The Bride and Her Bachelors because of the forms that remind me of Marcel Duchamp's The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors. This work has always interested me because of the interplay of mechanistic elements juxtaposed with the title. It was so far ahead of it's time.
Drawing and painting are still a part of my studio practice. I created the backgrounds for Deep Roots/Old Bones and Tenebris with charcoal dust, watered down gesso and India ink on watercolor paper. Many layers give an interesting depth to the surface. Scanned, this becomes the background for a fractal image. The process reminds me of Alberto Giacometti's drawings where he would layer white into his dark lines like a type of energy line or time dust.
Many more artist muses will surface to give me advice and scaffolding. As my favorite painting teacher Michael Jacques is fond of saying "Every artist is our teacher"