Art

Elevations From Dystopia…Gostworks

Published

April 29, 2011

I really love this blog…I have discovered some amazing shit via our readers. For example, yesterday I was reading a comment and decided to check out the commenter’s website, and low and behold I found Gostworks. Gostworks is the blogfolio of Denver-based artist Brian D’Agosta, and from the first sketch I saw I was hooked. D’Agosta is definitely into the same kind of shit we are (I guess that’s why he was reading our blog), and I am so stoked to have found his work. He focuses heavily on crust, and in particular he seems to be really into Italian punk and metal, and has done some sick album cover art. But what really draws me in is his artistic mastery of the dark. His paintings are stunning and very unique; he uses Eastern scripts in some of his paintings in a way that I really haven’t seen before. My favorites of what I have explored so far are his “Dark series” and “Red series” of paintings, which I have posted below. The “Red series” in particular have an amazing movement to them, and their grim and bloody subject matter is rendered in a way that invokes beauty more than gore. The blood spatter and the eviscerated parts dance across the canvas. His “Elevations From Dystopia” group of four paintings of Gothic architecture from a self-described Orwellian point of view. Indeed, despite their aesthetic links to the past, the buildings in these paintings bring to mind a dark future like the one envisioned in 1984, with their smoggy skies and almost industrial appearances. Take a closer look at D’Agosta’s painting series and his album cover work after the jump…