What do you think of this guy's art?

http://danbrevick.com/

I’m wondering specifically about the pieces in his “fine art” section; his waterfowl pieces look pretty good, I think, but he’s got some unusual pieces in the fine art section with rather hefty price tags. I’m an illustrator, so I have a better appreciation for the realism of the watefowl pieces than for the fine art stuff.

Opinions? Any actual art critics out there? Could this guy’s stuff possibly be worth the price that he’s asking?

His fine art stuff looks nice enough to me, on first account, but no way in hell worth that price tag. I seriously doubt anybody would shell out a quarter of a million dollars for an unknown artist’s work.

I can’t imagine he’s serious with those numbers.

Pretty pedestrian stuff. Rather trite too, I think. Not awful, but nothing that will ever grace the pages of say Art in America. Most modern art I see is more engaging than this. It seems somewhat behind the times as well.

I don’t get the pricing. Those kind of prices suggest the artist has arrived. If you want to own his stuff you’d best be prepared to pay. I don’t see that happening here. Supply and demand requires there be some demand after all.

Overpriced by about $274,500.

Yes - all he needs is a collector willing to pay it.

Who knows - perhaps he’s sold other pieces at that price - therefore, the market has determined that his art is that valuable.

FWIW, it’s not totally uncommon for up and coming artists to have a show and put a few “sold” signs on items with a hefty price tag - the buyer sees that and instantly thinks “Oh - this art must be worth this price because other people have paid it.”

That being said, I thought his work was not particularly original, and I certainly wouldn’t pay the asking price (not that I have $300,000 odd for a painting anyway), but perhaps someone would.

Obviously highly technically competent; the waterfowl illustrations are very fine (I immediately thought 'postage stamps!", then noticed that this appears to be their purpose.

Doesn’t inspire me, personally though, but that’s subjective, of course and what do I know?

caveat: IANAartist, art critic, or other sort of art expert…

His agit-prop is so 80’s-90’s and derivative it isn’t even funny, except as a found example of inintentional ironic humor, given his self-assessment of its worth in hard cash. “World Peace Day?” I may be jaded, but that sounds like an naif, half-baked exercise in retro-Popular Front-type nostalgia. (I think we’ve all moved beyond that by now, esp. since the Soviet Union no longer exists.) OTOH, the realisic wildlife paintings are technically comptetent but uninspired.

For better or worse, the gallery system will be better equipped to peg his stuff at workable prices. Skip it, at least for now.

The problem I see is that either he sold some of his fine art at or near those absurd asking prices, so that he continues to price them as such. Even the fowl paintings are nice, and the pricing on those is not necessarily out of hand. But the Rauschenberg-inspired mixed media pieces are a dime a dozen from New York to Iowa to eBay. Those asking prices are just ridiculous. You can get highly original, inspiring, thought-provoking pieces for easily under $1000. So why bother with throwing away $300,000 on just one hulking derivate piece? You could help out about 300 good artists for that price.

Bingo! He’s won some prizes in the duck art stamp world. It’s not exactly the art I’m into, but as a teacher, I get solicitations to enter student work in duck stamp contests all the time. It’s a big deal to those who participate, and there are avid collectors. If he’s well known in the duck art stamp world, he could actually sell his work at those prices.

His fine art is… not to my tastes. There are those of different tastes than mine who would be very happy to own them. These people might not be familiar with the cutting edge of modern art perhaps, or liking his duck art, wish to branch out and collect more of his work.

**Cuckoorex, **I’m curious – where did you come up with this guy?

I agree with the other posters – his ducks show he’s a competent draftsman, but with the “fine art,” and the prices he’s trying to get, he’s flirting with charlatanism. It seems a little unusual to me that a guy whose bread and butter is ducks, decoys and fishing lures should also be marketing himself as a producer of “edgy” (in an arrière-garde kind of way) and expensive fine art.

Anybody read the “procompromise” abortion stuff, and think to themselves, “What on earth is that doing there?”

Where did I come up with him? Well, quite honestly, the guy fascinates me, in a “what in the world makes him tick?” sort of way. He was first brought to my attention through the duck stamp art, and then the “pro-compromise” thing, caught my interest; he seemed to present his ideas as something revolutionary, but when I asked people here at the SDMB about his pro-compromise ideas it became pretty clear that he wasn’t really suggesting anything revolutionary or even that original. Then I noticed the fine art stuff and the very high prices. Now I’m thinking that he might actually believe that he’s completely original and brilliant and that his art should be worth that much.

On the other hand, he’s got this new section on his site about donating proceeds from art sales to Amnesty International. I can’t find anything about this on Amnesty International’s web site, so I can’t confirm that this is any kind of official partnership. But if he’s hoping to donate proceeds from sales of art to Amnesty International, wouldn’t it behoove him to price his artwork reasonably??

He’s an enigma. At least, he puzzles me.

Well, I’ve had some communication with him, and he shed some light on the whole pricing deal.

First of all, he is serious about the art itself, but the pricing thing is actually more of a commentary on what he feels is a ridiculous situation in the fine art world, where pricing seems (to him) to be outrageous and often arbitrary. He said he was inspired to price his work like this after reading some book which covered a number of artists like Cy Twombly and their super-expensive art. His pricing is meant to be a kind of commentary, almost mocking what he feels are pretentious fine artists. So no, he doesn’t actually expect that he’s going to sell any of those pieces. He said he would be just as happy if he just had a barn full of those pieces and never sold a single one.

So in that sense, he seems a little less insane. A little.

I must honestly say that I did have this thought in the back of my head when I saw those prices. I mean, you can buy original Picassos (granted, not the most famous ones) at even 5 figures.

Could you tell him how to spell Oklahoma?