According to Wikipedia, Onli is a rare Artist who has created two visual art genres.

According to Wikipedia, Onli is a rare Artist who has created two visual art genres.
All artwork on this blog is Copyright 2024 Turtel Onli , and other dates. All Rights Protected & not to be remixed, rebooted or used commercially without a signed agreement with Prof. Onli. The smaller images on the right are links to reels or related websites.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

 The rigor and joy of being a life long Rhythmistic artist is
 echoed in the level of press and media attention experienced along the way.
 Life is great.  Living is better!





"Hello!" This is a recent photo of me seated at Red Carpet  event at my studio.
I make art.  Rhythmistic art. Fine or commercial.  Check it out.  Thanks for checking us out!

 I use the term, "Rhythmism" to explain my stylization and concepts.
All 2-D media is fair game. Not just fine women and lust provoking images but innovative concepts, stories, ideas too. Some even on the otherworldly level.  How about exotic???



Meet some Rhythmistic icons.

Portraits, abstracted backgrounds, narrative illustrations, adventures in media.
From the Passion Fruit Collection:  "Butterfly & Melon". OIls on a 18" H X 24" W canvas panel.

"Acid Tongue" is drawn using colored pencils. 18"H X 24 "W. Circa 2003.


Experiments in context, cosmic overtones & naturalistic considerations.

The Spirit of the Bull of Hannibal.  Graphite.
Then there is my comic book work. Penciled pages from Malcolm-10. Circa 1990.
This shows his first day out of the incubator.


A watercolor portrait of Malcolm-10 for a popular trading card from ONLI STUDIOS.


 "Early in my career I used to design and illustrate album covers for the likes of
 George Clinton and other musicians.  One I did in the studio near Paris with the Rolling Stones in 1978 for the "Some Girls" album didn't pass censorship."

 NOG: Nubian of Greatness, is the future-primitif Rhythmistic character and book that opened
 the door to the growing Black Age of Comics Movement.

The comic book is a unique American Art Form.
 The Black Age is a unique comic book universe.
"A Chicago based Art Dealer recently declared, "Comic Books Are Fine Art" while presenting one of my graphic novels to a group of curious art collectors.  I like that in him."

 This is an errie acrylic on canvas treatment inspired by
the concept of Hear No, Seek No, Heed No Evils.

OK. I was having a Renaissance Biblical  Rhythmistic moment with canvas, paint & brush.
About 30 inches by 40 inches acrylics on canvas. I am a Western future-primitif Rhythmistic artist and this type thing is to be expected.  If the "Dinner at Emaus" is good enough to visualize for Rembrandt and Carravaggio, its good enough for Onli.



"No Evils". Acrylics on canvas.  Rhythmism waiting to be collected. A Rhythmistic masterpiece it is.

"Living the life of an artist was always the goal.  The role. The soul.  I was fortunate enough to have freelanced for a variety of major market clients in the USA and Europe.  I still love graphic novel and comic book illustration for its expansive possibilities in using the visual language to tell stories with varied emotional impact. Then there is the storyline.  The concept.  The wow factor!  Pencil. Pen, Markers, brush, air-brush and digital.  You! It's all the same to me.  Rhythmistic! "


 "Year of the Dragon"
 Watch out for ONLI STUDIOS' East / West Horoscope book 
that links the Western and Chinese Zodiacs in a useful datebook/calendar.


 My "Cool Globe" was featured in the New York Times.  
Click on the images to enlarge them.

Creative.
Intense!
Tender.
 I strive to look as good as the competition but not like the competition.




This was one of my illustrator's sample cards that
I would circulate among major market Art Directors.

FF was a 'zine ONLI STUDIOS published to support the creative arts in 1982.


 This shows the scale of my Rhythmistic fine art.

 This image first ran in the Feb. 1993 issue of the Comics Buyer's Guide.  This illustration and article announced the official launch of the growing Black Age movement in the world of games, graphic novels & comic books.  The industry is the better for it. This is an expansion of ideas, styles, stories, cultures, creators and products.  If there is no place for me in the game, I tend to create one.

 The late Miles Davis loved this image so much that later, he decided to try his hand at making art.  I presented it to him in his home on two occasions. He loved the illustration and wanted it for free.  In 1975 and '78 I needed to really get paid.  So each time I said  "No",  he missed out on it being an album cover that visualized the fusion-jazz he was creating at that time.  Sometimes great creatives just do not agree.
 "Year of The Serpent".  Notice the Taurus sign on the hood of the serpent.  Nice......


 I used to illustrate and design book covers for Holt Rinehart & Winston.



 Thanks for checking us out.  Rigor, complexity, story lines, irony and entertainment is laced throughout the collection of Rhythmistic works shown here.  There are more where these came from and they gain in value and meaning due to your participation.  Thank you!

Ownership is the highest form of appreciation.


I once created an entire collection of visual art and animation inspired by the work and life of Jimi Hendrix.  Starting in 1968  with the last work being created in 1995. The animation is on Youtube as "I Dream of Jimi".   The actual collection went up in flames in a studio fire the way Hendrix used to burn guitars on stage.  Ironic?  I viewed Hendrix as a creative person whose works in sound and song were akin to my viewpoint of Rhythmism in drawn images and design.  He ventured into the new or the now.  To me that was so familiar.


This watercolor image above the recent photo of me was created in 1968 when I first heard the Experience's tune, "Purple Haze". My high school Studio Art teacher tried to figure it and me out during my senior year in highschool. She had no idea where I was headed......when even I didn't know.
Blasted off, I was.

 They used to call me a"Blippie" as in "Black-Hippie".  I started my art career when I graduated from high school.  Those were fertile and exciting times.  Stouffers, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Playboy, Ebony, Delmark Records, BAG, Robert Paige's One of a Kind Studio, Ma & Pa Erickson, Bucky Fuller, Freedom, Vegetarianism, Alice Coltrane, Hyde Park, the Draft, SDS, The Dysfunctioning Child Center, The Panthers, Earth Day, Psychedelics, Peace, Love, Creativity and the birth of Rhythmism.

 This was the onset of my lifestyle. Live to make art.  Explore and make art to live.

"Year of the Ram".

During the cosmopolitan jet-set years of the 1980s I used to do advertising and promotional illustrations for the international Limelight Clubs.  This included my having a V.I.P. membership and traveling to all of the clubs in Chicago, New York, Atlanta and London.


Rhythmistic fine art, illustrations and sequential art often deal with a future-primitif narrative. "Hold No Evil" is a 36" H X 24W oils on canvas painting.  The blue zig-zag motif represents the Amazon River.  The inset is the Earth opening to give birth to women, who then give birth to us all.  The layering on her skirt is inspired by a South American Ant Eater's body armor.  Above her is a plains Buffalo which is of great spiritual importance to Northern American Native Peoples.  While she is from Central America, holding the healthy "Passion Fruit" we call the watermelon.





 

 Needless to say, I illustrate and create characters 
and concepts for ONLI STUDIOS' line of products.


 Here is a pencil treatment of 
Sustah-Girl: Queen of the Black Age.

 .....that same illustration with a little cool digital color by Kali.

 ...a page I illustrated for the hot 
"Sustah-Girl Work Out Book!"

"Reach", is a 30" X 44" Rhythmistic oil painting on museum profiled canvas. Here, the subject is reaching for the Sun which is also reach to her. If you are looking for an impressive image, this is it!  Feel free to click on this or any image to enlarge them for your viewing pleasure. 
The future-primitif aspects of Rhythmism are very promising.