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| "Beach Car," acrylic on canvas, 2025 by Otto Von Miller. Discover more wicked cool paintings below. |
Thee Optimist once read a book by a man from Hawaii who was considered to be a "kahuna," in the shamanic sense of the word.
Kahunas in Hawaiian culture can be experts in a number of fields, especially medicine, but also spirituality and sorcery.
This man had a radical take on the nature of reality, which was that when you paid attention to a thing, you made it so.
In this worldview, all of reality is a sort of very large and complex Schrodinger's cat. Until you pay attention, it isn't actually happening.
Whenever he became aware of something unpleasant, the man would apologize for bringing it into being. Mostly, he thought of pleasant things.
Thee Optimist is a fan of this idea. Except that if he embraced it fully, he would spend A LOT of time apologizing.
Over the years, Thee Optimist has brought some very bad things into being.
But these are not those things. These are recent paintings by Thee Optimist's alter ego, the artist Otto Von Miller.
Ready? Me too.
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| "Night Beach," acrylic and chalk paint on canvas, 2025 by Otto Von Miller. |
Ocean Themes
Otto Von Miller lives near the ocean. He has spent much of his adult life at the beach. Enviable, eh?
Maybe you should think of pleasant things more often.
In the meantime, while we're waiting for you to do that, Otto is working on developing his own style.
His recent paintings rely less on lines that he draws with paint, and more on using blocks of color, and layers of color.
They also rely less on copying the works of established artists, and more on his own imagination.
The above painting has about 15 different colors in it, and required about 25 different paint brushes. Otto is also amassing a formidable array of equipment.
The painting below uses only a handful of colors, namely white, yellow, blue (specifically Prussian blue) and black.
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| "Ocean @ Night," acrylic on canvas, 2025 by Otto Von Miller. |
Randomize
Otto has also been working on ideas that aren't necessarily easy to categorize.
Such as:
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| "Concentric," acrylic paint on canvas, 2025 by Otto Von Miller. |
This is an unfinished painting. Well, it could use another coat, but otherwise, it's okay. It looks better in person.
It just occurred to Otto one day to make circles against a square background, and color them in.
It was related to the idea that many people like what are referred to as "neutral" colors for the interior walls of their homes these days.
Otto is also acutely aware that many people prefer art with either a benign message, or no message at all. Some of Otto's art has a dark message.
The above was an exercise in creating something that would complement neutral wall colors, and that was devoid of meaning, other than the aesthetics of the art itself.
And finally, there is the somewhat risque painting below. Otto Von Miller has long been an admirer of the female form. Just for fun, this is a somewhat exaggerated version of it.
The pink socks are a result of Otto not yet mastering the depiction of feet.
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| "Pink Socks," acrylic on canvas, 2025 by Otto Von Miller. |
Words of Wisdom
"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world."
- The Buddha
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