Fred Einaudi – A Very Odd And Morbid Artist

Fred Einaudi is one of the oddest and most disturbing painters working today – or at least that is my feeling, and once you have had a look at some of the paintings below, I think you will probably agree with me on this.

So before discussing this artist, I thought I would give you an example of his work, so you know what it is we are looking at here.

This is reasonably typical of his work.   Most of his paintings are extremely realistic, in the sense that they could be photos, but in fact all his work is oil on canvas, and all of them without exception are morbid and worrying in what they depict.

So, who is this guy?  Well he was born  in 1971 in a small town in Nevada, but moved to San Francisco as soon as he was able, which is where he now lives and works.

And this is what he looks like…..

Sort of tells you a lot I feel.

The next question I wanted an answer to was why he paints such depressing images? Does he have a death fixation?  Is he simply sick, or is there a much deeper reason for his choice of subject?

While researching this post I found that whilst there was no end of his work on the internet, there is actually remarkably little hard information about the man himself, what motivates him, how he goes about his work and so on.   The only thing I came across that gives a bit of an insight into his mind and world was a short interview he gave to another blogger a while ago.

So if you are interested in perhaps getting a slightly better understanding of what he thinks and why he paints as he does, this interview might help a bit.  (Link to Interview).

In fairness to him, I thought something that was said to me on my first day as a student at Saint Martins School of Art, which was “Here we do not discuss art, we make it.  If you want to talk about art become a critic“.   Seemed good advice at the time, and still does.

So, what does he paint, apart from that one above?  Well most of his paintings dwell on death in one way or another, but not generally in a gentle or peaceful manner, tending much more to show us either super-realistic deaths, or more or less allegorical versions of death.

Here are a couple of his works that illustrate both of those themes.

As well as this recurring theme of death, mostly violent death, he also seems to dwell on strange, but always depressing visions of the world as he sees it..  Extremely apocalyptic visions they are too!

To finish of this brief oversight of his work,here are a selection of his more intriguing visions of his world…    Not a pleasant world it seems.

And here are those paintings I promised you.

This selection of his work give a reasonable oversight of how he works, and the sort of subjects he seems to enjoy painting, which obviously I hope you have found to be interesting, if only in a sense of letting you glimpse the world as seen through the eyes of this very strange individual.