Trippy Art Revives the Hippie Design Movement of the ‘60s
By: Madi Trepus
Staff Writer
The free-spirited artwork of the mid to late ‘60s takes a modern twist with the Trippy Paintings movement founded through social media communities.
The psychedelic art movement of the 1960s makes a modern reappearance in the social media art world of today. The primary artists of the Trippy Painting movement, such as Trippydraws, Thisuniquevibe, and Joleecaitlinart share their work on TikTok as a way to quickly grab the attention of viewers using vibrant neon colors and creamy textured backgrounds.
These paintings usually consist of a main focus, such as an alien, a famous cartoon character, or planets, surrounded by various neon colors and abstract shapes. Some artists use the video aspect of TikTok to add movement to their work. A cheap and popular method is to use paints that go with flashing LED lights, making certain colors disappear or pop out more depending on the LED light color, giving an even more hallucinogenic experience for the viewer.
The influence of Trippy Paintings can be traced back to the talented yet forgotten artists and designers of the hippie movement, including Vicor Moscoso and Wes Wilson. Their use of bright, colorful, and contorted bubble art immediately brought attention to the events their posters were advertising, which were primarily for psychedelic rock concerts of the time, such as Woodstock.
While the mind-bending artwork of the 60s advertised rock concerts, Trippy Paintings has a deep association with the electronic dance scene of today. The audience of rave concerts often totes fashion of Trippy Painting artwork, which primarily references cartoon characters from “Rick and Morty” or “The Simpsons”.
As a result, the Trippy painting genre has been becoming more popular among the art subculture of college and high school. Jena Howard, a Green River student, has been using this style in her art ever since she got inspired by the movement.
Howard was initially treated her work as a casual hobby but was encouraged to continue painting by her best friend’s dad, Chad Fairburn. She learned to use medium and thick acrylic paint, medium-sized canvases and large paint brushes to make the colorful and stimulating trippy art produces today.
A lot of painters use the same supplies to do their trippy painting, adding black and white details or checkerboard designs to contrast against the neon colors. Howard had mentioned that while this movement was fun to become a part of, she still finds herself comparing her own work to the work of others who established this popular community.
“I’m not the best artist and I mess up quite often,” Howard said. However, she still finds an immense amount of joy in creating these vibrant and extra-terrestrial universes for her own entertainment as well as for others.
Howard said that she does not have a set technique, but simply does what feels right. A lot of people have started to sell their trippy paintings online, mostly on Instagram or Etsy, and some of the more popular artists sell their art for prices between $20 and $60, depending on how big the paintings are. Howard is yet to sell her own work.
“I create my art for myself right now, but when I expand my portfolio I may sell some pieces but I would price them quite low,” she said. Howard is taking her first Green River art class this spring quarter. Her favorite piece that she has done is a large painting of Bart Simpson, with swirling neon colors around him.
Trippy Paintings have shown that the surrealist techniques of artists like Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol are still popular ways for artists to express themselves and to make their work pop out among the overwhelming output social media allows.
While the trend may fade soon, it is never too late to experiment with unconventional styles to create original and inspiring works of art. Stay weird, Gators.
Photo Cred: Jonathan Linn
