The night before she handed in her entry depicting a lone World War I veteran for the Veterans Art Show at the Bob Stump Memorial Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Betty Long found a photo of injured World War I veterans who moved in a line with their hands on each other's shoulders to get to where they needed to be.
Long, who served as a nurse in the Navy, said she had been working on her fine arts mixed media work "When Johnny Comes Marching Home - Flanders Field 2" for more than a year when she saw the photo.
"We lost so much of what we learned in World War I by the time we were in World War II," Long said. "After World War II, we heard about treatment for what's now called post traumatic stress. Back in World War I, we called it shell shock."
Long, who won Best of Show on Wednesday for her artwork, was one of 83 artists who submitted 167 entries in the Veterans Creative Arts Festival, said Paula Moran, supervisor of recreation therapy at the Northern Arizona Veterans Affairs Health Care System.
Kenny Wayne, who served on submarines in the Navy, said he used the Raku technique to make his Kopper Kiva Verde pottery that won third place in best in show and first place in pottery and that he modeled the top portion of it on Mesa Verde cliff dwellings.
"It amazes me the talent these men and women have," said Elaine Pohle, a volunteer at the VA as she walked through the show.
The Arts Festival is sponsored by Help Hospitalized Veterans, which has provided more than 27 million arts and crafts kits absolutely free of charge to VA and military medical facilities worldwide since 1971, and the American Legion Auxiliary, which donates thousands of volunteer hours to communities and veterans and raises millions of dollars to support its programs and well known charities.
"Each year we challenge the veterans to go out and tell another veteran about the show and get them involved in this program," Moran said.
John Huebner, who served in the Air Force during the Korean War era, won second place in oil painting for "The Old Prospector and Burro."
"That is absolutely wonderful," said Sukie Floriano, a VA employee, said as she looked at Lori Robinson's mosaic "Field of Flowers" which tied for third place in mosaic kits. "I love sunflowers."
Frank Hamilton, who won first place in pastels for his "Windmills in Amsterdam" and teachers a pastel class at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Yavapai College, said he saw a photo of the windmills then "put my own creative stamp on it."
"It's true, there are 40 shades of green in Ireland," said Ken Enright, who served in both the Army and Air Force, and put many of those shades of green into his watercolor painting "Slea Head" that earned second place in watercolors.
John Sheley, who served in the U.S. Navy, said he used to be an electrical lineman and he used 14 karat gold and sterling silver wire in his Wire Wrapped Bracelet and Sweetheart Pendant that won second place in the Jewelry not beads category.
"These people have such talent," said Lilly Miley, who viewed the exhibit with her husband Doug Miley, who won first place in oil painting for "Rocky Mountains." "I think it uplifts them, the same way my husband and I feel like we get taken to another place when we paint."
2012年2月19日星期日
Nature, nurture at Fountain Street Fine Arts
Two local artists reveal their views of the world through form and color in a new exhibit, “Painting, Sculpture: The Art of Michelle Lougee and Bob Grignaffini,” at the Fountain Street Fine Art Gallery in Framingham.
Using bright colors and defined shapes, sculptor Lougee of Cambridge and painter Grignaffini, originally from Wellesley, intend to depict the fragile relationship between humans and nature.
An environmental sculptor and artist, Lougee creates colorful, spiritual sculptures to capture the importance of humans’ responsibility to the earth and the controversial question of nature vs. technology. Her simple, cellular forms expose the reality of the world and relay a clear message to viewers: “What are we going to do?”
“We are in a dangerous place right now,” Lougee said, “The way we live affects us in the future.”
For example, “Plume” is a tubular structure of black, interwoven plastic bags inspired by last year’s BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The bags are not tightly woven, which gives the sculpture the appearance of netting.
Grignaffini’s oil paintings reflect his views on places around the world. Using bright colors within solid forms, he captures the movement and light that make a scene come to life. He said his paintings are a “celebration of color and form” within pastoral and small town landscapes.
“Everything has spirit in it,” he said, “I try to be honest with the way I’m laying the paint down.”
Not all of his subjects are real.
Created in Grignaffini’s mind, “Pathway Through a Garden” is meant to be an interactive piece for viewers. He invites us to step into the painting with a long staircase passing through a beautiful garden of bright greens, yellows and blues.
Both artists gain inspiration from nature. Grignaffini’s paintings attempt to show a sense of movement and life in otherwise stationary objects. Lougee loves the otherworldliness of the ocean and bases many of her sculptures on deep-sea life forms.
Grignaffini’s “Old Beech Tree” reveals an ancient Italian forest, in which he uses bright colors and profound shadows to capture the movement of light among the trees. It inspired many of his other paintings displayed in the exhibit.
“Saxonville” depicts a familiar landscape along the Sudbury River. This painting is particularly special to Grignaffini because it is near his former home, and both of his children were born there. It also represents his desire to share the shapes and colors within everyday scenery.
Ocean plankton in the “Eastern Garbage Patch” off the coast of Hawaii inspired Lougee’s “Dinoflagellate.” The sculpture, created with crocheted plastic bags, looks like a vortex of life forms meant to represent the effect of toxins on sea creatures within the patch.
Lougee’s panel pieces give an organic form to inorganic substances. Ironed and fused together, the beige plastic bags give an appearance like worn parchment. Yarn-like strands of plastic bags sewn into the panels create a wall sculpture and give life to the inorganic materials.
Gallery co-founder Cheryl Clinton said she loves the combination of paintings and sculptures. The shapes, composition and palette create a rhythm between the works, which visually connects them to one another and makes an appealing display.
Lougee uses repurposed materials to create her sculptures. Her current favorites are clay and plastic bags, which she began using four years ago. She turns the bags into yarn and crochets them into shapes. The ease and portability of the pieces make it easy to work on anywhere.
Grignaffini likes to use different styles when he paints, usually beginning the process with a charcoal sketch of a scene he wants to paint. He works primarily in his studio at the Fountain Street Gallery, but also enjoys working en plein air.
Using bright colors and defined shapes, sculptor Lougee of Cambridge and painter Grignaffini, originally from Wellesley, intend to depict the fragile relationship between humans and nature.
An environmental sculptor and artist, Lougee creates colorful, spiritual sculptures to capture the importance of humans’ responsibility to the earth and the controversial question of nature vs. technology. Her simple, cellular forms expose the reality of the world and relay a clear message to viewers: “What are we going to do?”
“We are in a dangerous place right now,” Lougee said, “The way we live affects us in the future.”
For example, “Plume” is a tubular structure of black, interwoven plastic bags inspired by last year’s BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The bags are not tightly woven, which gives the sculpture the appearance of netting.
Grignaffini’s oil paintings reflect his views on places around the world. Using bright colors within solid forms, he captures the movement and light that make a scene come to life. He said his paintings are a “celebration of color and form” within pastoral and small town landscapes.
“Everything has spirit in it,” he said, “I try to be honest with the way I’m laying the paint down.”
Not all of his subjects are real.
Created in Grignaffini’s mind, “Pathway Through a Garden” is meant to be an interactive piece for viewers. He invites us to step into the painting with a long staircase passing through a beautiful garden of bright greens, yellows and blues.
Both artists gain inspiration from nature. Grignaffini’s paintings attempt to show a sense of movement and life in otherwise stationary objects. Lougee loves the otherworldliness of the ocean and bases many of her sculptures on deep-sea life forms.
Grignaffini’s “Old Beech Tree” reveals an ancient Italian forest, in which he uses bright colors and profound shadows to capture the movement of light among the trees. It inspired many of his other paintings displayed in the exhibit.
“Saxonville” depicts a familiar landscape along the Sudbury River. This painting is particularly special to Grignaffini because it is near his former home, and both of his children were born there. It also represents his desire to share the shapes and colors within everyday scenery.
Ocean plankton in the “Eastern Garbage Patch” off the coast of Hawaii inspired Lougee’s “Dinoflagellate.” The sculpture, created with crocheted plastic bags, looks like a vortex of life forms meant to represent the effect of toxins on sea creatures within the patch.
Lougee’s panel pieces give an organic form to inorganic substances. Ironed and fused together, the beige plastic bags give an appearance like worn parchment. Yarn-like strands of plastic bags sewn into the panels create a wall sculpture and give life to the inorganic materials.
Gallery co-founder Cheryl Clinton said she loves the combination of paintings and sculptures. The shapes, composition and palette create a rhythm between the works, which visually connects them to one another and makes an appealing display.
Lougee uses repurposed materials to create her sculptures. Her current favorites are clay and plastic bags, which she began using four years ago. She turns the bags into yarn and crochets them into shapes. The ease and portability of the pieces make it easy to work on anywhere.
Grignaffini likes to use different styles when he paints, usually beginning the process with a charcoal sketch of a scene he wants to paint. He works primarily in his studio at the Fountain Street Gallery, but also enjoys working en plein air.
2012年2月16日星期四
Vail International Gallery hosts exhibit by oil painter
When people walk into Vail International Gallery in Vail, sometimes they stop mid-step to stare at one of Lu Cong's paintings, hanging on the wall.
“The eyes really grab them,” said Patrick Cassidy, gallery co-owner. “And people are also impressed by the near photographic quality of his work. Sometimes I have people ask if they are photographs, until they look close and see that it's done with a brush and oil paint. And they're even more impressed when they find out he's a self-taught artist.”
The gallery is hosting Cong's second large scale exhibit, with 11 paintings on display, through March 1; a reception with the artist will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday.
Since Cong's last exhibit at the gallery, in 2010, the Denver artist has broken into the national art scene, with exhibits in New York City and Southampton, said Marc LeVarn, who owns the gallery along with Cassidy.
The painter, whose given name is actually Cong Lu, came to the United States from Shanghai China when he was 11 years old. He began working full time as a painter while in his early 20s after moving to Denver. Naturally gifted as both a draftsman and colorist, Cong's early works were “large and sensational, though they were painted with exaggerated melodrama and pathos, his keen insight and sensitivity towards his subjects were nonetheless evident,” LeVarn said.
Between 2003 and 2007, Lu was recognized by a number of art publications as a notable emerging artist.
“Since then, Lu has developed a distinctive look that many regard as an original approach to figurative realism,” LeVarn said. “His portraits do not simply capture the physical or emotional likeness of the subject, rather they beckon to establish an authentic engagement — interaction that ensues when one comes face to face with the sensual, the inexplicable and the unsettling.”
Cong is best known for his paintings of women and his compositions often depict females looking directly out from the painting toward the viewer. While Cong's work is realistic, its also fairly stylized, Cong said. For example, the women's eyes often look bigger than they might in real life.
“It's not that I go measure, and make them big, its just something that happens,” he said during a 2010 interview. “Whenever I try too hard to make something have a formula, they end up like caricatures,” Cong said. “But I like to just look at them like I'm just painting them like they're in front of me. If I do some funky things — eyes get bigger, certain things get streamlined — I just let that happen.”
And its those details that distinguish Cong's work from that of other portrait artists.
“I do have a sensibility and style that I feel is pretty unique and other people respond to,” he said. “But it's nothing I can tell you how it happens, it's just something that comes out in my work.”
The gallery has carried Cong's work since 2006. Over the years, Cassidy has watched Cong's style evolve.
“He has more of a classical Renaissance technique now, Cassidy said. “He stopped painting on canvas because no matter how tight the weave, it didn't provide him the ability to paint the detail he wanted. It's a very Renaissance style of painting to paint on a wood panel on a very flat plane with hardly any texture. He can get extreme levels of detail.”
“The eyes really grab them,” said Patrick Cassidy, gallery co-owner. “And people are also impressed by the near photographic quality of his work. Sometimes I have people ask if they are photographs, until they look close and see that it's done with a brush and oil paint. And they're even more impressed when they find out he's a self-taught artist.”
The gallery is hosting Cong's second large scale exhibit, with 11 paintings on display, through March 1; a reception with the artist will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday.
Since Cong's last exhibit at the gallery, in 2010, the Denver artist has broken into the national art scene, with exhibits in New York City and Southampton, said Marc LeVarn, who owns the gallery along with Cassidy.
The painter, whose given name is actually Cong Lu, came to the United States from Shanghai China when he was 11 years old. He began working full time as a painter while in his early 20s after moving to Denver. Naturally gifted as both a draftsman and colorist, Cong's early works were “large and sensational, though they were painted with exaggerated melodrama and pathos, his keen insight and sensitivity towards his subjects were nonetheless evident,” LeVarn said.
Between 2003 and 2007, Lu was recognized by a number of art publications as a notable emerging artist.
“Since then, Lu has developed a distinctive look that many regard as an original approach to figurative realism,” LeVarn said. “His portraits do not simply capture the physical or emotional likeness of the subject, rather they beckon to establish an authentic engagement — interaction that ensues when one comes face to face with the sensual, the inexplicable and the unsettling.”
Cong is best known for his paintings of women and his compositions often depict females looking directly out from the painting toward the viewer. While Cong's work is realistic, its also fairly stylized, Cong said. For example, the women's eyes often look bigger than they might in real life.
“It's not that I go measure, and make them big, its just something that happens,” he said during a 2010 interview. “Whenever I try too hard to make something have a formula, they end up like caricatures,” Cong said. “But I like to just look at them like I'm just painting them like they're in front of me. If I do some funky things — eyes get bigger, certain things get streamlined — I just let that happen.”
And its those details that distinguish Cong's work from that of other portrait artists.
“I do have a sensibility and style that I feel is pretty unique and other people respond to,” he said. “But it's nothing I can tell you how it happens, it's just something that comes out in my work.”
The gallery has carried Cong's work since 2006. Over the years, Cassidy has watched Cong's style evolve.
“He has more of a classical Renaissance technique now, Cassidy said. “He stopped painting on canvas because no matter how tight the weave, it didn't provide him the ability to paint the detail he wanted. It's a very Renaissance style of painting to paint on a wood panel on a very flat plane with hardly any texture. He can get extreme levels of detail.”
2012年2月15日星期三
Through oil paints, Hall depicts live figures
Moorea Hall '15 is an oil painter, taught to embrace learning through creativity at a young age. Her talent for the arts flourished, and Hall took art classes every year in public school.
There in high school, Hall met who she dubbed her most influential mentor—her art teacher, Tom Holland. "My art teacher, Tom Holland, really pushed me to try new methods," Hall said. "He taught himself how to use glaze first, which is an old master skill that Renaissance painters used to use. He later on taught this skill to me."
Her work began with direct painting, when the paint is transferred directly on to the canvas with brushes. Hall switched her paintbrush for a palette knife, to further manipulate the paints. "Pallete knife painting allows more free expression for the artist," Hall said. "A lot of the stress from painting comes from the need to follow the drawing lines."
Direct painting creates a blurrier image; palette a sharper, well-blended image. Hall often thought about Holland's teachings to help inspire her work, appreciating his outlook on life. "He was funny, a little wry, but very encouraging without being flattering," Hall said. "He always pushed me to be better."
Hall noted the qualities of painting with glazes specifically as a medium. "Glaze is very translucent, so you just layer and layer and layer to get this luminescent glow," Hall explained. "Unlike normal oil paint, painting with glaze is extremely time consuming, so you can only work for an hour a day. You paint a layer, then wait until it dries and layer on top. Otherwise, you would just be pushing paint off the surface each time."
One of Hall's favorite subjects is live figures. "For a while I was interested in doing backs and shoulders. I liked how the muscles catch the light and how the skin's color changes with the light," Hall said. "I'm also interested in painting ballerinas because after taking figure drawing class I want to catch the best part of the figure in action."
Hall enjoys the grace and elegance of ballet, and its accompanying ballerina dancers. "Like me, ballerinas are very detail oriented. I like how they are so dedicated to perfection. Every move they make is calculated, and it's hard to catch one of those moves and immortalize it," Hall said. "So if can capture it through a painting, that one second of perfection from months of training is captured."
Her favorite piece from among her works is Ballerina I. Its subject was based on "Swan Lake." To create the final image, she used stock photos and live models as sources. This was the first time Hall had to create the background from imagination.
"I definitely worked hardest on this piece. It took a total of two months, four hours a week," Hall said. "I was really trying to find my own style, which is difficult when you are using models. The background came out straight out of my mind, and this was a big step, definitely." Hall has used photographs before to compose her images, sometimes taking multiple photos to inspire painted, unique composites.
Hall isn't enrolled in any art classes currently, but still has made time for her passion. "I would love to take a painting class. I don't agree with the drawing requirements. I already had to take three Intro Drawing classes in the past six years because I moved around so much," Hall said.
Hall added, "Art is more of a hobby for me. I plan to major in Art History and want to be an art conservator, particularly for Renaissance and Baroque art."
There in high school, Hall met who she dubbed her most influential mentor—her art teacher, Tom Holland. "My art teacher, Tom Holland, really pushed me to try new methods," Hall said. "He taught himself how to use glaze first, which is an old master skill that Renaissance painters used to use. He later on taught this skill to me."
Her work began with direct painting, when the paint is transferred directly on to the canvas with brushes. Hall switched her paintbrush for a palette knife, to further manipulate the paints. "Pallete knife painting allows more free expression for the artist," Hall said. "A lot of the stress from painting comes from the need to follow the drawing lines."
Direct painting creates a blurrier image; palette a sharper, well-blended image. Hall often thought about Holland's teachings to help inspire her work, appreciating his outlook on life. "He was funny, a little wry, but very encouraging without being flattering," Hall said. "He always pushed me to be better."
Hall noted the qualities of painting with glazes specifically as a medium. "Glaze is very translucent, so you just layer and layer and layer to get this luminescent glow," Hall explained. "Unlike normal oil paint, painting with glaze is extremely time consuming, so you can only work for an hour a day. You paint a layer, then wait until it dries and layer on top. Otherwise, you would just be pushing paint off the surface each time."
One of Hall's favorite subjects is live figures. "For a while I was interested in doing backs and shoulders. I liked how the muscles catch the light and how the skin's color changes with the light," Hall said. "I'm also interested in painting ballerinas because after taking figure drawing class I want to catch the best part of the figure in action."
Hall enjoys the grace and elegance of ballet, and its accompanying ballerina dancers. "Like me, ballerinas are very detail oriented. I like how they are so dedicated to perfection. Every move they make is calculated, and it's hard to catch one of those moves and immortalize it," Hall said. "So if can capture it through a painting, that one second of perfection from months of training is captured."
Her favorite piece from among her works is Ballerina I. Its subject was based on "Swan Lake." To create the final image, she used stock photos and live models as sources. This was the first time Hall had to create the background from imagination.
"I definitely worked hardest on this piece. It took a total of two months, four hours a week," Hall said. "I was really trying to find my own style, which is difficult when you are using models. The background came out straight out of my mind, and this was a big step, definitely." Hall has used photographs before to compose her images, sometimes taking multiple photos to inspire painted, unique composites.
Hall isn't enrolled in any art classes currently, but still has made time for her passion. "I would love to take a painting class. I don't agree with the drawing requirements. I already had to take three Intro Drawing classes in the past six years because I moved around so much," Hall said.
Hall added, "Art is more of a hobby for me. I plan to major in Art History and want to be an art conservator, particularly for Renaissance and Baroque art."
2012年2月14日星期二
Framing business a labour of love
Kathy Manzo walks into the framing store in downtown Kitchener carrying an oil painting that she wants to get framed.
She picks up another painting she had custom framed at King Framing, located on Ontario Street North.
“That is beautiful. I am thrilled to death,” Manzo says, as store owner Nick Sokolovic holds up the reframed painting she inherited from her mother.
Manzo is one of many customers who have been coming to the store regularly since it opened in 1978 at 322 King St. E. in downtown Kitchener.
“This store is an institution,” she says.
“I have second and third generations of families coming,” Sokolovic says. “I have a good reputation.”
Sokolovic got into the business through family ties.
His brother-in-law, Ibro Suljovic, owned the store when it opened in 1978. It was then called Universal Art Shop. The name later changed to King Framing because another business in Toronto operated as Universal Art Shop.
Sokolovic, now 61, emigrated from Yugoslavia when he was 16. He worked at a number of jobs locally, including a stint at automotive frame manufacturer Budd Automotive, and helped his brother-in-law when he was busy at the store.
He then took a course in custom framing at Conestoga College and worked part-time at the store.
“I enjoyed the work and I still do,” Sokolovic says. “It is not just for the money. It is for the pleasure of it.”
In 1987, his brother-in-law bought a motel in Collingwood and put the framing shop up for sale.
“The two of us went out for a drink, and I bought the business,” Sokolovic says. “He offered me a partnership. I refused the partnership. I said it is either yours or mine. I said I didn’t like partnerships. A partnership is a good way to lose a friend.”
In 1998, after 20 years of being located on King Street East., Sokolovic moved the business to its current location on Ontario Street, between King and Duke streets, because he needed more space.
He prides himself on providing quality work at a competitive price.
“My price is the best in the area. I don’t sacrifice quality. I buy in bulk so I can offer the savings. I make the money in volumes of sales, not in markups.”
Manzo says she keeps coming back because of the quality of the workmanship, the price is “great” and the personal service she receives from Sokolovic and his wife, Hanna, who has been working at the store for the past 15 years.
“My customers are like my friends,” says Sokolovic.
Grainne Aitken, a professional photographer who owns Art and Soul in Waterloo, says she brings a lot of family and wedding portraits to Sokolovic to frame.
“He works with us to create something unique,” she says. “The service and quality of work is just amazing.”
She picks up another painting she had custom framed at King Framing, located on Ontario Street North.
“That is beautiful. I am thrilled to death,” Manzo says, as store owner Nick Sokolovic holds up the reframed painting she inherited from her mother.
Manzo is one of many customers who have been coming to the store regularly since it opened in 1978 at 322 King St. E. in downtown Kitchener.
“This store is an institution,” she says.
“I have second and third generations of families coming,” Sokolovic says. “I have a good reputation.”
Sokolovic got into the business through family ties.
His brother-in-law, Ibro Suljovic, owned the store when it opened in 1978. It was then called Universal Art Shop. The name later changed to King Framing because another business in Toronto operated as Universal Art Shop.
Sokolovic, now 61, emigrated from Yugoslavia when he was 16. He worked at a number of jobs locally, including a stint at automotive frame manufacturer Budd Automotive, and helped his brother-in-law when he was busy at the store.
He then took a course in custom framing at Conestoga College and worked part-time at the store.
“I enjoyed the work and I still do,” Sokolovic says. “It is not just for the money. It is for the pleasure of it.”
In 1987, his brother-in-law bought a motel in Collingwood and put the framing shop up for sale.
“The two of us went out for a drink, and I bought the business,” Sokolovic says. “He offered me a partnership. I refused the partnership. I said it is either yours or mine. I said I didn’t like partnerships. A partnership is a good way to lose a friend.”
In 1998, after 20 years of being located on King Street East., Sokolovic moved the business to its current location on Ontario Street, between King and Duke streets, because he needed more space.
He prides himself on providing quality work at a competitive price.
“My price is the best in the area. I don’t sacrifice quality. I buy in bulk so I can offer the savings. I make the money in volumes of sales, not in markups.”
Manzo says she keeps coming back because of the quality of the workmanship, the price is “great” and the personal service she receives from Sokolovic and his wife, Hanna, who has been working at the store for the past 15 years.
“My customers are like my friends,” says Sokolovic.
Grainne Aitken, a professional photographer who owns Art and Soul in Waterloo, says she brings a lot of family and wedding portraits to Sokolovic to frame.
“He works with us to create something unique,” she says. “The service and quality of work is just amazing.”
2012年2月13日星期一
Artist with Maine ties honored at White House
Painter and printmaker Will Barnet received one of the country’s highest honors Monday, when President Obama presented him with a National Medal of Arts.
Barnet, 100, has deep Maine ties. Much of the inspiration for his artistic vision derives from his time in Maine, particularly in and around the midcoast area of Phippsburg.
Barnet, who lives in New York most of the year, received his medal in an East Room ceremony at the White House.
The White House cited Barnet “for his contributions as an American painter, printmaker and teacher. His nuanced and graceful depictions of family and personal scenes, for which he is best known, are meticulously constructed of flat planes that reveal a lifelong exploration of abstraction, expressionism and geometry. For more than 80 years, Mr. Barnet has been a constant force in the visual arts world, marrying sophistication and emotion with beauty and form.”
Among others who received honors Monday were Al Pacino, Mel Tillis and Andre Watts.
In remarks prior to conferring the medals, Obama praised artists for their contributions to society, and characterized those honored as “icons” for their courage to “dwell in possibilities.”
“As much as we need engineers and scientists,” the president said, “we also need artists and scholars ... to disrupt our views and challenge our assumptions.”
Susan Danly, senior curator at the Portland Museum of Art, said the museum has 13 Barnet images in its collection, though none is currently on view.
“We are very proud of him,” Danly said. “This is a top honor bestowed on an artist in the country, and certainly Will Barnet is one of the pre-eminent painters in Maine today. He has a long-standing love of New England and of Maine.”
In an interview with the Maine Sunday Telegram in 2002, Barnet said that painting has been a way of life for as long as he could remember.
“It’s just a pattern of living that has been a part of me that began very early,” he said. “I had a studio in my father’s basement when I was 12 years old. By the time I was 14, I read every book on the history of art that was available. Today ... it’s a continuation of my whole life, of my whole being. It is something that is a natural pattern that flows every day. It’s just a part of me. Every day, I have ideas, thoughts or feelings that I like to express.”
He was born in Beverly, Mass., in May 1911 and first came to Maine in 1953.
He has received many awards in his life, including the first Artist’s Lifetime Achievement Award Medal given on the National Academy of Design’s 175th anniversary; the College Art Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award; the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art’s Lippincott Prize; and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters’ Childe Hassam Prize.
His paintings and prints are included in most major public collection in the United States, including the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Barnet, 100, has deep Maine ties. Much of the inspiration for his artistic vision derives from his time in Maine, particularly in and around the midcoast area of Phippsburg.
Barnet, who lives in New York most of the year, received his medal in an East Room ceremony at the White House.
The White House cited Barnet “for his contributions as an American painter, printmaker and teacher. His nuanced and graceful depictions of family and personal scenes, for which he is best known, are meticulously constructed of flat planes that reveal a lifelong exploration of abstraction, expressionism and geometry. For more than 80 years, Mr. Barnet has been a constant force in the visual arts world, marrying sophistication and emotion with beauty and form.”
Among others who received honors Monday were Al Pacino, Mel Tillis and Andre Watts.
In remarks prior to conferring the medals, Obama praised artists for their contributions to society, and characterized those honored as “icons” for their courage to “dwell in possibilities.”
“As much as we need engineers and scientists,” the president said, “we also need artists and scholars ... to disrupt our views and challenge our assumptions.”
Susan Danly, senior curator at the Portland Museum of Art, said the museum has 13 Barnet images in its collection, though none is currently on view.
“We are very proud of him,” Danly said. “This is a top honor bestowed on an artist in the country, and certainly Will Barnet is one of the pre-eminent painters in Maine today. He has a long-standing love of New England and of Maine.”
In an interview with the Maine Sunday Telegram in 2002, Barnet said that painting has been a way of life for as long as he could remember.
“It’s just a pattern of living that has been a part of me that began very early,” he said. “I had a studio in my father’s basement when I was 12 years old. By the time I was 14, I read every book on the history of art that was available. Today ... it’s a continuation of my whole life, of my whole being. It is something that is a natural pattern that flows every day. It’s just a part of me. Every day, I have ideas, thoughts or feelings that I like to express.”
He was born in Beverly, Mass., in May 1911 and first came to Maine in 1953.
He has received many awards in his life, including the first Artist’s Lifetime Achievement Award Medal given on the National Academy of Design’s 175th anniversary; the College Art Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award; the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art’s Lippincott Prize; and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters’ Childe Hassam Prize.
His paintings and prints are included in most major public collection in the United States, including the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
2012年2月12日星期日
You could buy Picassos, Dalis and Van Goghs in India
I now have some statistics from the India Art Fair that I can share with you. While individual sales figures have not been made public, Chemold Presscott Road and Chatterjee & Lal located in Mumbai were among the first galleries to make a sale at the fair. The work by the internationally acclaimed Rashid Rana, who is known for his installations of stainless steel combined with UV prints on aluminium, was sold.
It has been further stated that there were “strong sales of Indian and international contemporary art” and unlike other years, “photography, video and installation art works sold well”. The prices of individual art works are said to range from Rs 55,000 to over Rs 60 lakh. Despite the strong representation of buyers from all over the world — the USA, China, South Africa, Israel, Greece, France, Italy, Australia and West Asia — it is also learnt that the majority of buyers were Indian collectors. Corporate houses were also seen as keen buyers. Twenty six world famous museums such as the Tate, Guggenheim, New Museum, Pompidou Centre, San Jose Museum of Art, MoMA and the Singapore Art Museum visited the fair — a sure sign of how successful this art fair has been.
We can now move on to another important art happening that also adds to India’s staure in global art. Coming up on February 15 and 16, 2012, is the first–ever online auction of international art by Indian art auctioneers, Saffronart. The works were previewed at the Saffronart Gallery in Delhi last week and then moved to the Saffronart Gallery in Mumbai. The works that are included in the list being put up for sale includes some of the biggest names from the international art world, such as Van Gogh, Picasso, Dali, Leger, Dufy, Miro and acclaimed sculptor Henry Moore, whose preliminary drawings leading to the final sculpture, gives a rare glimpse into the artist’s style and approach to his work. Also included are works by another famous sculptor, Lynn Chadwick.
The press note clears all doubts when it states “With a total of 73 lots, the sale includes a wide variety of paintings, works on paper and sculptures of exceptional provenance and quality by leading Western artists”. Among the impressionist works we have Van Gogh’s oil L’Allee aux deux promeneurs (Lane with two figures), was painted in the Dutch village Neunen, in 1885. This work has been estimated at $1 million. Camille Pissarro’s Lisière du bois (Edge of the Wood), painted with sweeping strokes with the help of a palette knife may be considered an important work by one of the “grand masters of impressionism”
The modern section includes several works by Pablo Picasso, including a 1953 vibrant oil painting titled Le Transformateur, estimated between $400,000 and $450,000. Picasso is represented with the widest range of artworks, including paintings drawings and ceramics.
There is an impressive watercolour by Marc Chagall titled, L’Echelle au ciel (Ladder to the Sky), estimated at US$ 280,000-350,000. There are also works by the immensely popular artists such as Henri Matisse, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein.
It has been further stated that there were “strong sales of Indian and international contemporary art” and unlike other years, “photography, video and installation art works sold well”. The prices of individual art works are said to range from Rs 55,000 to over Rs 60 lakh. Despite the strong representation of buyers from all over the world — the USA, China, South Africa, Israel, Greece, France, Italy, Australia and West Asia — it is also learnt that the majority of buyers were Indian collectors. Corporate houses were also seen as keen buyers. Twenty six world famous museums such as the Tate, Guggenheim, New Museum, Pompidou Centre, San Jose Museum of Art, MoMA and the Singapore Art Museum visited the fair — a sure sign of how successful this art fair has been.
We can now move on to another important art happening that also adds to India’s staure in global art. Coming up on February 15 and 16, 2012, is the first–ever online auction of international art by Indian art auctioneers, Saffronart. The works were previewed at the Saffronart Gallery in Delhi last week and then moved to the Saffronart Gallery in Mumbai. The works that are included in the list being put up for sale includes some of the biggest names from the international art world, such as Van Gogh, Picasso, Dali, Leger, Dufy, Miro and acclaimed sculptor Henry Moore, whose preliminary drawings leading to the final sculpture, gives a rare glimpse into the artist’s style and approach to his work. Also included are works by another famous sculptor, Lynn Chadwick.
The press note clears all doubts when it states “With a total of 73 lots, the sale includes a wide variety of paintings, works on paper and sculptures of exceptional provenance and quality by leading Western artists”. Among the impressionist works we have Van Gogh’s oil L’Allee aux deux promeneurs (Lane with two figures), was painted in the Dutch village Neunen, in 1885. This work has been estimated at $1 million. Camille Pissarro’s Lisière du bois (Edge of the Wood), painted with sweeping strokes with the help of a palette knife may be considered an important work by one of the “grand masters of impressionism”
The modern section includes several works by Pablo Picasso, including a 1953 vibrant oil painting titled Le Transformateur, estimated between $400,000 and $450,000. Picasso is represented with the widest range of artworks, including paintings drawings and ceramics.
There is an impressive watercolour by Marc Chagall titled, L’Echelle au ciel (Ladder to the Sky), estimated at US$ 280,000-350,000. There are also works by the immensely popular artists such as Henri Matisse, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein.
2012年2月9日星期四
Augustus John's paintings owned by Liz Taylor raise 250,000 at auction
WORKS by one of Wales’ most celebrated and controversial artists that were owned by Hollywood superstar Dame Elizabeth Taylor fetched almost 250,000 at auction yesterday.
The works by Augustus John included portraits of former lovers and an oil painting of his daughter Poppet.
The 22 drawings and paintings formed part of the sale of Taylor’s artwork at Christie’s, which included works by Van Gogh, Degas and Pissarro.
Earlier this week the three masterpieces fetched a combined 13,787,750, more than double their pre-sale low estimate of 6.2m.
John, whose works sold for a total of 223,263, made his name painting portraits of leading figures of 1920s Britain like Lawrence of Arabia and George Bernard Shaw.
The portrait of Poppet, one of four children John had with second wife Dorothy McNeill, was the most valuable of the artist’s work to feature and sold for 85,250 against an estimate of 40,000 to 60,000.
Tristan de Vere Cole, who along with his mother Mavis was among John’s subjects and a close friend of Poppet’s, described the work as “very like her”.
Mr Cole, 70, who is believed to be the last of many children John fathered outside his two marriages, said: “I wouldn’t put it down as one of his best portraits – it’s in the mid-range.
“The hat, the face and the chair are very good indeed, though I’m not so sure about the fur.”
Taylor’s father Frank lived in John’s Hampstead home after the artist and inherited works left there by the painter.
The works were eventually passed on to the actress. She died last March.
Dr Paul Joyner, head of purchasing at the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, which holds several works by John, described the portrait of Poppet as an “absolute classic”.
Dr Joyner said: “He shows the coyness of the woman and it’s so full of sensuality, which is exactly what you’d expect from a fine Augustus John.
“He’s cut off the figure to really enhance the idea of the elegance of the woman.”
Dr Joyner said the 85,250 paid for the painting, dating from 1935, was a little over the 50,000 to 70,000 normally offered for works by the Tenby-born artist.
But he said the new owner was also paying for the painting’s “provenance” as a work previously owned by Taylor.
He said: “When you’ve got an interesting provenance you’re not just buying a picture – you’re buying a history.
“And when you’ve got a history like that – a beautiful woman having a portrait of another beautiful woman you’ve got something which is worth a lot extra.”
Retired film and television director Mr Cole, who spoke about John’s work at the National Library last year, said his son was planning to bid on a portrait of his mother that sold yesterday for 3,750.
His mother met her future husband, the eccentric prankster and poet William Horace de Vere Cole and John in 1928 at the Café Royal on Regent Street, in London.
Her marriage to the poet in 1930 was to be the beginning of an impressive social career as a “bright young thing” that saw her become John’s mistress four years later.
Taylor’s father was an art dealer with a gallery in Bond Street, London, who established a close relationship with the Welsh artist.
After relocating to California during the war, he opened an art gallery at the Chateau Elysée, but quickly moved it to the more impressive Beverly Hills Hotel.
There stars like Howard Duff, Vincent Price, James Mason, Alan Ladd, Hedda Hopper and Greta Garbo could be found picking art for their own collections.
Mr Taylor acted as John’s American agent for many years and was responsible for the artist gaining popularity in the United States.
John’s works sold yesterday featured in Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Day sale.
The works by Augustus John included portraits of former lovers and an oil painting of his daughter Poppet.
The 22 drawings and paintings formed part of the sale of Taylor’s artwork at Christie’s, which included works by Van Gogh, Degas and Pissarro.
Earlier this week the three masterpieces fetched a combined 13,787,750, more than double their pre-sale low estimate of 6.2m.
John, whose works sold for a total of 223,263, made his name painting portraits of leading figures of 1920s Britain like Lawrence of Arabia and George Bernard Shaw.
The portrait of Poppet, one of four children John had with second wife Dorothy McNeill, was the most valuable of the artist’s work to feature and sold for 85,250 against an estimate of 40,000 to 60,000.
Tristan de Vere Cole, who along with his mother Mavis was among John’s subjects and a close friend of Poppet’s, described the work as “very like her”.
Mr Cole, 70, who is believed to be the last of many children John fathered outside his two marriages, said: “I wouldn’t put it down as one of his best portraits – it’s in the mid-range.
“The hat, the face and the chair are very good indeed, though I’m not so sure about the fur.”
Taylor’s father Frank lived in John’s Hampstead home after the artist and inherited works left there by the painter.
The works were eventually passed on to the actress. She died last March.
Dr Paul Joyner, head of purchasing at the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, which holds several works by John, described the portrait of Poppet as an “absolute classic”.
Dr Joyner said: “He shows the coyness of the woman and it’s so full of sensuality, which is exactly what you’d expect from a fine Augustus John.
“He’s cut off the figure to really enhance the idea of the elegance of the woman.”
Dr Joyner said the 85,250 paid for the painting, dating from 1935, was a little over the 50,000 to 70,000 normally offered for works by the Tenby-born artist.
But he said the new owner was also paying for the painting’s “provenance” as a work previously owned by Taylor.
He said: “When you’ve got an interesting provenance you’re not just buying a picture – you’re buying a history.
“And when you’ve got a history like that – a beautiful woman having a portrait of another beautiful woman you’ve got something which is worth a lot extra.”
Retired film and television director Mr Cole, who spoke about John’s work at the National Library last year, said his son was planning to bid on a portrait of his mother that sold yesterday for 3,750.
His mother met her future husband, the eccentric prankster and poet William Horace de Vere Cole and John in 1928 at the Café Royal on Regent Street, in London.
Her marriage to the poet in 1930 was to be the beginning of an impressive social career as a “bright young thing” that saw her become John’s mistress four years later.
Taylor’s father was an art dealer with a gallery in Bond Street, London, who established a close relationship with the Welsh artist.
After relocating to California during the war, he opened an art gallery at the Chateau Elysée, but quickly moved it to the more impressive Beverly Hills Hotel.
There stars like Howard Duff, Vincent Price, James Mason, Alan Ladd, Hedda Hopper and Greta Garbo could be found picking art for their own collections.
Mr Taylor acted as John’s American agent for many years and was responsible for the artist gaining popularity in the United States.
John’s works sold yesterday featured in Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Day sale.
2012年2月8日星期三
Local artist offers oil painting class
Anthony Archuleta’s vision is to promote the arts in Monument and he is succeeding in doing just that with the formation of the Monument Arts Association.
Several artists, galleries and local merchants have come together recently to network and work together with the shared vision of bringing people into the area to enjoy what the Tri-Lakes art community has to offer.
“Our goal is to expand the arts in the community and it’s not just limited to the visual arts,” said Archuleta, owner of Secret Window Fine Art Gallery and Floral Studio. “We want the Tri-Lakes area to be known as an art destination.”
People all ready frequent the Tri-Lakes Center for the Arts in Palmer Lake and Archuleta said TLCA Executive Director Dr. Michael Maddox shares in his vision of making the whole Tri-Lakes community a destination for the arts.
As part of his vision Archuleta has recently started art classes at his studio, where he gives people the experience of painting with oils. For only $58 the students come into the studio where they will find a canvas and all the oil paints and brushes waiting for them.
“I walk them through a finished oil painting in two hours. They are treated like real artists,” Archuleta said, adding that word of his classes has been spreading by word of mouth and he has already had local residents and those who live in Colorado Springs and Denver participate in his classes.
“I will grab their hand and give them that feel of what the paint feels like on the canvass,” he said.
Archuleta wants to educate people on the arts and also hosts lectures at his studio. More recently there have been events and art shows hosted at Bella Art and Frame and Purple Mountain Jewelry. Additionally, Secret Window just received the 2012 Glass Slipper Ball People’s Choice Award for the creativity they bring to their unique floral arrangements.
The MAA will soon be starting an art night on the second Friday of each month. Archuleta chose Friday nights because it will be easier for people who live in Castle Rock, Denver, Colorado Springs and surrounding areas to attend. That night will go beyond just Monument and include artists in Woodmoor and Palmer Lake as well.
Several artists, galleries and local merchants have come together recently to network and work together with the shared vision of bringing people into the area to enjoy what the Tri-Lakes art community has to offer.
“Our goal is to expand the arts in the community and it’s not just limited to the visual arts,” said Archuleta, owner of Secret Window Fine Art Gallery and Floral Studio. “We want the Tri-Lakes area to be known as an art destination.”
People all ready frequent the Tri-Lakes Center for the Arts in Palmer Lake and Archuleta said TLCA Executive Director Dr. Michael Maddox shares in his vision of making the whole Tri-Lakes community a destination for the arts.
As part of his vision Archuleta has recently started art classes at his studio, where he gives people the experience of painting with oils. For only $58 the students come into the studio where they will find a canvas and all the oil paints and brushes waiting for them.
“I walk them through a finished oil painting in two hours. They are treated like real artists,” Archuleta said, adding that word of his classes has been spreading by word of mouth and he has already had local residents and those who live in Colorado Springs and Denver participate in his classes.
“I will grab their hand and give them that feel of what the paint feels like on the canvass,” he said.
Archuleta wants to educate people on the arts and also hosts lectures at his studio. More recently there have been events and art shows hosted at Bella Art and Frame and Purple Mountain Jewelry. Additionally, Secret Window just received the 2012 Glass Slipper Ball People’s Choice Award for the creativity they bring to their unique floral arrangements.
The MAA will soon be starting an art night on the second Friday of each month. Archuleta chose Friday nights because it will be easier for people who live in Castle Rock, Denver, Colorado Springs and surrounding areas to attend. That night will go beyond just Monument and include artists in Woodmoor and Palmer Lake as well.
2012年2月7日星期二
Life drawings isn’t too risque for Wirral – it’s art
PASSION for art is fed through many mediums and this week’s focus is on life drawings and oil painting.
Stripped back art classes with a back to basics approach are undertaken at Melrose Hall on Melrose Avenue, Hoylake.
The centre is run by volunteers and holds regular art classes each week.
The lessons are led by Dennis Spicer, who guides students to do life drawing with nude models and oil painting masterpieces.
Budding artists of any calibre are invited to join the group.
Dennis, who lives in West Kirby, said: “Teaching to draw became unfashionable from the 1970s with the emergence of abstract and conceptual art.
“I have always enjoyed figure drawing so when I moved to Wirral 10 years ago I looked for somewhere to continue my art and teach.
“I had previously taught life drawing in London, so when I was invited to tutor here at Melrose Hall I wanted to continue along with the already successful oil painting classes that took place.
“I wondered if people might think figure drawing was perhaps too risque for Hoylake, but I was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm and skill shown by people who have taken it up.
“We now have thriving sessions where experienced artists mix with amateurs and beginners, drawing both male and female models. We have a mixed age group who come to the sessions, including people who are retired and finding a new hobby.
“In the oil painting sessions, students are free to explore their own ideas. They produce many beautiful works which are shown at our annual art exhibition.”
Oil paintings classes are at the hall on Monday 10am-12noon, and life drawing is on Tuesdays, at 1pm-3pm and 7pm-9pm.
Stripped back art classes with a back to basics approach are undertaken at Melrose Hall on Melrose Avenue, Hoylake.
The centre is run by volunteers and holds regular art classes each week.
The lessons are led by Dennis Spicer, who guides students to do life drawing with nude models and oil painting masterpieces.
Budding artists of any calibre are invited to join the group.
Dennis, who lives in West Kirby, said: “Teaching to draw became unfashionable from the 1970s with the emergence of abstract and conceptual art.
“I have always enjoyed figure drawing so when I moved to Wirral 10 years ago I looked for somewhere to continue my art and teach.
“I had previously taught life drawing in London, so when I was invited to tutor here at Melrose Hall I wanted to continue along with the already successful oil painting classes that took place.
“I wondered if people might think figure drawing was perhaps too risque for Hoylake, but I was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm and skill shown by people who have taken it up.
“We now have thriving sessions where experienced artists mix with amateurs and beginners, drawing both male and female models. We have a mixed age group who come to the sessions, including people who are retired and finding a new hobby.
“In the oil painting sessions, students are free to explore their own ideas. They produce many beautiful works which are shown at our annual art exhibition.”
Oil paintings classes are at the hall on Monday 10am-12noon, and life drawing is on Tuesdays, at 1pm-3pm and 7pm-9pm.
2012年2月6日星期一
Artist David Grosvenor swaps his usual watercolours
LIVING on the slopes of the Moelwyns not far from Porthmadog, David Grosvenor is not short of breathtaking scenery.
What’s surprising is that until recently he rarely painted the mountains, preferring instead to produce summery watercolour paintings of flowers.
His latest exhibition, at Cardiff’s Albany Gallery this month, reflects a bold change of direction: there are some flower paintings but the majority of the work depicts the mountains of North Wales, executed in oils.
Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that he has managed to retain many of the fans who originally fell in love with his brighter, floral artwork.
Since changing his style he has had a number of sell-out shows in North Wales, and many of his buyers have collected his work for many years.
“I was very fortunate to take them with me,” he says. “A lot of people have told me, ‘I normally only like watercolours but I like your oils’.
“I wonder if it’s because I bring something of how I paint in watercolour into the oil paintings.”
The son of a missionary, David spent part of his childhood in Madagascar and studied English Literature and Art at Exeter University, where oil was his chosen medium.
His first career was as an illustrator and graphic designer in London but in 1991 he moved to Wales in order to focus on his painting.
His use of watercolour sprang from his background in illustration, and in Wales he found that it suited the summer months, when flowers were blooming in the garden and the light was bright.
Oils gradually emerged as a way to paint through the darker winter months.
“In the winter the light doesn’t suit watercolours,” he says.
“With watercolour you can get really lovely light bright colours because the paint is transparent and the paper shines through; it suits the sunny summer days. Oil isn’t like that; it’s dense, it’s opaque and when you start to mix the colours you’re much more likely to get more sombre colours. I think it suits moodier subjects.”
Nothing could be moodier than a mountain but David admits that he initially found them “a bit frightening” as a subject.
It was only as time went by and he started to walk their paths that he began getting to grips with them on canvas.
“I’m painting far more of the mountains now than I’ve ever tackled in the past – the textural quality of oil suits their ruggedness,” he says.
“I’ve started to walk more and when I get up there I find it completely energising. I wish I could take big canvases with me to work on.
“There’s a feeling about being up in the mountains looking over the edge of a crag that’s almost spooky, so the initial fear I had was probably not just about painting them but also going to some of those places as well.”
A string of wet, gloomy summers strengthened his resolve to paint mountain scenes, which are typically completed in the studio shortly after a mountain walk, while the colours and feelings are still fresh in his mind. Familiarity with his subject is vital.
“It’s rather like portrait painting,” he says.
“If you don’t know somebody and you’re asked to paint a portrait from a photograph, that painting cannot possibly depict that person because you’ve got no idea of their personality.
“It’s the same with mountains and flowers. I love gardening and growing the flowers that I paint. I think that kind of intimacy with your subject is important and that’s probably why I didn’t paint the mountains when I first moved here; I wasn’t intimate enough with them.”
His change of subject matter has gone hand in hand with a switch from brushes to palette knife.
“To start with I didn’t get on with them but I kept persisting and then stumbled across one particular shape of knife which is bliss to paint with, it just suits the way that I work.
“It’s shaped like a chisel and it completely changed my way of working.
“I think the biggest step forward I made in oil painting coincided with the finding of that knife. It has tiny corners so you can work in relatively small detail, but you’ve also got about two inches of blade itself so you can be quite expansive with it, painting not just with the wrist but with the whole arm.
“It’s made a huge difference to the way that I work and the satisfaction that I get from doing it.”
Satisfaction also comes from exhibiting his work at the Albany Gallery.
“Filling up cupboards and rooms with paintings would be quite a fruitless exercise but being able to get lovely feedback from people who’ve bought the paintings is really rewarding.
“I’m very fortunate that I do something I enjoy and can give pleasure to other people through that – I can’t tell you how lucky I feel.”
What’s surprising is that until recently he rarely painted the mountains, preferring instead to produce summery watercolour paintings of flowers.
His latest exhibition, at Cardiff’s Albany Gallery this month, reflects a bold change of direction: there are some flower paintings but the majority of the work depicts the mountains of North Wales, executed in oils.
Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that he has managed to retain many of the fans who originally fell in love with his brighter, floral artwork.
Since changing his style he has had a number of sell-out shows in North Wales, and many of his buyers have collected his work for many years.
“I was very fortunate to take them with me,” he says. “A lot of people have told me, ‘I normally only like watercolours but I like your oils’.
“I wonder if it’s because I bring something of how I paint in watercolour into the oil paintings.”
The son of a missionary, David spent part of his childhood in Madagascar and studied English Literature and Art at Exeter University, where oil was his chosen medium.
His first career was as an illustrator and graphic designer in London but in 1991 he moved to Wales in order to focus on his painting.
His use of watercolour sprang from his background in illustration, and in Wales he found that it suited the summer months, when flowers were blooming in the garden and the light was bright.
Oils gradually emerged as a way to paint through the darker winter months.
“In the winter the light doesn’t suit watercolours,” he says.
“With watercolour you can get really lovely light bright colours because the paint is transparent and the paper shines through; it suits the sunny summer days. Oil isn’t like that; it’s dense, it’s opaque and when you start to mix the colours you’re much more likely to get more sombre colours. I think it suits moodier subjects.”
Nothing could be moodier than a mountain but David admits that he initially found them “a bit frightening” as a subject.
It was only as time went by and he started to walk their paths that he began getting to grips with them on canvas.
“I’m painting far more of the mountains now than I’ve ever tackled in the past – the textural quality of oil suits their ruggedness,” he says.
“I’ve started to walk more and when I get up there I find it completely energising. I wish I could take big canvases with me to work on.
“There’s a feeling about being up in the mountains looking over the edge of a crag that’s almost spooky, so the initial fear I had was probably not just about painting them but also going to some of those places as well.”
A string of wet, gloomy summers strengthened his resolve to paint mountain scenes, which are typically completed in the studio shortly after a mountain walk, while the colours and feelings are still fresh in his mind. Familiarity with his subject is vital.
“It’s rather like portrait painting,” he says.
“If you don’t know somebody and you’re asked to paint a portrait from a photograph, that painting cannot possibly depict that person because you’ve got no idea of their personality.
“It’s the same with mountains and flowers. I love gardening and growing the flowers that I paint. I think that kind of intimacy with your subject is important and that’s probably why I didn’t paint the mountains when I first moved here; I wasn’t intimate enough with them.”
His change of subject matter has gone hand in hand with a switch from brushes to palette knife.
“To start with I didn’t get on with them but I kept persisting and then stumbled across one particular shape of knife which is bliss to paint with, it just suits the way that I work.
“It’s shaped like a chisel and it completely changed my way of working.
“I think the biggest step forward I made in oil painting coincided with the finding of that knife. It has tiny corners so you can work in relatively small detail, but you’ve also got about two inches of blade itself so you can be quite expansive with it, painting not just with the wrist but with the whole arm.
“It’s made a huge difference to the way that I work and the satisfaction that I get from doing it.”
Satisfaction also comes from exhibiting his work at the Albany Gallery.
“Filling up cupboards and rooms with paintings would be quite a fruitless exercise but being able to get lovely feedback from people who’ve bought the paintings is really rewarding.
“I’m very fortunate that I do something I enjoy and can give pleasure to other people through that – I can’t tell you how lucky I feel.”
2012年2月5日星期日
On the crest of a wave
If David Hockney has now been anointed Britain's Greatest Living Treasure, then there is little doubt who is the greatest master of the past.
J M W Turner is beloved not just in his home country as the supreme English water colourist but internationally as one of the true giants of art. We like him here for the extraordinary way in which he pictured the sea and the scenery suffused with light and mist and mood. Abroad, they admire him most for the way that he pushed painting, in oil as in watercolour, to the extreme edges of representation to the point where it became virtually abstract.
You can see that point and Turner's constant experiments with effect in a glorious show of some 80 of his works at the new Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate, built on the spot where Turner came every year to stay in the boarding house run by his mistress, Mrs Booth. Opened last year, it's a space, designed by David Chipperfield Architects, full of light and height. Both are needed for Turner's later work, where space and light themselves become the subject of his art.
So far, Turner Contemporary, a group founded 10 years ago, has concentrated almost exclusively on modern art from here and abroad. This is its first exhibition of its namesake and one, fittingly perhaps, which has been curated not by themselves but by the directors of the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg and the Muzeum Narodowe in Krakow in Poland, where it has already been shown before arriving here.
All to the good, one might say. The temptation of a home-grown exhibition would have been to concentrate on Turner's work done in Margate and the north Kent Coast, which he loved. But, while this show does include half-a-dozen of his local views, including some brilliant studies of the skies and clouds viewed from the harbour, the curators this time have ignored place and gone for what makes Turner incomparable as an artist: his determination to capture nature itself in all its moods and energy.
Its title, Turner and the Elements, says it all. Turner, so the thesis goes, lived at a time when science was breaking down all the old divisions of nature – in this case the four classical elements of fire, water, earth and air – and replacing them with a nature far more fluid and dynamic. Turner was the artistic expression of it.
That may well be a somewhat over-didactic view of a man so resolutely down to earth and taciturn as Turner, an old grouch if ever there was one and mean to boot, if the recollections of his mistress are anything to go by. Turner knew and was friends with scientists of his day and he was certainly interested in theory, particularly of colour. But it is hard to see him driven by the theories of science. What he set out to do, from his early days of embracing the romantic theories of the "sublime" in nature, was to depict sensation – the sensations experienced at sunrise and sunlight, in storm and dead calm, in rain and mist.
The division of the works into the four elements proves, however, a surprisingly effective way of witnessing his ambition as he develops and pushes his skills. You start with "earth" and the classic watercolour views of mountain and gorges, in which the artist expresses the sublime in the majesty of nature. But as his art progresses, the outlines are blurred and the forms dissolve into each other in the fluidity of the watercolour and the confidence of the brush.
With "fire" it is the same. The paintings start with the depiction of the event, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the burning of the House of Commons. But by the end it is the colour and energy of the fire itself that obsesses the artist, while with "water" and "air" the progression from observation to pure sensation is even more complete.
Move on into the room of "fusion", when Turner abandons all divisions between components, and you are taken into works so far ahead of their time that you have to look twice at the dating to believe them. In watercolours such as Colour Beginning of 1820 and the The Rainbow of the same period or Mont Saint Michel of 1827, you are privy to a mind that is attempting (and succeeding) to find a means for painting to express the essence not the appearance of nature. Of course, these are colour sketches, the workings of a mind experimenting with technique, not the finished products. There is always a danger with Turner in reflecting backwards a modern vision of a man whose aims were often more conventional and backward looking.
But if you doubt Turner's intentions, a final section shows this extraordinary artist translating what he was experimenting with watercolour into the much less malleable medium of oil. Paintings such as Stormy Sea with Dolphins of 1835-40 (spot the dolphins if you can), Shade and Darkness – the Evening of the Deluge from 1843 and Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth of 1842 are just stunning in the clear light of the Turner Contemporary building. They have titles. Turner has even added "the author was in this Storm on the Night the Ariel left Harwich" to his snow storm scene. They have subjects. But in the end they are beyond that. They are as near as you can get to abstraction without going the full hog. No wonder the American abstract expressionist, Mark Rothko, revered him and donated nine of his Four Seasons paintings to the Tate to hang near the Turners.
J M W Turner is beloved not just in his home country as the supreme English water colourist but internationally as one of the true giants of art. We like him here for the extraordinary way in which he pictured the sea and the scenery suffused with light and mist and mood. Abroad, they admire him most for the way that he pushed painting, in oil as in watercolour, to the extreme edges of representation to the point where it became virtually abstract.
You can see that point and Turner's constant experiments with effect in a glorious show of some 80 of his works at the new Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate, built on the spot where Turner came every year to stay in the boarding house run by his mistress, Mrs Booth. Opened last year, it's a space, designed by David Chipperfield Architects, full of light and height. Both are needed for Turner's later work, where space and light themselves become the subject of his art.
So far, Turner Contemporary, a group founded 10 years ago, has concentrated almost exclusively on modern art from here and abroad. This is its first exhibition of its namesake and one, fittingly perhaps, which has been curated not by themselves but by the directors of the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg and the Muzeum Narodowe in Krakow in Poland, where it has already been shown before arriving here.
All to the good, one might say. The temptation of a home-grown exhibition would have been to concentrate on Turner's work done in Margate and the north Kent Coast, which he loved. But, while this show does include half-a-dozen of his local views, including some brilliant studies of the skies and clouds viewed from the harbour, the curators this time have ignored place and gone for what makes Turner incomparable as an artist: his determination to capture nature itself in all its moods and energy.
Its title, Turner and the Elements, says it all. Turner, so the thesis goes, lived at a time when science was breaking down all the old divisions of nature – in this case the four classical elements of fire, water, earth and air – and replacing them with a nature far more fluid and dynamic. Turner was the artistic expression of it.
That may well be a somewhat over-didactic view of a man so resolutely down to earth and taciturn as Turner, an old grouch if ever there was one and mean to boot, if the recollections of his mistress are anything to go by. Turner knew and was friends with scientists of his day and he was certainly interested in theory, particularly of colour. But it is hard to see him driven by the theories of science. What he set out to do, from his early days of embracing the romantic theories of the "sublime" in nature, was to depict sensation – the sensations experienced at sunrise and sunlight, in storm and dead calm, in rain and mist.
The division of the works into the four elements proves, however, a surprisingly effective way of witnessing his ambition as he develops and pushes his skills. You start with "earth" and the classic watercolour views of mountain and gorges, in which the artist expresses the sublime in the majesty of nature. But as his art progresses, the outlines are blurred and the forms dissolve into each other in the fluidity of the watercolour and the confidence of the brush.
With "fire" it is the same. The paintings start with the depiction of the event, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the burning of the House of Commons. But by the end it is the colour and energy of the fire itself that obsesses the artist, while with "water" and "air" the progression from observation to pure sensation is even more complete.
Move on into the room of "fusion", when Turner abandons all divisions between components, and you are taken into works so far ahead of their time that you have to look twice at the dating to believe them. In watercolours such as Colour Beginning of 1820 and the The Rainbow of the same period or Mont Saint Michel of 1827, you are privy to a mind that is attempting (and succeeding) to find a means for painting to express the essence not the appearance of nature. Of course, these are colour sketches, the workings of a mind experimenting with technique, not the finished products. There is always a danger with Turner in reflecting backwards a modern vision of a man whose aims were often more conventional and backward looking.
But if you doubt Turner's intentions, a final section shows this extraordinary artist translating what he was experimenting with watercolour into the much less malleable medium of oil. Paintings such as Stormy Sea with Dolphins of 1835-40 (spot the dolphins if you can), Shade and Darkness – the Evening of the Deluge from 1843 and Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth of 1842 are just stunning in the clear light of the Turner Contemporary building. They have titles. Turner has even added "the author was in this Storm on the Night the Ariel left Harwich" to his snow storm scene. They have subjects. But in the end they are beyond that. They are as near as you can get to abstraction without going the full hog. No wonder the American abstract expressionist, Mark Rothko, revered him and donated nine of his Four Seasons paintings to the Tate to hang near the Turners.
2012年2月2日星期四
More Kupka at Kampa Museum
The Kampa Museum's already rich collection of artworks by Frantisek Kupka, a seminal Czech abstract painter who spent most of his life in France, will soon be even richer, as the museum has purchased the collection of American art historian Lilli Lonngren Anders.
"In total, it is 41 works of art, including an interesting oil painting, Portrait of Kupka's Step-daughter AndrEe (1906), which foreshadows his later abstract period," says Jii Machalicky, curator of the Kampa Museum.
The museum foundation paid half a million U.S. dollars for the collection, which many consider a very good price for the oil paintings, drawings, studies and documents.
Should a competition for the most influential painter of the 20th-century avant-garde ever be held, only a few names would be considered, including Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky, all of whom are today some of the most expensive artists on the market.
Though he may not be as internationally recognized as those names, Kupka commands high prices around the world. For instance, in March 2009, Kupka's painting Zhrouceni vertikal (Breakdown of Verticals) from 1935 was sold for nearly 26 million Kc.
"This past summer, Kupka's painting Movement from the Hascoe Collection sold for 43 million Kc, but this painting didn't go to the Czech Republic; the buyer was foreign," says Jan Skivanek, editor-in-chief of Art & Antiques magazine.
"The thing with Kupka is there are only a few oil paintings on the market, and he is not frequently a part of auctions. Kupka's paintings appear rarely. This fact undermines the price rise. This is not the case of, say, Picasso, whose paintings are not rare on the market," Skivanek adds.
Kupka's paintings can easily find buyers on the market, but studies and graphics are a harder sell, as there have been cases of counterfeit pieces in the past, and buyers are now generally cautious.
The authenticity of the collection purchased by the Kampa Museum, however, is not up for dispute. Lonngren Anders met the elderly Czech painter before his death in 1957 as she "was a young art historian sent to Paris by former Museum of Modern Art Director Alfred Barr Jr., who considered Kupka the first abstract painter and wanted to find out what was his basis, starting points, how he got to the abstraction," Machalicky says.
Included in the collection are also some documents and original catalogs of Kupka's exhibitions, some with Kupka's own notes about prices, which are perfect material for further studies. Though the collection contains mainly works on paper and small studies, which are not even watercolors but simply drawings that would be not as easy to sell as large paintings, for a museum it is perfect material.
"It is a superb collection, and one of the reasons Lonngren Anders sold it for such a good price was she wanted to keep the collection together and also pass it on to some museum where Kupka is the main star," Skivanek says.
Kupka was born in 1871 in Opocno, east Bohemia, and first studied to be a saddler. The young man soon established a small painting workshop and then went on to study painting at the Prague Art Academy in 1886. Later, he studied in Vienna, and then he moved to Paris to attend the famous Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1905, he moved to Puteaux, a suburb of Paris, where he died in 1957.
The Kampa Museum opened in September 2001, and since then has become an important part of the Prague art scene. The museum shows the Central European art collection that Jan and Meda Mladek amassed in their American exile, together with the collection of Jii and Běla Kola and works by Jindich Chalupecky as well as temporary exhibitions. Also in the permanent collection are a large number of works by Otto Gutfreund and, of course, Frantisek Kupka.
"In total, it is 41 works of art, including an interesting oil painting, Portrait of Kupka's Step-daughter AndrEe (1906), which foreshadows his later abstract period," says Jii Machalicky, curator of the Kampa Museum.
The museum foundation paid half a million U.S. dollars for the collection, which many consider a very good price for the oil paintings, drawings, studies and documents.
Should a competition for the most influential painter of the 20th-century avant-garde ever be held, only a few names would be considered, including Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky, all of whom are today some of the most expensive artists on the market.
Though he may not be as internationally recognized as those names, Kupka commands high prices around the world. For instance, in March 2009, Kupka's painting Zhrouceni vertikal (Breakdown of Verticals) from 1935 was sold for nearly 26 million Kc.
"This past summer, Kupka's painting Movement from the Hascoe Collection sold for 43 million Kc, but this painting didn't go to the Czech Republic; the buyer was foreign," says Jan Skivanek, editor-in-chief of Art & Antiques magazine.
"The thing with Kupka is there are only a few oil paintings on the market, and he is not frequently a part of auctions. Kupka's paintings appear rarely. This fact undermines the price rise. This is not the case of, say, Picasso, whose paintings are not rare on the market," Skivanek adds.
Kupka's paintings can easily find buyers on the market, but studies and graphics are a harder sell, as there have been cases of counterfeit pieces in the past, and buyers are now generally cautious.
The authenticity of the collection purchased by the Kampa Museum, however, is not up for dispute. Lonngren Anders met the elderly Czech painter before his death in 1957 as she "was a young art historian sent to Paris by former Museum of Modern Art Director Alfred Barr Jr., who considered Kupka the first abstract painter and wanted to find out what was his basis, starting points, how he got to the abstraction," Machalicky says.
Included in the collection are also some documents and original catalogs of Kupka's exhibitions, some with Kupka's own notes about prices, which are perfect material for further studies. Though the collection contains mainly works on paper and small studies, which are not even watercolors but simply drawings that would be not as easy to sell as large paintings, for a museum it is perfect material.
"It is a superb collection, and one of the reasons Lonngren Anders sold it for such a good price was she wanted to keep the collection together and also pass it on to some museum where Kupka is the main star," Skivanek says.
Kupka was born in 1871 in Opocno, east Bohemia, and first studied to be a saddler. The young man soon established a small painting workshop and then went on to study painting at the Prague Art Academy in 1886. Later, he studied in Vienna, and then he moved to Paris to attend the famous Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1905, he moved to Puteaux, a suburb of Paris, where he died in 1957.
The Kampa Museum opened in September 2001, and since then has become an important part of the Prague art scene. The museum shows the Central European art collection that Jan and Meda Mladek amassed in their American exile, together with the collection of Jii and Běla Kola and works by Jindich Chalupecky as well as temporary exhibitions. Also in the permanent collection are a large number of works by Otto Gutfreund and, of course, Frantisek Kupka.
2012年2月1日星期三
Eager artists get painting lesson at APL
A handful of lucky youth got the chance to put paint brush to canvas this past weekend when local painter Lorne Peterson taught a classroom full of eager artists the fine art of oil painting at the Airdrie Public Library.
The class, which ran from 1 to 2:30 pm, was part of the library’s ongoing Art in the Library program which encourages artists from all mediums and disciplines to share their skills and talents with youth in the community through the teaching of hands-on seminars and workshops. Classes are open to children ages 9 to 12 years of age and cost a total of $3 for supplies.
“I really enjoy teaching art to children because all of my four children, since the age of six, have won first prize in art,” said Peterson. “My 13-year-old daughter was actually accepted into the Calgary Stampede Art Auction and sold her painting for $600 to a collector from Idaho and my eldest daughter was selling numerous pencil portrait sketches to her place of employment when she was only 17.”
Though his own love of painting didn’t take root as early as those of his children and students, Peterson has managed to make up for lost time by creating gorgeous paintings that incorporate his love of tall ships, western landscapes and personal portraits.
“I first began oil painting at about 18-years-old,” noted Peterson. “I applied to attend the Nova Scotia College of Art and the school suggested I attend a life class. Not knowing any better I attended the class, which turned out to be a bad decision. I then [enrolled] in a graphic arts class.”
Not satisfied with what he was learning in the classroom, Peterson decided to take his studies to the library where he began reading books about 15th century art and artists. Self-taught, he began to dabble in various mediums, including photography, but eventually settled on oils.
“I paint in oils mainly because of the special effects I can achieve and also the durability
of the finished picture,” explained Peterson. “Great paintings from the past and notable contemporary art are all in oils.”
Though the process of painting a picture can take up to 60 hours to complete, Peterson never tires of the process and remains inspired by the world around him.
“I have always enjoyed learning,” he explained. “Upon leaving school I was a machinist, a marine engineer, an artist, and from there a design draftsman. Art of course is certainly my favourite because it is artistic and painting is capturing light, similar to photography.”
The class, which ran from 1 to 2:30 pm, was part of the library’s ongoing Art in the Library program which encourages artists from all mediums and disciplines to share their skills and talents with youth in the community through the teaching of hands-on seminars and workshops. Classes are open to children ages 9 to 12 years of age and cost a total of $3 for supplies.
“I really enjoy teaching art to children because all of my four children, since the age of six, have won first prize in art,” said Peterson. “My 13-year-old daughter was actually accepted into the Calgary Stampede Art Auction and sold her painting for $600 to a collector from Idaho and my eldest daughter was selling numerous pencil portrait sketches to her place of employment when she was only 17.”
Though his own love of painting didn’t take root as early as those of his children and students, Peterson has managed to make up for lost time by creating gorgeous paintings that incorporate his love of tall ships, western landscapes and personal portraits.
“I first began oil painting at about 18-years-old,” noted Peterson. “I applied to attend the Nova Scotia College of Art and the school suggested I attend a life class. Not knowing any better I attended the class, which turned out to be a bad decision. I then [enrolled] in a graphic arts class.”
Not satisfied with what he was learning in the classroom, Peterson decided to take his studies to the library where he began reading books about 15th century art and artists. Self-taught, he began to dabble in various mediums, including photography, but eventually settled on oils.
“I paint in oils mainly because of the special effects I can achieve and also the durability
of the finished picture,” explained Peterson. “Great paintings from the past and notable contemporary art are all in oils.”
Though the process of painting a picture can take up to 60 hours to complete, Peterson never tires of the process and remains inspired by the world around him.
“I have always enjoyed learning,” he explained. “Upon leaving school I was a machinist, a marine engineer, an artist, and from there a design draftsman. Art of course is certainly my favourite because it is artistic and painting is capturing light, similar to photography.”
2012年1月31日星期二
Portal fan turns home office into Aperture Laboratories
Detailed at Telnets.org, a fan of Valve’s Portal series converted his computer room into a full-blown Aperture Laboratories office complete with a Cave Johnson oil painting, Test Chamber sign, lemon grenades and even a hidden message within the room. After leaving the home office beige for the last three years, he decided to give the entire room a theme rather than simply changing the paint color. While Nintendo’s Mario franchise was definitely in the running for a theme design, he eventually decided on Portal after seeing other DIY Portal designs on the Internet. For instance, Vector Farr’s bedroom made headlines after appearing on YouTube during late 2011.
The main focal point of the room is the Test Chamber accent wall with a giant Aperture Laboratories logo. After designing a scale mock-up of the wall using CorelDraw, he masked off panels using string guides as well as painter’s tape before painting select panels to match the design of a typical Aperture Laboratories room. Using a vector copy of the logo, he shopped around with local sign makers until finding a company that would provide a paper template of the logo for less than $100.
The entire cost of the logo with painting supplies was $142 and he even had enough paint left over to create a hidden message within the closet. Painted in a similar fashion to the messages hidden within the Portal 2 environment, it says “Though Earth and Man are gone, I thought the cube would last forever. I WAS WRONG.”
To the left of the accent wall, he wanted to hang a Cave Johnson oil painting. Voiced by actor J.K. Simmons within Portal 2, Cave Johnson is the founder and CEO of Aperture Science. While Thinkgeek has a similar portrait for sale, the Portal fan wanted to create something more unique for the home office.
He hired an artist to create an oil painting of Cave Johnson from a photograph and mounted the finished version inside a 16”x20” wooden frame. At the bottom of the frame, he also fixed a brushed gold nameplate that says “Cave Johnson: Science isn’t about why, it’s about why not!” This portion of the project cost $105 plus shipping for the print.
Next to the main desk on the opposite side of the accent wall, he mounted a lighted Test Chamber sign identical to the one found within the Portal games. With a budget of less than $100 for this portion of the project, he started with a 16”x31” shadowbox frame which he painted gray. To light the inside of the box, he used a 10 meter strip of LED lighting mounted to white foam core board which reflects much of the light when turned on.
After acquiring a sheet of translucent white plexi-glass that was cut to the right size, he found the Test Chamber icons in vector format on the Web as well as the font used within Portal. After working up the project to scale in CorelDraw again, he sent off the layout to a friend with a vinyl cutter and eventually applied the sticky film to the front of the unit.
The final DIY addition to the the Portal-themed home office are two lemon grenades. Taking about an hour to create, he purchased two fake plastic lemons from a crafts store as well as two inert grenades that he found at a local army surplus store. After applying a coat of paint to the top of the grenades, he cut holes in each lemon and screwed in the grenade tops as well as adding a bit of adhesive caulking. Using the vinyl cutter again, he created a stencil of the Aperture Laboratories circular logo and airbrushed that onto the side of the lemon. The entire project cost approximately eight dollars per lemon grenade.
Other Portal-themed additions to the room include a Companion Cube cookie jar converted to a planter, a set of Portal bookends, a GLaDOS model and a “Don’t drink the water!” drink coaster. A full gallery of the project’s creation can be seen here.
The main focal point of the room is the Test Chamber accent wall with a giant Aperture Laboratories logo. After designing a scale mock-up of the wall using CorelDraw, he masked off panels using string guides as well as painter’s tape before painting select panels to match the design of a typical Aperture Laboratories room. Using a vector copy of the logo, he shopped around with local sign makers until finding a company that would provide a paper template of the logo for less than $100.
The entire cost of the logo with painting supplies was $142 and he even had enough paint left over to create a hidden message within the closet. Painted in a similar fashion to the messages hidden within the Portal 2 environment, it says “Though Earth and Man are gone, I thought the cube would last forever. I WAS WRONG.”
To the left of the accent wall, he wanted to hang a Cave Johnson oil painting. Voiced by actor J.K. Simmons within Portal 2, Cave Johnson is the founder and CEO of Aperture Science. While Thinkgeek has a similar portrait for sale, the Portal fan wanted to create something more unique for the home office.
He hired an artist to create an oil painting of Cave Johnson from a photograph and mounted the finished version inside a 16”x20” wooden frame. At the bottom of the frame, he also fixed a brushed gold nameplate that says “Cave Johnson: Science isn’t about why, it’s about why not!” This portion of the project cost $105 plus shipping for the print.
Next to the main desk on the opposite side of the accent wall, he mounted a lighted Test Chamber sign identical to the one found within the Portal games. With a budget of less than $100 for this portion of the project, he started with a 16”x31” shadowbox frame which he painted gray. To light the inside of the box, he used a 10 meter strip of LED lighting mounted to white foam core board which reflects much of the light when turned on.
After acquiring a sheet of translucent white plexi-glass that was cut to the right size, he found the Test Chamber icons in vector format on the Web as well as the font used within Portal. After working up the project to scale in CorelDraw again, he sent off the layout to a friend with a vinyl cutter and eventually applied the sticky film to the front of the unit.
The final DIY addition to the the Portal-themed home office are two lemon grenades. Taking about an hour to create, he purchased two fake plastic lemons from a crafts store as well as two inert grenades that he found at a local army surplus store. After applying a coat of paint to the top of the grenades, he cut holes in each lemon and screwed in the grenade tops as well as adding a bit of adhesive caulking. Using the vinyl cutter again, he created a stencil of the Aperture Laboratories circular logo and airbrushed that onto the side of the lemon. The entire project cost approximately eight dollars per lemon grenade.
Other Portal-themed additions to the room include a Companion Cube cookie jar converted to a planter, a set of Portal bookends, a GLaDOS model and a “Don’t drink the water!” drink coaster. A full gallery of the project’s creation can be seen here.
2012年1月30日星期一
‘Doubt’ display celebrates uncertainty
Blurred images and hazy landscapes dominate “Beauty in Doubt,” a Ruffin Gallery exhibit featuring the unconventional oil paintings of Tom Burckhardt , who abandons the canvas for cast-plastic backgrounds. Burckhardt’s new work underscores the doubt present in the things we see around us and the things we attempt to construct.
Even in a time when digital photography and modern sculpture tend to eclipse more traditional art forms, for Burckhardt, the evolution of painting has a lot of room for growth . In fact, painting is more important than ever to illuminate the absurd nature of how we live today.
The most immediately striking thing in viewing his work is the proclamation of his paint, which Burckhardt achieves by using bright gradients and bold colors. In certain Burckhardt paintings the effect creates a sense of exaggerated reality. Houses are not green, faces are not red, patterns do not suddenly appear, but maybe, if the viewer squints hard enough or looks long enough, these things might eventually emerge.
In works such as American (2011) and Rakish (2011) , Burckhardt pursues the concept of fragmented reality . The face only half exists , to the point where the viewer often is not sure what Burckhardt is trying to display. The doubt comes back, not to mock the modern notion of painting, but rather to play with it, to display its flexibility.
In addition to their common theme of doubt, Burckhardt’s paintings also use pareidolia. Pareidolia, seen in Rorschach’s inkblot tests, describes the psychological situation in which people perceive vague or random images as significant. In Burckhardt’s pieces, faces appear out of patterns, colors and shapes. An intriguing aspect of these works is this exact paralleling of patterns and colors. By default, our minds attempt to work out some significance in the way these elements are put together. We see faces and houses where objectively there are only green lines and black triangles. Burckhardt has described the process of realizing these images as though “they grow into individuals, as paintings, by growing into individuals as representations of faces.”
Artists have not completely rejected cast-plastic and cardboard, but these types of mixed media are frequently considered to be a lower-class form of art. Certain factions of the artistic world praise such works, but many critics bemoan this alleged “fall” of the artistic form from its historic pedestal. Burckhardt focuses on the middle ground between these two attitudes. Burckhardt has seen the life cycle of painting occur many times over and he seems to show amusement in the face of its repeated death and resurrection. The hazy distortions of Burckhardt’s paintings seem to dismiss the existence of previous works of the more academic artistic canon.
Conceptual quibbling aside, Burckhardt’s interplay of colors and patterns is beautiful in its own right. Notions of doubt and historical ambivalence, however, underlie any sense of simplicity in his pieces. They are by no means immediately attractive, but their meditations on absurdity, doubt and the artificiality of conventional beauty make them fascinating fodder for both thought and sight.
Even in a time when digital photography and modern sculpture tend to eclipse more traditional art forms, for Burckhardt, the evolution of painting has a lot of room for growth . In fact, painting is more important than ever to illuminate the absurd nature of how we live today.
The most immediately striking thing in viewing his work is the proclamation of his paint, which Burckhardt achieves by using bright gradients and bold colors. In certain Burckhardt paintings the effect creates a sense of exaggerated reality. Houses are not green, faces are not red, patterns do not suddenly appear, but maybe, if the viewer squints hard enough or looks long enough, these things might eventually emerge.
In works such as American (2011) and Rakish (2011) , Burckhardt pursues the concept of fragmented reality . The face only half exists , to the point where the viewer often is not sure what Burckhardt is trying to display. The doubt comes back, not to mock the modern notion of painting, but rather to play with it, to display its flexibility.
In addition to their common theme of doubt, Burckhardt’s paintings also use pareidolia. Pareidolia, seen in Rorschach’s inkblot tests, describes the psychological situation in which people perceive vague or random images as significant. In Burckhardt’s pieces, faces appear out of patterns, colors and shapes. An intriguing aspect of these works is this exact paralleling of patterns and colors. By default, our minds attempt to work out some significance in the way these elements are put together. We see faces and houses where objectively there are only green lines and black triangles. Burckhardt has described the process of realizing these images as though “they grow into individuals, as paintings, by growing into individuals as representations of faces.”
Artists have not completely rejected cast-plastic and cardboard, but these types of mixed media are frequently considered to be a lower-class form of art. Certain factions of the artistic world praise such works, but many critics bemoan this alleged “fall” of the artistic form from its historic pedestal. Burckhardt focuses on the middle ground between these two attitudes. Burckhardt has seen the life cycle of painting occur many times over and he seems to show amusement in the face of its repeated death and resurrection. The hazy distortions of Burckhardt’s paintings seem to dismiss the existence of previous works of the more academic artistic canon.
Conceptual quibbling aside, Burckhardt’s interplay of colors and patterns is beautiful in its own right. Notions of doubt and historical ambivalence, however, underlie any sense of simplicity in his pieces. They are by no means immediately attractive, but their meditations on absurdity, doubt and the artificiality of conventional beauty make them fascinating fodder for both thought and sight.
2012年1月29日星期日
Artist finds her inspiration in a close call long ago
When the shouts and the screams faded away and she was alone out on the water where the rip current had carried her, Cheryl Dyment thought back to what she’d been taught in swimming lessons years earlier. The teenager lay on her back and floated.
The sun made the water sparkle like diamonds, and she could see the curvature of the earth. “I can smile when I think about it. [Floating] was a beautiful thing. I never felt scared; I never felt panicked. I was just appreciating being in the moment, I guess.’’
At least until an arm came out of nowhere and tried to grab her. The arm belonged to a lifeguard, who helped her back to shore with the aid of a tow rope and probably saved her life. According to Dyment’s recollection, several other people were also caught in the current on that sunny day in August 1969 at Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester, and one drowned. But she shook it off and went on with her life.
It wasn’t until 2009 that she realized how profound her experience alone on the ocean had been. A successful landscape painter in oils, she was used to beginning her paintings on scene, “en plein air.’’ But she changed track one day in her home studio in Middleton and decided to paint from memory a floater’s-eye-view image of sky and water.
That painting, “Regression (or the Day I Didn’t Drown),’’ was quickly followed by more. Now they make up the bulk of her exhibition, “The Importance of Floating and Other Lessons,’’ which opens at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport on Wednesday and runs through March 11.
The Good Harbor experience, she said, is “like this place that I can go back to, like a well, and just pull stuff out.’’
Told that the ripples at the center of “Regression’’ make it appear that she has, indeed, gone under, Dyment, who is 61, shrugged and smiled. “I was supported by the water,’’ she said, “but I felt like I was of the water.’’
Dyment grew up in Melrose. She and her friend, Mary Garden, then both 19, figured they could enjoy a warm Saturday at their favorite beach. Dyment brought along her 10-year-old sister, Beverly. Mary, who drove, brought her brother, Eddie, also 10. Eventually they left the kids to play on the sand and headed into the water.
Dyment soon felt the current pulling her away from shore. Remembering a safety lesson, she tried to swim parallel to it, but kept getting pulled away. She heard Mary getting pulled under, but what really scared her was when some “grown men’’ nearby began screaming for rescue as well.
The sun made the water sparkle like diamonds, and she could see the curvature of the earth. “I can smile when I think about it. [Floating] was a beautiful thing. I never felt scared; I never felt panicked. I was just appreciating being in the moment, I guess.’’
At least until an arm came out of nowhere and tried to grab her. The arm belonged to a lifeguard, who helped her back to shore with the aid of a tow rope and probably saved her life. According to Dyment’s recollection, several other people were also caught in the current on that sunny day in August 1969 at Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester, and one drowned. But she shook it off and went on with her life.
It wasn’t until 2009 that she realized how profound her experience alone on the ocean had been. A successful landscape painter in oils, she was used to beginning her paintings on scene, “en plein air.’’ But she changed track one day in her home studio in Middleton and decided to paint from memory a floater’s-eye-view image of sky and water.
That painting, “Regression (or the Day I Didn’t Drown),’’ was quickly followed by more. Now they make up the bulk of her exhibition, “The Importance of Floating and Other Lessons,’’ which opens at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport on Wednesday and runs through March 11.
The Good Harbor experience, she said, is “like this place that I can go back to, like a well, and just pull stuff out.’’
Told that the ripples at the center of “Regression’’ make it appear that she has, indeed, gone under, Dyment, who is 61, shrugged and smiled. “I was supported by the water,’’ she said, “but I felt like I was of the water.’’
Dyment grew up in Melrose. She and her friend, Mary Garden, then both 19, figured they could enjoy a warm Saturday at their favorite beach. Dyment brought along her 10-year-old sister, Beverly. Mary, who drove, brought her brother, Eddie, also 10. Eventually they left the kids to play on the sand and headed into the water.
Dyment soon felt the current pulling her away from shore. Remembering a safety lesson, she tried to swim parallel to it, but kept getting pulled away. She heard Mary getting pulled under, but what really scared her was when some “grown men’’ nearby began screaming for rescue as well.
2012年1月19日星期四
Yorkshire roots dab Hockney’s canvas
Bradford-born David Hockney, considered to be one of the greatest British artists alive, dazzles with his innovative approach to natural beauty in his stylised landscapes, mostly of his native Yorkshire, in his exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, due to open on Saturday in London.
The exhibition, jointly curated by independent curator Marco Livingstone and Edith Devaney of the Royal Academy of Arts, focuses on oil paintings by Hockney, but includes charcoal and iPad drawings, sketchbooks, photographs and films too.
Hockney, who was invited to hold the exhibition of his landscapes at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2007, was very clear that he did not want it to be a retrospective of his work. He created huge iPad prints of Yosemite Valley in California, a recreation of 17th century French painter Claude Lorrain’s The Sermon on the Mount and a set of paintings of Yorkshire’s Woldgate Woods.
“The biggest artistic influence on Hockney has been Picasso,” reveals Livingstone, adding that Hockney, who had moved to California in 1964, was drawn back to his Yorkshire roots when he moved back for six months in 1997 to spend time with his dying friend, Jonathan Silver.
Hockney was inspired by his stay in Yorkshire to paint the landscapes of his native county from memory, a combination of his daily visits from his mother’s home to his ill friend’s house and his childhood reminiscences.
“By moving to painting landscapes, I am sure at the back of his mind he must have had a small thought about how he would be able to free himself of Picasso’s influence,” said Livingstone, adding that his use of bold and striking colours is “a way of inviting spectators into the personal space of the painting and experience the feeling for themselves.”
Hockney, who has been living and painting in Bridlington, the seaside town in Yorkshire, which time forgot, as the 74-year-old artist likes to say, has been focusing on examining the same place at different times of day and seasons.
“The quality of light in that part of East Yorkshire is close to magical,” says Edith Devaney, adding that Hockney is completely attuned to the changes brought about by time and seasons.
The changes in the Yorkshire seasons, the cycle of growth and variations in light conditions are best captured in the section of paintings on hawthorn blossoms, the ephemeral white flowers, he refers to as “nature’s erection.”
The centrepiece of the exhibition is the huge The Arrival Of Spring In Woldgate, East Yorkshire painting made up of 32 separate canvases surrounded by 51 iPad drawings of the transition from winter to spring on one small road.
The exhibition has many paintings by Hockney where he has used his oft-repeated grid, dividing a large imposing painting into multiple smaller canvases to give a collage-like image to the painting.
Hockney has carried on this technique, which he developed as part of his early photocollages, to his experimental films on his art too. “The influence of his links to theatre has led to his conviction that his art must be seen and be visible from far, at every level, giving it a grandness very rare to see,” says Devaney.
The exhibition, jointly curated by independent curator Marco Livingstone and Edith Devaney of the Royal Academy of Arts, focuses on oil paintings by Hockney, but includes charcoal and iPad drawings, sketchbooks, photographs and films too.
Hockney, who was invited to hold the exhibition of his landscapes at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2007, was very clear that he did not want it to be a retrospective of his work. He created huge iPad prints of Yosemite Valley in California, a recreation of 17th century French painter Claude Lorrain’s The Sermon on the Mount and a set of paintings of Yorkshire’s Woldgate Woods.
“The biggest artistic influence on Hockney has been Picasso,” reveals Livingstone, adding that Hockney, who had moved to California in 1964, was drawn back to his Yorkshire roots when he moved back for six months in 1997 to spend time with his dying friend, Jonathan Silver.
Hockney was inspired by his stay in Yorkshire to paint the landscapes of his native county from memory, a combination of his daily visits from his mother’s home to his ill friend’s house and his childhood reminiscences.
“By moving to painting landscapes, I am sure at the back of his mind he must have had a small thought about how he would be able to free himself of Picasso’s influence,” said Livingstone, adding that his use of bold and striking colours is “a way of inviting spectators into the personal space of the painting and experience the feeling for themselves.”
Hockney, who has been living and painting in Bridlington, the seaside town in Yorkshire, which time forgot, as the 74-year-old artist likes to say, has been focusing on examining the same place at different times of day and seasons.
“The quality of light in that part of East Yorkshire is close to magical,” says Edith Devaney, adding that Hockney is completely attuned to the changes brought about by time and seasons.
The changes in the Yorkshire seasons, the cycle of growth and variations in light conditions are best captured in the section of paintings on hawthorn blossoms, the ephemeral white flowers, he refers to as “nature’s erection.”
The centrepiece of the exhibition is the huge The Arrival Of Spring In Woldgate, East Yorkshire painting made up of 32 separate canvases surrounded by 51 iPad drawings of the transition from winter to spring on one small road.
The exhibition has many paintings by Hockney where he has used his oft-repeated grid, dividing a large imposing painting into multiple smaller canvases to give a collage-like image to the painting.
Hockney has carried on this technique, which he developed as part of his early photocollages, to his experimental films on his art too. “The influence of his links to theatre has led to his conviction that his art must be seen and be visible from far, at every level, giving it a grandness very rare to see,” says Devaney.
2012年1月18日星期三
Marciano friend is also a gifted artist
As Brockton prepares to honor homegrown boxing legend Rocky Marciano, a boyhood friend and his art are also getting some overdue attentions.
John Jantomaso, 91, whose “best pal” was Marciano trainer Allie Colombo, started painting when he was selected in middle school as one of two students to receive free lessons from the art teacher at Brockton High School.
“I did an oil with him,” said Jantomaso. “We had it three-quarters done; we went to continue it, and somebody stole it.”
His teacher felt so bad about it he made Jantomaso the subject of a portrait that continues to hang in the living room at his Westwood Avenue home.
After marrying at the age of 26, Jantomaso began to lose interest in his artistic endeavors and did not paint or draw for more than 40 years.
That changed three years ago after health problems forced him to give up golf, one of his favorite pastimes.
“My health stopped me from playing golf the way I used to,” said Jantomaso.
“I had to consume my time in another manner, and I said, ‘I’m going to start drawing’”
Jantomaso’s work is heavily inspired by photographs he sees in magazines. In a three-year period, he has sketched famous figures such as Halle Berry; Tom Brady; Ronald Reagan; golf writer and Brockton native Herbert Warren Wind, who coined the term the “Amen Corner” and, of course, “The Rock from Brockton.”
Phil Sheppard, the executive director of external relations at Massasoit Community College, had a chance meeting with Jantomaso at Thorny Lea Golf Club and was amazed when he saw his work.
“It absolutely took my breath away,” said Sheppard. “He does marvelous work.”
Sheppard recently brought a group of art experts from the college to Jantomaso’s basement studio so they could see the quality of his work.
“Representing the college, representing myself, I want to do something to honor John to honor his work, particularly this year with the Rocky Marciano statue coming to Brockton,” said Sheppard, “He’s a Brockton institution.”
Brockton is planning a serious of events to commemorate Marciano, culminating in the statue dedication ceremony at Brockton High School on Sept. 1.
John Jantomaso, 91, whose “best pal” was Marciano trainer Allie Colombo, started painting when he was selected in middle school as one of two students to receive free lessons from the art teacher at Brockton High School.
“I did an oil with him,” said Jantomaso. “We had it three-quarters done; we went to continue it, and somebody stole it.”
His teacher felt so bad about it he made Jantomaso the subject of a portrait that continues to hang in the living room at his Westwood Avenue home.
After marrying at the age of 26, Jantomaso began to lose interest in his artistic endeavors and did not paint or draw for more than 40 years.
That changed three years ago after health problems forced him to give up golf, one of his favorite pastimes.
“My health stopped me from playing golf the way I used to,” said Jantomaso.
“I had to consume my time in another manner, and I said, ‘I’m going to start drawing’”
Jantomaso’s work is heavily inspired by photographs he sees in magazines. In a three-year period, he has sketched famous figures such as Halle Berry; Tom Brady; Ronald Reagan; golf writer and Brockton native Herbert Warren Wind, who coined the term the “Amen Corner” and, of course, “The Rock from Brockton.”
Phil Sheppard, the executive director of external relations at Massasoit Community College, had a chance meeting with Jantomaso at Thorny Lea Golf Club and was amazed when he saw his work.
“It absolutely took my breath away,” said Sheppard. “He does marvelous work.”
Sheppard recently brought a group of art experts from the college to Jantomaso’s basement studio so they could see the quality of his work.
“Representing the college, representing myself, I want to do something to honor John to honor his work, particularly this year with the Rocky Marciano statue coming to Brockton,” said Sheppard, “He’s a Brockton institution.”
Brockton is planning a serious of events to commemorate Marciano, culminating in the statue dedication ceremony at Brockton High School on Sept. 1.
2012年1月17日星期二
David Hockney's Yorkshire
It might seem unlikely but the west coast of America and the east coast of Yorkshire have something in common. According to David Hockney, it's "big skies" and you get a sense of what he means at his new exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Better still, if you go to the Yorkshire Wolds, not only do you see what he means but you're also rewarded with an unheralded and unspoilt slice of England.
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture is both a celebration of the artist's return to his roots and of a subtle, spacious and remote landscape. Hockney once drew inspiration from the exotic climes of Los Angeles, but for several years he's been back in England, living and working in Bridlington (he was born in Bradford). Explaining what drew him to East Yorkshire and the Wolds, he said: "It's a landscape that I've known since childhood [he used to work in the fields and cycled the roads as a teenager], so it has meaning, but I never thought of it as a subject until 10 years ago. It is full of lovely little valleys and not many people."
Perhaps surprisingly, it's a region that never previously troubled great landscape painters such as Turner and Constable, but this exhibition at the Royal Academy, comprising some 150 works, the majority inspired by East Yorkshire and dating from the past four years (and quite a few from the past 12 months), shows the area in a new light.
Clearly Hockney, now 74, has been energised and enthused by the task, which has allowed him to explore his fascination with landscape and the seasons, and to capture them in a variety of media, from oil and watercolour to iPad, computer and on film.
I began my Hockney trail away from the Wolds in West Yorkshire at Saltaire, not far from Hockney's birthplace. Here Salts Mill, a beautifully restored Victorian textile mill, houses the world's largest permanent collection of Hockney's work.
The mill, a painting of which features in the RA exhibition, was the brainchild of Titus Salt, a Nonconformist mill owner and philanthropist who also built houses for his workers – still there and now privately owned – a fine Italianate church, a school, a hospital and a lovely park. Sobriety and hard work were all he asked in return.
In the 1850s, Salts Mill was the largest factory in Europe and the fact that it is still standing proud is down to the foresight of the late Jonathan Silver, an entrepreneur and friend of Hockney who bought the building in 1987 and created what it is today: a gallery and arts centre run by his family with several high-end shops, a restaurant and a smart café.
Like Hockney, Silver was born in Bradford and it was he who was instrumental in getting the artist to use Yorkshire as a subject once again. That was back in 1997 following a prolonged stay in his home county by Hockney, who then painted the Wolds from memory when he returned to Los Angeles.
However, it is not just the landscape that is eye-catching. As we wound our way through the lanes we passed a host of architecturally impressive villages, such as Lund (home of The Wellington, an excellent pub), South Dalton (where you'll find the Michelin-rated Pipe and Glass Inn, recently voted the UK's pub of the year, and St Mary's Church with a spire once described as "an arrow in the breast of the Wold"), Londesborough (fine parkland) and Warter (outside of which Hockney painted his vast canvas Bigger Trees Near Warter, currently on show at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford).
There are country houses too, none better than Sledmere House, owned by Sir Tatton Sykes, whose family have been important players in the region since the middle of the 18th century. Although gutted by a fire in 1911, the Georgian house was beautifully restored and Hockney, a friend of Sykes, celebrated his 70th birthday there.
Not to be outdone, the estate village of Sledmere itself is another attraction, with its immaculately kept red-brick houses and a fine pub, The Triton Inn.
Leaving Saltaire and heading across Yorkshire towards the Wolds – a crescent of chalk hills and dry valleys running from the Humber Estuary to Flamborough Head – you begin to discover what Hockney sees in the area: a "spatial experience", as he has put it.
Edith Devaney, co-curator of the RA exhibition, said the reason he left England was for "the light and space of America's west coast. Now he has come back and found it here." West Yorkshire may be wilder (and attract more people), but here on the east coast this undulating, manicured, arable landscape offers a kind of freedom and wide-open views, while the changeable weather, distinct seasons and light (because of the proximity to the North Sea) have also fuelled the artist's vivid imagination. It's also a region that Hockney defends passionately; last year saw him attacking plans to build several "ugly" wind turbines in the Wolds.
With many foot and cycle paths, it's not a difficult place to explore but we did it an even easier way – by car. In the company of two engaging locals, David and Susan Neave, historians and friends of Hockney, I headed for the particular spots that have inspired him, driving along Woldgate, a quiet country road, that has been a fruitful source of work: The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, for example, forms the centrepiece of the RA show and comprises one huge oil painting and 51 iPad prints.
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture is both a celebration of the artist's return to his roots and of a subtle, spacious and remote landscape. Hockney once drew inspiration from the exotic climes of Los Angeles, but for several years he's been back in England, living and working in Bridlington (he was born in Bradford). Explaining what drew him to East Yorkshire and the Wolds, he said: "It's a landscape that I've known since childhood [he used to work in the fields and cycled the roads as a teenager], so it has meaning, but I never thought of it as a subject until 10 years ago. It is full of lovely little valleys and not many people."
Perhaps surprisingly, it's a region that never previously troubled great landscape painters such as Turner and Constable, but this exhibition at the Royal Academy, comprising some 150 works, the majority inspired by East Yorkshire and dating from the past four years (and quite a few from the past 12 months), shows the area in a new light.
Clearly Hockney, now 74, has been energised and enthused by the task, which has allowed him to explore his fascination with landscape and the seasons, and to capture them in a variety of media, from oil and watercolour to iPad, computer and on film.
I began my Hockney trail away from the Wolds in West Yorkshire at Saltaire, not far from Hockney's birthplace. Here Salts Mill, a beautifully restored Victorian textile mill, houses the world's largest permanent collection of Hockney's work.
The mill, a painting of which features in the RA exhibition, was the brainchild of Titus Salt, a Nonconformist mill owner and philanthropist who also built houses for his workers – still there and now privately owned – a fine Italianate church, a school, a hospital and a lovely park. Sobriety and hard work were all he asked in return.
In the 1850s, Salts Mill was the largest factory in Europe and the fact that it is still standing proud is down to the foresight of the late Jonathan Silver, an entrepreneur and friend of Hockney who bought the building in 1987 and created what it is today: a gallery and arts centre run by his family with several high-end shops, a restaurant and a smart café.
Like Hockney, Silver was born in Bradford and it was he who was instrumental in getting the artist to use Yorkshire as a subject once again. That was back in 1997 following a prolonged stay in his home county by Hockney, who then painted the Wolds from memory when he returned to Los Angeles.
However, it is not just the landscape that is eye-catching. As we wound our way through the lanes we passed a host of architecturally impressive villages, such as Lund (home of The Wellington, an excellent pub), South Dalton (where you'll find the Michelin-rated Pipe and Glass Inn, recently voted the UK's pub of the year, and St Mary's Church with a spire once described as "an arrow in the breast of the Wold"), Londesborough (fine parkland) and Warter (outside of which Hockney painted his vast canvas Bigger Trees Near Warter, currently on show at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford).
There are country houses too, none better than Sledmere House, owned by Sir Tatton Sykes, whose family have been important players in the region since the middle of the 18th century. Although gutted by a fire in 1911, the Georgian house was beautifully restored and Hockney, a friend of Sykes, celebrated his 70th birthday there.
Not to be outdone, the estate village of Sledmere itself is another attraction, with its immaculately kept red-brick houses and a fine pub, The Triton Inn.
Leaving Saltaire and heading across Yorkshire towards the Wolds – a crescent of chalk hills and dry valleys running from the Humber Estuary to Flamborough Head – you begin to discover what Hockney sees in the area: a "spatial experience", as he has put it.
Edith Devaney, co-curator of the RA exhibition, said the reason he left England was for "the light and space of America's west coast. Now he has come back and found it here." West Yorkshire may be wilder (and attract more people), but here on the east coast this undulating, manicured, arable landscape offers a kind of freedom and wide-open views, while the changeable weather, distinct seasons and light (because of the proximity to the North Sea) have also fuelled the artist's vivid imagination. It's also a region that Hockney defends passionately; last year saw him attacking plans to build several "ugly" wind turbines in the Wolds.
With many foot and cycle paths, it's not a difficult place to explore but we did it an even easier way – by car. In the company of two engaging locals, David and Susan Neave, historians and friends of Hockney, I headed for the particular spots that have inspired him, driving along Woldgate, a quiet country road, that has been a fruitful source of work: The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, for example, forms the centrepiece of the RA show and comprises one huge oil painting and 51 iPad prints.
2012年1月16日星期一
A Bigger Picture, Royal Academy of Arts, review
It is 50 years since David Hockney graduated from the Royal College of Art wearing a gold lame jacket. Within a few years he had earned a reputation as an enfant terrible whose risque autobiographical work touched upon the taboo subject of homosexuality. With his oversized spectacles and hair dyed silvery blond, he became Brit art’s first celebrity: a charmer whose personality beguiled the public as much as his work.
Fast-forward half a century, and Hockney is still feted and adored. He shed his skin of provocative wunderkind long ago, fashioning instead a role as a plain-speaking chain-smoker specialising in common sense. Following the death of Lucian Freud, he is routinely described as Britain’s greatest living painter. He is certainly the most popular: there have reportedly been more advance ticket sales for his new exhibition at the Royal Academy than there were for the gallery’s blockbuster Van Gogh exhibition in 2010.
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture is devoted to a single genre: landscape. It came about after the artist showed Bigger Trees near Warter – a gargantuan landscape covering 50 canvases that is now in the collection of the Tate – at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2007. After it caused a splash , the RA offered Hockney the full suite of main galleries for a show of landscapes. The resulting exhibition contains more than 150 works, mostly created within the past decade.
Many were painted outdoors and depict the countryside around Bridlington, the small Yorkshire seaside town where Hockney has lived for seven years. There are bright oil paintings of wheat fields and tree-lined country lanes. There are multi-canvas vistas of woodland seen in different seasons. There are watercolours of hedgerows and haystacks, charcoal sketches of copses and logs, and more than 50 colourful “drawings”, created using an iPad and printed on to paper, documenting the onset of spring along an old Roman road that runs out of Bridlington. There are even nine- and 18-screen video works that record the fluctuating appearance of Woldgate Woods: captured using high-definition cameras ingeniously rigged on to Hockney’s Jeep, they subject the natural world to the kind of scrutiny that the German artist Albrecht Dürer once lavished upon a clump of turf. Generally the mood is upbeat, homely yet wonderstruck. I half expected to hear a cuckoo sing. The colours are citrus-sharp.
You would be forgiven for asking: what happened? After all, Hockney is best known as the raunchy Californian sensualist who painted sun-kissed boys gliding through the azure swimming pools of Los Angeles in the Sixties. And yet here he presents himself as a modest pastoralist, content to hymn the bounty of nature with quiet exultation – dancing, like Wordsworth, among the daffodils. Once inspired by distant destinations such as Egypt, China and America’s West Coast, he now seems happy pottering about a neglected nook of England. The prodigal son has returned to within 65 miles of Bradford, where he was born in 1937, and settled down. The internationalist has turned parochial. The radical has come over all conservative.
As if to explain this transformation, the second room of the exhibition presents a mini-retrospective of earlier landscapes. We see two dingy paintings from the Fifties, a smattering of stylish canvases from the Sixties and Seventies, and several views of California and the Grand Canyon, including one gigantic work full of oranges and reds so scorching you can practically feel your retina burning up. The gallery functions as a kind of airlock, inviting us to shed our perceptions and consider Hockney afresh as a landscape artist, before venturing forth to look at his more recent work.
Whether or not we accept this argument, the simple truth is that the show is far too big. Like a sprawling oak in need of a tree surgeon, it required a stronger curator prepared to lop off the deadwood. I could happily have done without the watercolours recording midsummer in east Yorkshire in 2004, or the suite of smallish oil paintings from the following year.
Perhaps it’s a generational thing, but I don’t understand paintings like these. Fresh, bright and perfectly delightful, they are much too polite and unthinkingly happy for my taste: if they offer a vision of arcadia, it is a mindless one. Moreover, they resemble the sorts of landscapes that we expect from amateur Sunday painters. Hockney is anything but that – yet whatever game he is playing here eludes me.
The iPad drawings from 2011 are similarly irksome. Some people get excited because they were made using a piece of fashionable technology . Yet the technique is surely immaterial – as Hockney says, an iPad is just another tool for an artist, like a brush.
What’s important is how they look: competent, easy on the eye ,but flat as though drawn with felt-tip pen. Some of the earlier pictures in the sequence, featuring tumbledown brick walls and tree stumps, look like illustrations for horror fiction. The later ones, full of frothy blossom and unfurling buds, have a trite cheeriness. They would look wonderful on the walls of a hospital, but the prominence they are given here is baffling. They appear to ignore an entire century of modern art — a narrative, incidentally, with which Hockney is fully up to speed. Why would someone so clued up wilfully paint as though surrealism, colour-field abstraction, minimalism and all the rest hadn’thappened? These images are so passe they feel like a provocation. I don’t get it.
The memorable pictures are those in which the prevailing note isn’t cheeriness, but something much stranger, more ferocious and intense. There is a room full of paintings of hawthorn blossom. It looks like a patisserie in which someone has run amok: thick slugs of primrose pigment representing blossom have been slathered on to the canvases like icing and whipped cream.
May Blossom on the Roman Road is palpably odd. The trees and shrubs have strong, simple silhouettes, like ornamental topiary. Beneath an animated sky awash with swirling blue and mauve marks, like something out of late Van Gogh, they appear to creep and throb, as though imbued with extraterrestrial life. This large work, painted upon eight canvases, transforms a mundane annual occurrence into something spectacularly weird.
Another series, Winter Timber and Totems, introduces a touch of foreboding and forlorn melancholy. We are in the woods. Using an extreme Fauvist palette, Hockney paints tree stumps and felled logs. The culmination of the sequence is the 15-canvas oil painting Winter Timber (2009). An imposing magenta stump dominates the foreground. Next to it, piles of orange logs stripped of their bark lie beside a road that leads off into the distance. The track is flanked by slender blue trees, some of which start to bend and curl into a disconcerting vortex as they approach the horizon. Thanks to the preternatural colours, the scene feels uncanny, suffused with the intensity of a vision. It doesn’t take long to read the stump and logs as reminders of mortality, or to understand that Hockney has transformed a humdrum wintry scene into a gateway to the afterlife. The motifs – a backdrop of bare trees and piles of logs – made me think of Paul Nash’s unsettling Landscape at Iden (1929), another mysterious painting fraught with psychological disturbance, though recast with the bold colour combinations and simplified shapes of late Matisse.
Fast-forward half a century, and Hockney is still feted and adored. He shed his skin of provocative wunderkind long ago, fashioning instead a role as a plain-speaking chain-smoker specialising in common sense. Following the death of Lucian Freud, he is routinely described as Britain’s greatest living painter. He is certainly the most popular: there have reportedly been more advance ticket sales for his new exhibition at the Royal Academy than there were for the gallery’s blockbuster Van Gogh exhibition in 2010.
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture is devoted to a single genre: landscape. It came about after the artist showed Bigger Trees near Warter – a gargantuan landscape covering 50 canvases that is now in the collection of the Tate – at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2007. After it caused a splash , the RA offered Hockney the full suite of main galleries for a show of landscapes. The resulting exhibition contains more than 150 works, mostly created within the past decade.
Many were painted outdoors and depict the countryside around Bridlington, the small Yorkshire seaside town where Hockney has lived for seven years. There are bright oil paintings of wheat fields and tree-lined country lanes. There are multi-canvas vistas of woodland seen in different seasons. There are watercolours of hedgerows and haystacks, charcoal sketches of copses and logs, and more than 50 colourful “drawings”, created using an iPad and printed on to paper, documenting the onset of spring along an old Roman road that runs out of Bridlington. There are even nine- and 18-screen video works that record the fluctuating appearance of Woldgate Woods: captured using high-definition cameras ingeniously rigged on to Hockney’s Jeep, they subject the natural world to the kind of scrutiny that the German artist Albrecht Dürer once lavished upon a clump of turf. Generally the mood is upbeat, homely yet wonderstruck. I half expected to hear a cuckoo sing. The colours are citrus-sharp.
You would be forgiven for asking: what happened? After all, Hockney is best known as the raunchy Californian sensualist who painted sun-kissed boys gliding through the azure swimming pools of Los Angeles in the Sixties. And yet here he presents himself as a modest pastoralist, content to hymn the bounty of nature with quiet exultation – dancing, like Wordsworth, among the daffodils. Once inspired by distant destinations such as Egypt, China and America’s West Coast, he now seems happy pottering about a neglected nook of England. The prodigal son has returned to within 65 miles of Bradford, where he was born in 1937, and settled down. The internationalist has turned parochial. The radical has come over all conservative.
As if to explain this transformation, the second room of the exhibition presents a mini-retrospective of earlier landscapes. We see two dingy paintings from the Fifties, a smattering of stylish canvases from the Sixties and Seventies, and several views of California and the Grand Canyon, including one gigantic work full of oranges and reds so scorching you can practically feel your retina burning up. The gallery functions as a kind of airlock, inviting us to shed our perceptions and consider Hockney afresh as a landscape artist, before venturing forth to look at his more recent work.
Whether or not we accept this argument, the simple truth is that the show is far too big. Like a sprawling oak in need of a tree surgeon, it required a stronger curator prepared to lop off the deadwood. I could happily have done without the watercolours recording midsummer in east Yorkshire in 2004, or the suite of smallish oil paintings from the following year.
Perhaps it’s a generational thing, but I don’t understand paintings like these. Fresh, bright and perfectly delightful, they are much too polite and unthinkingly happy for my taste: if they offer a vision of arcadia, it is a mindless one. Moreover, they resemble the sorts of landscapes that we expect from amateur Sunday painters. Hockney is anything but that – yet whatever game he is playing here eludes me.
The iPad drawings from 2011 are similarly irksome. Some people get excited because they were made using a piece of fashionable technology . Yet the technique is surely immaterial – as Hockney says, an iPad is just another tool for an artist, like a brush.
What’s important is how they look: competent, easy on the eye ,but flat as though drawn with felt-tip pen. Some of the earlier pictures in the sequence, featuring tumbledown brick walls and tree stumps, look like illustrations for horror fiction. The later ones, full of frothy blossom and unfurling buds, have a trite cheeriness. They would look wonderful on the walls of a hospital, but the prominence they are given here is baffling. They appear to ignore an entire century of modern art — a narrative, incidentally, with which Hockney is fully up to speed. Why would someone so clued up wilfully paint as though surrealism, colour-field abstraction, minimalism and all the rest hadn’thappened? These images are so passe they feel like a provocation. I don’t get it.
The memorable pictures are those in which the prevailing note isn’t cheeriness, but something much stranger, more ferocious and intense. There is a room full of paintings of hawthorn blossom. It looks like a patisserie in which someone has run amok: thick slugs of primrose pigment representing blossom have been slathered on to the canvases like icing and whipped cream.
May Blossom on the Roman Road is palpably odd. The trees and shrubs have strong, simple silhouettes, like ornamental topiary. Beneath an animated sky awash with swirling blue and mauve marks, like something out of late Van Gogh, they appear to creep and throb, as though imbued with extraterrestrial life. This large work, painted upon eight canvases, transforms a mundane annual occurrence into something spectacularly weird.
Another series, Winter Timber and Totems, introduces a touch of foreboding and forlorn melancholy. We are in the woods. Using an extreme Fauvist palette, Hockney paints tree stumps and felled logs. The culmination of the sequence is the 15-canvas oil painting Winter Timber (2009). An imposing magenta stump dominates the foreground. Next to it, piles of orange logs stripped of their bark lie beside a road that leads off into the distance. The track is flanked by slender blue trees, some of which start to bend and curl into a disconcerting vortex as they approach the horizon. Thanks to the preternatural colours, the scene feels uncanny, suffused with the intensity of a vision. It doesn’t take long to read the stump and logs as reminders of mortality, or to understand that Hockney has transformed a humdrum wintry scene into a gateway to the afterlife. The motifs – a backdrop of bare trees and piles of logs – made me think of Paul Nash’s unsettling Landscape at Iden (1929), another mysterious painting fraught with psychological disturbance, though recast with the bold colour combinations and simplified shapes of late Matisse.
2012年1月15日星期日
Jazz played like rock in a trio of new releases
Intertwining jazz and rock is not itself a novel idea. From Miles Davis to Weather Report to Last Exit to the Bad Plus, it has been going on for more than 40 years. But artists are constantly finding new ways to bring elements of rock into the folds of jazz.
Sidony Box - saxophonist Elie Dalibert, guitarist Manuel Adnot, and drummer Arthur Narcy - refers to itself as a power jazz trio. Posed on the jacket of their new album in hooded sweatshirts and unshaven faces like the Beastie Boys, they are clearly aiming for a young audience. Their music, which blends shoegaze and modern prog-rock with jazz improvisation, feels expansive. “Pink Paradise’’ (Naive Records) pleads to be popped in a car stereo and played at high volume on the open road.
With droning guitar and undulating waves of rhythm, the music is textured and layered, so much so that it sounds like a few more than three musicians. Dalibert’s alto sax is alternately melancholy and aggressive on tunes like “Suédois.’’ Despite the instrumentation, the trio draws on the aesthetics of certain rock bands - Radiohead, Tortoise, and Sonic Youth, in particular - as it constructs songs. (And these are structured songs, not aimless jams.) Sidony Box’s ethos crystallizes on the 10-minute drone “Léman’’ and on “Ultimate Pop Song,’’ a tune with a gorgeous hook that evokes both the melodicism and the expansive sound of Sigur Rós.
Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer has forged his identity by bridging the worlds of jazz and electronic music. And it is the best of both: Molvaer pits the warmth and freedom of improvisation against the intense drama of ambient, electronica, and trip-hop. Indeed, he turns the cold, unwavering structure of that world on its head.
It is easy to imagine Davis, if he were still alive, making the kind of music one hears on “Baboon Moon’’ (Thirsty Ear). Molvaer, guitarist Stian Westerhus, and drummer Erland Dahlen construct barren, dark, and dirty audio-scenes that draw direct lineage to bands like Massive Attack. Molvaer blows in a stark, detached manner over the dystopian backdrop of “Mercury Heart,’’ a faint kick drum acting as a heartbeat. Westerhus’s harsh guitar - which also manages to provide the bass line - fuels the rocker “Recoil.’’ In between the abrasives, rhythmless ambient soundscapes like “A Small Realm’’ and “Prince of Calm’’ offer much-needed buffer zones.
Brian Landrus - who plays baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, and bass flute on “Capsule’’ (BlueLand Records) - creates a very special kind of music with his band The Landrus Kaleidoscope. It is modern and contemporary - indeed, pop oriented - but it doesn’t give in to the artificial-sweetener trappings of smooth jazz. No, this quintet, which includes pianist Michael Cain (mostly on Fender Rhodes), guitar Nir Felder, bassist Matthew Parish, and drummer Rudy Royston, makes an organic fusion that ignores the boundaries that supposedly separate jazz, rock, pop, and R&B.
Forget that the music has a backbeat. It’s bona fide jazz, and the openness of tunes such as the driving “Striped Phrase’’ and the reggae-based “Like the Wind’’ provide ample space for wise improvisation. He doesn’t swing like Gene Krupa, but Royston’s drumming is crisp and smart; on “Striped Phase’’ he lapses into an alternative time signature for a few bars while the rest of the band keeps stride. Landrus’s bass clarinet wraps phrases, vinelike, around the skittering drums and airy electric piano chords of “Beauty.’’ The buildup of the soft R&B number “I Promise’’ is so patient and romantic that you half expect Barry White to start singing, but there is no need: Landrus’s clarinet is every bit as sultry. “Capsule’’ achieves a rare feat: It’s easy on the ears and nourishing for the brain.
Sidony Box - saxophonist Elie Dalibert, guitarist Manuel Adnot, and drummer Arthur Narcy - refers to itself as a power jazz trio. Posed on the jacket of their new album in hooded sweatshirts and unshaven faces like the Beastie Boys, they are clearly aiming for a young audience. Their music, which blends shoegaze and modern prog-rock with jazz improvisation, feels expansive. “Pink Paradise’’ (Naive Records) pleads to be popped in a car stereo and played at high volume on the open road.
With droning guitar and undulating waves of rhythm, the music is textured and layered, so much so that it sounds like a few more than three musicians. Dalibert’s alto sax is alternately melancholy and aggressive on tunes like “Suédois.’’ Despite the instrumentation, the trio draws on the aesthetics of certain rock bands - Radiohead, Tortoise, and Sonic Youth, in particular - as it constructs songs. (And these are structured songs, not aimless jams.) Sidony Box’s ethos crystallizes on the 10-minute drone “Léman’’ and on “Ultimate Pop Song,’’ a tune with a gorgeous hook that evokes both the melodicism and the expansive sound of Sigur Rós.
Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer has forged his identity by bridging the worlds of jazz and electronic music. And it is the best of both: Molvaer pits the warmth and freedom of improvisation against the intense drama of ambient, electronica, and trip-hop. Indeed, he turns the cold, unwavering structure of that world on its head.
It is easy to imagine Davis, if he were still alive, making the kind of music one hears on “Baboon Moon’’ (Thirsty Ear). Molvaer, guitarist Stian Westerhus, and drummer Erland Dahlen construct barren, dark, and dirty audio-scenes that draw direct lineage to bands like Massive Attack. Molvaer blows in a stark, detached manner over the dystopian backdrop of “Mercury Heart,’’ a faint kick drum acting as a heartbeat. Westerhus’s harsh guitar - which also manages to provide the bass line - fuels the rocker “Recoil.’’ In between the abrasives, rhythmless ambient soundscapes like “A Small Realm’’ and “Prince of Calm’’ offer much-needed buffer zones.
Brian Landrus - who plays baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, and bass flute on “Capsule’’ (BlueLand Records) - creates a very special kind of music with his band The Landrus Kaleidoscope. It is modern and contemporary - indeed, pop oriented - but it doesn’t give in to the artificial-sweetener trappings of smooth jazz. No, this quintet, which includes pianist Michael Cain (mostly on Fender Rhodes), guitar Nir Felder, bassist Matthew Parish, and drummer Rudy Royston, makes an organic fusion that ignores the boundaries that supposedly separate jazz, rock, pop, and R&B.
Forget that the music has a backbeat. It’s bona fide jazz, and the openness of tunes such as the driving “Striped Phrase’’ and the reggae-based “Like the Wind’’ provide ample space for wise improvisation. He doesn’t swing like Gene Krupa, but Royston’s drumming is crisp and smart; on “Striped Phase’’ he lapses into an alternative time signature for a few bars while the rest of the band keeps stride. Landrus’s bass clarinet wraps phrases, vinelike, around the skittering drums and airy electric piano chords of “Beauty.’’ The buildup of the soft R&B number “I Promise’’ is so patient and romantic that you half expect Barry White to start singing, but there is no need: Landrus’s clarinet is every bit as sultry. “Capsule’’ achieves a rare feat: It’s easy on the ears and nourishing for the brain.
2012年1月12日星期四
Presidential Portrait Stolen From Southgate House
A former American president has gone missing from the Southgate House. Owners say someone took off with an original oil painting of Andrew Jackson.
The painting is believed to have been taken sometime between December 15th and 16th. Local 12 News Reporter Rich Jaffe has more on the mystery of the missing man.
The painting is part of a collection of 8 portraits of Presidents who were believed to have visited the Southgate House during the life of it's original owner, Richard Southgate. The paintings were commissioned by the most recent owner Ross Raleigh...and no one can figure out how something so big made it out of there when the place was full of people.
The set of Presidential portraits hung in Juney's Lounge on the first floor of the Southgate House. The missing portrait used to hang in the middle of a wall, above the bar's piano. It's an oil painting of President Andrew Jackson and it's surrounded by an ornate wooden frame. Painted by Kentucky artist Jerry Bond, it's hung there since they were painted in the late 80's early 90's and "We've never had anything happen to the paintings before."
Ross Raleigh commissioned the paintings because the artist was a personal friend and he wanted to share the buildings history with his faithful patrons. The portrait somehow disappeared between 7 pm December 15th and 5 p.m. on December 16th during business hours. Adding to the mystery is the fact that while the club was open there was a bartender in the room, and a security guard at the front door. "We all sat there...how did this happen, how did they get it out...why did they want to do it? Did they particularly want Andrew Jackson as opposed to the other Presidents because out of all of them Abraham Lincoln would be the most desirable to a Presidential painting collector."
Knowing the club was closing, the speculation is someone wanted their own personal piece of memorabilia. But the theft was a double blow to the club owner Ross Raleigh. "We were having to leave the building, he had Jerry paint these specifically for him. Jerry passed away in 2004 so it's not like he can have him paint another one for him so it was very heartbreaking for him."
Raleigh tells me the painting's worth about $3500 but clearly the emotional value of it since it was done by his friend is a lot higher. The owners considered taking the paintings down just before the theft, but they wanted patrons to be able to enjoy them through the last evening. Southgate House closed on New Year's Eve.
The painting is believed to have been taken sometime between December 15th and 16th. Local 12 News Reporter Rich Jaffe has more on the mystery of the missing man.
The painting is part of a collection of 8 portraits of Presidents who were believed to have visited the Southgate House during the life of it's original owner, Richard Southgate. The paintings were commissioned by the most recent owner Ross Raleigh...and no one can figure out how something so big made it out of there when the place was full of people.
The set of Presidential portraits hung in Juney's Lounge on the first floor of the Southgate House. The missing portrait used to hang in the middle of a wall, above the bar's piano. It's an oil painting of President Andrew Jackson and it's surrounded by an ornate wooden frame. Painted by Kentucky artist Jerry Bond, it's hung there since they were painted in the late 80's early 90's and "We've never had anything happen to the paintings before."
Ross Raleigh commissioned the paintings because the artist was a personal friend and he wanted to share the buildings history with his faithful patrons. The portrait somehow disappeared between 7 pm December 15th and 5 p.m. on December 16th during business hours. Adding to the mystery is the fact that while the club was open there was a bartender in the room, and a security guard at the front door. "We all sat there...how did this happen, how did they get it out...why did they want to do it? Did they particularly want Andrew Jackson as opposed to the other Presidents because out of all of them Abraham Lincoln would be the most desirable to a Presidential painting collector."
Knowing the club was closing, the speculation is someone wanted their own personal piece of memorabilia. But the theft was a double blow to the club owner Ross Raleigh. "We were having to leave the building, he had Jerry paint these specifically for him. Jerry passed away in 2004 so it's not like he can have him paint another one for him so it was very heartbreaking for him."
Raleigh tells me the painting's worth about $3500 but clearly the emotional value of it since it was done by his friend is a lot higher. The owners considered taking the paintings down just before the theft, but they wanted patrons to be able to enjoy them through the last evening. Southgate House closed on New Year's Eve.
2012年1月11日星期三
Life through paintings and paperworks
Their reflections on life, memories and hopes, happiness and sorrows are all there, at David Hall, Fort Kochi, in colours bright and dull, on canvas and paper. The quartet, who are showing their works are N.N.Mohandas, K.P.Pradeep Kumar, Joshy T.C. and Benny K.A. Of the 21 works in the show called ‘Paintings and Paperworks', 12 are oil paintings of Mohandas, both big and small.
The middle aged Mohandas, who has gone through several artistic phases, strikes one as different from the crowd. He does not resort to bombastic explanations about his work, or seek to portray ‘in vogue' views, that he does not sincerely hold. “When people say they want to see my paintings, then I am a success. Otherwise, it's my fault if people do not want to see them. Children always understand the language of pictures. They enjoy what I paint, and I am happy,” says the maverick, most of whose works exhibited here are in pastel shades, symbolic of the man, never loud.
The frames carry a street, park or a wayside cafeteria, always with people sitting in different postures. It could be either leisure or laziness, but the mood of the people, abstract forms, sitting on the benches or chairs is far from stressed out, so that the easy going ambience is infectious and seeps into the viewer.
Mohandas says that artists of the earlier generation like K.C.S. Panikkar and Ramkinkar Baij did so much for fellow artists and opened so many doors to them.
“In Baroda, where I studied, we were allowed to grow as we wanted. Nobody forced anything on us. We were just guided by our teachers.” Art has moved on, but Mohandas is of the view that a painting is much more than an investment. But often it's factors other than artistic that prod people to buy works of art. Snob value counts much. The name, the signature is what sells after a point, not the work. There are artists and artists. The chasm between the haves and the have nots among them is widening, just as in the larger global scene.
All these realities make many works at any show pictures of sadness, of frustration and doubt. There are very few ‘happy' paintings. In K.P.Pradeep kumar's huge green canvas, in the centre of the gallery, women in orderly rows and an equal number of umbrellas over them dominate, speaks of spiritual crisis, says the artist. Titled transfiguration, the umbrella is a recurring motif in all five of his works here. Four works, in this series, are circular, pastels on rice paper and feature a prominent motherly figure, or a younger woman, on a tight rope, with snakes somewhere in the frame, the threatening JCB, et al. There are men, at work on grinding mortars, all within the circle, almost like a celebratory flower carpet, but portraying stark doubts. Pitted amongst unfamiliar urban surroundings and manners, the rural soul seeks to go back to the roots. The angst comes through in the drawings.
Joshy T.C has two acrylics which portray the December sky above and the Xmas stars below. Solitude is effected through the lack of human figures and the all pervading darkness.
Benny K.A, who works with ‘Uravu' in Wayanad, has put up two untitled works which are autobiographical, he says. The use of space and airspace strikes you. A world where roads, people, buildings etc go unconventionally haywire. A big green cricket out of proportion with the rest, sits in one corner of the frame. I would love to believe that the artist is trying to tell the world about the disproportionate space that we give for the game of cricket in our lives, wasting umpteen man hours in the process, contributing nothing to the lives of fellow beings. All the four artists have exhibited in and outside the State several times, both solo shows and groups. Their works will hang on the David Hall walls till January 24.
The middle aged Mohandas, who has gone through several artistic phases, strikes one as different from the crowd. He does not resort to bombastic explanations about his work, or seek to portray ‘in vogue' views, that he does not sincerely hold. “When people say they want to see my paintings, then I am a success. Otherwise, it's my fault if people do not want to see them. Children always understand the language of pictures. They enjoy what I paint, and I am happy,” says the maverick, most of whose works exhibited here are in pastel shades, symbolic of the man, never loud.
The frames carry a street, park or a wayside cafeteria, always with people sitting in different postures. It could be either leisure or laziness, but the mood of the people, abstract forms, sitting on the benches or chairs is far from stressed out, so that the easy going ambience is infectious and seeps into the viewer.
Mohandas says that artists of the earlier generation like K.C.S. Panikkar and Ramkinkar Baij did so much for fellow artists and opened so many doors to them.
“In Baroda, where I studied, we were allowed to grow as we wanted. Nobody forced anything on us. We were just guided by our teachers.” Art has moved on, but Mohandas is of the view that a painting is much more than an investment. But often it's factors other than artistic that prod people to buy works of art. Snob value counts much. The name, the signature is what sells after a point, not the work. There are artists and artists. The chasm between the haves and the have nots among them is widening, just as in the larger global scene.
All these realities make many works at any show pictures of sadness, of frustration and doubt. There are very few ‘happy' paintings. In K.P.Pradeep kumar's huge green canvas, in the centre of the gallery, women in orderly rows and an equal number of umbrellas over them dominate, speaks of spiritual crisis, says the artist. Titled transfiguration, the umbrella is a recurring motif in all five of his works here. Four works, in this series, are circular, pastels on rice paper and feature a prominent motherly figure, or a younger woman, on a tight rope, with snakes somewhere in the frame, the threatening JCB, et al. There are men, at work on grinding mortars, all within the circle, almost like a celebratory flower carpet, but portraying stark doubts. Pitted amongst unfamiliar urban surroundings and manners, the rural soul seeks to go back to the roots. The angst comes through in the drawings.
Joshy T.C has two acrylics which portray the December sky above and the Xmas stars below. Solitude is effected through the lack of human figures and the all pervading darkness.
Benny K.A, who works with ‘Uravu' in Wayanad, has put up two untitled works which are autobiographical, he says. The use of space and airspace strikes you. A world where roads, people, buildings etc go unconventionally haywire. A big green cricket out of proportion with the rest, sits in one corner of the frame. I would love to believe that the artist is trying to tell the world about the disproportionate space that we give for the game of cricket in our lives, wasting umpteen man hours in the process, contributing nothing to the lives of fellow beings. All the four artists have exhibited in and outside the State several times, both solo shows and groups. Their works will hang on the David Hall walls till January 24.
2012年1月10日星期二
Sentimental journey
Ah, sentimentalism, it is a balm, it is a trap. It is the comfort food of emotions, the ready pleasure of the fattening bite that we forgive even as it turns to flab. If only it worked so well in art, where even a little flab is enough extra weight to bring you crashing down from the wall.
It’s one thing to have sentimental feelings when seeing a piece of art — say, you see a painting of a farm, and you grew up on a farm so you savour a moment of nostalgia, though your feelings will not be shared when the painting is seen by the next person, who did not grow up on a farm.
The trouble begins when there are no layers other than sentimentalism or nostalgia, and the singular purpose of the painting is to evoke sentimental feelings, to churn up the comfort-food of warm memories. That’s why I cringed when I read the news release for Crystal Beshara’s exhibition of new paintings at Orange Art Gallery in Ottawa. The release says, “It is with this brand new body of work that she shares a cosy slice of nostalgia.”
When I read the words “new paintings” on the same page with the words “cosy slice of nostalgia” I want to run away, fast and far. I’m glad I didn’t, because Crystal Beshara is learning to tame her sentimental heart, and the artistic growth can be seen in the paintings — some strong, some not so much — now at Orange Gallery.
Beshara grew up on a farm in the Ottawa Valley and those memories are, naturally enough, impressed into her work. All of the paintings in this exhibition, which is titled Winter’s Promise, reflect farm life, from the portraits of owls to the larger paintings of cattle that are the centrepieces of the show, and the latter do it most successfully.
The smaller painting Barn Owl is oil on wood, with most of the board left bare, which forces the eye to focus strongly on the owl itself. To withstand this scrutiny the owl needs a fine detail that it lacks, so the whole thing has an unfinished look, as if the artist hoped its presence alone — the owl’s sentimental place as a character of barn life — would be compelling.
Another oil on wood, titled Jersey , shows a floppy-eared, doe-eyed calf also set against a background of bare, negative space. The image veers dangerously towards cute, which has in the past been, depending on your perspective, a good or bad thing in Beshara’s work. Hey, I like cute as much as the next person, but in its place. Cute is not profound or even meaningful in any way and, therefore, it is not the basis of compelling art.
That’s not a problem in another of her bare-board paintings, titled First Frost, which is a close-up of a dead sunflower in the field. Here the aspect of farm-life shown is inevitable death, and cute is replaced by melancholy, which is always more interesting. Beshara’s sunflower is well composed, though the painting was undermined by the touches of gold-leaf that reflected the gallery light in a most distracting fashion.
She uses gold leaf elsewhere to better effect and, like all the most successful paintings in the exhibition, it is not on wooden board but on canvas. The larger painting Into the Mist , shows a heard of cows crossing a stream and slowly disappearing into the icy mist over a frozen field. Here Beshara presents a scene that is at once nostalgic for her but still offers something substantial to the majority of viewers who did not grow up on a farm.
She hits all her high notes with her large paintings of cows. Winter Storm shows three rather woolly cows (don’t ask me what kind, I’m a city boy) standing in the greyness of a winter storm and staring — silent and placid — at the viewer. I could almost feel the cold, moist air, and the cocoon-ish effect of standing outdoors in a snowstorm. Beshara has allowed a few drips of grey paint to flow from the sky down over the snowy ground and here the deliberate lack of finish is more effective, as if to knock the viewer out of a reverie.
Black Angus (40 by 60 inches, oil on canvas) is the centrepiece of the exhibition and deservedly so. Here a single, black cow stands before a leafless woodland wrapped in icy mist and next to a dirty, half-frozen pool of water. Beshara has painted the water with broad, messy strokes and it creates an intriguing contrast with the detail on the rest of the canvas. The painting isn’t cute and it sure isn’t cosy, but it is compelling. It may be sentimental and nostalgic, but it’s more than that and it’s Beshara’s best work to date.
It’s one thing to have sentimental feelings when seeing a piece of art — say, you see a painting of a farm, and you grew up on a farm so you savour a moment of nostalgia, though your feelings will not be shared when the painting is seen by the next person, who did not grow up on a farm.
The trouble begins when there are no layers other than sentimentalism or nostalgia, and the singular purpose of the painting is to evoke sentimental feelings, to churn up the comfort-food of warm memories. That’s why I cringed when I read the news release for Crystal Beshara’s exhibition of new paintings at Orange Art Gallery in Ottawa. The release says, “It is with this brand new body of work that she shares a cosy slice of nostalgia.”
When I read the words “new paintings” on the same page with the words “cosy slice of nostalgia” I want to run away, fast and far. I’m glad I didn’t, because Crystal Beshara is learning to tame her sentimental heart, and the artistic growth can be seen in the paintings — some strong, some not so much — now at Orange Gallery.
Beshara grew up on a farm in the Ottawa Valley and those memories are, naturally enough, impressed into her work. All of the paintings in this exhibition, which is titled Winter’s Promise, reflect farm life, from the portraits of owls to the larger paintings of cattle that are the centrepieces of the show, and the latter do it most successfully.
The smaller painting Barn Owl is oil on wood, with most of the board left bare, which forces the eye to focus strongly on the owl itself. To withstand this scrutiny the owl needs a fine detail that it lacks, so the whole thing has an unfinished look, as if the artist hoped its presence alone — the owl’s sentimental place as a character of barn life — would be compelling.
Another oil on wood, titled Jersey , shows a floppy-eared, doe-eyed calf also set against a background of bare, negative space. The image veers dangerously towards cute, which has in the past been, depending on your perspective, a good or bad thing in Beshara’s work. Hey, I like cute as much as the next person, but in its place. Cute is not profound or even meaningful in any way and, therefore, it is not the basis of compelling art.
That’s not a problem in another of her bare-board paintings, titled First Frost, which is a close-up of a dead sunflower in the field. Here the aspect of farm-life shown is inevitable death, and cute is replaced by melancholy, which is always more interesting. Beshara’s sunflower is well composed, though the painting was undermined by the touches of gold-leaf that reflected the gallery light in a most distracting fashion.
She uses gold leaf elsewhere to better effect and, like all the most successful paintings in the exhibition, it is not on wooden board but on canvas. The larger painting Into the Mist , shows a heard of cows crossing a stream and slowly disappearing into the icy mist over a frozen field. Here Beshara presents a scene that is at once nostalgic for her but still offers something substantial to the majority of viewers who did not grow up on a farm.
She hits all her high notes with her large paintings of cows. Winter Storm shows three rather woolly cows (don’t ask me what kind, I’m a city boy) standing in the greyness of a winter storm and staring — silent and placid — at the viewer. I could almost feel the cold, moist air, and the cocoon-ish effect of standing outdoors in a snowstorm. Beshara has allowed a few drips of grey paint to flow from the sky down over the snowy ground and here the deliberate lack of finish is more effective, as if to knock the viewer out of a reverie.
Black Angus (40 by 60 inches, oil on canvas) is the centrepiece of the exhibition and deservedly so. Here a single, black cow stands before a leafless woodland wrapped in icy mist and next to a dirty, half-frozen pool of water. Beshara has painted the water with broad, messy strokes and it creates an intriguing contrast with the detail on the rest of the canvas. The painting isn’t cute and it sure isn’t cosy, but it is compelling. It may be sentimental and nostalgic, but it’s more than that and it’s Beshara’s best work to date.
2012年1月9日星期一
Jimmy’s tribute to KP people through his brushstrokes
The artist says the exhibition is a tribute to the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for rendering great sacrifices in the wake of current wave of militancy in Pakistan.
“The exhibition will reflect the courage of people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in their fight against terrorism besides showing they have a desire to live a full life,” said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial minister for information and culture. The event is jointly organised by the provincial department of information and culture, the department of archaeology and youth affairs and the University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar.
Mr Hussain, Jimmy Engineer and UET vice-chancellor Imtiaz Hussain Gilani addressed a joint press conference here on Sunday and explained the spirit behind the event.
The paintings depict themes such as Pakistani architectural composition, international architectural composition, poverty and plight of refugees at the time of Pakistan’s coming into being in 1947.
Paintings titled ‘Sunset’, ‘Hut by the Sea’, ‘Fishermen with boat’, ‘My Palette’, ‘Banyan Tree’, ‘Donkey Cart’, ‘Running Horse’ and many other would be on display to attract visitors.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr Jimmy said he had never organised exhibitions for commercial gains. “I have contributed 70 per cent of the money raised through my previous exhibitions to causes such as for children, human rights etc,” he said.
Mr Gilani said that the event was a joint effort to highlight the cultural history and architecture of the country. He said the event was a tribute to the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for showing resilience in the face of militancy.
Minister for information Iftikhar Hussain thanked the artist for dedicating the exhibition to people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who steadfastly supported the government in the fight against terrorists. He said that such cultural events promoted pluralism and were essential to thwart militants’ threats.
The minister said that the government fought militants on different fronts simultaneously in an effort to keep people united, counter militants’ influence, and protect the cultural norms and values.
“They (militants) were taken as heroes,” said the minister, adding “We changed that wrong perception through our media policy that encouraged people to speak against militants on TV and write in newspapers”.
He said the government’s bold policies helped in restoration of cultural activities. “Now there is not a single day when Nishtar Hall goes without a cultural function,” he said. Mr Hussain also renewed the provincial government’s offer to militants for finding a negotiated settlement to the current situation.
The provincial government is not afraid of militants; it endured their threats and fought bravely against them, winning back the area they had taken over, he said.
“Too much bloodshed has taken place in our area and now there must be an end to it,” Mr Hussain said, emphasising negotiations to come out of the current crisis.
He said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and its people had taken a ‘beating’ and it’s time to win back peace so that our children could get education.
“We took the thrashing because we believe in peace and that’s why we think a negotiated settlement is the best option to end the crisis,” Mr Hussain said. He, however, expressed doubts about success of the reported US-Taliban contacts for negotiating peace in Afghanistan.
The minister said that any peace talks without involving Pakistan and Afghanistan would not succeed. “Unless America takes Pakistan and Afghanistan into confidence, negotiations (between US and Taliban) cannot meet success,” he said.
Pakistan or Afghanistan, too, could not succeed in case they pursued talks with Taliban individually without taking all the stakeholders into confidence, he said.
Answering a question about early elections, Mr Hussain said that parliament was not so weak to necessitate early polls and it should complete its term.
“The exhibition will reflect the courage of people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in their fight against terrorism besides showing they have a desire to live a full life,” said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial minister for information and culture. The event is jointly organised by the provincial department of information and culture, the department of archaeology and youth affairs and the University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar.
Mr Hussain, Jimmy Engineer and UET vice-chancellor Imtiaz Hussain Gilani addressed a joint press conference here on Sunday and explained the spirit behind the event.
The paintings depict themes such as Pakistani architectural composition, international architectural composition, poverty and plight of refugees at the time of Pakistan’s coming into being in 1947.
Paintings titled ‘Sunset’, ‘Hut by the Sea’, ‘Fishermen with boat’, ‘My Palette’, ‘Banyan Tree’, ‘Donkey Cart’, ‘Running Horse’ and many other would be on display to attract visitors.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr Jimmy said he had never organised exhibitions for commercial gains. “I have contributed 70 per cent of the money raised through my previous exhibitions to causes such as for children, human rights etc,” he said.
Mr Gilani said that the event was a joint effort to highlight the cultural history and architecture of the country. He said the event was a tribute to the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for showing resilience in the face of militancy.
Minister for information Iftikhar Hussain thanked the artist for dedicating the exhibition to people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who steadfastly supported the government in the fight against terrorists. He said that such cultural events promoted pluralism and were essential to thwart militants’ threats.
The minister said that the government fought militants on different fronts simultaneously in an effort to keep people united, counter militants’ influence, and protect the cultural norms and values.
“They (militants) were taken as heroes,” said the minister, adding “We changed that wrong perception through our media policy that encouraged people to speak against militants on TV and write in newspapers”.
He said the government’s bold policies helped in restoration of cultural activities. “Now there is not a single day when Nishtar Hall goes without a cultural function,” he said. Mr Hussain also renewed the provincial government’s offer to militants for finding a negotiated settlement to the current situation.
The provincial government is not afraid of militants; it endured their threats and fought bravely against them, winning back the area they had taken over, he said.
“Too much bloodshed has taken place in our area and now there must be an end to it,” Mr Hussain said, emphasising negotiations to come out of the current crisis.
He said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and its people had taken a ‘beating’ and it’s time to win back peace so that our children could get education.
“We took the thrashing because we believe in peace and that’s why we think a negotiated settlement is the best option to end the crisis,” Mr Hussain said. He, however, expressed doubts about success of the reported US-Taliban contacts for negotiating peace in Afghanistan.
The minister said that any peace talks without involving Pakistan and Afghanistan would not succeed. “Unless America takes Pakistan and Afghanistan into confidence, negotiations (between US and Taliban) cannot meet success,” he said.
Pakistan or Afghanistan, too, could not succeed in case they pursued talks with Taliban individually without taking all the stakeholders into confidence, he said.
Answering a question about early elections, Mr Hussain said that parliament was not so weak to necessitate early polls and it should complete its term.
2012年1月8日星期日
Plinker, painter
He required much less time to master the skills necessary to become a top-flight portraiture artist.
Wyse, who splits his time between his family home at Cape Elizabeth and his personal home and studio in Ontario, Canada, recently made the news when Steinway Hall in New York unveiled his oil portrait of rock star Billy Joel.
Also in 2011, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., acquired two of his portraits of the famous pianist and Kennedy Center Award winner Leon Fleisher. One is an oil painting, the other a drawing. The painting likely will be exhibited later this year or in 2013, said National Portrait Gallery chief curator Brandon Fortune.
Wyse, 41, has spent most of the past decade in a wildly successful pursuit of painting, specializing in portraits of famous musicians. He spent most of his life studying classical piano, and still performs in concert halls around the globe.
He went to Deering High School, attended music classes at the University of Southern Maine, and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Montreal, where he earned his doctorate in music.
All along, he harbored a desire to paint. But it wasn't until he studied left-brain/right-brain thinking in musicians that painting became a passion for him.
In his studies, he posited that an accomplished musician could become an accomplished painter because of the similar methods of thinking and analysis that go into both art forms. How a painter shades a surface or manipulates light are not dissimilar to the decisions composers make about structure of music and placement of notes.
"Sometimes I think I studied music just so I could do this," he said, gesturing to a completed portrait of Franz Liszt on the easel of his Cape Elizabeth studio. "In fact, I think I couldn't have done this without studying music. I have a facility with this, and I come to this with a set of thoughts and a set of skills and a long history of having thought about art. It's almost as if I just had to learn the technical side of it to do it."
When he was younger, Wyse often responded to his piano teachers in visual terms. He would say, "It looks like this," or "I see it like that." His visual language frustrated his teachers. They wanted him to use different words that more closely expressed musical ideas.
"But that is how I saw music," Wyse said.
Such intellectual dexterity makes mere mortals quake in his presence, joked Ron Losby, president of Steinway & Sons of New York.
"He's a consummate artist in both respects," Losby said. "I had lunch with him last week, and I asked him, 'What do you prefer: Painting or playing?' His answers are interesting. He said, 'Right now, I really enjoy painting, but I could never not play the piano.' "
As a pianist, Wyse is an official Steinway artist. Steinway confers the honor on pianists of every genre who achieve a masterful level of performance. Only after Wyse became an official Steinway artist did the piano maker learn that he also painted.
When it came time for a portrait of Fleisher, Steinway commissioned Wyse to do one, and he later completed a painting and drawing of Fleisher for the National Portrait Gallery. This past year, Steinway hired him to do the Billy Joel portrait.
Wyse impressed Fortune when she spent time with him a few years ago. "We walked through the galleries, and talked about approaches, settings and other elements about the art of portraiture," Fortune said. "He was just sort of drinking it in, and it was lovely to see that much intense interest in the art of portraiture from someone who was still learning."
The Smithsonian was drawn to Wyse for his ability to tell Fleisher's story through visual narration. For the setting for his portrait, he chose a concert hall at Syracuse University. Wyse painted Fleisher at the keyboard performing.
"We love to find a portrait that gives a visitor something more than a likeness. Sometimes that is all we have -- a face. But when we can, we like to expand that vision to add to the experience for visitors," Fortune said.
Joel is just the second living artist honored with a portrait at Steinway Hall, at 57th Street in Manhattan. Fleischer is the other.
Wyse did not receive special consideration for the painting jobs because of his association with Steinway, Losby said. He got the painting jobs because of his skills with the brush.
"His world of classical music and portrait painting coalesced so brilliantly," he said. "Of all the famous artists who have painted for us -- Wyeth and all the others -- no one has ever been a pianist, or a good pianist, as well as a portrait painter. He is very special."
In his research about art and music, Wyse found many artists who both play and paint, going back to Leonardo da Vinci. Someone more modern struck a chord with his sensibilities: John Singer Sargent.
Sargent was the leading portrait painter of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and strongly influenced Wyse's classical painting style. He considers Sargent an idol, and noted that he also had a special fondness for painting portraits of musicians.
Wyse prepared for his Joel portrait by spending the better part of a day with the rock star at his Long Island home. They hit it off well, and traded stories about playing. Over the course of several hours, he got to know Joel, and developed a feel for the singer's home.
He took many photos, then returned to his studio to begin preparatory sketches. Joel was involved throughout the process. He conferred with Wyse about poses, settings and other details. In the final painting, Joel stands off to the side of his piano, arms crossed and looking away. He is dressed casually in a leather jacket.
The painting is large -- 7 feet tall and 3 feet wide.
"He was a pleasure to work with, and surprisingly camera shy," Wyse said. "A lot of people assume celebrities would be perfectly comfortable having their portrait done, but that is often not the case."
Wyse described Joel as gracious and kind.
"We talked about music a lot," he said. "I grew up on Billy Joel music, so it was fun for me. He was my generation, for sure. When I was a teenager, he was the Lady Gaga of today."
Somewhat reluctantly, Wyse acknowledged to Joel his own skills on the piano.
Wyse, who splits his time between his family home at Cape Elizabeth and his personal home and studio in Ontario, Canada, recently made the news when Steinway Hall in New York unveiled his oil portrait of rock star Billy Joel.
Also in 2011, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., acquired two of his portraits of the famous pianist and Kennedy Center Award winner Leon Fleisher. One is an oil painting, the other a drawing. The painting likely will be exhibited later this year or in 2013, said National Portrait Gallery chief curator Brandon Fortune.
Wyse, 41, has spent most of the past decade in a wildly successful pursuit of painting, specializing in portraits of famous musicians. He spent most of his life studying classical piano, and still performs in concert halls around the globe.
He went to Deering High School, attended music classes at the University of Southern Maine, and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Montreal, where he earned his doctorate in music.
All along, he harbored a desire to paint. But it wasn't until he studied left-brain/right-brain thinking in musicians that painting became a passion for him.
In his studies, he posited that an accomplished musician could become an accomplished painter because of the similar methods of thinking and analysis that go into both art forms. How a painter shades a surface or manipulates light are not dissimilar to the decisions composers make about structure of music and placement of notes.
"Sometimes I think I studied music just so I could do this," he said, gesturing to a completed portrait of Franz Liszt on the easel of his Cape Elizabeth studio. "In fact, I think I couldn't have done this without studying music. I have a facility with this, and I come to this with a set of thoughts and a set of skills and a long history of having thought about art. It's almost as if I just had to learn the technical side of it to do it."
When he was younger, Wyse often responded to his piano teachers in visual terms. He would say, "It looks like this," or "I see it like that." His visual language frustrated his teachers. They wanted him to use different words that more closely expressed musical ideas.
"But that is how I saw music," Wyse said.
Such intellectual dexterity makes mere mortals quake in his presence, joked Ron Losby, president of Steinway & Sons of New York.
"He's a consummate artist in both respects," Losby said. "I had lunch with him last week, and I asked him, 'What do you prefer: Painting or playing?' His answers are interesting. He said, 'Right now, I really enjoy painting, but I could never not play the piano.' "
As a pianist, Wyse is an official Steinway artist. Steinway confers the honor on pianists of every genre who achieve a masterful level of performance. Only after Wyse became an official Steinway artist did the piano maker learn that he also painted.
When it came time for a portrait of Fleisher, Steinway commissioned Wyse to do one, and he later completed a painting and drawing of Fleisher for the National Portrait Gallery. This past year, Steinway hired him to do the Billy Joel portrait.
Wyse impressed Fortune when she spent time with him a few years ago. "We walked through the galleries, and talked about approaches, settings and other elements about the art of portraiture," Fortune said. "He was just sort of drinking it in, and it was lovely to see that much intense interest in the art of portraiture from someone who was still learning."
The Smithsonian was drawn to Wyse for his ability to tell Fleisher's story through visual narration. For the setting for his portrait, he chose a concert hall at Syracuse University. Wyse painted Fleisher at the keyboard performing.
"We love to find a portrait that gives a visitor something more than a likeness. Sometimes that is all we have -- a face. But when we can, we like to expand that vision to add to the experience for visitors," Fortune said.
Joel is just the second living artist honored with a portrait at Steinway Hall, at 57th Street in Manhattan. Fleischer is the other.
Wyse did not receive special consideration for the painting jobs because of his association with Steinway, Losby said. He got the painting jobs because of his skills with the brush.
"His world of classical music and portrait painting coalesced so brilliantly," he said. "Of all the famous artists who have painted for us -- Wyeth and all the others -- no one has ever been a pianist, or a good pianist, as well as a portrait painter. He is very special."
In his research about art and music, Wyse found many artists who both play and paint, going back to Leonardo da Vinci. Someone more modern struck a chord with his sensibilities: John Singer Sargent.
Sargent was the leading portrait painter of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and strongly influenced Wyse's classical painting style. He considers Sargent an idol, and noted that he also had a special fondness for painting portraits of musicians.
Wyse prepared for his Joel portrait by spending the better part of a day with the rock star at his Long Island home. They hit it off well, and traded stories about playing. Over the course of several hours, he got to know Joel, and developed a feel for the singer's home.
He took many photos, then returned to his studio to begin preparatory sketches. Joel was involved throughout the process. He conferred with Wyse about poses, settings and other details. In the final painting, Joel stands off to the side of his piano, arms crossed and looking away. He is dressed casually in a leather jacket.
The painting is large -- 7 feet tall and 3 feet wide.
"He was a pleasure to work with, and surprisingly camera shy," Wyse said. "A lot of people assume celebrities would be perfectly comfortable having their portrait done, but that is often not the case."
Wyse described Joel as gracious and kind.
"We talked about music a lot," he said. "I grew up on Billy Joel music, so it was fun for me. He was my generation, for sure. When I was a teenager, he was the Lady Gaga of today."
Somewhat reluctantly, Wyse acknowledged to Joel his own skills on the piano.
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