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.”
2011年12月19日星期一
Columbia College art student stages exhibition at Tellers Gallery & Bar
Standing in front of her painting of barn swallows, Meridith Gray tilted her head to the right and frowned.
"It's starting to get ugly," the Columbia College art student said as she layered a grayish blue onto the painting.
"That's not right. I need orange and red for the sky instead."
Gray quickly grabbed a cloth and wiped off the blue off the canvas.
"I like it that a lot of the times I don't know what I'm doing," she said. "Spontaneity is an artist's greatest tool."
She stepped back, took a look at her work and finally nodded.
"Now, the swallows can take command."
Gray, a senior, created a group of paintings featuring barn swallows for an art class. Despite the long nights she spent on this collection, she said the effort doesn't match the demanding nebula series she worked on for more than a year.
That series is a collection of seven oil paintings based on Gray's rendering of nebula clouds from photographs. The series is being exhibited this month at Tellers Gallery & Bar, 820 E. Broadway.
A nebula is an interstellar cloud made of dust and ionized gases. Gray said her inspiration came from a general astronomy course she took at Moberly Area Community College.
"The moment that I saw the Orion Nebula picture, I knew it was something I wanted to paint," she said. "They're so big — light years across — they're really fascinating and beautiful to me."
Gray said it took a long time for her to adjust to the level of accuracy and skills she needed to paint the transience and sophistication of the nebula.
"Before this I really had no artistic direction at all," she said. "I'm trying to take it up to the professional level with this series and step out of what I'm used to doing in school that is free form."
The hardest part of the process, Gray said, was the beginning, when she needed to scale the image onto the canvas proportionally. She called it time-consuming and dull at the same time.
The fact that nebulae tend to emerge slowly at night also required her to work late to capture the haziness and depth of the clouds.
"These paintings have density and atmosphere in them," she said. "I feel like their depth is better achieved because the dim light brings out the beauty of the nebulae."
Oil painting is a process of layers that keep emerging and recessing on the canvas, Gray said. To build a three-dimensional effect, she used a technique called sfumato, which required extensive smudging to develop a hazy and obscure finish to the painting.
Sfumato was a Renaissance painting technique used most famously by Leonardo da Vinci in his "Mona Lisa."
Each nebula painting took about two months to complete, yet Gray said the finished drawings encouraged her to continue the series.
"It's so worth it once the painting is done," she said. "I have no reason to stop. I want to show what’s out there for us to be inspired by and in awe of."
Before the showing at Tellers, Angela Speck, associate professor in MU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, asked Gray to be an artist-in-residence at the Laws Observatory and exhibit her works there.
"We tend to think that art and science are very different things, but I wanted to find ways to bring them together to demonstrate that astronomy goes beyond science," Speck said. "Meridith presented us an opportunity."
Speck said her husband purchased one of the nebula paintings for her birthday.
"I adore it, it's amazing how well Meridith captures the images of the nebula," she said.
Speck also encouraged Gray to reproduce her work as prints, although Gray told her that would be a future step in her career.
"I'm still a student, and I feel like I have to multiply the series by five in order to call myself an artist," she said. "Right now I just want to focus on producing the work and making a name for myself."
Sixteen examples of Gray's art works are available for sale at Tellers until the end of December.
In addition to the nebula collection, an abstract, mixed-media series that involves painting with tissue paper is also included.
"I miss when I was just given supplies and allowed to do whatever I wanted," she said. "I'm trying to go back to things that I did in high school when I was really free-spirited and not held down by any techniques."
"It's starting to get ugly," the Columbia College art student said as she layered a grayish blue onto the painting.
"That's not right. I need orange and red for the sky instead."
Gray quickly grabbed a cloth and wiped off the blue off the canvas.
"I like it that a lot of the times I don't know what I'm doing," she said. "Spontaneity is an artist's greatest tool."
She stepped back, took a look at her work and finally nodded.
"Now, the swallows can take command."
Gray, a senior, created a group of paintings featuring barn swallows for an art class. Despite the long nights she spent on this collection, she said the effort doesn't match the demanding nebula series she worked on for more than a year.
That series is a collection of seven oil paintings based on Gray's rendering of nebula clouds from photographs. The series is being exhibited this month at Tellers Gallery & Bar, 820 E. Broadway.
A nebula is an interstellar cloud made of dust and ionized gases. Gray said her inspiration came from a general astronomy course she took at Moberly Area Community College.
"The moment that I saw the Orion Nebula picture, I knew it was something I wanted to paint," she said. "They're so big — light years across — they're really fascinating and beautiful to me."
Gray said it took a long time for her to adjust to the level of accuracy and skills she needed to paint the transience and sophistication of the nebula.
"Before this I really had no artistic direction at all," she said. "I'm trying to take it up to the professional level with this series and step out of what I'm used to doing in school that is free form."
The hardest part of the process, Gray said, was the beginning, when she needed to scale the image onto the canvas proportionally. She called it time-consuming and dull at the same time.
The fact that nebulae tend to emerge slowly at night also required her to work late to capture the haziness and depth of the clouds.
"These paintings have density and atmosphere in them," she said. "I feel like their depth is better achieved because the dim light brings out the beauty of the nebulae."
Oil painting is a process of layers that keep emerging and recessing on the canvas, Gray said. To build a three-dimensional effect, she used a technique called sfumato, which required extensive smudging to develop a hazy and obscure finish to the painting.
Sfumato was a Renaissance painting technique used most famously by Leonardo da Vinci in his "Mona Lisa."
Each nebula painting took about two months to complete, yet Gray said the finished drawings encouraged her to continue the series.
"It's so worth it once the painting is done," she said. "I have no reason to stop. I want to show what’s out there for us to be inspired by and in awe of."
Before the showing at Tellers, Angela Speck, associate professor in MU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, asked Gray to be an artist-in-residence at the Laws Observatory and exhibit her works there.
"We tend to think that art and science are very different things, but I wanted to find ways to bring them together to demonstrate that astronomy goes beyond science," Speck said. "Meridith presented us an opportunity."
Speck said her husband purchased one of the nebula paintings for her birthday.
"I adore it, it's amazing how well Meridith captures the images of the nebula," she said.
Speck also encouraged Gray to reproduce her work as prints, although Gray told her that would be a future step in her career.
"I'm still a student, and I feel like I have to multiply the series by five in order to call myself an artist," she said. "Right now I just want to focus on producing the work and making a name for myself."
Sixteen examples of Gray's art works are available for sale at Tellers until the end of December.
In addition to the nebula collection, an abstract, mixed-media series that involves painting with tissue paper is also included.
"I miss when I was just given supplies and allowed to do whatever I wanted," she said. "I'm trying to go back to things that I did in high school when I was really free-spirited and not held down by any techniques."
2011年12月5日星期一
Christmas stamp features Walters Art Museum treasure by Raphael
A Raphael masterpiece that hangs in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore is getting national attention this holiday season as the U.S. Postal Service features the “Madonna of the Candelabra” as one of its 2011 Christmas stamps.
The circular oil painting, created by the famed Renaissance artist around 1513, shows a serene Blessed Virgin Mary holding the child Jesus. It was purchased by Henry Walters from a Vatican official in 1900, becoming the first Raphael Madonna to enter the United States.
Joaneath Spicer, curator of Renaissance and Baroque art at the Walters, said the painting is especially notable for the way it combines an idealized image of Mary with a very human Jesus. Standing in front of the masterwork, Spicer pointed out that the child Jesus places a hand on his mother’s chest and exhibits a bit of mischief on his face.
“You have the Christ child saying, ‘You know, it’s almost lunch time,’ “ Spicer said with a laugh. “You have that little bit of humor in there to emphasize Christ’s humanity. This is a real kid. He’s a baby and he needed to eat to grow just as a human baby does.”
Mary’s gesture also touches on humanity, Spicer said, as she lovingly rests her hand on her child’s torso.
“It’s wonderful the sense of touch that’s brought out,” she said. “The little Christ child is being comforted.”
Contemporaries of Raphael such as Leonardo and Michelangelo tended to be more cerebral in their paintings, Spicer said. Artists down through the ages keep coming back to Raphael precisely because of how the Italian artist portrayed humanity, Spicer said.
“He was able to express things in a vocabulary that artists keep using,” she explained.
The painting is perfect for a stamp, Spicer said, because it is very compact, orderly and symmetrical, while also highlighting the sense of naturalism in the human reactions of the subjects.
The postal service used a detail from the painting, honing in on the image of Mary and Jesus and excluding two angels that Spicer believes may have been repainted by other artists.
“The distillation works beautifully as a composition (for a stamp),” she said.
The selection of the Raphael painting for a holiday stamp was a surprise. The postal service had long ago contacted the Walters “out of the blue” about possibly using one of its images, Spicer said, but so much time had passed that she forgot about it.
Stephen Kearney, executive director of stamp services for the U.S. Postal Service noted that this year’s holiday stamps will be the first of their kind to be issued as “Forever stamps” – stamps that can continue to be used to mail 1-ounce first-class mail even after the price of stamps rises.
Last year, more than 1.3 billion holiday stamps were sold between October and December – one in every 10 stamps sold for the year, according to Kearney.
The Madonna of the Candelabra stamp was unveiled Nov. 18 at the Sisters of Charity Motherhouse in Nazareth, Ky.
Because the Raphael painting will be loaned to exhibitions in Spain and France next fall, Spicer said, now is a good time for visitors to check it out at the Walters.
“It was painted at the moment of the High Renaissance,” she said, “when the sense of realism and idealism worked together to really capture the imagination of viewers until today. This picture is a wonderful manifestation of that.”
The circular oil painting, created by the famed Renaissance artist around 1513, shows a serene Blessed Virgin Mary holding the child Jesus. It was purchased by Henry Walters from a Vatican official in 1900, becoming the first Raphael Madonna to enter the United States.
Joaneath Spicer, curator of Renaissance and Baroque art at the Walters, said the painting is especially notable for the way it combines an idealized image of Mary with a very human Jesus. Standing in front of the masterwork, Spicer pointed out that the child Jesus places a hand on his mother’s chest and exhibits a bit of mischief on his face.
“You have the Christ child saying, ‘You know, it’s almost lunch time,’ “ Spicer said with a laugh. “You have that little bit of humor in there to emphasize Christ’s humanity. This is a real kid. He’s a baby and he needed to eat to grow just as a human baby does.”
Mary’s gesture also touches on humanity, Spicer said, as she lovingly rests her hand on her child’s torso.
“It’s wonderful the sense of touch that’s brought out,” she said. “The little Christ child is being comforted.”
Contemporaries of Raphael such as Leonardo and Michelangelo tended to be more cerebral in their paintings, Spicer said. Artists down through the ages keep coming back to Raphael precisely because of how the Italian artist portrayed humanity, Spicer said.
“He was able to express things in a vocabulary that artists keep using,” she explained.
The painting is perfect for a stamp, Spicer said, because it is very compact, orderly and symmetrical, while also highlighting the sense of naturalism in the human reactions of the subjects.
The postal service used a detail from the painting, honing in on the image of Mary and Jesus and excluding two angels that Spicer believes may have been repainted by other artists.
“The distillation works beautifully as a composition (for a stamp),” she said.
The selection of the Raphael painting for a holiday stamp was a surprise. The postal service had long ago contacted the Walters “out of the blue” about possibly using one of its images, Spicer said, but so much time had passed that she forgot about it.
Stephen Kearney, executive director of stamp services for the U.S. Postal Service noted that this year’s holiday stamps will be the first of their kind to be issued as “Forever stamps” – stamps that can continue to be used to mail 1-ounce first-class mail even after the price of stamps rises.
Last year, more than 1.3 billion holiday stamps were sold between October and December – one in every 10 stamps sold for the year, according to Kearney.
The Madonna of the Candelabra stamp was unveiled Nov. 18 at the Sisters of Charity Motherhouse in Nazareth, Ky.
Because the Raphael painting will be loaned to exhibitions in Spain and France next fall, Spicer said, now is a good time for visitors to check it out at the Walters.
“It was painted at the moment of the High Renaissance,” she said, “when the sense of realism and idealism worked together to really capture the imagination of viewers until today. This picture is a wonderful manifestation of that.”
2011年9月19日星期一
'$11m painting is a fake'
A painting that sold for over $11 million under the name of a renowned Chinese artist was actually made decades after his death by a student in a classroom exercise, a group of artists has alleged.
The nude, entitled “The Body of Miss Jiang Biwei”, was accredited to the well-known artist Xu Beihong and sold at auction in June 2010 for 72.8 million yuan ($11.4 million).
But an open letter posted on several online forums by a group of graduates from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing said the oil painting was actually produced by one of them in 1983 - 30 years after Xu's death.
“Recently, after contacting each other, we have doubted a piece of news we read on the Internet,” says the letter.
“This is a picture that cannot be more familiar to our class. It's a classroom exercise done by one of us. We cannot determine which of us produced it, but many of us have kept paintings from the class.”
Several oil paintings drawn from different angles and depicting a nude woman who looks strikingly similar to that in the art work were posted online along with the letter.
The artists say the model, who they identify only by the letter L, was a young girl who had travelled to the capital from rural China looking for work.
“L's hairstyle is common to the 1980s, her figure is also very unique... and left a deep impression on students,” the letter states.
“For Mr Xu Beihong's painting to share exactly the same lining colour, model standing posture, body features, hairstyle, and facial features as our paintings, this is impossible.”
The auction house which sold the painting, Beijing Jiuge International Auction Company, said it had no immediate comment to make on the letter.
Xu is best known for his ink paintings of horses, although he is also widely regarded as a pioneer of oil painting in China.
One of his ink works, entitled “Galloping Horse,” sold for 17 million yuan at a local auction in November last year.
China recently overtook the United States as the biggest auction market for art and collectable objects after sales more than doubled in a single year, according to research for the French Auction Market Authority.
The nude, entitled “The Body of Miss Jiang Biwei”, was accredited to the well-known artist Xu Beihong and sold at auction in June 2010 for 72.8 million yuan ($11.4 million).
But an open letter posted on several online forums by a group of graduates from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing said the oil painting was actually produced by one of them in 1983 - 30 years after Xu's death.
“Recently, after contacting each other, we have doubted a piece of news we read on the Internet,” says the letter.
“This is a picture that cannot be more familiar to our class. It's a classroom exercise done by one of us. We cannot determine which of us produced it, but many of us have kept paintings from the class.”
Several oil paintings drawn from different angles and depicting a nude woman who looks strikingly similar to that in the art work were posted online along with the letter.
The artists say the model, who they identify only by the letter L, was a young girl who had travelled to the capital from rural China looking for work.
“L's hairstyle is common to the 1980s, her figure is also very unique... and left a deep impression on students,” the letter states.
“For Mr Xu Beihong's painting to share exactly the same lining colour, model standing posture, body features, hairstyle, and facial features as our paintings, this is impossible.”
The auction house which sold the painting, Beijing Jiuge International Auction Company, said it had no immediate comment to make on the letter.
Xu is best known for his ink paintings of horses, although he is also widely regarded as a pioneer of oil painting in China.
One of his ink works, entitled “Galloping Horse,” sold for 17 million yuan at a local auction in November last year.
China recently overtook the United States as the biggest auction market for art and collectable objects after sales more than doubled in a single year, according to research for the French Auction Market Authority.
2011年5月2日星期一
Grid Not Closed
This is Sean Costello of Hawaii Energy Consultants, to encourage everyone to do their part with regards to renewable energy production. I have had the pleasure of visiting Molokai once every two to three months since I moved to Oahu in May of 2008. Since then Maui Electric Company (MECO) has closed the grid to new customer-sited distributed generation systems, otherwise known as DG, and specifically in the form of solar photovoltaic systems (PV), because 5 percent of the total installed generation capacity exists in the form of PV.
The DOE is looking into funding an island-wide interconnection requirement study (IRS), but there are quite a few things that can be done to get around the IRS. I wanted everyone to know that this restriction only exists for systems larger than 1 kilowatt of alternating current output (1 kWAC). This means that you can install up to about four to five modules up on your roof or in your yard without needing approval from MECO. Installing just one panel in a sunny spot can provide about 1 kWh of AC energy per day. This may not sound like a lot, but if 1,000 people did this then that's 1 MWh per day of electricity generation. This would be about 2-5 percent of the daily energy needs of Molokai. Imagine if everyone did two to three panels (or even four or five!) what kind of energy generation could be provided locally!
Aren't you sick of paying $5 a gallon for gasoline? Get an electric bicycle or moped and cut your gasoline cost in half by fuelling with electricity. Can't figure out where all of your electricity consumption is going? Get an eGauge. Go to egauge.net for more information. This device allows you to see your whole house and appliance consumption broken down on the internet in real time. I urge everyone to purchase at least one photovoltaic module. Perhaps if we get enough people together we can fill up a whole container and get everyone a great price on a single module with a microinverter that can just wire directly into your distribution panel. Let's uncomplicate the renewable energy issue and get everyone doing it.
Mahalo for reading and I hope I have provided some valuable insight
The DOE is looking into funding an island-wide interconnection requirement study (IRS), but there are quite a few things that can be done to get around the IRS. I wanted everyone to know that this restriction only exists for systems larger than 1 kilowatt of alternating current output (1 kWAC). This means that you can install up to about four to five modules up on your roof or in your yard without needing approval from MECO. Installing just one panel in a sunny spot can provide about 1 kWh of AC energy per day. This may not sound like a lot, but if 1,000 people did this then that's 1 MWh per day of electricity generation. This would be about 2-5 percent of the daily energy needs of Molokai. Imagine if everyone did two to three panels (or even four or five!) what kind of energy generation could be provided locally!
Aren't you sick of paying $5 a gallon for gasoline? Get an electric bicycle or moped and cut your gasoline cost in half by fuelling with electricity. Can't figure out where all of your electricity consumption is going? Get an eGauge. Go to egauge.net for more information. This device allows you to see your whole house and appliance consumption broken down on the internet in real time. I urge everyone to purchase at least one photovoltaic module. Perhaps if we get enough people together we can fill up a whole container and get everyone a great price on a single module with a microinverter that can just wire directly into your distribution panel. Let's uncomplicate the renewable energy issue and get everyone doing it.
Mahalo for reading and I hope I have provided some valuable insight
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