Skip to content

About
- Find the Forager
My Work
Contact

Author: Lesley

Easy Like Sunday Morning: Anna Topuriya

I am so ready for a bit of R&R this weekend, aren’t you? This traveling lifestyle that Mr. F and I enjoy has its perks but the desire to see as much of each area as possible while we are here mean that weekends are rarely spent doing much relaxing. These paintings on paper by Anna Topuriya have a lovely sense of ease and leisure to them.

The pale palette creates a peaceful atmosphere and the pops of cerulean blue are tiny little seas of calm. The tropical motifs definitely help foster that sense of a visual vacation, as well as the artist’s compositional style similar to Japanese painting, celebrating the beauty in simplicity.

To see more of Anna Topuriya‘s work, please visit her website. Now excuse me, I think I need to find myself a hammock and a pina colada.

All images via the artist’s website.

May 30, 2014
Finding My Own Artsy: Feminine Wiles, Painting Ten

It’s been a while since I shared a new Feminine Wiles piece with you! I’ve been so distracted by the gorgeous weather, hikes with Mr. F, and my new series on paper, that I let the FW pieces slip a bit. But then Sunday came and along with it a warm and sunny afternoon, so I spent some time painting out on our little deck. When I was ruminating on starting this series, iconic feminine film icons were popping into my noggin’ and Rita Hayworth‘s Gilda was among the first to come to mind.

found here

In the 1946 black & white film noir, Rita Hayworth plays title character Gilda, the passionate and beautiful songstress wife of an illegal casino owner. The film plays out a dark love triangle between Gilda, casino owner husband Mundson, and Gilda’s former love, and indebted confidante to Mundson, Johnny Farrell.

The 40s film is teeming with tension– crime, secrets, anger, revenge. It’s not wonder costume designer Jean Louis outfitted the femme fatale character is slinky black, reminiscent of Sargent’s Madame X.

Rita Hayworth as Gilda Mundson Farrell in Gilda, acrylic on canvas panel, 6×6

My darkest FW piece yet, it also has a slightly looser feel– something that I thought fit the characterization of Gilda so well– full of turmoil and contradiction.

To see more from the Feminine Wiles series, check out the series portfolio page. Up next? I’m thinking a little Monroe. 😉

Film image source linked above, painting by Lesley Frenz.

May 29, 2014
Cable Guy: Andy Mattern

If there was ever a series of photographs I could relate to, Cable Management is it. In this series, Albuquerque artist Andy Mattern documents “the process of reconstructing domestic space”, specifically the often frustrating task of figuring out which cable goes where.

As Mr. F and I move so frequently and live in furnished rentals when we do, we’re often faced with the challenge of learning a whole new layout ( which often involves crashing into walls in the middle of the night for the first week or so ), as well as new appliances and remotes. For the artist, the process of relocating and managing the electronic connections and accoutrements has become a sort of “Zen activity”. For this series, instead of documenting the actual living spaces, the artist composed mock walls and arrangements. The outlets and cables snake up and along the walls, almost taking on an anamorphic quality, the power of connection coursing through their wires.

To see more of Andy Mattern‘s work, please visit his website.

All images via the artist’s website. Artist found via Uprise Art.

May 29, 2014
Artsy Dwelling: Small is the New Big

10 Rooms Where Small Art Makes a Big Impact

By now, we’ve all seen the gagillions of pins of perfectly arranged art walls, so we know full well that when grouped with other work, small art pieces can sing. But when grouped with all those other works, lilliputian work can sometimes be as overlooked as a backup singer. Hang them on a wall all by their lonesome, though? You’re giving them the mic and letting them shine!

Here are a few of my favorite rooms showcasing small art works–

found here

found here

found here

found here

found here

found here

found here

found here

found here

found here

Need more convincing that small art can have major effect? Head over to Mantle Art & check out the beautiful, super affordable Artsy Forager Collection of limited edition prints. They’re small but they’re fabulous!

All image sources linked above.

May 28, 2014
Gestural Forces: Zachary Keeting

For many an abstract painter, there is a tense push and pull between artist and material. What makes their heart race is the predictable inquietude of the way the paint will respond and react. The work of artist Zachary Keeting is filled, layer upon layer, with painted gestures carefully considered yet surrendered to the forces of material.

Keeting’s planes of paint are built up like high rises jammed into a cityscape, one on top of the other, but retaining such distinction that the resulting paintings have almost a collage-like feel. Paint is pushed, poured, pulled, manipulated this way and that so that a beautiful chaos ensues.

To see more of Zachary Keeting‘s work, please visit his website and make sure to check out his documentary art project, Gorky’s Granddaughter.

All images are via the artist’s website.

May 28, 2014
Artsy on Film: Twenty Feet from Stardom & Thoughts on Artistic Success

At least one weekend night at home usually ends up as a movie night for Mr. F and I. While we love comedies and well told drama, we like to mix in interesting documentaries occasionally. After hearing about it on NPR, we sat down to watch Twenty Feet From Stardom a few weeks ago, a film chronicling the stories of the backup singers who literally stand behind some of the biggest names in popular music. After watching, not only did I have He’s a Rebel stuck in my head for days, it also prompted a good many thoughts on how we define artistic success.

The film follows several back-up singers and their stories, the most interesting aspect to me being how they each defined being successful. I think most of us might assume that the “star” is the pinnacle of success and what all are striving for. But I found it interesting that in the case of one singer, Lisa Fischer, fame, fortune and all the trappings were within reach, yet her idea of success was more in dedication to her art than in becoming a household name.

Recently, while working on art direction with an artist ( I do that ya know, among other services for artists! ), I asked her to define what success as an artist meant for her. Before we could go further, I needed to know what her goals were for her artistic career– selling work through galleries? Being her own boss artistically and selling directly from her studio? Having work accepted into juried exhibitions? Having work shown and sold to museums? Simply making work that makes her happy regardless of whether anyone else cares about it or buys it? All legitimate measurements of success.

Some artists may have a firm idea of what success is for them from the very start. For others of us, our ideas of success may grow and evolve over time. As in the Lisa Fischer’s career, sometimes a taste of what could have been changes our ideal of what we want to be.

How do you define artistic success? Has your idea of success changed over the years?

Image above via the Twenty Feet From Stardom website.

May 27, 2014
Associated Memory: Lindsay Stripling

In a lot of ways, our lives themselves are made up only of memories. Whether our own memories or the remembrances people have of us, those recollections make up the way we others see us and the way we perceive ourselves. In her gouache paintings, San Francisco artist Lindsay Stripling emphasizes memory and perceived realities.

Taking inspiration from vintage photographs, Stripling’s portraits represent an entrance into another world, perhaps a reality or memory different from our own. It’s funny how, you can never have visited a place, yet have a feeling of it merely from associations like film, photographs or stories. How often have we found ourselves in a spot, knowing consciously we’d never been there before, yet having an unshakeable feeling of familiarity?

Memories of our loved ones can be much the same, over time, our associations may change, changing our perceptions and skewing our memories. Our memories are sifted through a giant sieve, so that only the strongest impressions survive.

To see more of Lindsay Stripling‘s work, please visit her website. Lindsay has several pieces currently for sale on the Buy Some Damn Art website– make sure to check them out!

All images via the artist’s website. Artist found via Buy Some Damn Art.

May 27, 2014
Have an Artsy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day to all the US Artsies! Thank you to all who have served so that we may enjoy each day in freedom. Be back in full Artsy mode tomorrow!

artwork by Holly Farrell, May Featured Artist

Image found here.

May 26, 2014
Lives at Still: Tollef Runquist

When I was painting in college, I worked on a series of paintings of interiors. I absolutely loved doing them, but abandoned them as in my silly young mind, I thought, “Who wants to see a painting of a room?” In those days before Instagram, I didn’t realize that interior life paintings are a way of capturing the beauty in an ordinary, fleeting moment, something done so well in the work of Tollef Runquist.

I love these little glimpses he depicts in abandoned corners and tabletops. I can almost feel the presence of the person who just left the laptop to answer a call, who arose from the chair to greet a visitor at the door. His use of pattern and light truly brings these spaces to life, leaving us to guess as to the warmth of the light, whether the breeze blows cool through the sheers. Days tick by so quickly, filled with work and the monotony of living, yet even in those ordinary hours, we can still find plenty to celebrate.

To see more of Tollef Runquist’s work, please visit his website. I’ve been trying to make it a ( near ) daily habit of capturing the beauty of an ordinary moment in my Instagram feed. How are you celebrating your daily beauties?

Top & bottom images via Dowling Walsh Gallery, middle three images via Ober Gallery.

May 23, 2014
Artsy Lately: Margie Livingston

As artists, we are pretty obsessed with our materials and mediums. Photographers baby their cameras and lenses, sculptors take precious care of their tools. And painters, well, we love paint– the way it smells, the way it looks, the way it behaves. Seattle artist Margie Livingston, whom we last heard from in October 2012 during her run as Featured Artist, has been continuing her own wild love affair with the properties of paint.

Stretching, pulling, carving, slicing, dicing, Livingston pushes paint to its ever expanding limits. This latest group of work seems to have an elegant electricity about it, in the juxtapositions of graphic black & white against super charged neon purples and pinks. Then she spins that on its head with her gloriously shroud-like draped paint sculptures.

Poured, Sliced, and Draped, a show of Margie Livingston’s latest work, opens at Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle today, with the opening reception taking place during First Thursday on June 5th. If you’re in Seattle, don’t miss her Artist Talk this Saturday, at 11:30am, see the Greg Kucera site for details! Aaaah, some days I really miss Seattle.

And of course, be sure to check out Margie Livingston’s website for more of her work.

Top, second & fifth image via the artist’s website. Other images via the Greg Kucera website.

May 22, 2014

←Previous Page

1 … 33 34 35 36 37 … 146

artsy forager

artistic pathfinding by lesley frenz

Blog
About
FAQs
Authors

Events
Shop
Patterns
Themes

Twenty Twenty-Five

Designed with WordPress

Loading Comments...

Write a Comment...

Email (Required)

Name (Required)

Website