There have been many times in the past year in which my hubby and I have had to pinch ourselves at the wonder of the moments we’ve experienced. Living a life of travel has its downsides but we recognize how incredibly fortunate we are. Each memory is one we may not have otherwise enjoyed had we chosen to stay put. In her series Technicolor Summer, Los Angeles artist Kimberly Brooks captures such quiet moments in which life and all that surrounds us is being soaked up to the fullest.
Technicolor Summer, oil on linen, 36×44Canon Drive, oil on linen
Her paintings are tinged with a hint of melancholy, as the scenes follow her family through summer vacations all the while bracing for the death of the artist’s father. We too, find ourselves in the midst of amazing beauty, yet still wishing for something more.. thinking about how much a close friend or family member would enjoy the moment, how much we wish they were there with us.
Mulholland Drive, oil on linen
So we take lots of photographs to share, hoping that our loved ones can live these moments with us across the miles. But we often wonder, if given the chance, would they have made the same choice? We’ve met people who live within a few hours drive of incredible places yet they have never ventured out to experience them.
Yosemite River, oil on linen, 30×30
Are you living life to the fullest? What moments are you truly enjoying and experiencing these days? It’s so easy to get stuck in the drudgery of our day to day. Get out and live in full color, enjoy every minute as if it were your last.
The work of South African artist Karin Miller caught my eye on Pinterest and I was blown away after visiting her website. Check out the examples of her work I’m featuring over on Escape Into Life today!
Very often, negative space is just as important to our understanding of form as the form itself. Think about clouds– their beauty is most apparent when surrounded by bright blue sky. In Portuguese artist Cristina Troufa’s work, the painter uses simple lines and negative space to punctuate her compositions, choosing to highlight the flesh which makes her figures essentially human.
Pedestal, mixed media
Her concentration of color and light on the exposed flesh of her subjects speaks to our tendency to judge on appearance, often unable to look past the person we think we see and notice each other for who we really are.
Pelo Ralo, mixed media
Her compositions are simple, the backgrounds stark, only a detail left to us here or there.
Degraus, mixed media
What do we see when we fill in the blanks? Who are these women, this boy? What is this moment we’ve caught them in? Have we been there before?
Etapas, mixed mediaSombras No Sotao, mixed media
To see more of Cristina Troufa’s work, please visit her website and her page on Meseon.
Featured image is Salto. All images are via Cristina Troufa’s page on Meseon.
Sorry for the reposting, turns out there was a little hiccup with EIL last week and Sean’s work didn’t get posted last Tuesday! Uh oh. So you’ll find it on EIL today!
There are artists whose work just sticks with me. I still remember when I first saw the work of Sean Mahan, way back during my gallery days in Florida. We all loved his work, but it wasn’t quite the right fit for the more conservative, corporate-ish gallery I was working in. So when I happened to see his work featured over on The Art Cake, I was super excited for him. He has such a unique style and vision, I just had to share his work with the Escape Into Life readers today. Please take a little jaunt over to EIL to see more!
PS– I know I usually post twice on Tuesdays, but since things have been sooo hectic lately, this will be my only post today. Hope to have blog life back to normal next week!
I admit it. I love a pretty fashion magazine as much as the next girl. Pages and pages of beautiful people contorting their bodies into strange positions to sell gorgeous clothes can sometimes enthrall me for hours. But then, I find myself needing a break from the beautiful. That may sound strange, but so often, the perfectly styled and photoshopped images create an unreal world, one that I can only take so much of. El Salvadoran artist Luis Cornejo takes these idealized images as his inspiration but infuses them with cartoonish humor.
Paff!, oil, acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 51×75
Isolating the figures gives each painting an almost classical composition, seeming to compare the fashion models of today to the artist’s muse of the past.
Untitled ( #5 ), oil and acrylic on canvas, 47×58
The models retain their “fierce”, pouty poses, while Cornejo’s added illustrative elements remind us to not take this artificially created world too seriously.
Untitled ( #6 ), oil and acrylic on linen, 31×39Untitled ( #7 ), oil and acrylic on linen, 35×53
To see more of Luis Cornejo’s work, please visit his website.
Hi Artsies! I’m taking a tiny break for a few days, while we visit with some dear friends from Florida. Please welcome fellow art lover and blogger, Kaitlyn Patience, who blogs and creates gorgeous stationery over at isavirtue!
Hello! My name is Kaitlyn. I blog at isavirtue and I will be guest posting on Artsy Forager today!
Jovie, watercolor on paper, 8.5×11
Not to be confused with the comedic British movie character, artist Austin Power has made a name for himself as well. His unique portraits, which almost never depict an entire face, are at once eerie and intriguing.
Esther, watercolor on paper, 11×15Emmanuel 2, watercolor on paper, 12×14
I would have guessed that the artist only paints those details that have made an impression on him. For example, I feel most connected to my husband’s eyes, and my best friend is known for her ski slope nose. So I assumed that the artist was simply recording the most intimate features on his friends and loved ones (As in his series “21 Portraits of People I Miss”). But the artist has a different train of thought than I.
Amy, watercolor on paper, 10×15Jayme, watercolor on paper, 11×15
Power describes his reasoning for leaving out a nose, or a mouth, or a pair of eyes, “I am interested in showing the difficulty and discomfort in fully understanding a person. I leave my subjects incomplete to highlight their limitations, as well as my own inability to see the subject beyond the influence of myself.”
Featured image is Self-Portrait by Austin Power. All images via the artist’s website.
Happy Memorial Day, Artsies! Hope you are out celebrating with friends and family. Chances are if you aren’t completely land-locked, you’ll be spending some time in, on or near the water. Hubby & I are spending the holiday moving from our temporary rental in town to our summer rental on Hayden Lake here in Northern Idaho. It’s still been pretty chilly here, so we won’t be doing any in-water activities, but I’m sure we’ll find ourselves soaking up the sun and just enjoying lake life. Columbus, Ohio artist Laura Sanders perfectly captures the wonder of water-logged summers.
Obstructed Horizon, oil on canvas
I was immediately drawn to Sanders’ work, not just because George & I will be enjoying lake life this summer, but also because her work beautifully portrays the joyful memories of my own summer lake experiences as a young girl. My older brother, Jason & I used to spend a few weeks of every summer at the home of our great aunt & uncle, who were active retirees living on small Hall Lake in Northern Florida. Aunt Helen & Uncle Vernon were still fairly young, but had no grandchildren yet, so we filled the void, spending lazy days swimming, fishing, biking and just generally having the time of our lives.
Untitled, oil on canvas, 36×36
Jason was into taking my uncle’s little johnboat around the lake for a spin and biking up and down the clay road, while I, like the girls Sanders’ paints, was more the little mermaid. I loved being in the water, the feel of it on my skin, the sun beating down, heating up the inner tube until it got just hot enough to need to dunk under for a bit of relief. Uncle Vernon loved to swim, too, and spent hours in the lake with us, while Aunt Helen was the disciplinarian. She firmly believed in the no swimming just after lunch rule.. much to our chagrin. But she always brought us Fla-Vor-Ice’s while we swam, so all was forgiven.
Noon, oil on canvas, 25×27
As we grew older, our time at the lake grew shorter. We became busy with teenage life and Aunt Helen & Uncle Vernon finally had a grandson of their own to spoil. We moved on, but they held a very special place in our hearts. They’ve both passed now, Vernon several years ago and Helen just last year. But the memories we made with them live on. Every once in a while, a breeze stirs up or I’m near the water, or see paintings like Laura Sanders’ and I am immediately transported back to Hall Lake. I can feel their presence and hear Aunt Helen scolding Uncle Vernon for keeping us in the water too long, just before she rings the old dinner bell by the back door.
Cloud Cover, oil on canvas, 52×42Later Summer, oil on canvas
I hope you’ve spent this Memorial Day making some wonderful memories of your own! To see more of Laura Sanders’ work, please visit her website. For a little bonus, scroll down to the end of this post to see a special photo from my days at Hall Lake. 😉
Featured image is Girls and Plastic Floating, oil on canvas. All images are via the artist’s website or the website of her representing gallery, Rebecca Ibel Gallery.
Here’s your bonus pic!
Hall Lake, Summer 1982 l to r: My brother Jason, our friend & lake neighbor Glenn Hayhurst, his sister Shelley, yours truly
Every family has an unofficial photographer. That one person you can always count on to be there, camera in hand, to capture milestones, special gatherings and stolen moments. My maternal grandmother played the role in my family. She filled album after album of memories to leave behind and those photographs are among my most treasured possessions. They are a visual storybook of our family history. Greenville, South Carolina artists Signe and Genna Grushovenko find the precious memories of strangers and translate them into paint.
Horizontal Wine, oil on linen, 36×36
Though the source photographs themselves have been abandoned by their owners, whether by choice or loss, the artists capture the moments and further anonymize them, erasing faces of features and expressions. Thus they become instantly relatable. The faces could be you.. your brothers.. your mother.. your grandmother.
Beach Friends: Process Colors, oil on linen, 30×40
The husband and wife painting duo collaborate on each canvas, husband Genna supplies the underlying layers of color, pattern and texture onto which wife Signe applies the inspired composition of color blocked figures and settings. The use of a vibrant, limited palette allows the eye to focus on form and depth– and there is plenty of it to be had!
Urban Stroll, oil on linen, 30×40
We always tend to look back on “the good ol’ days” with fondness. Whether or not the days were really good is debatable, I suppose. But I think there is much we can learn by looking back on the imagery of our past. How to be content. Living with less but living more. Enjoying simple moments with family and friends.
Little White Dress, Little White Dog ( Large ), oil on linen, 36×36Four Layered Lounge: Citrus, oil on linen, 48×48
I hope your weekend was filled with simple, blissful living! To see more of Signe & Genna Grushovenko’s work, please visit their website. Oh and be sure to check out one of their gorgeous pieces hanging in the 2012 HGTV Green Home! PS– My hubby is convinced that we’re going to win one of the dream homes. 😉
Spring has finally taken hold and color is exploding everywhere! And speaking of bursting color, make sure you go over to Escape Into Life today to see the work of German artist Markus Linnenbrink. He is masterful in his use of bright and brilliant hues!
Sammy Davis jr, Kee Joo and Peter Lawford by Markus Linnenbrink, c-print, epoxy resin and wood, 31×24
Body language speaks louder than words. Many times, our posture and expression may belie what we’re really thinking, despite the words coming out of our mouths. The paintings of Santa Fe artist Ali Cavanaugh shout with quiet profundity.
I’ll Smile As I Wait, 12×12
Cavanaugh’s inspiration comes much from her dependence upon visual language, due to the loss of much of her hearing to spinal meningitis at a very young age. Utilizing simple compositions with bright palettes and extraordinary light against white backgrounds, Cavanaugh tells visual stories not only of what is meant to be communicated, but also what is kept hidden.
Ply, modern fresco, 12×12
Her figures employ their bodies to communicate– folding their arms and hands to tell the world what perhaps they dare not speak.
Place One End On My Memory That Holds An Imperfection, 30×22
Even these tools of communication are often concealed, hiding behind brightly colored socks, as if performing in an impromptu puppet show. They are trying to convey truth, yet it still remains obscured.
An Arc, Placing Me in a Vivid Illusion, modern fresco, 16×20Divide the Timeline Into Then.. and Now, modern fresco, 22×30
Be sure to visit Ali Cavanaugh’s website to see more of her incredible work and to find out where you can see her work in person.
Featured image is Place One End on My Memory That Holds an Imperfection. All images are via the artist’s website.
