You know that phrase, you get more flies with honey? Candy-coated truths always seem a bit more digestible. Whether its revealing political truths through comical satire or historical truths in frosted palettes as in the work of Australian artist Stefan Dunlop, difficult ideas can be approached more easily from a less threatening perspective.
Dunlop’s simple use of form and bright pastel palette immediately draw the eye, thinking we’re in for a fun ride. But his subject matter and old master-like composition lead us to want to investigate a bit further. There is a darkness lurking beneath that cotton candy surface.
One of the things that draws me again and again to abstract work is its ambiguity. We can never know for certain the source of the artist’s inspiration and every viewer carries to the work their own interpretation. The work of Irish Australian based artist Michael Cusack uses a consistent language of simple shapes and fields of white, each piece leaving us to determine exactly what it is we see.
For each viewer, the reality of what they see is unique. In viewing and living with abstract work like Cusack’s, we find ourselves on a quest to determine the truth of what we see. But we all look at each work through our own goggles of perception. Our experiences, memories and associations color our interpretation, giving these kinds of works a universal veracity unique to each viewer.
Just last night over a glass of wine and chocolate marscapone cheesecake, Mr. Forager and I were talking about where I saw my studio work going and I told him I didn’t really have a desire to become a figurative painter. And then this morning I came across the work of Jennifer Nerhbass. In her work, the New Mexico artist explores “The relationships of women to themselves and their environment”. Ok, maybe I’ve changed my mind.
As women, we get so caught up in society’s idea of what we should look like and who we should be. We find ourselves spending hours looking for that perfect little dress, even when we’d rather be outside. Since we’ve been traveling, I’ve been slowly stripping away those artifices I’d built up for so long. That closet filled with shoes, many of them rarely worn. Drawers filled with make-up and perfume. I’ve learned that Mr. F sees me at my most beautiful when we are hiking together– not in heels but hiking boots, no makeup, hair usually a mess. But what he’s seeing is the inspiration and peace that fills and recharges my spirit and soul. We so often forsake that for ourselves.
In her work, we see Nehrbass’s women often out of place in the wild, like they’ve suddenly been plucked out of their urban existence and somehow landed in the midst of wilderness. I see so many parallels with how we live as modern women and these paintings. We become so obsessed with creating beauty in ourselves that we lose touch with the life and beauty around us.
One of my favorite things about babies and children of family and friends is looking at them and seeing how their parents come through. Whether in their physical attributes or personalities, it always amazes me to see glimpses of parents or grandparents in a new unique little personality. In her Heritage series, French artist Marie Hudelot explores the cultural heritage between an East and West family legacy, specifically France and Algeria.
Just as we are each conglomerations of generations of hereditary history, in Hudelot’s conceptual portraits we see symbolic aggregations to create emblematic figures. Faces covered, the figures could be anonymous representations of previous generations. How much of who we become is influenced by those who came before? Whether genetic or cultural, we are all in some way the product of past generations.
I am loving these little Puffball Bonsai sculptures by Alexandra Gjurasic. They make me happy with their colorful stripes and cotton candy poufs. I could just leave it at that. But I like to take things a little deeper. They’re fun and completely awesome, but what are they saying to me, besides let’s play?
The high level of artificiality mixed with the traditional china pot speaks to me of the pet-like nature of Bonsai’s. They are high maintenance mini-trees cultivated mainly as a form of meditation and expression of creativity on the part of the caregiver. They seem, to me, to be like pet trees. Gjurasic is taking that idea even further by “dressing them up” in colorful stripes and glittery flowers. It’s interesting to think about flowers and houseplants in this way– these living things, which thrive in their own natural environment, cut down or cultivated in order to give us pleasure.
Oh and Gjurasic’s trees also spun off paintings, which are almost as enchanting! To see more of Alexandra Gjurasic‘s work, please visit her website.
Something about the warmer months make me long for the exotic. Maybe it’s childhood conditioning bringing on dreams of summer vacations to faraway places! I’ve always loved the work of Jill Ricci for her brilliant way of combining exotic motifs with pop art and urban graphics and her mixed media piece, Roam, perfectly inspires an urban globetrotter ensemble! This Mintzita Maxi Dress from Anthropologie embodies a free spirited, exotic traveler type.
How to make it just a tad more Ricci? Edge up the dress’s sweetness with a moto jacket and Chuck Taylors and suddenly it’s like you are living it up Ricci-style. Roam, if you want to. 😉
See more of the Wear the Artsy series in the archives!
When I was a little girl, like every other kid, I loved going to places like the zoo, Disney World & Busch Gardens. I reveled in the feeling of being in exotic places without losing familiar comforts and conveniences. Then as I grew older and especially since Mr. F & I have been traveling, I’ve realized that there are far more amazing places existing in their natural states than man could ever conceive of. In his mixed media work, Brooklyn based artist Shane McAdams addresses the duality of nature versus man-imitating-nature.
In these brilliantly detailed landscapes, McAdams uses familiar mediums like ballpoint pen and Elmer’s glue in unusual applications against traditionally rendered landscapes. The result is what appears to be a pushing in or pulling apart of the scene, symbolic of artificial forces rendering their effect on the natural world. I love the way bright colors seem to melt from the landscape, giving to me, the effect of revealing the artificiality of a constructed scene. What we see isn’t always what it seems, especially when touched by the hand of man.
To see more of Shane McAdams‘ work, please visit his website. Interested in another artist working in ballpoint? Check out Joan Salo.
I’m finding so much to inspire and aspire to in the work of other artists lately, especially in the way abstract artists approach composition and color. How some artists choose to include graphic or narrative elements eluding to a certain subject or influence, while others, like Emily Crabtree, simply let color and form do the talking.
I love the way her work twirls and drips in cottony bundles of color. In these paper pieces, the forms isolated against a clean white background, almost seem to pulsate and dare to flit about the surface. Peeking in from this side or that, the cropped compositions feel like a fleeting glimpse of clouds of color floating in and out of view.
This year is zipping by like a lightning bug, isn’t it? We’ve rounded the corner to a new month, which means there is a new Featured Artist to enjoy and obsess over all May long! Toronto artist Holly Farrell is this month’s darling and I’m so excited to feature her work here again.
Holly is an amazingly self-taught painter whose work she lovingly describes as “still life as portraiture”. The things we surround ourselves with, especially as children, hold so many memories and associations. Like Holly’s association with pulp paperbacks such as “All the Way” above involve sneaking peeks at the forbidden books as a youngster. The way she portrays each object, worn with use and love, usually on a stark background, helps us connect to our own associations. We see the objects not just through the artist’s filter, but through our own memories.
To see more of Holly Farrell‘s work, please visit her website. If you’re in the NYC area, Holly will be showing at the Outsider Art Fair this weekend, May 8th-May11th! And you can see Holly’s work featured here on the blog & all over AF social media all throughout the merry month of May!
Lately, I’ve been rediscovered the joy of finger painting. Sometimes a brush just won’t do the trick and your digits are the best way to get it done. And for me, it makes me feel even more connected to what I’m creating– I’m physically in the work, no middle man. It got me thinking about how I made art as a child and I hate to say that what I really remember is feeling frustration when what I created didn’t turn out as perfect as the vision in my head. But what I’ve come to understand and what so many artists do, is that it is in the naiveté and imperfection that the heart of an artist is revealed. In her folk style paintings, Los Angeles based artist Esther Pearl Watson tells her own unique stories through childlike eyes.
Growing up in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, Watson’s father was a bit of an eccentric, an inventor who would spend hours working on what he believed to be the future of transportation– hover vehicles. Her folkloric inspired paintings are a sweetly odd mix of nostalgia, present reality, and idealistic dreams of a futuristic world.
To see more of the work of Esther Pearl Watson, please visit her website. Her work can be seen in the current exhibition, Sky, at the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, CA through May 25th.
