For me, gorgeously styled movies and fashion photos are a guilty pleasure and voyeuristic escape. For a brief moment, I can imagine myself a part of a super fabulous, amazingly glamorous life. The work of Tallahassee artist Anna Kincaide Horne offers a similar experience in her elegantly painted figures.
Blue Tights Girl, oil on canvas, 48×3Blue Gloves, oil on canvas, 30×40
In my gallery days, I relished the chance to dress up for an opening or special event. Something about wearing heels and a little cocktail dress makes even a work event just a bit more exciting. These days, I ( like many of us! ) live my days in jeans and flip flops. Events for elegant dress are few and far between.
Happy Hour, oil on canvasEveryone Wants to be Cary Grant, oil on canvas, 30×30
Yet, life still feels glamorous to me. Mr. Forager and are pretty fortunate, we live a life filled with travel and discovery. Even if we’re living it casual-style.
Artist found via Stellers Gallery in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. All images are via the artist’s website.
The work of California artist Lisa Beerntsen seems at once cosmic and microscopic.. organic forms float as if suspended in viscous fluid. Check out more of Beerntsen’s work my Artist Watch feature today over on Escape Into Life!
Following our little road trip to Southern California, I’m happy to be back foraging for you! We’re newly installed in Joshua Tree, California until at least mid-January. Our little artsy rental is only a few blocks from the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. We can actually see it in the distance from our back porch! This place has a special kind of energy– there is a connectedness you feel here.. to the earth, to the sky, to your fellow humans. The work of Northern California artist Sonya Philip brings to mind the way in which we link ourselves with our surroundings and each other.
Philip chooses to weave into every day objects, things we might otherwise cast aside or not even look twice at. In doing so, she reminds us of our own disposability and habit of consumption. A design woven into a fallen leaf ( above ) might symbolize the leaf’s eventual decay, while threads woven through discarded and gessoed postcards ( below ) or a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream carton speak to the beauty that can be found in what otherwise might be considered trash.
The delicacy of her weaving juxtaposes against the crassness of commercial packaging and metallic rusticity of a bicycle wheel to reveal a symbiosis of the organic and the industrial.
To see more of Sonya Philip’s work, please visit her website.
While Mr. Forager & I are on the road, making our way to California, we’re rerunning Artsy Forager’s most popular posts. This post originally published on February 8, 2012. Enjoy!
Life, in any form, is unpredictable. Sometimes we like the result of a chance taken, sometimes we don’t. Yet each step of faith is a step in the right direction. New York artist Laura Gurton takes a gamble each time she begins a new work, never knowing how her materials will react with one another. But it is that tempting of fate which results in these spontaneously speculative paintings.
From the Unknown Species Series #48, oil and alkyd on linen, 11×14
The artist takes advantage of the unpredictable reactions of layers of oil paint and alkyd resin to create work that uses the elemental properties of both to mimic cellular forms– our most basic building block of life.
From the Unknown Species series #49, oil and alkyd on linen, 18×18
The shapes morph and float as cells or micro-organisms under a microscope, taking on ghostly abstract forms that can seem often friendly or fiendish.
From the Biomorphic Dream series #13, oil and alkyd on canvas, 30×40
I find fascinating Gurton’s use of such basic chemistry to produce beautifully composed, intricate abstract work that reminds us of the beginning of life. Just as each of us are all made of the similar cellular building blocks, yet we are each unique, so are each of these works beautifully singular. It’s almost as if each one could be a glimpse into the molecular network of an individual.
From the Unknown Species series #15, oil and alkyd on canvas, 18×24
To see more of Laura Gurton’s work, please visit her website.
PS– Welcome to all of our new Artsy Forager subscribers! I’m so glad you enjoy the blog. Make yourself at home and be sure to take a peek around, there are lots of goodies to explore! If you haven’t already, use the tabs on the right to connect with Artsy Forager via Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
Featured image is From the Unknown Species series #50, oil and alkyd on linen, 18×18. All images are via the artist’s website.
While Mr. Forager & I are on the road, making our way to California, we’re rerunning Artsy Forager’s most popular posts. This post originally published on February 9, 2012. Enjoy!
When I paint, I tend to turn the lights off at certain points of progress, in order to view my work in the dark. The darkness reveals the light. The work of New Hampshire artist Sarah Ann Loreth explores this same notion in a conceptual way, through imagery that is at once eerie and haunting, yet strangely peaceful.
The Standpoint of Daily Life
Loreth seems to be feeling her way through the reality of humanity– her work is emotional, bringing to the forefront our own fears and anxieties, but somehow quieting them. In each work there seems to be a small voice whispering, It’s okay, this life and your troubles are only temporary..
The Ground is Too Cold to Bury Our Dead, self-portrait with milk in a bath with cow skull
We’ve all had those moments when life just seems unbearable. When we question why we are here and why it is just so plain hard sometimes. Loreth isn’t afraid to recreate those moments in her self-portraits, letting us know, we are not alone in our suffering.
The Irreparable Nature of Humans, self-portrait
Just as light cannot be seen without the darkness, so also does joy need sorrow in order for it to be truly felt. Hope is always with us, we are forever watching for its return.
The Dreamer’s Dream of Morning, self-portraitThe Watcher, self-portrait
To see more of Sarah Ann Loreth’s beautiful photography, please visit her website. This artist was found via Escape Into Life.
Featured image is Where My Heart Still Is, self-portrait. All images are via the artist’s website.
While Mr. Forager & I are on the road, making our way to California, we’re rerunning Artsy Forager’s most popular posts. This post originally published on November 1, 2011. Enjoy!
PS- since writing this post, Clair Hartmann has opened a wonderful little gallery in Wilmington, NC, Sun Gallery & Gifts. Please make a visit if you’re in the area!
OK, yes I know “pet art” has been done to death. It seems like every artist and their brother is doing it. But I submit to you, dear Artsies, that Wilmington, NC artist Clair Hartmann does doggy art in a wonderfully whimsical and heartfelt, yet not at all cheesy way.
Shore Leave, oil on fabric on canvas, 40×30
Whether she is doing straight-on portraits against graphic fabric backgrounds, like the one above or masterpiece inspired depictions as in the ones below, Clair always captures her subjects inherent personality and unique expressions.
Pearl Earring, oil on canvas panel, 9×12Frida Dog, oil on canvas, 16×20
There is a wonderfully graphic and modern quality to Clair’s animal work, which to me, elevate them beyond kitsch. Her paintings of her own Jack Russell Terrier, Chumley, are among my favorites. She perfectly captures moments of rare moments quiet rest and inner reflection ( who hasn’t wondered what their dog was thinking?! ), filled with tenderness and love for her subject.
The Dream, oil on canvas, 36×24
Clair has a new exhibition now open in Wilmington at the WHQR Gallery Space– Faithful: A Series of Dog Paintings will be on display through January 13, 2012. You can also visit her website to see more of her work and visit her Etsy shop to purchase!
Featured image is Wonky Bumbershoots by Clair Hartmann. All images via the artist’s website and Etsy shop.
It takes a highly skilled artist to simply draw. Using nothing but a graphite pencil and paper, Oregon bred artist Nicomi Nix Turner creates stunningly detailed compositions utilizing just those humble tools and of course, a healthy does of imagination. See her work in my Artist Watch over on Escape Into Life today! ( link below )
While Mr. Forager & I are on the road, making our way to California, we’re rerunning Artsy Forager’s most popular posts. This post originally published on May 2, 2011, when the blog was barely two months old. Enjoy!
In honor of Cinco De Mayo this week, I thought we’d focus today on the amazing Frida Kahlo. When I was in painting classes in college, I remember there being this older Bolivian lady who was auditing the classes and she was obsessed with Frida Kahlo. She was sweet but somewhat obnoxious. For a long time, the fact that she was so obsessed with Kahlo managed to turn me off on her artwork. Weird how our minds work sometimes.
But then, somewhere along the line, I let go of this irrational bias and took another look at Kahlo and her work. And I was quickly won over. Health problems plagued Kahlo from a young age, suffering first from polio and then being severly injured in a horrific car accident which left her in a full body cast and bedridden for three months. Though she eventually recovered from her injuries, extreme pain would torment her for the rest of her life.
Two Fridas
Before the accident, Kahlo was studying to become a physician, but she dealt with the boredom of being confined to bed by taking up painting with her father’s watercolors. And so, Frida Kahlo, the artist was born.
Kahlo’s work often included symbols of Mexican mythology, as well as those of Christian and Jewish faiths. Though she is perhaps best known for her self-portraits, often depicting events in her own life, such as the accident, subsequent miscarriages, etc.
She married renown Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera in 1929 and their life together was a tumultous one.
Her work has been described as surrealist, but I think it is the unvarnished depiction of her real life pain and struggle that makes her work so interesting and relatable. We may not have all been through the kind of physical pain Kahlo experienced, but perhaps it is that we can all certainly relate to her emotional pain and the need to express it on canvas.
Be sure to check out the official Frida Kahlo website. A beautifully designed site full of interesting information about the artist.
If you are a painter, you no doubt know the joy of gazing upon piles of paint freshly squeezed from their tubes. Perhaps you’ve admired the loveliness to be found on your palette after a day of painting, when the colors have mixed together in a riotous symphony. The work of this month’s Facebook Featured Artist, Seattle’s Margie Livingston straddles the worlds of painting and sculpture, in which the paint becomes sculpture.
Painting Folded Into a Square, acrylic, 20x20x4
Using paint both as medium and subject, Livingston’s work transforms what is normally a two-dimensional vehicle into one that exists in three-dimensions. No longer content to merely represent an image of an object, the paint actually takes on an object’s shape.
Plank, acrylic, 97 5/8 x 1 5/8 x 3 1/2Coiled Layered Strip, acrylic, 9x9x3Negative Cube, acrylic, 8x14x14
Margie’s Painted Objects has taken center stage at Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle ( supported in part by a 4Culture Individual Artist Project Grant and a CityArtist Project grant from the City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture ) and will be on exhibit through November 10th. Go see it!! I’ll be far away in California, so I can’t go, which means you MUST!
To see more of Margie Livingston’s incredible painted sculptures, please visit her website and be sure to check out her gorgeous cover image and album on the Artsy Forager Facebook page.
Featured image is 90 Color Test, acrylic and grommets, 90 squares at 8×8 each, 78×96 overall. All images are via the artist’s website and the website of Greg Kucera Gallery.
While Mr. Forager & I are on the road, making our way to California, we’re rerunning Artsy Forager’s most popular posts. This post originally published on January 23, 2012. Enjoy!
The other night, we caught a bit of a Travel Channel show in which Andrew Zimmern visited a tribe in Madagascar, whose ritual tradition dictates that a boy becomes a man at the age of five years old. Jewish boys celebrate coming into manhood with a Bah Mitzvah at age thirteen. The work of photographer Jessica Maria Manley explores the idea of whether societies can truly define what is appropriate based solely on an individual’s age. Is a boy really a man at five? Thirteen? Twenty-one? Forty-five?
At the Lake
Manley’s haunting images of her young subject, Melissa, show the young girl engaging in those activities so many little girls enjoy– playing dress up, playing with make-up, pretending to be grown-ups. How many of us did the same?
Melissa and Her Toys
Some of the imagery may be a bit off-putting, even disturbing as we see a little girl exploring an adult’s world. But how often are children thrust into situations beyond their years? Or they feel pressured to be tiny adults?
Make-up In the Living Room IIUntitled
Manley’s images may be a visual representation of the societal pressures kids feel every day, in every nation. They could also be interpreted as imaginings of a woman who is chronologically an adult, but still feels the vulnerability and smallness of a child.. A woman whose childhood was robbed of her.
To see more of Jessica Maria Manley’s intriguing work, please visit her website. Her provocative photos touched me, hope you find them as thought provoking as I did.
Featured image is On the Dock, 2011. All images are via the artist’s website.
