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Category: Paintings

Conjured Childhoods. Hannah Lewis Davies.

Isn’t it funny how selective our memories of childhood can be? How some moments seem so vivid while others are barely recalled? UK artist Hannah Lewis Davies‘ paintings explore those fleeting memories as well as the imaginary worlds we create in childhood.

I have a feeling that being with my mom will bring back a lot of childhood memories. It’s funny that what I remember most about my mom from childhood aren’t necessarily memories of her specifically, though she was a constant, caring presence, but it’s more her things. I remember being fascinated with her jewelry and shoes. It was the 70s and my mom had amazing taste in shoes! Wedges to die for! And there were the books and clothes, especially one filmy peignoir that I would wear and imagine myself as a princess or an actress accepting the Academy Award. Without even realizing it, she set up a world that opened up my imagination– one where I could discover and reinvent myself, surround myself with beauty, go on adventures. As an adult, I’m still striving to do all those things, but she planted the seed.

To see more of Hannah Lewis Davies‘ work, please visit her website.

All images via the artist’s website. Artist found via Saatchi Online.

September 24, 2014
About Face. Harding Meyer.

In the physical absence of a loved one, photographs can be an only slightly adequate substitute. We can see a familiar face, but we can’t watch it change with expression or see it shifting slightly with age. In his work, artist Harding Meyer paints faces once frozen in photographs, but now isolated and animated in paint.

The faces stare out, almost pleading for connection. How often do we look directly into another’s eyes in the course of our day? Maybe we stare into our partner’s eyes without inhibition, but do we ever really look into the eyes of strangers? Are we so scared of what we may see looking back?

To see more of Harding Meyer‘s work, please visit his website.

Images are via the artist’s website and the website of his representing gallery, Galerie Voss.

September 22, 2014
For Real Life. Andrea Brown.

Life is rarely neat and orderly. Like a bride in a Taco Bell drive thru, we find ourselves is weird positions and unexpected places. These paintings by artist Andrea Brown offer an elegant look at the surprising strangeness of life.

Sometimes, we’re moving along, everything calm and monotonous even, but then something remarkable happens to surprise us. Maybe a butterfly comes through an open window and greets you or you spot a hint of green vine slowly creeping its way up a lonely wall. These are the moments that we sometimes overlook, but the ones that layer our lives with joy, that let us break for smiles in what is often too much drudgery. I’ll be on the lookout for surprises this weekend, will you?

To see more of Andrea Brown‘s work, please visit the Salt Fine Art website.

All images are via the Salt Fine Art website.

September 19, 2014
Pure Process. Rose Masterpol.

Most artist statements today are filled with thoughts on motivation and meaning. I think we’ve somehow become uncomfortable with the idea of just making art for the sake of creating. There must be some kind of deep intellectual thought behind those marks! And perhaps there always is on one level. For an artist like Rose Masterpol, the reason they create is for the pure pleasure of the process.

The advent of photography freed painters from the need to represent. We can, instead, fully revel in the action and process of the painting itself. Full immersion into pure expression, building layer upon layer of mark and color until what we see is fully pleasing to the artist’s eye. The viewer then, is left to find what it is that those marks mean to them, engaging the outsider with the intimate creation.

To see more of Rose Masterpol’s work, please visit her website.

All images are via the artist’s website.

September 18, 2014
Transient Marks. Jo Davenport

I am always amazed at the way an artist’s mind will interpret a given subject. I believe artists “see” in certain palettes, even when looking at a thing that is obviously one color, the artist feels it as another. Such seems to be the way of Australian abstract painter Jo Davenport, whose expressionistic interpretations of landscape, instead of being literal regurgitations of a scene, are spontaneous bursts of color and mark.

As we transition from summer into autumn, these paintings remind me of how utterly changeable and temporal our landscape is. As branches, grow, then break, soil erodes, flowers seed, and light changes, a given scene will never be exactly the same as it is in one exact moment.

To see more of Jo Davenport‘s work, please visit her website.

All images are via the artist’s website.

September 10, 2014
What the Water Gave: Jessica Pisano

While Mr. F and I are camping in Yosemite, I’m resharing some posts you might have missed the first go ’round! Enjoy!

If there is one thing we learned during our time in the desert, it is that Mr. Forager & I are water people. We need to see it, smell it, hear it. Whatever form it make take, whether the ocean, the Puget Sound, a lake, or river, something about it is essential to us. In her work, Rhode Island artist Jessica Pisano invites us into the sense of stillness and timelessness the water gives us.

Watermark, oil and silver leaf on panel, 60×48

In water, there is such a delicate balance. It’s presence, when contained, calms us, but when loosed, it can be an incredibly destructive force. It is essential for growth and life, yet slowly erodes what is in its path.

Fog Ascending, mixed media on panel, 36×36

Fog on the Horizon No. 6, oil and silver leaf on panel, 40×30

Sea Legs, oil and silver leaf on panel, 36×36

Pisano works her water series in translucent layers, creating a depth that reminds us of how the waters overflow and overtake.

Still Waters, oil and silver leaf on panel, 40×40

If you’d like to see more of Jessica Pisano’s work, please visit her website. You can see her work in person at a number of galleries in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as well as Stellers Gallery in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL.

All images are via the artist’s website.

September 5, 2014
Bathing in Beauty: Nina Nolte

While Mr. F and I are camping in Yosemite, I’m resharing some posts you might have missed the first go ’round! Enjoy!

Although I love the cold winter months, for many, January is a tough month to swallow. All the gaiety of the holidays now in the past, it seems such a long time before the warmth of spring and the ease of summer. So on what may be for many of you a cold, dreary Monday, I thought a little sunshine and warmth from German artist Nina Nolte may put a little spring back in your socked & booted step!

Forgotten Dreams, acrylic on canvas, 100x16x4 cm

Nolte’s depictions of stylish ladies lounging by the pool recalls, to me, a modern-day version of traditional European works depicting the wealthy socializing and at play, such as Fragonard or Boucher. The richness of the color ( that yellow! )and details in the folds of fabric bring to mind the sumptuousness of the textiles of Vermeer.

The Days of Wine and Roses, acrylic on canvas, 100x200x4 cm

The works do hearken back in some ways to European traditions, but it is done in such an enchantingly modern, yet elegantly timeless way.

Some of Those Days, acrylic on canvas, 100x160x4 cm

The viewer is given the position of voyeur, thanks especially to the bird’s eye view angle of many of the pieces. It feels a bit like we’re eavesdropping on some really juicy society gossip!

You Must Believe in Spring, acrylic on canvas, 65x65x4

As Time Goes By, acrylic on canvas, 100x160x4 cm

To bask in more of Nolte’s bathing beauties, please visit her website. Think of these while you’re sloshing through freezing rain and snow!

Featured image is How Deep is the Ocean?, acrylic on canvas, 1oox200x4 cm. All images are via the artist’s website.

September 4, 2014
Lush Layers: Karen Silve

While Mr. F and I are camping in Yosemite, I’m resharing some posts you might have missed the first go ’round! Enjoy!

Our memories of places and experiences are not simply visual recollections of what we saw, but a culmination of all that our senses absorbed at the time. The sounds, the smells, our impressions of and reactions to our surroundings. It is in this intuitive way that Portland artist Karen Silve translates her own memorable moments into abstractions of rich layers, swirls and drips of paint.

Market VI, acrylic on canvas, 50×60

Open air markets are cacophonies of stimulation– full of mounds of colorful produce, people talking, laughing, fragrances of coffee, freshly baked pastries and other yummies– all swirl around us. ( Can’t wait for the market here to open for Spring! ) Silve captures the friendly frenzy in her Market Series. ( above & below )

Market IX, acrylic on canvas, 42×46

For her Sacred Places series, she explores the impact of a different kind of stimulation, those stolen moments found when we are surrounded by the quiet of nature. Being in Portland, Silve has access to some of the most spectacular natural spaces in the world ( can you tell I love Oregon?! ). A favorite of hers, and mine, is the Columbia River Gorge, whose lush and quiet beauty she captures in paint.

Sacred Veil II, acrylic on canvas, 58×68

Through our travels, many times I find myself feeling like I’m a bit more attuned to my location and experiences. Perhaps because we are experiencing new places so often, that each one seems enchanting and special in its own way. But there are also times when we fall into the repetition and monotony of every day life and forget that each place and day is unique. Karen Silve’s intuitive expressions of her experiences are reminding me to be fully in each moment, immersing myself into making of a memory.

Market VII, acrylic on canvas, 50×60

Morning Glow, acrylic on canvas, 48×48

To see more of Karen Silve’s work, please visit her website. In Portland, her work can be seen at Portland Fine Art, but check out her website for representing galleries in New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, California and the UK. Featured image is Yellow Rapture, acrylic on canvas, 96×48. All images are via the artist’s website.

September 3, 2014
Life Blurred: Monica Tap

While Mr. F and I are camping in Yosemite, I’m resharing some posts you might have missed the first go ’round! Enjoy!

Just the other day, I was saying to Mr. Forager, “Can you believe it’s been almost two years since..” We seem to say that to each other a lot these days. Time just moves really quickly, especially when you’re looking back. In her work, Toronto artist Monica Tap investigates the line between movement and perception, resulting in dazzling abstracted landscapes.

Six Ways from Sunday: Tuesday, oil on canvas, 100×60

Tap bases her work on Quicktime videos of the streaming landscape as seen from the windows of cars, buses, and trains. Reproducing that magical effect of obscured color and light we so enjoyed as kids.. staring out the window as the world passed us by.

Six Ways from Sunday, oil on canvas, 100×60

Six Ways from Sunday: Thursday, oil on canvas, 100×60

During those long car or train rides, we couldn’t wait to get where we were going, so often we enjoyed just letting the blur go by. But as adults, I wish I could just stop the blur sometimes and enjoy it for the wonderful time it is.

Six Ways from Sunday: Friday, oil on canvas, 100×60

Is life moving too fast for you these days? Or maybe, like me, you’re impatiently waiting for a change and things don’t seem to be moving fast enough?! Want to see more of Monica Tap’s intriguing landscapes? Visit her website here.

All images via the artist’s website.

September 2, 2014
September Featured Artist. Brenda Hope Zappitell

Kickin’ off a new month with a holiday ( for most of us ) and a new Featured Artist, you say? Well, I’ll take that! I’m excited to feature the abstract work of South Florida artist Brenda Hope Zappitell all September long!

These abstract intuitive paintings have such a delicious rhythm to them, they almost seem to pulsate! Brenda paints on a large scale, most paintings clocking in at more than four feet square, giving her work an enveloping nature. There are also subtle layers of paint and beautiful little pockets of color and line that become so much more powerful at a larger size.

To see more of Brenda Hope Zappitell‘s work, please visit her website and watch the blog all month long! Click over to the Artsy Forager Facebook Page to see what gorgeous Zappitell is gracing our cover, along with an album of some of my personal favorites.

All images are via the artist’s website.

September 1, 2014

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artistic pathfinding by lesley frenz

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