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Category: Paintings

Call and Response. Stephanie Clark + Genevieve Robertson

Being an artist can be a lonely endeavor. We’re often toiling away alone in the studio for hours, even days at a time! And while we usually need that solitary time to work out our thoughts and feelings into compositions, it can be isolating. We long for an exchange of ideas. Santa Fe artist Stephanie Clark teamed up with fellow artist Genevieve Robertson for a long distance, collaborative project appropriately titled, Call and Response.

In this artistic game of Marco Polo, one of the two artist creates an image, then sends it to the other artist, who creates her own “response”. What I find fascinating is how the two artists are challenged with creating a unique, yet complimentary response to the original call. Some responses repeat colors or patterns, while others hardly reference the call at all yet they still create a harmonious finished composition.

To see more from the Call and Response series and more of Stephanie Clark’s work, please visit her website. In related news, Stephanie will soon be a contributor to the Artsy Abroad series! Be on the lookout soon for her first post in which she’ll share all about her experience at the Gibraltar Point Residency!

All images are via the artist’s website.

August 29, 2014
Heartful Vibrations. Sharon Kingston

In his book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky wrote of a corresponding vibration happening in the heart upon the receipt of an abstract impression. To me, that is what the best abstract painting does, sets up a vibration in the heart akin to an experience of a feeling, a place, or a person. In her paintings, Bellingham artist Sharon Kingston responds to the atmosphere of the landscape of the Pacific Northwest.

As another artist obsessed with the aura of the Northwest landscape, what drew me to Kingston’s work was her use of light. Each canvas subtly glows through the use of muted lavenders and greys, like the glimmer of light through the ubiquitous rain clouds. But these aren’t one dimensional interpretations– each one is infused not only with the feeling of misty rain, but also with the budding warmth of the that does make its way through the clouds, more often than those who don’t live here might think.

To see more of Sharon Kingston‘s work, please visit her website.

All images via the artist’s website.

August 28, 2014
Sea Creatures. Victor Grasso

Mr. F and I often find ourselves struggling between our love of the seaside and the snow. Snow makes us absolutely giddy, but spending this spring and summer near the ocean perhaps has us leaning toward a life near the water. Each beach walk leaves us in love with the wonder and mystery to be found near the sea. It is this mythical and mystical magic that artist Victor Grasso captures in his beautifully rendered painting series, The Sea is Calling.

In this series, Grasso’s modern mermaids seem to revel in the delights of the ocean, becoming one with its depths, transforming into souls of the sea. The palette of soft greys, inky blacks and warm umbers imitate life in the shallows and the deep, chiaroscuro light falling as if filtered through the water. He takes us into a world of mystery and revelry, where creatures struggle for survival yet live blissfully unaware of what goes on in the world above.

To see more of Victor Grasso‘s work, please visit his website. Tell me, Artsies, does the sea call to you?

All images via the artist’s website. Artist found via Parlor Gallery.

August 27, 2014
Collision Course. Mary Iverson

Mr. F and I have a secret spot, a place that he found one summer and fell in love with, that is kind of our dreamland. It’s an amazingly beautiful, far out, off the grid place that we don’t want anyone else to discover. We fear one day we’ll return to find it developed and overrun with people. That clash between our most stunning places and the destructive hand of man is the theme of the work of Seattle artist, Mary Iverson.

click each image for a larger view

The artist, whose work can be seen at Thinkspace LA along with the work of Stephanie Bauer in their dual artist show, After, through Sept. 6th, “portrays the clash between globalization and the environment”. Her mixed media work juxtaposes broken shipping containers and other icons of global development against iconic images of some of our most wild landscapes.

As we prepare to spend some time in Yosemite next week, I find myself feeling a bit like one of Iverson’s paintings.. While I always love seeing these staggeringly beautiful places, I’m also usually struck by the crowds and the thoughtlessness that visitors give to the environment around them. Here’s hoping for pristine views and minimal destructiveness.

To see more of Mary Iverson‘s work, please visit her website and LA Artsies, be sure to check out her show at Thinkspace!

All images are via the artist’s website.

August 25, 2014
Hushed Landscapes. Shawn Dulaney

One thing I’ve learned since living in the Northwest? Going to the beach in Washington, Oregon & Northern California is a completely different experience than it was back in Florida! Rocks instead of sand, bigger, wilder waves, and fewer bikinis ( beaches are cold here, ya’ll! ) just to name a few differences. But I think what might just be the most interesting difference is the misty fog. It rolls in and creates a soft, dreamlike monochromatic atmosphere. These paintings by Brooklyn artist Shawn Dulaney seems to capture that quiet, hushed coolness of a landscape under cover.

I love sunny days as much as the next gal and of course, that’s when the dramatic landscape of the West Coast really sparkles. Yet when Mr. F and I take a beach hike on a foggy Saturday morning, everything feels more quiet, even the sound of the waves seem muffled, and we almost whisper in response and reverence. For me, Dulaney’s paintings capture that evoke that same misty atmosphere, when shapes are shrouded and the colors of the day are just beginning to peek through.

To see more of Shawn Dulaney‘s work, please visit her website. You can see her work in person at Sears Peyton Gallery in New York, where she’ll be a part of the September Group Show opening on September 2nd. Mark your calendars now!

All images are via the artist’s website.

August 21, 2014
Monumental Pop. David Pirrie

For the first thirty-something years of this Florida girl’s life, I never really experienced mountains. And when I did, it was only the foothills of the Smokies. Then I visited Mr. F while he was living in Seattle and I saw the Olympics. And the Cascades. And we snowshoed in April on Mt. Rainier and I fell in love with Mr. F and those glorious snow-capped peaks! This series of paintings by artist David Pirrie have me longing for those jagged, snowy crests.

Pirrie doesn’t just paint mountains, but hikes and climbs them, too, which any hiker will tell you creates a bond between man and mountain. Hard work and endurance pays off in little seen vistas, in a feeling of intimacy with these monumental stacks of earth. His use of dots and bright, flat color not only decontextualize the mountains from the surrounding landscape but also nods to the iconic status these looming peaks achieve. On a sunny day in Seattle, you’ll hear locals proclaim “The mountain is out!” and every one knows what that means. The clouds have broken and Mt. Rainier can be seen looming surrealistically over the city skyline, dwarfing everything around it.

There is something magnetic about these formations, the mountains call to us like sirens, we see them from afar and somehow know that there is magic within their being. The mountains are calling and we must answer.

To see more of the work of David Pirrie, please visit his website. You can see his current solo show, Mapping the Tetons, at Diehl Gallery in Jackson, WY, through September 3rd.

August 20, 2014
The Artsy Nature. Jennifer JL Jones + Olympic National Park

Whenever Mr. F and I are away from the coastal Northwest for a long period of time, I find that what I miss most is the mossy trees and fern covered forest floors. These “Muppet trees”, as I like to call them, inhabit the moist woods in the Pacific Northwest and in this edition of The Artsy Nature, after spying Saline. Lumi. Breath., a gorgeous new painting by Jennifer JL Jones, I was immediately transported back to one of the loveliest spots in the Northwest.

photo | staircase hike, olympic national park, wa

art | saline. lumi. breath.( detail ) by jennifer jl jones, mixed media on wood, 72×72

On a foggy, cool morning in the early Fall of last year ( before the government shutdown closed access to the National Parks ), Mr. F and I began a short little jaunt into Olympic National Park that would be one of our favorite hikes of 2013. Not strenuous, no giant, sweeping views of snowcapped mountains, just the quiet hushed lushness of the temperate rainforest. Clouded skies cast a purplish light into the woods, only the dripping of the dew from the leaves and the fall of our feet on the mossy floor to be heard. If big mountains are outdoor cathedrals, woods like these are tiny chapels. Cozy and unassuming, you are left to ponder not on the grandeur of creation, but on its ever closeness.

More of Jennifer JL Jones‘ work can be seen on her website and, if you’re in the Atlanta area, she opens a solo show, SECRETsaline, at Alan Avery Contemporary Art this Thursday!

See more forays into The Artsy Nature here and check out my guest Artsy Nature feature on artist Jessica Zoob‘s blog!

Photo by Artsy Forager, art source linked above.

August 19, 2014
Fragmented Perceptions. Stephanie Pierce

Here on the Northern California coast, the days usually start off cool and grey, and then, if we’re lucky, the sun and blue skies make an appearance for the afternoon. Once the light begins to beam through the windows and cast long shadows, the world seems to take on a completely different character. In her work, artist Stephanie Pierce explores the phenomenon on light and its effect on our perceptions.

Through the windows, the sunlight comes pouring through, seen in Pierce’s paintings as fluttering fragments of color, whipping in and distorting the scene light so many butterflies emerging simultaneously from their dark cocoons. Shadows shift as the light moves and we understand that within light is the power to create movement– that nothing is truly static, all things changing as our perceptions alter.

To see more of Stephanie Pierce‘s work, please visit her website.

All images are via the artist’s website. Artist found via Booooooom!

August 19, 2014
Beautiful Pursuits. Anna Halldin Maule

Screen siren and legendary glamor girl Lauren Bacall once said, “I think your whole life shows on your face and you should be proud of that”. Our culture is one that emphasizes youth and associates it with beauty. We’re told over and over again that to be young is to be at your best and your most desirable, so we buck against the aging process in any way we can. Swedish born artist Anna Halldin Maule paints hyperrealistic portraits of our obsession with the pursuit of beauty.

We pluck, wax, and whiten ad naseum to reach that idealized, fleeting “perfection”. We do our best to erase the gray hairs, wrinkles, and sags that tell the story of our life on the canvas of our bodies, choosing instead to homogenize ourselves until every body, every face no longer bears the distinction they were born with. By contrast, Halldin Maule juxtaposes her models with icons of nature’s beauty, flowers and butterflies, who never give a thought to what makes them so lovely. They simply are.

To see more of Anna Halldin Maule‘s incredible oil paintings, please visit her website. Her solo show, Persona can be seen at Scott Richards Contemporary Art in San Francisco through August 30th.

All images are via the artist’s website. Artist found via My Modern Met.

August 18, 2014
Sidelined. Klara Glosova

Its nearly that time of year when the light fades earlier and families spend their evenings and weekends cheering their little ones from the sidelines. My younger brother was big into t-ball, then baseball when he was young, so I clocked a lot of time on bleacher benches. Seasoned soccer mom and Seattle artist Klara Glosova captures those familiar views of life, as seen from the sidelines.

Her paintings and small figurative sculptures are the evidence of careful observation, capturing moments of casual conversation, close attention, and the distraction that comes with hours spent watching the action on the field. We see the figures and light shift, signaling the passing of time, not just on the field, but for each season in each life.

To see more of Klara Glosova‘s work, please visit her website.

All images via the artist’s website and the website of her representing gallery, Bryan Ohno Gallery.

August 15, 2014

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