Happy Tuesday, Artsies! Make sure to head over to Escape Into Life to check out today’s feature on Artsy Forager fave Sarah Ashley Longshore. One of her pieces would make any place more chic and fun, no?
Category: Paintings
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Artsy on Escape Into Life: Sarah Ashley Longshore
Octopus Audrey, acrylic on canvas with high gloss resin, 24×24 -
Divine Delights: Olga Antonova
I’m a firm believer that anything you eat will taste better served on pretty china or a lovingly decorated table. The work of Russian born artist Olga Antonova celebrates these every day objects, elevating them using her technical prowess tinged with a hint of charm and whimsy.
Stacked Cups With Yellow Top, oil on canvas, 22×24 ( via Selby Fleetwood Gallery ) The delicate porcelain vessels are stacked, one on top of each other, creating dainty monuments of indulgence. Tea or coffee sipped from colorful china induces us to have a seat, slow down, have a leisurely chat. Antonova’s work does the same, creating a calm sense of elegant consumption.
Red and Blue Teacups, oil on canvas, 16×16 ( via Gallery Henoch ) Her depictions of the smooth, shiny surfaces and colorful patterns make me want to fall down a rabbit hole and crash a tea party hosted by a bunny with a crazy chapeau.
Composition With Dragon Pot, oil on canvas, 20×20 ( via Gallery Henoch ) 
Composition With Pink Cup, oil on canvas, 28×26 ( via Gallery Henoch ) To see more of Olga Antonova’s work, please visit her website or the websites of her representing galleries or check them out in person, if you can at — Gallery Henoch in New York, Selby Fleetwood Gallery in Santa Fe, Beth Urdang Gallery in Boston, Gardner Colby Gallery in Naples and Rice Polak Gallery in Provincetown, MA.
Featured image is Composition With Cups, oil on canvas, 30×15.
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Complexity of Simplicity: Gigi Mills
Dance is one of the few art forms requiring no materials, only ourselves. Santa Fe artist Gigi Mills, a former dancer now self-taught painter, transfers her dancer’s fluidity and grace into her compositions.
Girl With Dog and Boxes, oil on panel, 24×18 ( via Watts Fine Art ) Mills’ work focuses on simplified forms, figures and shapes are reduced to their simplest outlines, planes and colors, so that the viewer is instead caught by the emotional power present.
Girl With Plaid Dress and Bird Dog, oil, crayon, paper & charcoal on paper, 11×14 ( via Gallery Orange ) By keeping her color palette neutral, her use of the occasional bright color takes on a much more powerful significance, it becomes the staccato highlight, delightfully drawing the viewer’s attention.
Girl With Striped Dress and Birthday Cake, oil on panel, 30×24 ( via Gallery Orange ) 
Resting Spot With Birds, oil on panel, 18×24 ( via Gallery Orange ) Gigi Mills doesn’t currently have a website, so check out her work online at representing galleries: Gallery Orange in New Orleans, Watts Fine Art in Indiana and Selby Fleetwood Gallery in Santa Fe.
This artist found via Gallery Orange.
Featured image is Ocean With Sea Birds and Yellow, oil on canvas, 60×36. All image sources are noted above.
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Artsy on Escape Into Life: Lee Price
My post this week on Escape Into Life features an incredibly amazing artist with a poignant story to tell.
Don’t miss out on Lee Price’s work.
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Friday Faves: With Tangerine Trees and Marmalade Skies
Each year, Pantone announces its “Color of the Year”. The color authority combs the world looking for influential color and its Color of the Year proclamation affects design decisions in fashion, interiors, products, packaging, you name it. This year’s color is a bold and vibrant reddish-orange, Tangerine Tango. Artists, always ahead of the curve, have been embracing orange for quite some time. I know it’s always been one of my own favorite hues. Take a peek at some of these lovely examples of tangerine dreams!
Orange Ocean Edge by Christina Foard 
An Incomplete Dictionary of Show Birds by Luke Stephenson 
Spring Flowers by Susan Melrath 
Clickety Clack by Pamela Viola 
Without You by Margaret Glew Any orangey hued works you’re loving lately? Would love to hear about them! Have a great weekend, Artsies, and if you’re snowed in and in need of some warming, check out today’s featured artists’ websites!
4. Pamela Viola
All images are via the artists’ websites, noted above.
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Collecting Glances: Kris Lewis
George and I are people watchers. Sometimes when the hubby and I are stuck in a public place with time to kill, we love to watch the people go by, making up stories about who they are, where they are going.. Occasionally, in the course of observing, we may make eye contact with a stranger. Just a glance, but in the moment, there is a recognizable connection between souls. Los Angeles artist Kris Lewis shares his own experiences in human observations with his wonderfully moody portraits.
Scintillating Venuses, oil on wood, 24×23 If you’ve read the blog for a while, then you know I’m a sucker for interesting portraiture. Lewis follows in the footsteps of portraitists that came before him, his figures are beautifully drawn and rendered. But what sets his work apart is the capturing of the fleeting emotion of a moment, whether conveying a sense of vulnerability, power, sadness, even resolution.
Destruction Period, oil on canvas, 24×24 The faces portrayed often seem decidedly modern, but when juxtaposed with costumes of another era and surrealish landscape backgrounds, as one blogger put it, the result is “modern spooky”. These aren’t prosaic traditional portraits to hang above the fireplace. They are explorations of experience, revelations of hidden narratives.
Fire Tower, oil on wood, 12×16 
Low Tide, oil on board, 24×36 It’s almost as if, in carefully observing his subjects, the artist sees them in another life. A life previously lived in a different time and place.
Red, oil on wood, 20×24 Which makes me wonder.. how would such an artist depict me? Or you? Wouldn’t you love to know?! Visit Kris Lewis’s website to see more and while he’s in the process of updating it, you can find his latest work on his Facebook page. Speaking of Facebook, have you “liked” the Artsy Forager Facebook page? If not, you may be missing out on all sorts of fun & interesting tidbits not shared on the blog!
Thank you to Christine at Bijou and Boheme for introducing me to this incredible artist!
Featured image is Weathered Oak, oil on wood, 24×20. All images are via the artist’s website.
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Artsy on Escape Into Life: Melissa Loop
It’s EIL Tuesday again! Make sure you stop by Escape Into Life to check out my post today featuring Minneapolis artist, Melissa Loop. Her Utopian compositions never cease to amaze me!
Melissa Loop on Escape Into Life
City Park 3, acrylic and enamel on panel, 48×36 -
Odyssey Through the Land of Color: Kerry Irvine
Over the weekend, following a walk in the brisk January air, I was consumed with a desire to paint. Although I’d recently cranked out seven (!) paintings as Christmas gifts for my nieces, I really haven’t painted consistently since college. As I set out to create a little study of an Idaho Locust seed pod found on our walk, my underpainting, nothing but brushstrokes and color was so much more interesting than anything I would create out of it. Artist Kerry Irvine understands the potent power of color to invoke emotion, mood and form.
Letting Go, acrylic, gouache and oil stick on canvas, 24×36 Kerry’s use of color creates an ambience and sense of place, be it a physical, mental, emotional or spiritual destination.
Oil Pond, acrylic, gouache and oil stick on linen, 40×60 They are places we’ve been before, moments of joy, times of reflection, memories of days past, dreams real or imagined. But all having made us who we are.
Tree of Life, acrylic and oil stick on canvas, 36×48 Kerry’s work takes us on a journey. A sojourn through color with sidestepping adventures in texture, line and form.
Cherry Blossom Freeze, acrylic, gouache and oil stick on linen, 36×48 To see more of Kerry Irvine’s work, please visit her website and Facebook page.
Featured image is Midnight in the Garden, acrylic, gouache and oil stick on linen, 63×48. All images are via the artist’s website.
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Friday Faves: Paris Is Always A Good Idea
Perhaps it began with too many pre-teen viewings of Funny Face or Gigi. Or maybe it was even earlier with The Aristocats. For whatever reason, France in general and Paris in particular, have always been a source of fascination and inspiration to me, as it has to countless artists through the ages. Recently, it seems as if Paris is just in the air. So, today, mon chere Artsies, I bring to you a few of my recent Frenchy favorites. Vive la France!
April In Paris by Liz Lind, limited edition, 16×16, 24×24 or 32×32 
Green Chairs by Lisa Abelson/Dasken Designs 
Paris by George Butler 
Pretty Maps ( Paris ) by Aaron Straup Cope Be sure to check out the websites of my fellow Francophiles below. Have a beautiful weekend, Artsies!
1. Liz Lind
2. Lisa Abelson/ Dasken Designs
4. Aaron Straup Cope; Pretty Maps available through 20×200.
Featured image is Le Petit Zinc by Irene Suchocki. All images are via the artist’s websites unless otherwise stated.
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Mixing Light Into the Grey: Arabella Proffer
None other a luminary than my husband’s man crush, Eddie Vedder said, “It’s an art to live with pain.. mix the light into the grey.” Although I don’t necessarily subscribe to the notion that all artists must suffer in order to create great work, artists have long had a way of funneling hardships endured into their work. The result is often something extraordinary. When diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer, Cleveland artist Arabella Proffer channelled the painful endurances of modern medical procedures into research of the remedies of the past. The result is a new series, The National Portrait Gallery of Kessa, a collection of paintings exploring the medical procedures and superstitions of the past.
Skin of the Fox Cures the Pox, oil on linen, 16×20 ( via Lee Joseph Publicity ) Being in the midst of a Frida Kahlo biography, Arabella’s work immediately struck a chord with me. But these aren’t remade Kahlos. There may be a similarity in style and subject, but while Kahlo’s work dealt directly with her own experiences and emotions, Arabella instead chose to portray imaginary female subjects, creating not only a visual representation but a history and backstory for each.
Violets for Heart Veins, oil on linen, 16×20 ( via Lee Joseph Publicity ) From the artist: “After having a section of my leg removed, I began researching medicine from the Middle Ages through the 18th century; this series was a good way for me to work out my anger and be even more thankful that what I’m going through is nothing compared to old remedies and techniques. My art and interests were in the way society lived in the past, but with emphasis on the defiant, glamorous, and eccentric — not daily strife. You could have been rich, important, or beautiful, but if sick, you would still receive brutal or worthless treatment.”
Sawed, oil on linen, 16×20 
Black Madonna, oil on linen, 5×7 This series, along with selected works from the Black Madonna series, are now on display in a solo exhibition, Ephemeral Antidotes at Articulated Gallery in San Francisco through February 3rd. If you’re not in the San Fran area, be sure to check out Arabella Proffer’s website for more of her work.
Featured image is a detail from Violets For Heart Veins, oil on linen, 16×20. All images are via that artist unless otherwise stated.
