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Category: Paintings

Wayfinding. Windy O’Connor.

Have you ever been lost in the woods? Mr. F and I have. It rarely happens to us, but on a hike in Northern California’s Trinity Alps last summer, we chose what turned out to be a very poorly marked trail. We found ourselves wandering from one point to another, backtracking, trying to pinpoint where we’d diverged from our path. These paintings by Charlotte artist Windy O’Connor remind me of colorful wanderings across the canvas.

Just as we struggled to find our way back to our beginning, I love that these vibrant trails seem to have no end and no beginning. They loop all over the canvas like the never ending scarf a magician pulls from his tuxedo sleeve. One color finds its way into, over, under another. What a wonderful way to get lost!

To see more of Windy O’Connor’s work, please visit her website.

All images are via the gallery of the artist’s representing gallery, Hidell Brooks.

April 29, 2015
Screen Tests. Matthew Penkala.

I recently went through a harrowing experience. I fell ( that’s not the harrowing part- kind of par for my course these days ) and took my smart phone down with me, doing major damage to the screen. This device I’ve come to rely upon so heavily became nearly unusable. And I went through some serious withdrawals until it was repaired! It’s amazing, isn’t it, how in such a short period of time, these devices have become so incredibly ingrained into our lives and our behaviors? In his abstract paintings, artist Matthew Penkala uses airbrushed acrylic to allude to those ubiquitous glowing screens.

If you go to a concert these days, you’re more likely to glimpse a sea of cell phone lights during the ballad versus the usual lighter held high treatment. We stand in line at the grocery store, at the post office, not making eye contact or conversation with our neighbors but staring into that tiny rectangle. They’ve enriched our lives in so many ways, digital waves keeping far away friends and family ever close, but at what cost to the people in the next house, in the next room?

To see more of Matthew Penkala‘s work, please visit his page on Artsy.net.

All images via the Western Project website.

April 28, 2015
Dreamscapes. Jeffrey Beauchamp.

Sometimes the world we enter when our eyes close at night is a bit scary, a bit malevolent. But often I find myself in a place that is one part memory, one part fantasy. The paintings of San Francisco area artist Jeffrey Beauchamp call to mind those fanciful dreamscapes where ordinary things come to life in extraordinary ways.

I find places from my childhood cropping up quite often in my own dreams, which may be why I responded most to Beauchamp’s paintings of children. The places I played, explored, pretended are almost always prominent. After one such dream last night, I found myself wondering why some places stay with us so strongly. Is it our connection to the place itself or the people who were there? Or maybe they become part of our dreams because of how much they captured our imagination in life.

To see more of Jeffrey Beauchamp‘s work, please visit his website.

All images are via the artist’s website.

April 27, 2015
Coasting. Lisa Golightly.

Growing up in Florida, we spent a lot of summer days at the beach. It’s just what you did. My favorite thing about beach days was the way it felt when we left the sand and surf behind. Salty skin, tangled, wind blown hair, a bucketful of found treasures. There was a feeling of ease and freedom, elation mixed with contented exhaustion. Those beachside impressions are the subject of the paintings of Portland artist Lisa Golightly.

Using found photos as the catalyst for her paintings, Lisa explores memory, how photographs of experiences influence our perceptions. Am I more likely to remember those beach days fondly thanks to the old square photos in worn albums looked through a hundred times? Pushing back memories of jellyfish stings and sand in places it should never be, we look back with eyes that see only the wonder and magic.

All of the paintings featured in today’s post are available as prints in the Artsy Forager gallery on Great.ly! Just click on each image for a link to each print’s detail page. To see more of Lisa Golightly‘s work, you can also visit her website.

All images are via the artist’s website.

This post contains affiliate links. As a Great.ly Tastemaker and curator of The Trove, I receive a small commission on each piece sold from The Trove boutique gallery.

April 24, 2015
Lately. Yolanda Sanchez.

Artists by rule are an evolving species. We are ever learning, ever reaching for the next inspiration, the next way of seeing. So when I see an artist who has already been featured putting out exciting new work, I can’t help but want to share it with you! Miami Beach artist Yolanda Sanchez is showing a new body of work at J. Johnson Gallery in Jacksonville Beach, FL continuing her explorations of the “felt experience” in paintings that feel light as air.

Taking cues from calligraphy, Asian art, and poetry, Sanchez’s paintings seem almost short hand notes of the visual stories happening in nature. Flowers unfolding, dripping dew, colors tumbling one over another. These new compositions are lively but deliberate, each stroke carrying with it life and meaning.

To see more of Yolanda Sanchez‘s latest work, please visit her website. If you happen to be in North Florida, be sure to stop by J. Johnson Gallery in Jacksonville Beach to breathe in these works for yourself. Her solo show, There is Only the Dance is up at the gallery until May 15th.

All images via the J. Johnson website.

April 23, 2015
Essence. Saira McLaren.

Because we travel so much, our advice on particular places is often sought out. It’s always a challenge to distill a place down to the essentials. Sometimes the impression we take away from a place might be quite different from what we felt at the time. In her latest body of work, artist Saira McLaren epitomizes the changing impression of a landscape through layers of light and color.

It can be a challenge sometimes, to see the best of a place when your experience is less than ideal. On the other hand, more positive circumstances can create a favorable impression where it might not have existed otherwise. We call it “looking back through hindsight glasses”. The impact of a space whether positive or negative can be effected by the landscapes that came before or after. The sight of a lush green forest following a long stint in the desert heightens the its effect.

To see more of Saira McLaren‘s work, please visit her website.

All images are via the artist’s website. Artist found via Sargent’s Daughters.

April 23, 2015
Lost. Karl Klingbiel.

Ever feel like you’re just kind of aimlessly wandering from one day to the next? I mean, we get up each morning, go through our routine.. shower, coffee, email, work, lunch, work, dinner, bed, rinse, repeat. But do we really have a sense of purpose? Is this all we were put here for?

The abstract paintings of Karl Klingbiel with their looping layers and chaotic color, bring to mind the way it feels at times to be here, to be lost in a world of our own making, our own choosing.

We move from one place to the next, one job to the next, perhaps even one relationship to the next and sometimes back again, always looking for that feeling of contentment, fulfillment. Maybe it is just our way, this wandering. Maybe because we were truly designed for something different, a kind of life we can’t even fathom, so caught up we are in the imaginary race we’re running against no one.

To see more of Karl Klingbiel‘s work, please visit his website.

All images are via the artist’s website. Artist found via Caldwell Snyder.

April 21, 2015
Embodiments. Jenny Morgan.

Throughout my younger years, my body seemed to bend to my wishes. I was one of the lucky ones, eating whatever I liked and barely gaining an ounce. Never breaking bones, full of energy for whatever came my way. But as the years have passed, that body has changed. Harder work is required to keep my body in the kind of shape I need it to be. That ideal shape has evolved– no longer do I obsess over being model-skinny. I want to be strong. My body is not a clothes hanger, it is a work horse. I want it to take me up that mountain and show me things I can’t see from my sofa. I want it to be my ally, not my enemy.

New York figurative artist Jenny Morgan renders in paint self portraits and portraits of friends and family in which there seems a strong interconnection between the physical, psychological, and spiritual. Bodies are simply the vessels in which we move through this life. They can be a help or a hindrance but in the end, they are only a part of who we are. In my hands I see years of work and my mother’s genes. My legs have carried me on numerous hikes and adventures beside my husband. But those memories aren’t carried in this physical body alone. They reside in my heart, in my mind, in my spirit. And when this body no longer serves it’s purpose, I will carry them with me.

To see more of Jenny Morgan‘s work, please visit her website. If you’re in New York, mark you calendar for her upcoming show, All We Have is Now at Driscoll Babcock.

All images are via the artist’s website.

April 20, 2015
Associations. Marshall Crossman.

I’ve been out of high school a long time ( we won’t mention how long! ). If it weren’t for Facebook, I think it’s safe to say there would be few folks from high school I would be keeping up with today. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great high school experience. But I’m a firm believer that people move through our lives in seasons– some come to stay, others stay just for awhile. But what is it about high school that seems to create such strong bonds for some?

One thought might be that commonality of going through the same experience at the same point in time. We are becoming a singular person, but are immersed in a large group. Striving to find ourselves, yet often losing ourselves among the crowd. The Class Photo series of paintings by Pacifica artist Marshall Crossman seems to illustrate that experience of individuals melting together to form a whole.

The way the artist reduces the ubiquitous class photo pose into simple shapes and strokes reinforces the idea of young people still in “formation” mode. Who among us knew who we would ultimately be while in high school? I certainly didn’t! Maybe it’s true that my life’s path didn’t take the journey I thought it would at eighteen, but deep inside I’m the same soul I was in high school. Introspective, striving, shy. When I look at the current faces of my former classmates, I don’t see the changes life has dealt. What is left is the essence of those souls who are forever linked with mine through our shared experience, our shared moment in time.

To see more of Marshall Crossman‘s work, please visit her website.

Artist found via Dolby Chadwick Gallery. All images are via the Dolby Chadwick website.

April 16, 2015
Churning. Lorene Anderson.

After spending almost 2 years in small towns, it is such a treat to be close to a big city and all it has to offer. Recently Mr. F and I spent a Saturday morning gallery hopping, one of my favorite ways to spend a day! We hit up a bunch of galleries in Union Square, including K. Imperial Fine Art and it was there I fell in love with the work of Lorene Anderson.

Inspired by the rolling hills here in Northern CA, Anderson uses stripes to mimic the landscape but only slightly– she bends and churns their parallel lines to create movement and depth. What would have been solid and stagnant becomes fluid and lively.

While sharing work on the blog is important, I can’t stress enough how much difference it makes to get out and see art in person. The depth of the layers in Anderson’s work amazed me on sight. There was so much going on, so many little worlds to get up close and explore! And I’m still mesmerized by those stripes. Landscape painting has been around for centuries, artists will always be inspired by the earth’s beauty. But it is in the work of artists like Lorene, who show us a different vision of the land we see every day that I find endless inspiration and fascination.

To see more of Lorene Anderson‘s work, please visit her website. If you’re in the Bay Area, you can see her show, Landscape Multiverse at K. Imperial Fine Art until April 30th.

April 15, 2015

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artistic pathfinding by lesley frenz

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