artsy forager

Category: Exhibitions

  • Are Chickens the New Black?

    Are Chickens the New Black?

    I admit, I’m not always up on the very latest trends, I am in my 30’s after all.  I knew all about the “Put a Bird On It” trend, but had no idea that art featuring chickens had become such a big deal.  Chicken art makes me think back to my grandma’s house and her Americana farm scene prints featuring chickens.  And her ceramic chicken collection.  Needless to say, chickens aren’t the first subject that jumps to mind when I think of the latest in the art world.  But for whatever reason, these birds are fowls are ruling the roost.

    Roost by Brian McGuffey

    Seattle area artist, Brian McGuffey draws from childhood experiences in his creative process.  In “Roost”, pictured above, he elevates the rooster from lowly barnyard animal to a dignified, full-plumed specimen.  Just look at that profile.  You know all the hens would be clucking all over him.

    King of the Hill by Sydney McKenna

    Why did the chicken cross the road?  To attend a chicken-only art show, apparently!  St. Augustine, Florida artist, Sydney McKenna painted “King of the Hill”  specifically for a show at the W.B. Tatter Studio & Gallery celebrating not just chickens, but also the gallery’s sixth year anniversary.  I hope they served a vegetarian menu for the opening. 🙂

    But the Tatter who is by no means the only chicken show I’ve covered in recent months.  Remember Yvonne Lozano’s What Happened to the Chickens show?  Yvonne created an entire series of painting centered around a family trip to Colombia and a few friendly chickens she met there as a child.

    Here, Chicky Chicky by Yvonne Lozano
    Out and About by Hilary Williams

    But chickens in art aren’t just reserved for the barnyard.. In “Out and About”, San Francisco based artist Hilary Williams  depicts a little hen who seems to have escaped and is enjoying a lovely day on the town.  This chick is ready for a ladies lunch and some retail therapy.

    Speaking of plucky adventurers ( pun intended ), Dolan Geiman’s Blue Highway also shows how chickens in art aren’t just for grandma’s kitchen anymore.  Geiman’s graphic, mixed media approach results in work that is more contemporary than kitsch.

    Blue Highway by Dolan Geiman

    Where is this upsurge in chicken art leading?  Only the chickens know for sure.  The banty in Jim Draper’s Cross Creek seems ready to take the road less traveled.  And maybe that’s what the chicken art movement is all about.

    Cross Creek by Jim Draper

    The featured images is Laughing About This Life by Hilary Williams.  All images are courtesy of the individual artist’s websites.

    PS– I restrained myself from finding a Road Crossing Chicken joke to go with each piece of artwork.  You’re welcome.

  • Masterworks Monday: Rauschenberg in Tulsa

    Masterworks Monday: Rauschenberg in Tulsa

    Hello Artsies!!!  After being out of the blogosphere for the past three weeks or so, I am finally back behind the computer, as it were and it feels great.  I have so much to share that I hardly know where to begin..  As many of you know, my hubby George and I recently moved from Florida to Washington.  We were incredibly blessed to be able to make a vacation out of our cross-country trek, with stops to see friends, new places and old favorites along the way.

    Our first stop ( OK, first fun stop.. we spent the first night in a motel outside Little Rock, AR, not super exciting ) was Tulsa, Oklahoma.  George lived in Tulsa for several years and we hadn’t been back since we got married, so decided to take a couple of days to introduce me around to Tulsa friends and places.  It just so happened that the friends we were staying with in Tulsa had a friend who owned a gallery, Exhibit by Abersons at Center 1 Tulsa.  Said friend of friends happened to be having an opening the night of our arrival in Tulsa, so even though there was a whole gang of people expected for dinner, we popped over to the gallery to have a peeksy.

     The exhibit, which opened on May 19th was curated by Master Printer Bill Goldston of Universal Limited Art Editions and follows the progression of Rauschenberg’s print work through the years.  Like any good Art History Major, I recognized Rauschenberg’s work and his importance as a painter & print maker, but beyond that, I admit I didn’t know much.  Rauschenberg came to the forefront toward the end of the Abstract Expressionist movement and toward the beginning of the Pop Art movement.  The prints included in the exhibition lean more toward the Pop end of the spectrum, showing examples of his collaging of photographic images through silk-screen processing showcasing pop culture imagery of the 1950s and 60s, such as Guardian ( 1968 ).

    Guardian is compromised of transfer images from Life Magazine, the transfers being done by brushing the images with solvent, placing them on the lithograph stone, then passing the stone through the printing press.  These are works that demand a closer look, there is so much going on, even little details are significant.  George enjoyed scrutinizing the work ( see photo below! ), which are so accessible that they seem just as relevant today as they must have 50 years ago.

    The work George is pondering is Bazaar, an intagilio print and lithograph on paper created in 1984.  Other highlights for me included, Aquafix ( below ), a haunting image created by Rauschenberg in 1981.  As the years progressed, his work evolved into cleaner, more simplified compositions as exemplified in Aquafix and Lotus VII, both favorites of mine from the exhibit.

    Lotus VII ( above ) is part of Rauschenberg’s final series of prints, completed only a month prior to his death.  The Lotus images were created for an exhibition of Rauschenberg’s work in Beijing and are compilations of photographs taken by the artist on two trips to China.  The photographs were transferred to panels, then an intagilio process, photogravure, was used to tie the images together visually.   The results are stunning images, which surely pleased Rauschenberg as his final legacy.

    If you are in the Tulsa area, be sure to check out the show at Exhibit by Abersons.  If you can’t get to Tulsa, Rauschenberg’s work can be found in many major museum collections with images, biography and other info available online, check out the websites of MOMA, The Tate, the Guggenheim and many more.

  • A Girl and Her Chickens: Yvonne Lozano

    A Girl and Her Chickens: Yvonne Lozano

    A little girl with brown pigtails makes a trip with her family to Colombia and there, befriends two chickens.  And so begins the story of “What Happened to the Chickens?”, the latest exhibition of Yvonne Lozano’s work at The Art Center in Jacksonville.

    Yvonne Lozano’s work is autobiographical, each painting telling the story of a particular childhood memory or even just the memory of the feeling of being a kid.  Upon first glance at her style, you may think “A child could have done that”, which is exactly the point!  Her simple, faceless figures look initially like a child’s creation, but look a little more closely and you will see a layering of glazes and accomplished drawing skills.

    Yvonne has created a storyboard format for these works, some finished paintings, some watercolor sketches, so that it seems that you are “reading” a book in progress.  The small sketches reiterate the childlike quality to the work and the “story” itself reads like a wonderful children’s book!  ( I personally think it is only a matter of time until we see Yvonne as a children’s literature author & illustrator! ).

    “What Happened to the Chickens?” is a story after all, so I don’t want to give too much away.  If you’re in Jacksonville, please make some time to visit The Art Center gallery downtown to see & “read” this charmingly familiar childhood story.

    The Art Center Cooperative gallery space is located at 31 W. Adams Street in downtown Jacksonville, FL.  Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11am-3pm.

    To see more of Yvonne’s work, visit her website, YCLArt and be sure to “fan” her Facebook page!

  • The Thingness of Color at DODGE gallery

    OK, so color is the theme of the day!
    The Thingness of Color at DODGE gallery.

  • Lucky Spasms and Other Art Walk Goodness

    Beauty was abounding in Jacksonville last night and I’m not just talking about the perfect weather.  My sister-in-law and I attended the monthly Downtown Art Walk and were treated to not just the usual visual stimulation but mental and emotional engagement, as well.  Now, I had a list about a mile long of the spots I wanted to hit, but we arrived late and spent quite a bit of time at each one, so.. yeah, we only made it to a few.

    But we began the night with a bang at The VAULT Gallery, Willliams-Cornelius’ space in a former bank vault ( yes, you read that right! ) on Forsyth Street.   Greeted by the Mr. Williams & Ms. Cornelius themselves, and intern Adam, we set off to see what artist Jeff Whipple had in store for us.   Whipple has been working on this “Spasm” series for more than thirty years.  What began as a painterly device to fill negative pace, the three-barred icon has grown from an element in the background to become the object of an entire series of work.

    The three bars that comprise a “spasm” serve to symbolize life, lifetime or a lifestyle.  The artwork is open to interpretation, based on the viewer’s own experience– how you see it may not be the way I see it and that’s OK.  All of our lives are different and it is in this difference that we each find meaning in the spasms.  This is work that truly that makes you stop and think– what does this mean?  To the artist?  To me?

    In conjunction with the showing of Jeff Whipple’s work, Williams-Cornelius also presented a performance piece by self-proclaimed “deformance artist”, Liz Gibson.  Gibson was born with a birth defect causing her to have only seven fingers– five on one hand and only two on the other.   The performance last night was a character of Gibson’s own creation “Ben Wa Betty”.  Betty appears as part archetypal Asian lady, but in a hip and provocative way.  Gibson tells stories of how at times she felt lucky or unlucky to have been born with a deformity, all while pouring wax over her deformed hand, proving how you can take something that seems unlucky and make something beautiful out of it.

    The overaching theme is one of contentment– be happy with who you are and how you were made.   At times you may feel unlucky, but there will always be a reminder of just how lucky we all are.

     Our next stop was Southlight Gallery, where there is always a display of exceptional art by some of the most well-known artists in Jacksonville, right along side with talented emerging artists.  The featured artist last night was wood sculptor, Grant Ward.

    I’m a sucker for any burl or wood sculpture and have been a fan of Ward’s pieces for a long time.  There is something about an artist that looks at a log or a tree stump, sees the potential for creating something unique AND possesses the craftsmanship to create something polished and beautiful out of such rough raw materials.

    I have always especially loved Ward’s pieces that combine burl wood with spun metal.  These pieces take on, for me an other worldly space-like quality.  It is as if the wood is a planetary surface and the metal pieces are alien pods making their home there.

    After leaving Southlight, we made our way toward the river to the Suntrust Tower, new home of Town Editions, Thomas Hager’s new line of accessibly affordable limited editions– making this artist’s beautiful work available to even a young collector.

    These hand-crafted, signed and numbered editions are created using vintage photographic processes, which give the simple subject matter an elegance and sophistication lacking in much of today’s photographic prints.  Also on view are some of Hager’s paintings ( He paints, too!  I know! ).

     

    Filled with texture and a pastel & neutral palette, these pieces are reminiscent of sand or rock.  They have an organic feeling to them that such completely non-representational work rarely possesses.   I’m looking forward to seeing Tom’s paintings evolve just as his photography continues to do so.

    I wish I could tell you more about all the places we visited and amazing art we saw, but alas, that was the end of our night.  I can tell you that I will be back downtown soon to visit the exhibits and studios I missed.  I’m not sure how anyone could see it all in ArtWalk’s four hours.. but what an awesome problem to have!

    May’s Downtown ArtWalk will be May 4, 2011.  More information available here.  Hope to see you there!

  • New American Paintings: Interview with Claire Cowie

    Oh how I wish we were already on the West Coast!  Claire Cowie’s work is intriguing and this exhibition is hanging in Seattle only for a few more days.  The article goes into the importance of placement and hanging for the exhibition, something many gallerists overlook, but is often so important to the artist’s vision of how the work is to be viewed.

    Read on!

    A Colossal Place of Being: A Q&A with Claire Cowie.

  • Springing Forth

    Springing Forth

    WINTER TRANSITIONS;  SPRING STORMS is R. Roberts Gallery’s celebration of the transition from the grey, dreary days of winter into the fresh bloom of spring.  The show features the work of three very different artists, mixed media artist Madeline Peck-Wagner, sculptor James Oleson and encaustic painter Kathleen Wobie.

    As you enter the gallery, you may almost miss James Oleson’s tiny bust sculpture.  This diminutive piece, made of repurposed metal, will definitely make you stop and take the time to really check it out.  I couldn’t believe I walked right by it when I first came in!  Beyond the bust is one of Oleson’s horse sculptures.  With its stilt-like legs and flowing tail, this equine could be right out of a Tim Burton movie.  Oleson also has some much larger scale sculptures that are interesting in their own right.

    Speaking of equines, Madeline Peck-Wagner’s mixed media works were defnitely, for me, the star of this show.  She takes subject matter that could be trite and cringe-worthy ( think cheesy Southwestern art ), but treats it in a unique, contemporary and elegant way.

    These are delicate line drawings possessing an intense presence and power, much like the impressive animals depicted.  The cross-hatching & precision of the lines are reminiscent of architectural drafting, giving the figures depicted a strutctural, landscaped quality.  Conversely, blots and washes of brightly colored paints call to the spiritual significance such animals, both living and decayed possess.

    Just as the delicate, bare branches of winter transition into the full, heady blooms of spring, so we move from Madeline Peck-Wagner’s graceful lines into Kathleen Wobie’s encaustics, thick with wax, paint & color.   Kathleen’s pieces, in the context of this show, seem to depict spring at its height– full of pastel tones and sunshiney warmth.

     

    For me personally, I found the larger, abstract piece below to be Wobie’s most successful of this show.  This piece, rather than being the literal translation of winter to spring that the piece above is, instead represents more the feeling of spring– of rebirth, renewal and the joy of being alive.

    As we in North Florida transition into spring ( though some days lately, it feels as if summer is already upon us! ), take the time to drop by R. Roberts to see how these artists make the switch and enjoy this last show in the gallery’s current space.  R. Roberts is doing some transitioning of their own, can’t wait to see the bountiful blooming that is sure to be in store!

    R. Roberts Gallery is located at 3606 St. Johns Ave in historic Avondale, in Jacksonville.

    Winter Transitions; Spring Storms will be on display through April 23rd, the gallery is open Tuesday-Saturday 11am-6pm.

  • Seeing Much, Much More

    Seeing Much, Much More

    SHAWN MEHARG: SEEING LITTLE MORE is the latest exhibition of work at the Williams-Cornelius Gallery located inside Daryl Bunn Studios in Riverside.  If, like me, all you’ve ever seen are Shawn’s more representational works, you’ll be as pleasantly surprised as I was to discover this new series of abstracts.

    I am a huge sucker for lots of texture, so this show had me at hello.   These abstracts are LOUSY with texture ( and I mean that in the best possible sense! ), color and depth.   Layer upon layer of paint, charcoal, etc., give way to artwork in which the viewer can get lost.  There are a few pieces that are lighter in tone, but for the most part the color is heavily saturated, but somehow still remaining translucent, giving the feeling of looking through wet stained glass.

    Lots of edgy endings in color and straight lines add to the stained-glass effect.  There also seems to be a reflectory vibe happening, especially in the darker pieces– they could be reflections of city lights in pools of water on asphalt streets.

    The visual depth is especially evident in the pieces in which the canvas seems to be opening up into a world beyond– as in “City Mouth” below.

    I don’t want to give too much away.  If you’re in Jacksonville, go see this show for yourself and find out what “more” you can see.

    Williams-Cornelius Gallery is located inside Daryl Bunn Studios, 643 Edison Ave in Jacksonville.

    The gallery is open Monday- Friday, 9am-5pm.