One of the things that really drew my hubby and I to the Pacific Northwest is the dynamic, breathtaking landscape. For a photographer to be able to truly capture not only the natural beauty here, but the atmospheric mystery found in this place is no small thing. Today’s artist, photographer Raquel Edwards‘ landscape imagery not only catches the physical elements of a place, but the magical feeling one might get being there.
Pacific PineChannel MarkersWaterfallSea Stack
Want to see more of Raquel Edwards’ work? Please visit her website— make sure you check out her encaustic photography, too and her still lifes– tons of gorgeousness! She’ll be showing in November at the Annie Meyer Artwork Gallery in Portland.
Featured image is Alders On Kachemak Bay. All images are via the artist’s website.
Remember when I said that I have a wish list of portrait artists? Well, modern portrait artist Lu Cong has been at the top of the heap for quite a while. He infuses his portraits with a soft glow that is at once ethereal and alien.
Tabitha #9, oil on panel, 36×40
His soft palette creates a peaceful atmosphere, juxtaposed with the slightly off-putting direct gaze of the subject. The result is a stunning image of not just the portrait sitter, but of a momentary glimpse into their emotional world.
A Song At Dusk, oil on panel, 30×30
Eyes wide and lips slightly parted, there is an intense vulnerability captured in these images. Not merely paintings of physical features, but souls laid bare.
Corbin #2, oil on panel, 32×28My Name is Tabitha, oil on panel, 36×48
To see more of Lu Cong’s haunting portrait paintings, please visit his website and Facebook page. ( Don’t forget to follow Artsy Forager, too, while you’re at it! )
Featured image is A Moment With Liza, oil on panel, 24×18. All images are via the artist’s website.
America is often a strange place and seems to just keep getting stranger. Los Angeles artist Deborah Martin captures the sad desolation found across our country in her poignant paintings.
Aces and Spades, oil on canvas, 36×36Slab City Chairs, oil on canvas, 36×36
Her use of a limited, pastel neutral palette softens the sometimes oddly grim reality of many lives in America.
Keep Out, oil on canvas, 36×36
Yet somehow, these aren’t dark, depressing images of life in one of the richest countries in the world. They don’t feel critical or satirical, but rather reverent and dreamy.
Fifty-two, oil on canvas, 36×36
To see more of Deborah’s work, please visit her website. If you are in the Los Angeles area, she is currently showing at The Red Arrow Gallery in Joshua Tree, CA. I have a feeling these paintings are even more intriguing in person!
Featured image is Yellow Camper, oil on canvas, 36×36. All images are via the artist’s website.
Said it before, I’ll say it again. Fall is my favorite season. The cool, crisp air, the golden light, the colors, the comfort food, I love it all! For the very first time, this Florida girl is experiencing a real Fall. With boot weather and incredible changing leaves, I’m so excited, I can barely stand it. While in this autumnal frame of mind, I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite Fall-inspired art…
Trees and Light by Debbie Martin, 40×40Tree View #7 by Kristi Taylor, acrylic on canvas 18×24Penelope DullaghanNine Full Moon Maples by Mary Chomenko Hinckley, pigment print on archival german paper, 21×21
Please visit these artists’ websites to see more of their work– some Fall-ish, some not. I’m hoping George & I might see some real Fall color this weekend here in Southern Oregon. What about you? Any autumnal activities on tap?
I find it intriguing when artists let us into their imaginations, giving us a glimpse of the world as they see it, scenes of life as they interpret it. Portland photographer Grace Weston creates small, staged vignettes that take on big, universal themes and canonical artwork.
Winter Wish, Winter Dream
The images are simple in their composition, poetic in their imagery and completely relatable. Their dreamlike quality is, depending upon the image, entrancing, wryly humorous or slightly disturbing in an intentionally sweet yet creepy way.
LovebirdsBaby Makes Three
I especially love her take on iconic artwork such one of The Unicorn in Captivity tapestry from the Metropolitan Museum in New York and The Son of Man by Rene Magritte. What can I say, the art history major in me totally geeks out on these kinds of references and reinterpretations.
Petting ZooThe Overseer
Grace Weston is represented by G. Gibson Gallery in Portland, Oregon, so if you’re in that area, stop in to see her work in person or visit her website.
Featured image is Laundry Day. All images are courtesy of the artist’s website.
Do you ever wish you could just escape? From your cares, stresses, work, technology, you name it. Take a moment to run away with me into Minnesota artist Melissa Loop‘s landscapes of fantastical refuge. They are part wonderland, part social commentary, but fully contemporary and brilliant.
Walmart, acrylic and enamel on panel, 36×24
Slide down a huge pink curvy slide as tall as a skyscraper leading down to a river coming out of a mountain shaped like a bear’s head? Don’t mind if I do!
City Park 3, acrylic and enamel on panel, 48×36
Her use of flat shapes, vivid colors and perspectives make these a bit reminiscent of vintage travel posters, but then the added contemporary pops of patterns such as swoopy stripes and repeating textile-like shapes add more dimensions of interest. These truly are works that I could escape into– just to try to figure out all that is going on! They are like a crazy dream gone wild. And I love them.
U.A.E. Arc Intervention, acrylic and enamel on panel, 24×36St. Thomas All Inclusive, acrylic and enamel on panel, 36×24
To see more of Melissa Loop’s world, please visit her website. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to close my eyes and dream of curvy pink slides.
Everyone loves a parade, don’t they? Well, I certainly do. And Seattle artist Pamela Durga Robinson’s Parade series brilliantly captures the spirits of the parts that make the whole.
Drill Team Captain, oil on canvas, 36×36
She choses to isolate the individual players– band members, clowns, audience– so that we can focus in on them and their experience.
Seasoned Critics, oil on canvas, 12×12
Her figures are so human.. these are your parents, children, friends, the people you see at the supermarket on Sunday. She uses negative space to give importance to figures that otherwise might just be faces lost in the crowd. And her brightly colored backgrounds recall the upbeat cheeriness of a parade and provide an interesting juxtaposition against the sometimes sullen faces.
Flutes All In A Row, oil on canvas, 12×12Drill Team Wannabes, oil on canvas, 12×12
To see more of Pamela’s parade of characters, be sure to check out her website. You can also see her work in person ( and enjoy some yummy goodies ) at Fresh Flours on Phinney Ave in Seattle.
Featured image is Anticipation, oil on canvas, 36×12. All images are courtesy of the artist’s website.
As you probably noticed during the recent artsyF A S H I O N Week, I have a keen interest in the gray areas where art and fashion collide. What we wear and it’s design is such an integrated part of our culture and psyche that it is no surprise that clothes influence art and vice versa.
A Magical Life, steel mesh, plaster, oil and mixed media, 56x30x30
Often in art, clothing is used as a symbol, as a vehicle for deeper thought. This is especially true in the work of New Mexico artist Christina Chalmers. Her sculptures and mixed media pieces are, in her own words, contemplations on the “cloaking and revealing of the inner self”.
Acquaintance of Kelp Forests, kelp, driftwood, vintage silk and lace, 56x41x41
Through her use of organic and weathered found materials, we see an interconnectedness with who we truly are and the self we are projecting out to the world via our appearance.
The Fleeting Things of Time No. 4, mixed media, copper and oil on panel, 60×48Sea Dress II, kelp, shells and steel mesh, 34x25x9
In her sculptures especially, I see this connection between the deconstructed, feminine garments and the found and organic materials that is incredibly intriguing. The texture and patina of the materials are such a striking juxtaposition between the ladylike flowing shape– powerful in their vulnerability. Just like us as women.
What do you think of these? Do you see what I’m seeing or have a different perspective to share?
To see more of Christina Chalmers’ work, visit her page on the Selby Fleetwood Gallery website. If you’re in Santa Fe, you can see her work in person at the gallery. It will definitely be on my list when I finally get to Santa Fe!
Featured image is I am the Root, the Wind and the Bird ( detail ) by Christina Chalmers, mixed media on panel.
Cooler weather has finally made its way to Southern Oregon. Which brings with it my favorite season, autumn. There is something about the quality of light in the Fall that makes everything seem to glow like candlelight. Atlanta artist Ryan Coleman is no doubt aware of the effects of autumnal light. His abstract paintings sing in tune with the loveliness of this transitional season.
Nature's Tempest, oil on canvas, 48×48
Taking his inspiration from the nature around him, Ryan uses expressive brushwork and subtle shifts in color to achieve his soft abstractions of the bountiful beauty found within the landscape.
Untitled, oil on canvas, 48×48
Glorious color bursts forth from the canvas, just as autumn leaves provide a last triumphant explosion of hues before grey winter sets in.
oil on canvasoil on canvas
These paintings make me feel like I’ve just taken a walk through the autumn woods. Hope to experience the real thing this weekend! To see more of Ryan Coleman’s work, please visit his website and Facebook page. If you’re in the Atlanta area, his work can be viewed at Pryor Fine Art.
Featured image is Celebration, oil on canvas, 40×30. All images are courtesy of the artist’s website.
The fantastical work of Jamie Baldridge weaves for the viewer visually complex stories that engage the mind and entrance the spirit.
Phrases From A Broken Language
Baldridge, a professor of photography at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, creates his fantastical works by utilizing not only photography, but also digital manipulation and collage. The resulting images are full of depth, texture and an extraordinary sense of light.
The Socrates Safe Co.
His Vermeerish palette lends the eccentric images an old-worldly feel and their dark sensibilities recall the iconography and symbolism of the Victorians. Yet there is something inherently modern about them– perhaps it is the subtly infused humor or the fashiony bent to some of the work.
A Confluence of Extraordinary IdeasA Pair of Gnostics Burdened On A Platform
There are stories at work here, some obvious, others more subversive, but all entirely up to the viewer to complete. Baldridge has opened up the book to a random middle page and it is up to us to find the beginning and end.
To see more of Jamie Baldridge’s fascinating work, please visit his website. I first saw his work this weekend at the Thomas Lee Gallery in Ashland, OR, so if you’re anywhere near the area, you could do the same. ( Note to the Thomas Lee gallerist: Immediately going into the archival paper, framing and pricing of an intriguing work of art is NOT the way to sell it. Just sayin’. )
