artsy forager

Tag: Artists

  • A Little Night Magic. Sarah Shaw.

    A Little Night Magic. Sarah Shaw.

    In our travels, Mr. F and I have seen some beautiful sights from the highway.  During our time in Yosemite, we often found ourselves driving through the park from the valley up to our campground after nightfall.  There was something that completely enchanted me about the mountains silhouetted against the night sky and the way the headlights lit up the trees to a surprisingly bright green.  In these paintings from her Roads and Carousel series, UK artist Sarah Shaw captures that magic to be found in the night.

    Sarah Shaw | artsy forager #art #artists #paintings #abstractart #contemporaryart Sarah Shaw | artsy forager #art #artists #paintings #abstractart #contemporaryart Sarah Shaw | artsy forager #art #artists #paintings #abstractart #contemporaryart Sarah Shaw | artsy forager #art #artists #paintings #abstractart #contemporaryart Sarah Shaw | artsy forager #art #artists #paintings #abstractart #contemporaryart

    These paintings seem to glow with that mystical light that happens when the landscape is lit artificially, spotlighting small sections and leaving others to blackness.  How true that seems sometimes in life.. we focus our light, our attention on what is in front of us, the needs of that moment, while the periphery waits in silence for its turn.

    To see more of Sarah Shaw‘s work, please visit her website.

    All images are via the artist’s website.

  • Conjured Childhoods. Hannah Lewis Davies.

    Conjured Childhoods. Hannah Lewis Davies.

    Isn’t it funny how selective our memories of childhood can be?  How some moments seem so vivid while others are barely recalled?  UK artist Hannah Lewis Davies‘ paintings explore those fleeting memories as well as the imaginary worlds we create in childhood.

    Hannah Lewis Davies | artsy forager #art #artists #paintings #contemporaryart Hannah Lewis Davies | artsy forager #art #artists #paintings #contemporaryart Hannah Lewis Davies | artsy forager #art #artists #paintings #contemporaryart Hannah Lewis Davies | artsy forager #art #artists #paintings #contemporaryart Hannah Lewis Davies | artsy forager #art #artists #paintings #contemporaryart

    I have a feeling that being with my mom will bring back a lot of childhood memories.  It’s funny that what I remember most about my mom from childhood aren’t necessarily memories of her specifically, though she was a constant, caring presence, but it’s more her things.  I remember being fascinated with her jewelry and shoes.  It was the 70s and my mom had amazing taste in shoes!  Wedges to die for!  And there were the books and clothes, especially one filmy peignoir that I would wear and imagine myself as a princess or an actress accepting the Academy Award.  Without even realizing it, she set up a world that opened up my imagination– one where I could discover and reinvent myself, surround myself with beauty, go on adventures.  As an adult, I’m still striving to do all those things, but she planted the seed.

    To see more of Hannah Lewis Davies‘ work, please visit her website.

    All images via the artist’s website.  Artist found via Saatchi Online.

  • Piles of Pieces. M Michael Smith.

    Piles of Pieces. M Michael Smith.

    I like to think of life like a puzzle.  We are given all these disjointed bits yet they fit together in a way that is unique to our own personality and experience.  These collages by Cincinnati artist M Michael Smith remind me that though we may draw from similar backgrounds, our piles of pieces are only our own.

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    As we grow and mature, we add to our “piles” and though the pieces being added might be similar to others’, our pile is particular to us.  That piece that peeks out from the bottom of your pile, significant, but only barely, maybe at the top and center of my heap.  In his artist statement, M Michael Smith reveals that touch is central to his work.  I’m of course giving my own interpretation, seeing these collages as symbols not of physical touch but of how our lives are touched and molded by experience.

    To see more of M Michael Smith‘s work, please visit his website.

    All images are via the artist’s website.

  • About Face. Harding Meyer.

    About Face. Harding Meyer.

    In the physical absence of a loved one, photographs can be an only slightly adequate substitute.  We can see a familiar face, but we can’t watch it change with expression or see it shifting slightly with age.  In his work, artist Harding Meyer paints faces once frozen in  photographs, but now isolated and animated in paint.

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    The faces stare out, almost pleading for connection.  How often do we look directly into another’s eyes in the course of our day?  Maybe we stare into our partner’s eyes without inhibition, but do we ever really look into the eyes of strangers?  Are we so scared of what we may see looking back?

    To see more of Harding Meyer‘s work, please visit his website.

    Images are via the artist’s website and the website of his representing gallery, Galerie Voss.

  • For Real Life. Andrea Brown.

    For Real Life. Andrea Brown.

    Life is rarely neat and orderly.  Like a bride in a Taco Bell drive thru, we find ourselves is weird positions and unexpected places.  These paintings by artist Andrea Brown offer an elegant look at the surprising strangeness of life.

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    Sometimes, we’re moving along, everything calm and monotonous even, but then something remarkable happens to surprise us.  Maybe a butterfly comes through an open window and greets you or you spot a hint of green vine slowly creeping its way up a lonely wall.  These are the moments that we sometimes overlook, but the ones that layer our lives with joy, that let us break for smiles in what is often too much drudgery.  I’ll be on the lookout for surprises this weekend, will you?

    To see more of Andrea Brown‘s work, please visit the Salt Fine Art website.

    All images are via the Salt Fine Art website.

  • Pure Process. Rose Masterpol.

    Pure Process. Rose Masterpol.

    Most artist statements today are filled with thoughts on motivation and meaning.  I think we’ve somehow become uncomfortable with the idea of just making art for the sake of creating.  There must be some kind of deep intellectual thought behind those marks!  And perhaps there always is on one level.  For an artist like Rose Masterpol, the reason they create is for the pure pleasure of the process.

    Rose Masterpol | artsy forager #art #artists #painting #abstractart #contemporaryart Rose Masterpol | artsy forager #art #artists #painting #abstractart #contemporaryart Rose Masterpol | artsy forager #art #artists #painting #abstractart #contemporaryart Rose Masterpol | artsy forager #art #artists #painting #abstractart #contemporaryart Rose Masterpol | artsy forager #art #artists #painting #abstractart #contemporaryart

     

    The advent of photography freed painters from the need to represent.  We can, instead, fully revel in the action and process of the painting itself.  Full immersion into pure expression, building layer upon layer of mark and color until what we see is fully pleasing to the artist’s eye.  The viewer then, is left to find what it is that those marks mean to them, engaging the outsider with the intimate creation.

    To see more of Rose Masterpol’s work, please visit her website.

    All images are via the artist’s website.

  • Spun. Nike Schroeder.

    Spun. Nike Schroeder.

    Some people find horizontal lines soothing.  Maybe I’m weird, but I almost always prefer vertical lines.  Perhaps a nod to the soaring peaks of the mountains I love so much?  Textile artist Nike Schroeder takes full advantage of verticality in her string sculptures and I can’t get enough of them.

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    The tactile quality of the string and the way it hangs seems to give a nod in my eye to indigenous garments and weavings.  There is also an intriguing sense of color field painting to each piece, as the individual string colors shift gradually, almost imperceptibly to create depth, line and shadow.  The nature lover in me sees moss silently drooping in fog, a waterfall cascading over a cliffside.  Silent representations of a world of life.

    To see more of Nike Schroeder’s work, please visit her website.

    All images via the artist’s website.  Artist found via The Jealous Curartor for The Fig House with Emily Henderson.

  • Magic Maker. Jeffrey Simmons.

    Magic Maker. Jeffrey Simmons.

    There is work that enchants us for a moment, we think, “oh, that’s very nice!” but then move on, maybe occasionally coming back to it.  But then there is work that is completely mesmerizing from the moment we see it, drawing us in and nearly drowning us in its magic.  These watercolors by Seattle artist Jeffrey Simmons have me utterly hypnotized with their radiating forms and precisely blurred lines.

    Jeffrey Simmons, Palindrome II | artsy forager #art #artists #watercolors Jeffrey Simmons, Gravity Well III | artsy forager #art #artists #watercolors Jeffrey Simmons, Resonater II | artsy forager #art #artists #watercolors Jeffrey Simmons, Offset Echo II | artsy forager #art #artists #watercolors Jeffrey Simmons, Work in Progress May 2014 | artsy forager #art #artists #watercolors

     

    These pulsating forms have an incredibly cosmic quality, like stars shining brightly in the blackest night.  The shifts in color are so incredibly subtle, that I find my eyes moving almost imperceptibly between forms, diving down into the depths and then emerging to the feathery banks.  This is watercolor taken to another universe, devoid of tradition and full of possibility.

    To see more of Jeffrey Simmons‘ work, please visit his website.  You can see his work in person at Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle, one of my favorite spots in my favorite city.

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

  • Delicate Impermanence. Seung Hwan Oh.

    Delicate Impermanence. Seung Hwan Oh.

    There comes a time in this life when we come to the realization that we are, indeed, not going to be here forever.  For some, this revelation takes longer than for others, but its definitely taken its hold on me recently.  This series, Impermanence, by artist Seung Hwan Oh emphasizes the balance between creation, life, and destruction in these ephemeral photographs.

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    From the artist’s site– “The process involves the cultivation of emulsion consuming microbes on a visual environment created through portraits and a physical environment composed of developed film immersed in water. As the microbes consume light-sensitive chemical over the course of months or years, the silver halides destabilize, obfuscating the legibility of foreground, background, and scale. This creates an aesthetic of entangled creation and destruction that inevitably is ephemeral, and results in complete disintegration of the film so that it can only be delicately digitized before it is consumed.”

    My mom’s illness has definitely caused Mr. F and I to think more closely about our own physical, emotional and spiritual health and what that means for our future.  There are no guarantees, of course, but we’re trying very hard to move through each day with a focus on not only on cultivating our all too quickly approaching future, but more importantly, to be fully present in the now.

    To see more of Seung Hwan Oh‘s work, please visit the artist’s website.

    All images are via the artist’s website.  Artist found via I Need a Guide.

  • Discordant Nature. Jessica Tremp

    Discordant Nature. Jessica Tremp

    When we’re out hiking, I always notice something that seems so contradictory.  One would assume that most people who hike are doing so for the enjoyment of the outdoor world.  So why in the world would they think it is OK to leave their trash all over the trail?  Man in general seems to have this sort of dysfunctional relationship with nature and in this series of photos by artist Jessica Tremp, I see the drama being played out.

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    Nature, in its ineffable beauty calls out to our spirits and our souls.  We long to not just see it, but experience it, for it to become a part of us.  But inevitably, our selfishness gains the upper hand and we do the very thing we hate– we become part of the problem.  We drive our car too much, we let the water run while we brush our teeth, we throw away what we no longer want and so that our garbage fills what was once pristine.  And then we cry over what we have done, cursing ourselves, only to continue the cycle day after day.

    To see more of Jessica Tremp‘s work, please visit her website.

    All images via the artist’s website.  Artist found via The Artful Desperado.