In this week’s round up of gallery shows and museum exhibitions, I am so bummed that I’m nowhere near any of these spots because each of these shows looks amazing!
Click through the gallery links above for more information about each show. If you check ‘em out, tag me ( @artsyforager ) on Instagram with the hashtag #dontmissartsiness! If you go I’ll be totally jealous!
This artist’s work always gets me. Not just because it’s incredibly gorgeous and highly skilled, it is. But each piece is filled with so much emotion and narrative, it’s like a beautiful punch in the gut. I first featured the paintings ( that’s right, paintings!! ) of Lee Price way back in January 2012 while I was writing Artist Watch posts for Escape Into Life. The work effected me so much that it took another three months before I could write a full feature for the blog.
These new pieces are similar to Price’s older work, in that we still see isolated women in the bed or bath, but the work has evolved to either a more positive or more sinister perspective, depending on your interpretation. We still seem to see a woman in struggle, yet these seem much more subversive. Instead of a woman surrounded by the detritus of a cupcake binge, instead, we’re confronted with women enveloped by artificial representations of treats or even more telling, an empty bowl.
We have such a powerful relationship with the food and drink we consume. It literally has the power to nourish or destroy. And in the world of fast, highly processed food and GMOs, the choice of what we eat has never seemed more fraught with danger.
I’ve been seeing a lot of articles pop up lately on the importance of our online profile photos. It seems that we make snap judgements about the people we see online based solely on facial expression in profile photos ( duh? ). In his paintings, Colombian artist Jesus Leguizamo obscures the faces of his subjects, blurring all expression. There seems to be a trend in art and photography of obstructing faces.. in these days of status updates and selfies, are we all just sick of ourselves?
In some of Leguizamo’s work, the faces are completely obliterated, leaving nothing but what’s left of the figure to clue us in as to who they are. In others, the result is a bit more haunting, as we see just enough expression to leave us wanting to know more.
In all the social media swirling around us, it’s tempting to want to put it all out there, to share with the world everything we’re doing and thinking.. and it seems there is a Pavlovian type effect that happens when we do. Sharing and getting a response makes us want to do more. But when do we cross the line over into sharing too much? Is it best to lay it all out for the world to see or retain a bit of mystery?
In a lot of ways, our lives themselves are made up only of memories. Whether our own memories or the remembrances people have of us, those recollections make up the way we others see us and the way we perceive ourselves. In her gouache paintings, San Francisco artist Lindsay Stripling emphasizes memory and perceived realities.
Taking inspiration from vintage photographs, Stripling’s portraits represent an entrance into another world, perhaps a reality or memory different from our own. It’s funny how, you can never have visited a place, yet have a feeling of it merely from associations like film, photographs or stories. How often have we found ourselves in a spot, knowing consciously we’d never been there before, yet having an unshakeable feeling of familiarity?
Memories of our loved ones can be much the same, over time, our associations may change, changing our perceptions and skewing our memories. Our memories are sifted through a giant sieve, so that only the strongest impressions survive.
There are so many things I’d never experienced before living on the West Coast. In Florida, I don’t think I ever experienced “marine layer“, these air masses create the most beautiful foggy formations above the coastal waters. Of course, everyone loves bright, clear skies, but there is a mysterious beauty to life seen through a fogged lens. In his Steam Portraits series, photographer David Ryle creates these sensitive captures of portraits seen through or looking through a curtain of steam.
We all have our days when it feels like we’re moving through the fog. Bogged down, without a clear vision of the road ahead. What’s so lovely about these portraits is that although the subjects are seen gazing through the vapor, in most cases much of the haze is already depleted. There is something incredibly hopeful in that– to know that although we may be temporarily socked in, slowly, surely, the fog will lift and all will be revealed.
If you’re following along with my Foraging on social media, you may have seen me let a little cat out of the bag last week.. Since the end of last year, I’ve been working on a limited edition collaboration with the Seattle based online art & framing company, Mantle Art, and I’m thrilled to announce that the Artsy Forager Collection for Mantle Art is now live!!
In partnership with the folks at Mantle Art, I’ve pulled together this first collection of four emerging artists, each one of whose work I feel speaks strongly and beautifully a unique visual story. Allow me to introduce you!
alexandra bellissimo | Alexandra is one of my favorite finds of the past year and was the Artsy Forager Featured Artist just last month. Her work has an edgy elegance to it that I am particularly drawn to. That top left piece is perhaps one of my all time favorite pieces of work, EVER. I can’t get enough of it.
click the image above to shop Alexandra’s collection on Mantle Art!
kelda martensen |Kelda was a new discovery for me through this process, but the minute I saw her work, I fell in love with it. In her original mixed media pieces, Kelda is seeking to define what home may be and though the answer for each of us is different, her work speaks a universal language. Look for an Artsy Forager feature on Kelda soon!
click the image above to shop Kelda’s collection on Mantle Art!
matt sawyer | Mr. F had a circle of really super cool friends during his Tulsa days. And photographer Matt Sawyer just happened to be among them. When I was putting together artist options for the collection, I wanted a photographer who was treating traditional imagery in a modern, fresh way so I was thrilled when the folks at Mantle Art loved Matt’s work as much as I did!
click the image above to shop Matt’s collection on Mantle Art!
anna kincaide | One of the most thrilling things about writing Artsy Forager has been the joy of finding an artist and following the growth of their work. Anna is one of the artists I’ve been most excited to watch emerge! I fell in love with her work the first time I saw it and she has only gotten better and better since. Her compositions are always stunning and the playfulness of pattern, as well as her use of light just create such lovely juxtapositions.
click the image above to shop Anna’s collection on Mantle Art!
Each piece in the Artsy Forager for Mantle Art Collection is available as a limited edition print on Hahnemuhle fine art paper and is available in three sizes 11×14, 16×20, and 20×24. Edition sizes are limited to 200 pieces per size, and each piece will be shipped with a certificate of authenticity. Mantle Art also offers matting and framing options for each piece– one stop shopping, ya’ll!
I hope you’ll wander through the collection, perhaps you’ll fall in love and add one of these beauties to your collection!
*This post contains affiliate links. As curator of the Artsy Forager for Mantle Art Collection, I receive a small commission on each piece sold from the collection.
You know that phrase, you get more flies with honey? Candy-coated truths always seem a bit more digestible. Whether its revealing political truths through comical satire or historical truths in frosted palettes as in the work of Australian artist Stefan Dunlop, difficult ideas can be approached more easily from a less threatening perspective.
Dunlop’s simple use of form and bright pastel palette immediately draw the eye, thinking we’re in for a fun ride. But his subject matter and old master-like composition lead us to want to investigate a bit further. There is a darkness lurking beneath that cotton candy surface.
Just last night over a glass of wine and chocolate marscapone cheesecake, Mr. Forager and I were talking about where I saw my studio work going and I told him I didn’t really have a desire to become a figurative painter. And then this morning I came across the work of Jennifer Nerhbass. In her work, the New Mexico artist explores “The relationships of women to themselves and their environment”. Ok, maybe I’ve changed my mind.
As women, we get so caught up in society’s idea of what we should look like and who we should be. We find ourselves spending hours looking for that perfect little dress, even when we’d rather be outside. Since we’ve been traveling, I’ve been slowly stripping away those artifices I’d built up for so long. That closet filled with shoes, many of them rarely worn. Drawers filled with make-up and perfume. I’ve learned that Mr. F sees me at my most beautiful when we are hiking together– not in heels but hiking boots, no makeup, hair usually a mess. But what he’s seeing is the inspiration and peace that fills and recharges my spirit and soul. We so often forsake that for ourselves.
In her work, we see Nehrbass’s women often out of place in the wild, like they’ve suddenly been plucked out of their urban existence and somehow landed in the midst of wilderness. I see so many parallels with how we live as modern women and these paintings. We become so obsessed with creating beauty in ourselves that we lose touch with the life and beauty around us.
One of my favorite things about babies and children of family and friends is looking at them and seeing how their parents come through. Whether in their physical attributes or personalities, it always amazes me to see glimpses of parents or grandparents in a new unique little personality. In her Heritage series, French artist Marie Hudelot explores the cultural heritage between an East and West family legacy, specifically France and Algeria.
Just as we are each conglomerations of generations of hereditary history, in Hudelot’s conceptual portraits we see symbolic aggregations to create emblematic figures. Faces covered, the figures could be anonymous representations of previous generations. How much of who we become is influenced by those who came before? Whether genetic or cultural, we are all in some way the product of past generations.
There are artists whose work inspires one of two reactions in me– either I want to strive to be even a fraction as good as they are or I want to throw my brushes down and never pick them up again. Russian-born Philadelphia based artist Alex Kanevsky, with his painterly style and beautiful light is just such an artist.
Kanevsky’s work has this amazing sense of chaos and freedom, as if these were dashed off quickly as the artist moved on to the next canvas. Yet each piece is a carefully composed, heavily layered composition, his process often taking weeks or even months of immersion into and retreating from each painting. Are there stories being told? Perhaps. But more than mere narrative speculation is the feeling each piece projects– sadness, desolation, satisfaction.
If you’d like to see more of Alex Kanevsky‘s incredible work, please visit his website. Be sure to check out his fascinating Progress page in which he shares sequences of paintings in various stages of progress!
