Tamaqua Artist in Residence....ME.

In April, I was informed that I am the first recipient of the Tamaqua Artist in Residence program in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania. I get to go there on the 21st of June for three months, painting, painting, painting, is what I am supposed to be doing. I'm sure I'll be taking in all the sights of this wonderful city that I've been to a number of times. I was introduced to the city of Tamaqua by my friend Joseph Marioni. It was quite a few years ago that he told me he was moving to this city to have a better space to paint. He and his friend who later became my friend Stephen Bennett both got giant spaces out there and began making them their own. Just this year it was announced that there is now an AIR program there, so I applied and after a round of interviews, was announced that I will be the first Artist In Residence.

You can see it's a hilly town, lots of wonderful places to hike, and bike. It's also 2.5 hours away from NYC which makes it fantastic for the traveling person.

Here's the studio. Which is much bigger than my present studio by a factor of 10. With ample light to spare.

Here's the announcement on facebook telling people about me. Click to see a larger version.

I'll be compiling a strip bound diary book to showcase my first art residency. I'm putting them up as a campaign reward for an indiegogo fundraising campaign I am working on. It should end up looking something like this...

Thanks for your interest. Can't wait to share the first pics from my travels.

I'm also now in the process of raising funds to help make this residency a triumphant one. I can use all the help you can give. And I appreciate every bit. Please click the link to learn more.

 

Just a few days to go.

It was in 2011 that I actively began my journey to meet, greet, and learn from some of whom I felt were the best painters and sculptors around today. Now in 2014, the Coney Island Film Society is going to be screening a culmination of many of those interactions. You should be able to meet and greet with a number of the films participants this evening before the screening, so get there a bit early.

You can get tickets here, or just wait till Saturday @ 8:30PM for the screening.
http://shop.coneyisland.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=5870

You can visit the website where I have been documenting everything and learn more.
DUOCHROME FILMS

 

Quote of the day 05-12-2014

Today I have been re-reading what should be required of anyone who claims to be an "artist", Robert C. Morgan's "The End of the Art World".

It dives right in and talks at length about the differences between Modernism and Post-Modernism, between spirituality and kitsch in art. It's a full on bomb for your brain.

As I've been reading it, i've got the highlighter out and marking up everything that seems to have to do with me and my feelings. One part in particular I feel really has a lot to do with today's artists versus today's conceptualists.

"To get at the opposite of cynicism, one must return to the origin of one's emotional strata to see what one is doing and why one is doing it. What is the purpose of one's art? Why be an artist? What is the motivation?"

To me, these are the eternal questions an artist asks themselves. Why do we make paintings, why do we make sculpture, drawing. It comes from a creative impulse that was born into us and it can't help but come out.

Give yourself some time, and read through this treatise on modern and post modern art. It might take a while to digest, but it's a philosophical meal that will keep you full for some time.

Peter Reginato @ Andre Zarre Gallery

Those that know me, know of my deep appreciation and admiration for the sculpture of Peter Reginato. Creating his own form, formula, and formations. He has been enjoying a successful exhibition at Andre Zarre Gallery in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

529 W. 20th Street 7th Floor contains some of the most innovative and provocative sculpture in New York. Sculpture is one of the hardest things to speak about, trying to describe three dimensional work to someone is damn near impossible. As the Painter Joseph Marioni says, "Language is not sight specific". This work is truly a dance for the eyes. Get down there before April 12th, 2014.

Photos never do justice to the power in these two sculptures as they battle for dominance in the room.

 

Another side of Rough Play amongst his playful drawings, some of them turn into much larger paintings that are just as playful and energetic. They energize every room.

View as you enter the gallery. My personal favorite of the exhibition is the wonderfully yellow Johnny Wadd. I love the balance and tone in this sculpture.

On the right is Rough Play, which I felt truly deserves it's own room as it is a sculpture that can fill a space with it's energy.

The Spanish Poet

Yet another angle from The Spanish Poet.

Spitball @ Storefront Ten Eyck

While out and about on Sunday I felt like walking around and seeing what other galleries I could find. My mind immediately went to Storefront Ten Eyck, a gallery that painter Deborah Brown has been running since 2012. The gallery was originally in a small space on Wilson Street but recently moved to a giant space on Ten Eyck where there is plenty of room to move around and for her to share larger artworks with the public.

Spitball is an exhibition coming from the minds of Kris Chatterson and Vince Contarino, referring to themselves as Progress Report. They run a blog that showcases artists in their studios and talks about the creative process. Check out their website, you'll spend a lot of time in there. The exhibition itself contains the work of 15 artists of all kinds of styles. Here's a few photos from my visit. Unfortunately even I don't know who most of these works are in the photos. So you'll just have to go down there and find out for yourself.

A painting in a small bedroom space, made the space feel like a temple.

 

Looks like someone is blowing up Anne Truitt.

Deborah Brown paintings in the side room.

Matthew Deleget work in the front room.

It's hard to write about a group show without focusing on a few select pieces. I want to tell you what I thought and felt as I took in the exhibition, but frankly if you know my writing you know I don't want to feel like I am planting thoughts in your head. Go enjoy it until April 6, 2014. 324 Ten Eyck St, Brooklyn NY 11206

Brent Owens @ English Kills

Sunday afternoon I headed over to the Bushwick section of Brooklyn to see what I had only seen in a couple photos. Brought to my attention by one Loren Munk AKA James Kalm and his selection of exhibition documentaries on various artists on youtube. I am in connection with Mr. Munk on Facebook and saw his post about Mr. Owens almost immediately after it came up in the feed. Immediately I knew it was something I wanted to find out more about. I got in touch with Mr. Owens and he told me that the gallery English Kills is only open on weekends, including Sundays, so I made my way down there to much delight.

I couldn't really tell where it was when walking down there, but thankfully Brent was about to open up the gallery and recognized me, we walked in through the back way and came across a cavalcade of truly imagined work from nature. All of Brent's work is on wood surfaces, a number of them are carved directly from fallen trees or stumps pulled from the ground. I was originally intrigued by his "rug" paintings, done with routed surfaces carefully painted making beautiful handmade patterns. I am usually not a pattern type of person, but these handmade ones really catch and delight the eye.

A few sculptures really stood out too. Well, in retrospect, almost all of them stood out for me. Brent uses wood in ways I have not seen done before. From his use of a stump that had grown over bricks, to a fallen tree from Sandy's wrath turned into a beautiful inner landscape. I almost felt myself being drawn into it's world of pinkness, reminding me of my time in caves, it's stalactites and stalagmites piercing my memory. I'm done talking, check out the picks....

The front/side door for English Kills Gallery.

The artist at work repairing a sculpture.

Hope you enjoyed my little survey of photos I took that afternoon. It's always best to go down there and see for yourself, so I hope these gave you an idea that you'd like to see more. These handmade works really have me thinking long and dark about nature and how it covers us. Thanks Brent for the visit.

http://www.englishkillsartgallery.com/

DAVID RATCLIFF @ TEAM GALLERY

David Ratcliff is having one hell of an exhibition at Team Gallery on Wooster Street in Soho.

At first passing by the gallery in a peeking mode, I didn't know what to think of them, but upon entering the next day, was quite surprised and enamored with these pictures taken from a Ku Klux Klan book. David is someone who really likes to push the buttons of your psyche with his work and this set of paintings truly does that, and probably better than any of his other exhibitions. Working with stencils and spray paint, he's able to get all the information down onto canvas, and in such a way that it almost looks like they really are old books with not so great printing ink. The pages (canvas) are all covered with age spots, which are either linseed oil stains, or actual colored acrylic to look like a stain, either way they are quite intriguing. I spent much time going over each painting and with the longer viewings, made me wish I had one of these.

I'm copying this section from the Gallery website to give you more immediate insight into this exhibition...

"David Ratcliff’s process is always appropriative: he gathers visuals (often drawings or texts) from a wide variety of media, constructs large hand-made stencils and then spray-paints the collaged images onto canvases. In his latest body of paintings, the artist turns his attention exclusively to the Ku Klux Klan. These works take as both their form and their subject the official documents of the organization: incident reports, order forms, meeting minutes, etc.

These paintings appear innocent upon first glance, disguising under their quotidian bureaucracy the myopic world-view of a violent, racist organization. They feature a kind of fantasy language –- the consistent replacement of the letter “C” with “K,” for example –- and are totally divorced from commonly-held contemporary worldviews. These pieces expose the ways belief systems can relate to fiction and constructed realities, but do not suggest any emotional or political agenda whatsoever. Instead, Ratcliff uses this difficult subject matter to explore the ways in which paintings can affect an audience.

The exhibition is streamlined, both visually and in its subject matter, precluding any excess content or distraction.  The paintings share a common scale of 84 by 62 inches, while the color palettes are limited, individual works using only a single shade of paint. The backgrounds consist of raw canvas covered in yellow grease stains. These oily blotches seem familiar, but whether they recall the discarded wax paper of a fast-food hamburger, or actionist paintings, or something else altogether cannot be said."

It was quite strange to read these papers that document how a robe should be made, and what to do if you leave your post with the Klan. The minute papers for meetings and all the strange names they give to their upper Klansmen. I spent quite a while in there and I think if you head down there by March 2nd, you'll do the same. Enjoy it.

http://teamgal.com/exhibitions/274/klan_paintings

Interview with Bob Nickas

Click on image to view in larger format.

All photos taken by myself with my iphone 4. You can view even better images from the Team Gallery website, link above.

Thanks.
Jeffrey