New format of my Artwork

For many years now I have been making drawings of what I would hope to make in large painting format as you have seen many times before. Some in new styles that connect with what you already knew. After six books of drawings I had decided to finally share them, but at that same time I had been attaching them to my painting/viewing wall to get to see them as a group, which I had yet to do. Usually I keep them in their drawing book, but recently had begun drawing on loose card stock which had roughly the same weight as the bound paper I was using. Those drawings had been brightening up my wall with their wonderful colors and shapes. As I was visiting them the idea came to me to try one thing I had dreamed of for many years in my studio which was to tile a painting into multiple pages but be the same size as my biggest paintings that I am creating at the time. So I began attaching rows of paper together to create a large format drawing of a version of one of my large paintings. As I created this paper world, I wanted to make sure it would be not only easy to store but easy to make. Since I would have only one panel to color at a time, I definitely didn’t want to spend all those hours standing up and coloring on a drywall substrate. Hence the beginning. 

Beyond Identity

Colored Pencil on 49 Joined Sheets of 8.5 X 11” Paper. 

Image is 72 X 52”

 

 

Once the initial drawing was completed as you can see in the last picture, the work began its 10 day process of coloring in each panel. I’ve never been involved with a work that was so intense in its making. Usually the wrapping of a painting takes two maybe three days depending on everything going on at the time. One thing this work truly did was light a fire to create even more like this. Which you will see in the new posts. 

Enjoy! 

40th Anniversary at Andre Zarre Gallery

I wanted to get some images from Andre Zarre Gallery's 40th Anniversary exhibition. Up now.

Peter Reginato: Whom you've heard many times of my appreciation for. This time his painting has a ring of commentary on what seems to be pissing a lot of people off, the whole idea of Zombie Formalism. In Peter's painting, the dots are the zombies taking over the world, or the art world. A gorgeous painting with a great commentary on contemporary art life.

Ellen Banks: This is my first painting I have seen from her. I quite like it. I can't tell if it's encaustic or just oil mediums mixed with wax, ala Brice Marden. Either way, it's what she does with the mediums that count here. Very sensual painting that makes me wonder just how powerful they could be scaled up.

Dee Shapiro: This is my first Shapiro that I have witnessed in person and I have to say i'm quite impressed. I did hear that she doesn't do many of these and I think that's a shame as they are painting that I would like to see more of. It looks like she uses an extruder in these paintings and just the thought of her using a different method of paint application gets me more into it. As you know, I have a love for irregular paint applications.

Robert Swain: Finally got to see a work in person by this color maestro. Guys like Swain have such a control over their colors that it really becomes as amazing to see the interior of their studios and all those jars of color they mix. I now wish I had seen the exhibitions at Minus Space and at Hunter College. (video courtesy of James Kalm AKA Loren Munk)

The next two paintings are by painters that really dig texture in their work. Textural painting really gets my eye going. And these two paintings by Don Hazlitt and Joy Walker both get the eye candy idea going in me.

There's not a lot I can say about these two paintings, but what I can tell you is they are works that NEED to be seen in person. No amount of camera work is going to extrapolate what one can and will see in person.

Dee Solin: You know me, you know I dig the work of Solin. I've watched her painting grow over the last three years and she continues to surprise me with her radiant paintings. My only regret is that she doesn't make 8ft paintings. Something to truly engulf the viewer, as I believe these truly would. They are micro and macrocosm's at the same time. Dee talks about her paintings like a scientist and you don't get much of that these days, people always seem to talk about work that it does this and that, which usually just sounds like artspeak and turns people off. But Dee's commentary is as lucid and together as her paintings. I just wanna take a swim in them. Over the years I've been privy to see the mastery of her brush, as she has come from a photorealist background and is so intense with structure of her paintings. I do believe she is working on a new body of paintings for a solo exhibition to come at Zarre...THE BERKELEY PAINTINGS MARCH 3 - APRIL 4, 2015

I hope that you are able to take the exhibition in for yourself. It's a very sparsely hung exhibition with lots of room between paintings. A really great group exhibition. It's on until January 24th 2015.

Throne Suite +1

One of the ideas that came to me while in this giant studio from the Tamaqua Elks Lodge and the Tamaqua Artist in Residence Program, was to make a suite based on the positions of the thrones that used to be in this room for meetings. There are four Thrones, that includes the Exalted Ruler's Throne. The first painting I completed in the studio is Exalted Ruler. These are a suite of three paintings that symbolize the three lower powered Thrones in the room. There is a regal feeling to these paintings and I hope the message comes across in these photos. 

Each of the paintings is 48 X 36 Inches and is Acrylic, on Acrylic Yarn, on Acrylic Coated Wood Chassis. 

Enjoy.

 

Throne #1

Throne #2

Throne #3

 

 In the meantime between the finish of White Suite and the Throne Suite I made one painting

08-10-2014

Acrylic on Acrylic Yarn on Acrylic Coated Wood Chassis. 

Don't forget, September 13th is the opening of ELK PAINTINGS at the Tamaqua Community Arts Center.

 

White Suite

Sitting in the studio one day while working on what became Throne #1. I had a vision of a painting that wasn't immediately viewable at a distance, one that you almost might not even see. In this studio sits a far wall with two doors flanking it. It was here that the idea began. The original idea was a permanent painting to take place over the entirety of the wall. But alas, I knew this was a temporary space and the painting would not last. I didn't want that to happen at this point in my life. I then began to plot out a painting that would be movable like the rest of my work, but could be in a sense "camo" to the wall. Hence the idea of the white painting with white yarn and a white chassis. Once the first one was complete, I spent the next couple days admiring it, and thinking of doing a suite. After the 2nd day, I began work on the suite. I felt it had to grow to an amount that would really engulf the viewer, but would also be portable. One of my favorite sizes of paintings that I make is the 22X16" format. I love it's symmetry. Come check it out for yourself...

There is still a few days to see these paintings in their natural environment before they are moved to the Tamaqua PA Community Arts Center.

And please don't forget the September 13th is the opening of ELK PAINTINGS at the Tamaqua Community Arts Center.

Peeks of paintings

Showing off some new stretchers I made and a bit of what became of them. These are three of the last 4 stretched paintings I intend to make at my present home. The next will be made in NY.

All are 22X16" I built the stretchers over at my Uncles wood shop. Actually got 4 made, but one was from some wood I had glued up over a year ago. It was still straight and ready for sizing. Wood glue kicks ass.

 

The stretchers, made from Poplar, before I sealed them all up with three coats of primer. Now they are nice and white.