I recently ventured out to an exhibition at the Pyramid Atlantic Center in Hyattsville MD, a nonprofit contemporary art center fostering the creative disciplines of papermaking, printmaking, and book arts. The exhibition, entitled RELIEF, featured a varied array of meticulously crafted prints by local and national printmakers.
The massive assembled work by Melissa Harshman in the image above is a perfect example. Portrait of a Hermit at Sea by Brent Bond of Santo Press (below) draws us into the artist’s quirky narrative with a mixed media print. I love the juxtaposition of the uber serious Victorian gentleman as he sails through the air in a conch shell.
I’m rather partial to black and white prints such as the two works below – Johanna Mueller’s finely detailed Jackalope and Kill Joy’s Huaraches. Seeing the prints in person is a whole other experience – one can see the how deeply the ink has been embedded into the snowy white paper and see the raised outline of the image depending on the force used to impress the relief onto the paper.
Heather O’Hara’s three-color block print Red Balloon Coyote (below) is adorable. The resulting texture is particularly appealing and the delightful, subtle overlays vary from print to print.
Heather’s debonair coyote has not surprisingly found his way onto greeting cards. See more examples here.
The print-making art world is magical in that the print artist can create almost identical multiples of a given image. There are numerous techniques – lithography, etching, linocut, woodcut, letterpress, engraving and silkscreen being the most common. I’ve tried my hand at a few of these techniques with questionable results. Click on the links to see introductory videos in order to appreciate the complexity, patience and precision required to master any one of these process-oriented techniques.
One of the exciting features of visiting Pyramid Atlantic is the opportunity to watch print artists at work on the traditional letterpress or watching Pyramid’s lithography instructor preparing to ink her magnificent slab of limestone. This specific slab was one of a cache of 100-year-old stone lithography plates recently unearthed in a pit in Ohio!
I’ll sign off with one of my own print images on rice paper and links to two of my favorite print artists, Florence McEwin and Yael Braverman. Have a great week ahead 🙂
In the throes of the global pandemic, the mask has become far more than just a face covering. It has become the symbol of our times and a lightning rod for diametrically opposed political views. Different interest groups are playing tug of war with guidelines for wearing masks while behind the scenes PPE masks and the materials required to produce them have spurned a black market run by profiteering opportunists – or smart entrepreneurs, depending on which side of the geopolitical divide you’re on.
Which brings me to the unlikely subject of this month’s blog post: The world’s newest superhero, Maskman! Forget Superman – or Batman for that matter. Maskman is here!
This is no fictitious comic action figure, although this real-life ‘hero’–known to millions of giddy Chinese fans as the Mask Hunter–has all the makings of one: square jaw, tight fitting black turtle-neck, and a world view that is ruthless yet ethical in a self-serving sort of way. Meet 30-year-old businessman, Lin Dong from Guandong province.
As the saying goes, one man’s misfortune is another man’s fortune. And that’s the way Lin Dong sees it. While the world is succumbing to COVID-19, Lin jet sets around the world buying up as much of that superfine, super-expensive fabric that filters out virus-carrying particles. Welcome to the COVID world’s hottest commodity: melt-blown, nonwoven fabric. And don’t even try to unload that cheap spun substitute onto the Mask Hunter. Lin can smell a rip-off a mile away. It’s got to be melt-blown or nothing. His primary suppliers are sleazy arms dealers who have temporarily pivoted away from illegal arms to COVID-inhibiting shmattes because the profit margins are astronomical.
How did businessman Lin Dong become a Chinese superstar sensation? Here’s where art comes into it. Chinese video blogger Wu Dong stumbled upon our dashing hero carving out a deal in a hotel in Istanbul and immediately saw the film making potential. He cozied up to Lin Dong’s pretty sidekick and got the green light to tag along and film Lin Dong’s deal making.
The resulting eight-part series “Mask Hunter” was a blockbuster. Over one hundred million viewers and counting. Lin’s search for the rare fabric has made him millions but he stands to lose it all in a bad deal. His Chinese fans are rooting for him as if he were the Robin Hood of PPE, unlike those money-hungry American profiteers. KABAM!
On that note, I’ll sign off with a powerful and thought-provoking video about masks created during lock down by fellow artist, Reda Abdelrahman. Click HERE to watch.
The world is going through a crisis, a global pandemic, an unprecedented assault by an unseen enemy. Call it what you will, COVID 19 is literally killing us while we’re waiting for our lauded scientists and medical professionals to get us out of this. In the meantime, we’re sitting at home reading, playing, working, singing, chatting, zooming, eating, drinking, crying, watching Netflix and praying that this will be over soon. Praying, the way I see it, is a personal and intimate dialogue with whatever form of Spiritual Other people find comfort in believing in. We’re all searching for ways to comfort ourselves and others during this difficult time and if prayer does the trick, why not?
These thoughts brought to mind an installation I created in 2014 entitled ‘Virtual Angel’.
‘Virtual Angel’ was created specifically for an international traveling exhibition called AMEN. I was honored to have been selected by CARAVAN as one of 18 Western artists to join with 30 leading Egyptian artists in building bridges between faiths and cultures through Art. Each participating artist received a life-sized fiberglass figure in prayer with which to create a personal expression of prayer.
I chose to transform my figure into an angel as angels appear in the sacred texts of Christianity, Judaism and Islam as well as in ancient manuscripts that predate those texts. These winged creatures straddle the celestial and earthly worlds acting as divine helpers, intermediaries, protectors, and emissaries.
But I wanted to find a way to actively engage the public and provide the viewer with an opportunity for personal prayer. By using a mobile phone to scan the QR code I emblazoned on the angel’s chest (below), viewers were able to send their personal prayers to the world with a click of a finger.
My Virtual Angel provided a means of bridging the spiritual world and the contemporary digital world. It seemed fitting that these digital prayers are sent to the cloud for safe keeping. I invite you now to scan the QR code and send your own prayers out into the world.
If you do not have a QR code scanner on your mobile phone and wish to send a digital prayer to the cloud, you can do so directly by clicking HERE where you can also read the anonymous prayers that have been sent out by others. And for what it’s worth, I’m sending my prayers out to one and all for a safe and healthy sheltering. Take care.Â
I appreciate Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings as much as the next person, but the immersive, experiential Van Gogh traveling exhibition brings his paintings, his life and his travails to a totally new level. I was fortunate to catch the traveling show in Israel at the Arena complex in Herzliya. It was a stunning, unforgettable experience.
One is first guided into a huge space where the 360 degree surround sound and imagery are otherworldly. The fact that Van Gogh’s imagery is so iconic and recognizable made the experience feel intimate and monumentally epic at the same time. I’ve never dropped acid, but it felt like I was tripping as Van Gogh’s painted petals detached themselves from the branches of giant cherry blossoms, sunflowers careened underfoot and flocks of black crows took flight from haystacks that danced and spun around me. I could have stayed there for hours.
Still image of crows flying out of haystacks
Rousing music accompanied the ever-changing landscape
The artists and production team who created this sensory delight have to be applauded. The viewer is taken on an emotional roller coaster – chirping birds and beautiful vases of flowers morph into gaudily painted characters who peopled Van Gogh’s life in Arles. Then comes the suspenseful music that foreshadows Van Gogh’s descent into madness and despair.
But just when I thought that it couldn’t get any better, the next phase of the exhibition blew me away. Visitors are fitted with Virtual Reality headgear that literally transports you back to Van Gogh’s time, starting right in his famously painted bedroom.
And from there one flies down the steps, walks through the town of Arles, greets his friends and patrons, wanders through meadows, sidesteps chickens, watches the boats glide on the river and the night turn starry over the local church. My hands were reaching out to touch the cows, or hold onto a handrail. Magical, simply magical.
I happened to visit the Van Gogh show just days after another truly inspirational and totally unique cultural experience that played a different game with my senses. The Israeli town of Jaffa is home to a unique space called Na LaGaat (‘Please Touch’). Na Lagaat presents cultural opportunities for connecting the deaf and the blind, those that are both deaf and blind, and the wider seeing and hearing public. I attended a concert there by singer/songwriter Yoni Rechter – IN TOTAL DARKNESS! Not only did the audience experience the concert in total darkness, but the musicians had to play in the dark as well. The words to the songs have never sounded sweeter, nor more poignant.
I’ll never look at a painting in quite the same way again, nor listen to a song in quite the same way…
Every three years, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery hosts the Outwin Boochever contemporary portrait competition. It’s one of my favorite art events because it expands and re-defines what we think of as portraiture. This year’s judges selected 46 out of 2600 entries! Race, gender bias and immigration were the underlying themes tackled by the selected artists. Here are a few of the standouts:
Deborah Roberts ’80 Days’
Artist Deborah Roberts felt ‘called’ to paint a portrait of 14-year-old George Stinney Jr. who was executed in 1944 in an electric chair for a murder he did not commit. The work symbolizes the injustices against African American youths today (I would highly recommend a visit to another outstanding Smithsonian museum in DC – the National Museum of African American History and Culture). Aside from its message, I loved the subtle confluence of painting and collage in the face, shown in detail:
Some of you may recognize the face of iconic novelist and activist, James Baldwin (1924-1987), in this work below by artist Nekisha Durrett.
But take a closer look at how she created this portrait:
Individual shapes made of polymer clay
A video work by performance artist, Anna Garner, presented a totally different interpretation of self-portrait. Garner filmed herself engaged in a potentially harmful situation of her own making. To watch the video, click on the image below.Â
The portrait of ‘April and June’ by David Antonio Cruz features Cruz’s focal subject – black and brown members of the queer community. I particularly liked the artist’s fearless treatment of color and the clash of patterns (see detail below).
Detail from ‘April and June’
The exhibition also included several outstanding photographs.
Portrait of DeRay Mckesson by Quinn Russell Brown. Mckesson has dedicated his life to the Black Lives Matter movement. The photographer captured his seriousness of purpose.
AND THE WINNER IS….
The judges of the Outwin Boochever competition awarded first place to Hugo Crosthwaite for his stop-gap animated ‘Portrait of Berenice Sarmiento Chavez’ dealing with one woman’s American Dream. Click on the image below to watch the video.Â
Before concluding this brief overview of the portrait competition, I want to introduce another two works that greatly impressed me. I was blown away by the sensitive treatment and paint quality of ‘Hidden Wounds’ (below) by Luis Alvarez Roure, who painted his childhood friend after the latter returned from war. The half-shadowed face hides the hidden scars below the surface.
Another powerful service member portrait (below), this time representing women in the armed forces, was painted by Julianne Wallace Sterling who found her subjects by advertising on Craigslist!
Specialist Murphy by Julianne Wallace Sterling
(I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the service of another young woman, close family friend, 2nd Lt. Rosenberg, United States Marine Corps, pictured below with General James Mattis)
It’s a great feeling when all the different influences and inspirational threads from one’s time at a residency come together. That’s what happened when I created Through my window (above). I felt like I had captured the colors and the intense heat, as well as my weeks-long view from the window of my atelier here at LMStudio Residency in Hyères.
I produced quite a few studies and works during my time here, allowing the inspiration of the moment to guide me. Here are a few examples:
Trompe l’oeil watercolor of the unique pebbles on the beach here. Only the shell is real.
My portrait (below) of the local personality, Michel, always drew a small crowd outside the gallery.
Michel posing with his portrait
Michel is an unforgettable character and he taught me a thing or two – his motto in life is ‘Pourquoi pas?’ (Why not?) Why not indeed. Why do we have to conform or answer to anyone but ourselves?
I did a series of prints with abstracted windows/shutters that are so typical of France, and this area in particular. The shutters keep out the intense sun and provide privacy so coveted by the French. The rabbit is an image from a local poster about town advertising a wine festival. In the original poster the rabbit ears were cleverly composed of wine bottle silhouettes.
Watercolor sketching is not my forte but it’s just so satisfying and relaxing. Here I am sketching on the picturesque island of Porquerolles.
The beach is a GREAT place to sketch – all those free, unsuspecting models!!!
Quick beach scene with unsuspecting model. Not the most flattering pose, I admit, but it’s a very challenging pose for an artist…
Other new works created during my residency will be on exhibit in September here in Hyères at the beautiful gallery, ARTDANH, run by artist/sculptor Annie Denis.Â
My final act on the last night was to eat a madeleine (below) while reading the famous excerpt written by Marcel Proust about this sweet French treat.
In his iconic book Remembrance of Things Past (a novel in seven parts, published in the early 20th century), a madeleine crumb triggers memories of Proust’s childhood. The excerpt is famous for its legendary wordiness and pomposity. It is often used as a literary example of how to really milk an idea! Just for the hell of it, I have included an English translation of the madeleine excerpt. Eating one while reading may make it more pleasurable…
It actually is as beautiful here as in the postcards. But don’t take my word for it – a picture says more than a thousand words.
One of the streets in the old city of Hyères
Hyères will be my home for the next three weeks – I am the artist in residence at LMStudios where I have the run of a quirky, centuries-old little house in the historic part of town. This includes a gallery on the ground floor where I exhibit my own works.
The gallery sitting aspect of this residency is my least favorite part. I find it quite excruciating to represent and sell my own work. Give me another artist’s work that I admire and I can be an amazing salesperson. I believe people fall into three categories as far as galleries go – first you have the totally oblivious passerby like this gentleman below who stood for a good five minutes at the entrance of the gallery reading his daily!
The majority of passersby fit into the second category – those who look in through the glass vitrines but are deathly afraid to enter – either from fear or discomfort. And lastly there’s the tiny minority whose radar is open to the existence of art and dare to step foot inside!
Because I just arrived, the work I hung in the gallery are small format works I brought with me until I start producing work here (I’m not sure yet what direction my works will take). The surroundings need a while to simmer. A very interesting local gentleman popped into the gallery on my first day.
My multi-media series on African women appealed to him greatly. My first sale of the morning was from that series. See below.
Detail of Juan Gatti’s hyper-realist work at the Faena on Miami Beach. So real you could almost pet it – which I did!
Juan Gatti’s over-sized paintings in the luxurious Faena resort’s lobby are so…Miami. Big, brash, over-the-top, oozing with fabulous detail and dripping with gold. They are pretty fabulous and apparently each mural panel cost one million dollars! As you stroll through the lobby (referred to as ‘The Cathedral’) towards Faena’s private beach, the path splits when you get to ‘The Mammoth’, Damien Hirst’s gold-dipped and encased mammoth skeleton. It’s quite a sight.
Every detail at the Faena has been tastefully curated to create a seamless blend of art, architecture and design. Even the hotel doors are glitzy.
And then there’s the Jeff Koons work upstairs at the entrance to the resort’s signature restaurant. But just up the road on Collins Avenue, the Bass Museum of Contemporary Art offers a more serene and contemplative style of art in the form of Sheila Hicks’ fiber art.Â
Born in Nebraska in 1934, Hicks has had an expansive career. Her resume reads like an artist’s wet dream – Yale University, Fulbright Scholarship, Venice Biennale, Whitney Biennial, solo shows in Tokyo, Korea, Israel and on and on. Impressive to the point of intimidating. Oh, and she divides her time between Paris and New York just for good measure. But you can’t begrudge Hicks her success because she deserves all the accolades and more. The current exhibition is loosely centered around the theme of landscape. Her creativity with her medium knows no bounds.
Installation created with mesh bags filled with rainbow-colored skeins of silk thread. Its’ scale is mesmerizing. You just want to dive in and get swallowed up in it.Â
Detail of hair-like waterfall of thread (above)
You don’t have to wait for Miami Basel to see some great art in Miami. Hicks’ exhibition, Campo Abierto (Open Field), is on through the end of September, 2019. It’s a winner.
Whether you’re celebrating your spouse, significant other, your offspring or your pet, who’s to question the healing power of Love. Here’s a quick slideshow of a few of my more romantic works to put you in the mood.
As promised in Part I of my Art Basel post, here’s is a quick kaleidoscopic view of some of the innumerable artworks that caught my eye. Enjoy the tour at your leisure 🙂
(This is a painting. Yes, believe it or not)
Brilliant statement of our times…
Another exquisite painting…
Azerbaijani artist rethinking traditional rugs…SuperbÂ
And of course, there was people-watching galore…
CHECK OUT PART I ART BASEL MIAMI FOR AN EYE-OPENING POST ON UNUSUAL ART HERE