Tag Archive - Painting

The Life and Art of Horace Pippin

January 31, 2013 in Images with 0 Comments

 

Horace Pippin, Mr. Prejudice, 1943. Oil on canvas, 18 x 14″ (Image courtesy of The Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Matthew Moore)

 

Last summer I was strolling through the galleries of the new Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, surrounded by the exquisite paintings of Matisse, Modigliani, Cézanne, when a small painting of Abraham Lincoln and his father building a log cabin caught my eye. A wrinkled woman with fiery hair and dangling diamond earrings froze beside me, also awestruck. “Look at that one,” she said to a friend, staring up at the wall. “How beautiful. Who on earth painted it?”

The Barnes has one of the finest collections of French Impressionist and modern art in the world, and because of Alfred Barnes’s eccentric wall arrangements, holding a viewer’s attention is no small matter in a museum vibrating with Matisse’s raw colors and bulging with far too many plump, Renoir nudes.

That day in Philadelphia I opened my notebook and wrote the following:

“HORACE PIPPIN!”

And just so I wouldn’t forget, I underlined Pippin’s name three times. And then I starred it for good measure.

 

Horace Pippin, Abraham Lincoln and His Father Building Their Cabin on Pigeon Creek, c. 1934. Oil on fabric (later mounted to composition board) 16 1/4 x 20 1/4 in. (41.3 x 51.4 cm)
(Image © 2013 The Barnes Foundation)

 

 

Horace Pippin’s final painting, Man on a Bench, 1946. Oil on canvas.

 

 

Horace Pippin, Self-Portrait, 1941. Oil on canvas board, 20 x 17 x 2 1/2 inches (50.8 x 43.18 x 6.35 cm)  (Image courtesy the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York)

 

A descendent of slaves, Horace Pippin’s biography is a compelling one. Here is an excerpt from his Wikipedia entry:

He was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Goshen, New York. There he attended segregated schools until he was 15, when he went to work to support his ailing mother. As a boy, Horace responded to an art supply company’s advertising contest and won his first set of crayons and a box of watercolors. As a youngster, Pippin made drawings of racehorses and jockeys from Goshen’s celebrated racetrack. Prior to 1917, Pippin variously toiled in a coal yard, in an iron foundry, as a hotel porter and as a used-clothing peddler.

Pippin enlisted in the army in 1917 and fought in the famous, all-black 369th Infantry regiment in France during World War I. Less than a month before the war ended, he was shot in the right shoulder.

“When I was a boy I loved to make pictures,” he once wrote, but war “brought out all the art in me. . . . I can never forget suffering and I will never forget sunsets. So I came home with all of it in my mind and I paint from it today.”

While in the trenches, Pippin kept illustrated journals of his military service. Six drawings survive, and I was excited when I stumbled on these journals and letters online at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art…

 

(NOTE: Click images to enlarge)

 

A page from Horace Pippin’s memoir recounting his experiences in World War I, ca 1921. (From the collection of Horace Pippin notebooks and letters in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution)

 

 

A page from Horace Pippin’s memoir recounting his experiences in World War I, ca 1921. (From the collection of Horace Pippin notebooks and letters in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution)

 

 

A page from Horace Pippin’s memoir recounting his experiences in World War I, ca 1921. (From the collection of Horace Pippin notebooks and letters in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution)

 

 

Horace Pippin’s first painting, The End of the War: Starting Home, 1930-33 Oil on canvas, 26 x 30 1/16 in. (66 x 76.4 cm) (Image courtesy The Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Robert Carlen)

 

One website on Pennsylvania history describes the evolution of Pippin’s brief career:

After the war, the handicapped Pippin devised a way of supporting his right hand with his left. Using a hot poker to burn in the outlines of his figures and objects onto wood (a technique called pyrography) and then filling them in, he was able to resume painting by the mid-1920s. He then began using oil paints. Local exhibitions and collectors brought him to the attention of Alain Locke, an important black philosopher and critic, the painter N.C. Wyeth,… and Dr. Albert F. Barnes, whose private museum in Merion houses one of the world’s most important collections of French impressionist and modern art.

Words like “toiled” appear frequently in Pippin’s biographies and give some hint at the reverential tone that has been used to describe the artist over the decades. His personal story is so riveting that Melissa Sweet and Jen Bryant have just written a new children’s book about the artist called A Splash of Red.

Although everyone from wealthy collectors, museums, and Hollywood stars bought his work, Pippin’s rapid rise in the art world had its downside: Pippin’s wife suffered from mental illness and he began to drink heavily. By the time of Pippin death in 1946 at the age of 58, he had completed 140-odd paintings, drawings and wood panels. In his obituary in the New York Times they called him the “most important Negro painter” to have appeared in America.

 

One of the illustrations from A Splash of Red, a new children’s book about Horace Pippin.

 

 

Joseph Janney Steinmetz, Untitled (Horace Pippin pointing to his painting of a log cabin), 1940. (Photo courtesy Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum)

 

 

Horace Pippin, Domino Players, 1943. Oil on composition board, 2 3/4 x 22 in. (Image courtesy the Phillips Collection)

 

 

Horace Pippin, Country Doctor (Night Call), 1935. Oil on canvas, 28 1/8 x 32 1/8″ (71.44 x 81.6 cm) (Image courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. From the A. Shuman Collection)

 

Pippin’s legacy has been somewhat muddled by critics’ failed attempts to categorize him. His inspiring life-story has prompted some historians to portray him as an “art genius” in the best of cases, and as a sort of “noble savage” of the art world in the worst.

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Liquor, Perfume, Hair: Joan Wickersham Talks with Painter Julia Jacquette

October 9, 2012 in Images with 4 Comments

 

Julia Jacquette, Blond, Shoulder, 2011. Oil on wood panel. 10 x 7.5 inches (Photo by Jean Vong)

 

It’s hard not to be mesmerized by Julia Jacquette ‘s hypnotic paintings. Their luminous, rich surfaces are intoxicating, and yet there is so much more happening in Jacquette’s work than mere surface. Her images of wedding cakes, liquor, hair, vintage ads, food, and interiors capture a perfectionist ideal, and yet slyly undercut that ideal at the same time.

As a female viewer, I find Julia’s's paintings particularly powerful. What woman hasn’t found herself seduced by the mass media’s fictional depiction of the perfect wedding, the perfect family, the perfect hair, or the perfect apartment? I can’t help but be attracted, as well as repelled, by the glossy, luscious consumerism Jacquette portrays. I envy it, and yet hate the way it has warped our society’s image of what it means to be a woman.

Joan Wickersham’s insightful interview with Julia, which originally appeared in the Bergarde Galleries‘ 2012 show catalog for Julia Jacquette: Liquor, Perfume, Hair, wonderfully captures her artistic process and evolution as a painter.

I’ve admired Wickersham’s writing since I first read her critically acclaimed book The Suicide Index. My respect for her talent has only deepened with her brand-new fiction collection The News From Spain, a potent, unorthodox series of stories that has been keeping me up well past my bedtime in recent weeks.

I hope you find Julia Jacquette’s work and this special interview with Joan Wickersham as eye-opening as I have.

 

Painter Julia Jacquette at work in her studio (Photo © Daniel Carlson. Click to enlarge)

 

 

Cambridge-based writer Joan Wickersham’s latest book is The News From Spain, available from Knopf. (Photo by Thomas Wickersham)

 

Irony and Desire: A Conversation with Julia Jacquette
Interview by Joan Wickersham

A Saturday afternoon in Julia Jacquette’s studio, on the fifth floor of an old building in New York’s Lower East Side.

In one corner, large wooden racks store paintings and prints from Jacquette’s previous series: images of food, often combined with text, dating from the 1990s; depictions of men and women using 1950s imagery, a series Jacquette worked on from the late 1990s through the early 2000s; white-on-white paintings built around wedding imagery – cakes, dresses, and flowers, as well as abstract geometric color studies exploring the many different whites and shadow-tones used in the series (2000-05); and “My Houses” (2005-07).

Metal shelves hold neat stacks of some of the magazines and books – Modern Bride, Architectural Digest, old copies of Life and cookbooks from the 1950s – she collects for the lush photographic images that inspire her work.

The canvas she is currently working on, a huge oil painting of a cocktail – “big enough to swim in,” she says – is pinned up on one of the vast white walls, surrounded by other pieces from her series in progress, “Water, Liquor, Hair.”

 

Julia Jacquette, Cognac, 2011. Oil on linen 76 x 93 inches (Photo by Jean Vong)

 

 

Jacquette’s show Liquor, Perfume, Hair was on view at Bergarde Galleries in Amsterdam this summer (Photo courtesy the artist. Click to enlarge)

 

 

Julia Jacquette, Rum, Lime, 2010. Oil on wood panel 45.5 x 40.5 cm (Photo by Jean Vong)

 

Joan Wickersham: Let’s begin by talking about what you’re working on right now, this huge close-up of a cocktail.

Julia Jacquette: The starting point for this particular painting was a liquor ad in a magazine. I’ve been collecting images of liquor for quite a while, thinking about how I might want to use them. One painting is from an ad I saw in the subway, for Puerto Rican rum. They make giant ads now on sticker material and put them up anywhere. I saw these rum ads at 42nd Street, giant ads from floor to ceiling, repeated over and over – you can walk into the cocktail. And it’s hard when you get deep inside the cocktail to tell where you are.

JW: It’s at once seductive and uncomfortable, disorienting.

JJ: Absolutely.

JW: Your work contains so many paradoxes: irony and desire, sensuality and anxiety, attraction and repulsion. It’s about seduction, but it’s also about being critical of the seduction. You’re saying “Yes! Yes!” and at the same time, coolly, “No, thanks.”

JJ: Exactly. And those are actually some of the earliest memories I have. I remember ad campaigns in the 1970s. They fascinated me and made me angry. A lot were for Bloomingdales – they knew how to make things appealing. I was sensitive at a young age that I was not living up to the ideal of female beauty. All the stories that are told to young women – there is a moment, around the age of 11, when girls lose their confidence. In order to deal with my own anxiety I quote the media images that provoke anxiety in me – they provoke reverence, and a yearning to own them, and a wish to destroy them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

JW: You work in series. How do you move from one series to the next?

JJ: I know I’m going to make a lot of bodies of work over the course of my life, each lasting for many years. I wait for the next one to come while I keep expanding on the one I’m working on. When I’m planning a series, I will often see the whole story ahead of time. I’m noticing repetition in the world. The images come first – I start collecting, ads for a particular thing. I start seeing the whole package, the series, the body of work. It’s like collecting baseball cards – I’m just a cataloguer. I’m editing in my own mind what could work. I grew up in the 1970s with the example of people like Sol LeWitt – he would choose a shape and think about how many different iterations he could do. My work doesn’t look like his, but the important thing is: How many different iterations can I do?

JW: That idea of multiple iterations has been true of your work since the beginning.

JJ: The first series I worked on as an exhibiting artist combined food with text. I worked on it for eight to ten years. Then I really didn’t want to make any more of that work – I had pushed it to its limits. Now I have ideas of going back to that work – with changes, but I’m ready.

JW: How would you approach painting food differently now than you did 20 years ago?

JJ: It still has to do with desire, but now that desire comes with regret, disillusionment, nostalgia. The desire I had earlier was the desire of a young person wanting the world. Now it would be much more embittered – but I could have a sense of humor about it. And I’d admit to having regrets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

JW: There’s another paradox in your work: anxiety and control. I feel both when I look at your paintings. There’s something disturbing, and it’s perhaps more disturbing because I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.

JJ: I have a compulsive nature that helps me deal with anxiety. To quell or damp it down I make the work. It gives me a sense of control. My work is always a reaction: a narrative in response to the narrative the culture is telling me. I’m always reaching toward the things I’m painting – revering them, but also trying to beat them down, wrangling with them, trying to gain some kind of ownership of them. Making a cocktail so big that I can swim in it. And I’m seduced by it – I am swimming in it, but at the same time I’m aware of the perversity of it. Liquor is seductive to many people, but it can also be repellent.

JW: And dangerous?

JJ: It’s a problematic substance. We as a culture almost never socialize without it. In New York City, many of the bookstores and movie theatres have closed. It seems like bars and restaurants are the only places left to socialize in public.

JW: It seems like a bit of a shift – food is a substance that snares women, but liquor images seem designed to snare men.

JJ: I never thought about that. In my family there are a lot of Scotch drinkers, both male and female. The refrain was always “Let’s celebrate.” But you’re right. In my last series [“My Houses”] there were paintings whose starting point was cologne ads – a man standing in a hotel suite that looked the way the rooms in the Plaza used to look, synonymous with luxury, and he was wearing this classic tuxedo shirt. That ad was probably directed toward men and toward women, too.

 

Julia Jacquette, Wine, White, 2009. Oil on canvas 79 x 86 inches

 

 

Julia Jacquette, Colors from Wine, White, 2010. Oil on canvas 79 x 86 inches

 

JW: There’s always that ambiguity, in any seductive image. Do you want to be that man, or do you want to sleep with him? Do you want to have that hair or do you want to be the person touching it? I also think it’s fascinating that there is very little copy in today’s ads. When we were younger, there were a lot of words. But now the seduction is purely visual.

JJ: Well, even as early as the cave paintings there was narrative without text. But there has definitely been a shift in our culture toward these very complex yet wordless visual narratives. The Tiffany ads are just brilliant at this, using pictures to get across this combination of romance and jewelry and marriage.

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Art On the Radar : Gwarlingo’s Don’t-Miss List for September

September 14, 2012 in Events, Images, News, Performance, Sounds with 2 Comments

 

British Street artist Slinkachu left this miniature “Hanging On” in the streets of Hong Kong. It’s one of the many images on view in his New York and London show, Global Model Village. (Photo © Slinkachu courtesy the artist)


 
The invitations, event notices, emails, and review copies are pouring in. The fall arts season has officially arrived. If only I could clone myself, then perhaps, I’d have a chance of catching even a handful of these concerts, openings, and shows.

I wish I could attend everything listed here, but since I can’t, I hope you’ll venture out in the coming weeks and report back on what you loved (and what you didn’t).

Here is my completely biased Don’t-Miss List for the coming month (in no particular order).

If I’ve overlooked an event you think Gwarlingo readers would enjoy, feel free to add your event to the Comments section below or to the Gwarlingo Facebook page.

 
 

Slinkachu in London and New York

British street artist Slinkachu (a favorite here at Gwarlingo) is celebrating the launch of his new book with two solo shows in London and New York. Global Model Village opens to the public September 27th at Andipa Gallery in London and runs until October 27th. There will also be a pop-up show in New York City from October 3rd through the 7th. Both shows will feature new work shot in different cities around the world.

 

 
Also be sure to check out Slinkachu‘s new book Global Model Village: The International Street Art of Slinkachu, which collects together images of installations the street artist has left in cities around the world, including New York, Moscow, Cape Town, Beijing, Berlin, Hong Kong and, of course, his hometown of London. The books is available in UK, US, and German editions. There will also be a Japanese version released in the new year by Sogensha (図書出版 創元社), along with a Japanese version of Slinkachu’s original book. 驚くべき.

 

 

 

John Kelly in 1993 as Cocteau in Light Shall Lift Them (Photo by Rick Gillette courtesy John Kelly)

John Kelly at Joe’s Pub in New York City

When performance artist-actor-writer-video artist-singer-dancer John Kelly is scheduled to perform, count me in. Kelly has the reputation as an artist’s artist. Over the years, he has worked with everyone from Nan Goldin to Antony and the Johnsons and James Franco. His work is so daring and original it can be difficult to boil down to a bite-sized blurb. He has received numerous awards, including Obies, Bessies, and The Rome Prize (a testament to how diverse his work is). If you don’t know Kelly’s work yet, keep him on your radar. I’m building an entire New York trip around his upcoming cabaret performances at Joe’s Pub. Seeing Kelly perform is always revelatory.
 

John Kelly (Photo by Billy Erb courtesy John Kelly)


John Kelly makes his solo Joe’s Pub debut performing songs by Kurt Weill, Charles Aznavour, Holcombe Waller, Richard Einhorn, The Incredible String Band and Richard Thompson, among others. Tickets are $20. Performances are October 14th, October 28th, and November 4th. Visit the Joe’s Pub website for more information or to purchase tickets. You can also read more about the show on John Kelly’s Facebook event page.

 

 

 

OPERAtion Brooklyn 2012. Back Row: Zach Redler, Sidney Marquez Boquiren, Daniel Neer, Kayleigh Butcher, Daniel Felsenfeld. Front Row: Sara Cooper, Noah Himmelstein. (Photo by Meghan Hickey courtesy of American Opera Projects)

OPERAtion Brooklyn Brings Opera to The BEAT Festival

American Opera Projects and Opera on Tap’s acclaimed series returns for a new showcase of operatic works from and inspired by Brooklyn.

Composer Daniel Felsenfeld will premiere A Genuine Willingness to Help (Book I), the first installment in the composer’s “Author Project,” which features music and multi-media performance based on texts by living writers and songwriters, such as Rick Moody, Jonathan Lethem, Stephen Elliott, and Fiona Maazel. Felsenfeld’s Raw Footage: Composer’s Cut, based on Robert Coover’s novel The Adventures of Lucky Pierre: Director’s Cut, is also on the program, along with Stop and Frisk by composer Sidney Marquez Boquiren and librettist Daniel Neer and Male Identity by composer Zach Redler and librettist Sara Cooper.
 

Topping off the program are four songs drawn from One Ring Zero’s album As Smart As We Are (The Author Project). Viggo Mortensen (yes, that Viggo Mortensen) calls these “mysterious pop songs,” arranged for piano and chamber ensemble by Michael Hearst and Joshua Camp,  “…a well-orchestrated booby trap for music lovers everywhere…“ The works feature texts by Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, and David Wondrich.

OPERAtion Brooklyn is part of the first annual BEAT Festival. BEAT creates a platform to celebrate Brooklyn’s finest performing artists, ”extraordinary world-class performers who stand as the greatest innovators of the performing arts,” says festival artistic director Stephen Shelley. From September 12-23, artists will perform in venues throughout the borough. For complete information and festival passes visit www.beatbrooklyn.com.

Individual tickets for OPERAtion Brooklyn are $20 (passes to the entire BEAT Festival are also available). There will be three opportunities to see this special OPERAtion Brooklyn performance:
 

Thursday, Sept. 13 – 7:30 PM
Flatbush Reformed Church
890 Flatbush Avenue, Flatbush

 

Wednesday, Sept. 19 – 7:30 PM
Brooklyn Conservatory of Music
58 7th Avenue, Park Slope

 

Saturday, Sept. 22 – 7:30 PM
The Irondale Center
85 S. Oxford Street, Ft Greene

 

 

 

Andrew Ohanesian’s The House Party under construction at Pierogi’s The Boiler (Photo by Will Femia courtesy ny.curbed.com)

Andrew Ohanesian’s The House Party at Pierogi’s The Boiler in Williamsburg

Artist Andrew Ohanesian is fascinated with art that imitates reality. He’s built a confessional-booth-sized bar for one (with beer on tap), a row house  and a fully stocked, walk-in, refrigerated cooler (installed at English Kills Art Gallery). For his latest work, The House Party, Ohanesian has constructed a full-sized suburban home inside Pierogi’s satellite gallery, The Boiler, a former factory boiler room with 40 foot ceilings located at 191 N. 14th St. in Willisamburg.

Ohanesian’s house will be opened up to the public for a house party on September 14th, the opening night of the exhibition. In this at once creative and destructive act, the artist enlists the audience to provide the final element of the work itself, giving each viewer the unique opportunity to physically leave his or her own scar on the House, by partying within it throughout the evening. You can see an animation of the house in this video:
 


 
As Stephen Truax reported on Hyperallergic, “depending on New York Fire Department’s ruling on the certificate of occupancy, visitors may or may not have to sign a waiver to enter the space. However, if you do get in, you will enjoy a functional bathroom and kitchen with plumbing (as well as, thankfully, ventilation), a working stove (including an oven hood), dishwasher, fridge (complete with water dispenser), garbage disposal, 94,000 BTUs of AC cooling power, dish cable, and wifi.”

There will be a lot of openings to choose from the night of the 14th, but be sure to put this one on the must-see list.

Andrew Ohanesian’s The House Party is on view at Pierogi’s The Boiler at 191 North 14th Street in Brooklyn September 14th-November 18th.

 

 

 

Fred Hersch Trio at the Village Vanguard and On Tour

Composer and pianist Fred Hersch’s return to jazz after several months in an AIDS-related coma was nothing short of miraculous. (You can hear Hersch discuss his illness and recovery with Fresh Air’s Terry Gross here). Hersch is back with a new tour, a new album, and is better than ever.

The Grammy-nominated performer is currently performing at the Village Vanguard with his trio, John Hébert on bass and Eric McPherson on drums, to celebrate the release of his new two-disk CD, Alive at the Vanguard. Recorded in February 2012, the new album contains seven new Hersch compositions, as well as music by Coleman, Kern, Porter and Monk.

I’ve seen Hersch perform over seven times now, and he never disappoints. If you can’t catch The Fred Hersch Trio for their six-night performance at the Village Vanguard in New York, you can also see them on tour this September in Boston, Chicago, D.C., Baltimore, and Cincinnati. Tour dates and venues are listed below. You can listen to tracks off the new album right here:

 


 

You can purchase a copy of the Fred Hersch Trio’s new album Alive at the Vanguard from Amazon or iTunes. (A portion of your purchase will benefit Gwarlingo).

 

The Fred Hersch Trio’s U.S. Tour Dates:
 
Tuesday-Sunday Sept 11th-16th: Village Vanguard, NYC
Wednesday September 19th: Scullers, Boston, MA
Thursday-Sunday September 20th-23rd: Jazz Showcase, Chicago IL
Monday-Tuesday September 24th-25th: Blue Wisp, Cincinnati OH
Thursday, September 27th: Blues Alley, Washington, DC
Friday September 28th: An Die Musik Live, Baltimore, MD

 

 

 

Tatzu Nishi’s Discovering Columbus in New York City

Thanks to the Public Art Fund, Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi has created a different kind of “house party” at Columbus Circle in Manhattan. Discovering Columbus places the 13-foot-tall statue of Columbus in the center of an American living room six stories above the city streets, temporarily transforming it into a contemporary artwork. According to the Public Art Fund website, the room will feature many of the trappings of a domestic living room—lamps, a couch, a coffee table, a television, and more—as well as custom wallpaper by the artist. Through large, loft-style windows, visitors will have dramatic views of Central Park and Midtown Manhattan that will be seen from Columbus’s perspective for the first time.

Tatzu Nishi’s Discovering Columbus (Photo courtesy of the artist and the Public Art Fund, NY)

In a stroke of genius, the Public Art Fund is simultaneously overseeing the conservation of the 1892 Columbus Monument in cooperation with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. The scaffolding supporting Nishi’s living room is allowing conservators to access the column and figure at its top. The restoration is expected to be completed by January of 2013. (Why can’t all government bureaucracies be this creative with their resources?)

Over 100,000 people are expected to visit the installation, which is on view from September 20th through November 18th.

Tickets to climb six stories to this home-away-from-home are free, but must be booked in advance. (Elevator access is available for those who require special assistance.) Register for free tickets at the Public Art website.

 

 

 

Norman Mooney, Series 4 No. 1, 2007. Carbon on aluminum panel, 72 x 144 inches. (Photo courtesy the artist and Causey Contemporary)

Norman Mooney’s Close Your Eyes at Causey Contemporary in Williamsburg

If you’re in Williamsburg Friday night to catch the opening of Andrew Ohanesian’s The House Party, stop by Causey Contemporary for Norman Mooney’s solo show of monumental carbon smoke drawings, Close Your Eyes. The Irish artist’s carbon drawings are created with layers of billowing smoke preserved on aluminum panel and have both a physical and metaphysical presence.

Causey Contemporary is located at 92 Wythe Avenue in Brooklyn. The gallery will be participating in the Williamsburg Gallery Association‘s Every Second Friday on September 14, 2012 from 6-10 p.m. along with Art101, Figureworks, Front Room, Gitana Rosa, Parker’s Box, Pierogi, P339, Skink Ink Editions, T.A.P.S. Gallery, The Boiler, Ventana 244 and Williamsburg Art and Historical Society. Galleries will be open late and the wine and cheese will be in heavy supply. More information is available at the Causey Contemporary website.

 
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Samein Priester on Fatherhood, Film, & Loss of His Wife, Artist Denyse Thomasos

August 17, 2012 in Images, News, Sounds, Words with 3 Comments

 

Filmmaker Samein Priester with his daughter Syann (Photo courtesy Samein Priester)

How do you learn to be a father, particularly when there are no fathers around to be an example?

This is the question at the heart of Samein Priester’s personal documentary 1st&4ever. The dilemma of fatherhood has taken on new significance for Samein since the tragic loss of his partner, artist Denyse Thomasos, last month.

Denyse’s visit to the hospital on July 19th was supposed to be routine. She was there for an MRI, but during the procedure she suffered a fatal allergic reaction. Her sudden death has left her husband, friends, family, students, colleagues, and the New York art community in shock. Denyse was only 47 years old.

Since 1995, Denyse taught in the Arts, Culture and Media Department at Rutgers University, Newark. When she met Samein, he was preparing to complete his undergraduate degree at Hunter. It was Denyse who pushed Samein to apply to graduate school at the City College of New York. “When I first got into grad school,” Samein explains in 1st&4ever, “my mother didn’t even know what that was, but she knew it was something big.” In December 2009, during his first semester, Samein’s mother passed away. She was the glue that held the family together, and her loss was a terrible blow to the family. In June of 2011 Samein graduated from City College.

 

Denyse and Samein were not only best friends, but also partners in life, work, and parenthood. In June of 2010 the couple adopted their first child, Syann, a joyful event that Samein chronicles at the end of his documentary 1st&4ever. (Photo courtesy Samein Priester)

 

Denyse and Samein were not only best friends and spouses, but also partners in life, work, and parenthood. In June of 2010 the couple adopted their first child, Syann, a joyful event that Samein chronicles at the end of 1st&4ever. “I’m going to be the best father that Syann can possibly ever have,” he says in his film. Samein repeated the same sentiment when we spoke at length on the phone last week. He is clearly stunned and grieving the sudden loss of his partner, but he is also focused on his daughter and creating a healthy, stable life for her in spite of Denyse’s absence.

“From the moment I met Denyse my life turned around,” Samein told me today via email. “She really made all of my dreams come true, down to my baby girl Syann. That was a name I had since I was 15. I always knew I’d have a daughter and her name would be Syann.”

 

Denyse Thomasos’s visit to the hospital on July 19th was supposed to be routine. She was there for an MRI, but during the procedure she suffered a fatal allergic reaction. Her sudden death has left her husband, friends, family, students, colleagues, and the New York art community in shock. (Photo courtesy Samein Priester)

 

 

The final version of Denyse Thomasos’s Arc, 2009, also shown above (Photo courtesy Olga Korper Gallery)

 

Samein and Denyse were both fellows at The MacDowell Colony. I met Samein at the Colony in the spring, just as I was leaving my job after 13 years to work on Gwarlingo full time. “Denyse told me I should apply,” Samein told me. “She knew I needed time to work, but she also thought the experience would be good for me as an artist.” Denyse clearly was supportive of her husband’s film career, just as he was supportive of her residencies, teaching job, and career as a painter. Tending to work and parenting was clearly a juggling act, but he said that he and Denyse were up to the challenge.

While in Peterborough, Samein talked a lot about his daughter, Syann, and how hard it was to be away from her, even for a short time. Each day when I ran into Samein returning his lunch basket in the main building, he smiled and expressed gratitude for the time, space, food, and community that MacDowell was providing him. He was well-liked by residents and staff alike, and we were all sorry when family obligations required him to return to New York after only a brief stay in New Hampshire.

But none of us forgot Samein or his powerful, short film 1st&4ever, which he screened during his residency. Half of the audience was in tears by the time it ended, but 1st&4ever is far from a sentimental tearjerker. It’s an honest, intimate portrait of a family doing their best to overcome the absent fathers who have left gaping holes in their lives. The minute the film was finished I knew that I wanted to share 1st&4ever with Gwarlingo readers.

Priester’s film won “Best Documentary” in the Newark Museum Black Film Festival 2012, as well as “Best Documentary” and “Best Cinematography in a Documentary” in the 2011 Citivision thesis show.

 

“Donte’s father was never around. My father wasn’t ever around. Really nobody’s father was around. They were in jail, dead, or missing in action. It was like no-man’s land. I thought it was normal, but it’s really not.”

 

The central focus of the film is Samein’s nephew, Donte Clark, a football player whose mother was only 18 years old when he was born. Donte has had contact with his father only twice in his life — once by phone and once through a letter his father sent him from jail. Samein was 13 when Donte was born, but he stepped up to the plate to help his sister Vanessa by mixing baby formula, changing diapers, and babysitting. “When you’re in the hood,” Sameine says in his film, “you don’t have a choice. It’s like all hands on deck. You don’t set out to be a father figure. You just start to multitask…There’s no daycare or nannies. There’s just family.”

“Donte’s father was never around. My father wasn’t ever around. Really nobody’s father was around. They were in jail, dead, or missing in action. It was like no-man’s land. I thought it was normal, but it’s really not.”

These intimate glimpses of Samein, his mother, and Donte are interspersed with memorable images of Harlem, subway trains, and the distant skyscrapers of New York City. But these views are mostly seen through mesh screens or chain-link fences. In Priester’s film, there is always something standing in the way.

Football is a lifeline for Donte. While other kids are “getting beat-up or shot,” he spends time in the park playing football. New York Venom head football coach Booker T. McJunkins says that his job is to be a foster father by helping each individual ball player. He explains that being a father figure is more important than accolades or the team’s success as a whole:

“A lot of these kids don’t know how to be men, they don’t know how to raise a family. They don’t know how to show compassion. That’s why we have the problems we have in the city, because a lot of these kids don’t have male figures in their lives…People look at these 18, 19-year-olds, 2o-year-olds, 21-year olds, even 22-year-olds as grown up men, but those are still little boys wrapped in a grown man’s package.”

Samein lost his own father when he was three. “He wasn’t there to teach me how to be a man or to teach me how to be a father,” Samein says in 1st&4ever. “None of us have role models for that. Helping raise Donte made me want to be a father, but how do you learn to be a father without examples?”

 

“From the moment I met Denyse my life turned around,” Samein told me via email. “She really made all of my dreams come true, down to my baby girl Syann. That was a name I had since I was 15. I always knew I’d have a daughter and her name would be Syann.” (Photo courtesy Cityvisions)

 

 

Denyse, Syann, and Samein (Photo courtesy Samein Priester)

 

The intimate images of Syann, Denise, and Samein that conclude 1st&4ever are supposed to be a hopeful ending to this story of a close-knit, fatherless family. Seeing the three of them together during and after the adoption, we’re confident that some old patterns have been broken at last.

But as I watched the film again today, it was impossible not to feel the sting of Denyse’s loss. Being “a good father” is challenging under the best of circumstances. Now Samein must tackle the job without the support of his wife and partner. I can only admire Samein’s dedication to Syann and his nephew Donte. The path to fatherhood has been, and will be, hard-won for Samein, but he has a strong support network, including the help of Denyse’s family in Canada.

When I asked Samein to share some of the directors who inspire him most, he mentioned John Cassavetes, Spike Lee, and Francis Ford Coppola. Favorite movies include Fight Club, The Conversation, True Romance, Reds, The Piano, and She’s Gotta Have It.

Priester has two new projects in the works. The first is a film called Harlem Sons about three men from Harlem who are released from prison after serving nearly 30 years. Like 1st&4ever, Harlem Sons focuses on family and redemption.

While continuing the search for a full-time film teaching job, Samein has also been piecing together a film about Denyse for Syann. “I have received cards and calls from around the world with people wanting Syann and I to know how sorry they are,” Samein told me by email. “Every card or call is a message of love. Every person has a personal story to tell about Denyse. I plan to take the road trip and capture each story, no matter how short the story or how far away the person lives. When the time comes, I’ll be able to show Syann who her mother was.”

 

Sorting out the intricacies of Denyse’s estate is going to take some time, Samein told me on the phone. Friends have set up two different funds in Denyse’s honor to help Syann. One is a college fund for Syann, which she can use for her education in 2034; the other fund will help with her immediate needs. (Photo courtesy Samein Priester)

 

 

Denyse “was the kind of person you were very attracted to — fun to be with, smart, talented, outspoken, generous. She had a real creative sense about how to make her life rich and bring that to whatever she did. She was really an admirable creative woman.” (Photo courtesy Samein Priester)

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Learning to Look : Whistler, Fireworks, and a New Way of Seeing

July 4, 2012 in Events, Images, Process, Words with 9 Comments

 

James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, ca. 1875. Oil on panel, 23.7 × 18.3 in. (Photo courtesy the Detroit Institute of Arts-Click to Enlarge)

I’ll never forget the first time I saw James McNeill Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold. I was still in high school when I stumbled across the painting in an art history book and was immediately stunned. I had never seen night captured so perfectly in an artwork before. Even as a teenager, I sensed that Whistler had caught those falling skyrockets at exactly the right time—not at the point when they were at their most garish and outrageous, but at the poignant moment when the fading sparks were falling into water.

Whistler’s style and composition owe something to Japanese ukiyo-e prints, which were popular with many Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters. Monet was a collector and Vincent Van Gogh and his brother Theo owned over four hundred Japanese prints. One of my favorite ukiyo-e artists, Utagawa Hiroshige, had a lasting influence on James McNeill Whistler. Hiroshige’s extraordinary series, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, was of particular importance. As the Brooklyn Museum website explains, Whistler was inspired by the Hiroshige prints that he once owned. “As the West entered a new century, Japanese woodblock prints provided an artistic alternative—in the use of color, perspective, and spatial structure—for presenting changes in society.”

It’s interesting to compare this Hiroshige print, Fireworks at Ryogoku (below) with Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold (above). Both images are striking in their own way, but the difference between painting  and woodblock printing techniques allowed Whistler to depict the fireworks and night sky with greater delicacy, as well as a deeper, more complex palette.

 

Utagawa Hiroshige. Fireworks at Ryōgoku (Ryōgoku Hanabi) (8th Month, 1858). From the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, c. 1856–58. Woodblock print. (Photo courtesy the Brooklyn Museum)

Whistler’s loose, impressionistic depiction of fireworks at night was not to everyone’s liking when his painting made its public debut. Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket sparked an infamous feud between the artist and the Victorian critic John Ruskin. In 1877 Whistler sued the Ruskin for libel after the critic condemned the painting in his publication Fors Clavigera:

“For Mr. Whistler’s own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay [founder of the Grosvenor Gallery] ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of willful imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.”

The trial produced this hilarious exchange between John Ruskin’s lawyer, Attorney General Sir John Holker, and Whistler during cross-examination:

Holker: “What is the subject of Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket?”

Whistler: “It is a night piece and represents the fireworks at Cremorne Gardens.”

Holker: “Not a view of Cremorne?”

Whistler: “If it were A View of Cremorne it would certainly bring about nothing but disappointment on the part of the beholders. It is an artistic arrangement. That is why I call it a nocturne.…”

Holker: “Did it take you much time to paint the Nocturne in Black and Gold? How soon did you knock it off?”

Whistler: “Oh, I ‘knock one off’ possibly in a couple of days – one day to do the work and another to finish it…”

Holker: “The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?”

Whistler: “No, I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.”

 

James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, c. 1872–1875. Oil on canvas, 26 7/8 in × 20 1/8 in. (Photo courtesy of the Tate Britain, London. Click to Enlarge)

Hiroshige’s influence on Whistler can also be seen in his breathtaking piece Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge. Here again, Whistler uses the golden sizzle of fireworks over the river Thames to wonderful effect. The compositional similarities between Whistler’s painting and Hiroshige’s print, Kyobashi Bridge, are unmistakable.

Whistler and Hiroshige taught me a new way of seeing. From both of these artists, I learned that less is often more. The best art, regardless of its medium, captures the essence of a thing, and leaves out all of the right parts. This idea was pushed to its limits by the minimalist artists of the 20th century. The gap between Whistler and Ellsworth Kelly or Hiroshige and Agnes Martin is not as great as it may appear at first glance.

Utagawa Hiroshige, Bamboo Yards, Kyōbashi Bridge (12th Month, 1857). From the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, ca. 1856–58. Woodblock print. (Photo courtesy the Brooklyn Museum. Click to Enlarge).

I think of these artworks by Whistler and Hiroshige each year when the Fourth of July holiday rolls around.

As an ardent lover of fireworks, New Hampshire is an ideal place to live. Each town has its own fireworks display (some shows are larger and better than others, but regardless, the crowds are never a problem). The local villages are kind enough to stagger their events on different nights so there are no scheduling conflicts. Before the show, there is typically an ice cream social, music, swimming, and other community activities. As locals gather around the lakes with their glow necklaces and bottles of bug spray, so do the mosquitoes, followed immediately by the bats.

In the past four days, I’ve seen two local fireworks shows—one over Dublin Lake by Mt. Monadnock and the other over Norway Pond in my old neighborhood in Hancock. In the case of Dublin Lake, I decided to make the mile-long journey on my bicycle. The hills were steep and the bugs intense, but the moon was bright—bright enough to throw shadows onto the empty road.

During my night ride, I spotted a fox, two porcupines, an owl, and a deer. Other mysterious creatures lurked in the bushes. I never saw them, but I heard their rustling. The number of dramas playing out in nature each night while we lie in our beds is staggering. (I’m reminded of this fact each time I hear the coyotes howling outside my open bedroom window.)

Photo by Michelle Aldredge (Click to Enlarge)

 

 

Photo by Michelle Aldredge (Click to Enlarge)

 

 

Photo by Michelle Aldredge (Click to Enlarge)

At Dublin Lake, I perched myself on a rock and waited. In a brilliant stroke of Yankee ingenuity, the woman behind me swatted bugs away with a tree branch. I buttoned up my shirt and rolled down my pants to protect myself from the swarms. Just as the fireworks began, a bat skimmed over the top of my head.

I’ve never heard a boom so loud before. Each explosion ricocheted off the side of Mt. Monadnock and bounced over the water. I can only imagine what the foxes, porcupines, and deer were thinking. The excited children, on the other hand, made their thoughts very clear: Those are my favorite. I like the purple ones! I like the one that looks like a splash in the water (little girl)! I like the giant red ones that look like a bomb going off (little boy)! Today I learned that there are more exacting names for these firework effects: peony, chrysanthemum, dahlia, ground bloom flower (there are lots of flower names). Also, willow, palm, crossette, spider, horsetail, time rain, fish.

Photo by Michelle Aldredge (Click to Enlarge)

 

 

Photo by Michelle Aldredge (Click to Enlarge)

 

 

Photo by Michelle Aldredge (Click to Enlarge)

Whenever possible, I prefer to be in nature without the distraction of electronic devices. This means no camera. No cell phone. No i-Pod. When it comes to fireworks, though, I make a rare exception.

Each year I photograph the local fireworks, and each year the photographs are a surprise, even to me. While these images aren’t “art” in the strictest sense, I do think they capture artful moments. Like Whistler, I’m particularly fond of the less dramatic scenes, the golden criss-crossing tails, the juxtaposition of colors, the unusual patterns captured by the camera, though not always visible to the naked eye.

Sometimes the point of taking a picture is the end result. We want a record of where we’ve been or who we’ve seen. Or maybe we are setting out to create art or capture something larger than ourselves. But often I find that the actual process of taking a picture is just as important. A camera can focus our attention and allow us to see things we might have missed otherwise. It sharpens our senses and also opens us to the happy accidents that often occur when we click the shutter.

“I sit for a long time and watch one thing,” says the writer Barry Lopez. “If you don’t do that homework, you don’t make yourself vulnerable enough to a place, and it never releases itself into you.”

Learning to look is perhaps the most under-appreciated skill of our generation. Do I love the fireworks for themselves? Of course. But I also love the fact that for a few days each year, individuals gather together in one place, expose themselves to the elements, and for a short time, stare at the sky, not their computer screen or cell phone.

We see what we expect to see. But if we’re still and patient, if we take time to turn off our devices and get out into the real world, we leave room for so many more possibilities.
 

Photo by Michelle Aldredge (Click to Enlarge)

 

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The Illusionist: The Mind-Bending Installations of Artist Felice Varini

April 10, 2012 in Images, Spaces with 7 Comments

 

Felice Varini, "Orangerie du cha‰teau de Versailles," 2006 (Photo by André Morin)

 

 

"Orangerie du cha‰teau de Versailles" from a different perspective (Photo by André Morin)

Note: This is a guest post by Riley MacPhee, a regular contributor to the Johnston Architects Blog. Johnston Architects PLLC is a small architectural firm focusing on creative, innovative, and sustainable design throughout the West. You can see their designs and learn more about their work at the Johnston Architects website.

 

To walk into a space exhibiting the art of Felice Varini is to be confused. You’ll immediately notice vaguely geometric, monocolor shapes stretching and sprawling across the room, but you won’t be able to determine any kind of method to the apparent madness. Varini’s work looks like interesting, abstract art superimposed on an architectural space.

But if you walk around and explore the space a little more, you’ll start to notice that the shapes change as you move.  The more you move, and the more you stare at them, the more you’ll start to realize that there’s something you aren’t getting. But then, suddenly you’ll arrive at a spot where everything comes together with startling clarity, and you’ll realize that you’re looking at a brilliantly composed perspective work that seems to pop out of the scene and hover eerily in front of it.
 

Felice Varini, "Encerclement à dix," Chapelle Jeanne d'Arc/Centre d'Art Contemporain, Thouars, France, 1999 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Felice Varini, "Encerclement à dix," Chapelle Jeanne d'Arc/Centre d'Art Contemporain, Thouars, France, 1999 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Felice Varini, "Carré aux seize disques," Commande du ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Centre national des arts plastiques, 2011 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Another perspective of "Carré aux seize disques," 2011 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Another perspective of "Carré aux seize disques," 2011 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

Varini’s work is really the opposite of a stereogram: a series of unintelligible figures painted across three dimensions, that when seen in just the right way, flatten themselves into a mind-bending 2D shape.

Varini is a Swiss artist who currently lives in Paris, and has done dozens and dozens of these types of installations. He thinks of his works comprehensively, not just from the single point where they come together:

“The viewer can be present in the work, but as far as I am concerned he may go through it without noticing the painting at all. If he is aware of the work, he might observe it from the vantage point and see the complete shape. But he might look from other points of views where he will not be able to understand the painting because the shapes will be fragmented and the work too abstract. Whichever way, that is ok with me.”

Felice Varini, "Une ligne, mille et une droites," Musée Bourdelle, Paris, France 2008 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Felice Varini, "Tra il Pieno e il Vuoto (In the Fullness and Emptiness)" 2003 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Felice Varini, "Tra il Pieno e il Vuoto (In the Fullness and Emptiness)" 2003 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Felice Varini, "Tra il Pieno e il Vuoto (In the Fullness and Emptiness)" 2003 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

“If you draw a circle on a flat canvas it will always look the same. The drawn circle will retain the flatness of the canvas. This kind of working is very limiting to me, so I project a circle onto spaces, onto walls or mountain sides, and then the circle’s shape is altered naturally because the ‘canvas’ is not flat. A mountain side has curves that affect the circle, and change the circle’s geometry. So, I do not need to portray complicated forms in my paintings. I can just use the simplicity of forms, because the reality out there distorts forms in any case, and creates variations on its own accord.”

“The same goes for colours. Usually I use one colour only, and the space takes care of altering the colour’s hue. For example, if I use one type of red colour on a mountain side, the result is many kinds of red, depending on the mountain’s surface and the light conditions. Sunlight will affect the different areas on the surface and the same red colour may become stronger or darker or clearer in certain areas, depending on how the sun rays hit the surface. The sky can be bright or dark. And if the surface has its own colour or a few colours then that will affect the red that I apply on it. So, I do not need to use sophisticated colours.”

 

Felice Varini, "Cinq Ellipses Ouvertes," Exhibition: Constellation, En attendant l'ouverture, du Centre Pompidou, Metz 2009 (Photo by André Morin courtesy varini.org)

 
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Creative Spaces: Painter Kim Uchiyama

February 7, 2012 in Creative Spaces, Images, Spaces with 5 Comments

 

Kim Uchiyama in her Tribeca studio (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)


 
Kim Uchiyama’s studio is located on a quiet, tree-lined side-street in Lower Manhattan. On a crisp fall day in mid-November over tea and brunch, I visited Kim in her Tribeca apartment. We spent the day looking at art and discussing her new painting series, her artistic development and influences, and the ups and downs of the creative life.

Her space is decorated in a minimalist, modern style, but is also intimate and warm–the perfect blend of Kim’s Iowa roots and vibrant life as a New York painter. The bedroom is the coziest room in the apartment with many personal photos, mementos, and artworks that have special meaning to Kim. The focal points of the living room are Kim’s marvelous art collection, her books, and the striking view of the Hudson River glimpsed through the windows.

The painting studio is in a separate room from the living space. It is tidy, but functional, and in many ways is the heart of the apartment. Bright canvases are stacked and spread throughout the studio; painter’s tape, paint, and brushes are close at hand. Postcards of favorite paintings and places are pinned to the walls.

 

Kim Uchiyama's apartment and painting studio is on a quiet Tribeca sidestreet overlooking the Hudson River. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

Kim Uchiyama, "Excavation," 2010. Oil on canvas, 20" x 16" (Photo by Kevin Noble)

 

 

Over tea and brunch at the dining room table, Kim and I discussed her new painting series, her artistic development and influences, and the ups and downs of the creative life. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

For those of you unfamiliar with Kim Uchiyama’s work, a short introduction may be useful.

Patient, attentive viewers will find a lot to enjoy in Uchiyama’s paintings. Art works that could be mistaken for simple, colorful designs at first glance unfold into a deeper and richer experience upon close observation. Layers bubble beneath layers, colors recede or emerge from the canvas. Music is a useful parallel, since Uchiyama creates variations on a theme, much like a composer or jazz musician would–texture, rhythm, timbre, and harmony are integral to each piece. There is an exciting tension between order and variation.

As she explains in our interview, place and landscape are central to Kim’s work. Whether she is influenced by the light of southern Italy or the color of the sky or sea, her work is an expression of her own experience within a landscape. She is not trying to capture a place literally, as a realist painter might, or make some grand political or personal statement, but is instead, trying to convey something deeper and more mysterious.

When viewing an abstract painting like Uchiyama’s, it is useful to quiet the mind and let the senses take over. Only then can you begin to appreciate the complexities, nuances, and visceral pleasures of her work.

Uchiyama’s art owes something to Josef Albers’ chromatic interactions with concentric, colored squares and to Hans Hofmann and Nicolas Carone’s ideas about spatial illusion and color relationships. But the writings of painter Agnes Martin are also strikingly relevant:

It is quite commonly thought that the intellect is responsible for everything that is made and done. It is commonly thought that everything that is can be put into words. But there is a wide range of emotional response that we make that cannot be put into words. We are so used to making these emotional responses that we are not consciously aware of them until they are represented in artwork…

Beauty illustrates happiness: the wind in the grass, the glistening waves following each other, the flight of birds – all speak of happiness.

The clear blue sky illustrates a different kind of happiness, and the soft dark night a different kind. There are an infinite number of different kinds of happiness.

The response is the same for the observer as it is for the artist. The response to art is the real art field.

Composition is an absolute mystery. It is dictated by the mind. The artist searchers for certain sounds or lines that are acceptable to the mind and finally an arrangement of them that is acceptable. The acceptable compositions arouse certain feelings of appreciation in the observer. Some compositions appeal to some, and some to others.

Like Martin, Uchiyama’s earliest paintings were landscapes. (You can see two of Kim’s early works below). Both artists eventually found a deeper, more power expression through abstraction. After all, it is not the actual sky or ocean that interests these painters–it is more elusive qualities like light, space, and color, and the ways in which these visual sensations affect the attentive observer.

We’ve all seen a vivid, memorable sunset. The impulse to capture such a sunset through painting or photography is as much about capturing the sensation of being there as it is about capturing a beautiful scene. These perfect and elusive moments of awareness are an underlying force in both Agnes Martin and Kim Uchiyama’s work.

Kim has many fascinating things to say about her creative development and about painting itself. Enjoy the interview and this special tour of her studio…

(Click images to enlarge)

 

Kim Uchiyama, "Archeo," 2010. Oil on canvas, 20" x 16" When viewing an abstract painting like Uchiyama's, it is useful to quiet the mind and let the senses take over. Only then can you begin to appreciate the complexities, nuances, and visceral pleasures of her work. (Photo by Kevin Noble)

 

 

Many of the art works on the living room wall were created by friends or by some of Kim's favorite artists. The piece above the bookcase is from the "Archaeo" series, completed by Kim in 2010. Her new series of paintings (resting on the floor) are much larger in scale and brighter in color. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

Music is a useful parallel, since Uchiyama creates variations on a theme, much like a composer or jazz musician would--texture, rhythm, timbre, and harmony are integral to each piece. There is an exciting tension between order and variation. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

Michelle: How long have you lived and worked here in Tribeca?

Kim: I’ve been living and working continuously in Tribeca since the mid ’90s. Originally I started here in 1976, two blocks from the newly constructed World Trade Towers, before the area even had a name. Then came studios in Chinatown, the East Village, upper Chelsea and finally, back to Tribeca.

 

Do you have any particular work routine that is best for you? Is it difficult to live and work in the same space? Do you limit your computer and phone use while you’re painting or drawing?

Where possible, I prefer to wake up and start the day in the studio. Straight from sleep and not yet conversational with the rest of the world, I find it’s easier to become immersed in my thoughts and connect to the language of painting. I’ve had outside studios at various points, but I do prefer to live and work in the same space for this reason. Living where you work also facilitates some very off-the-cuff glimpses and sideways glances — sometimes in the middle of the night — at the work in progress, which can be really illuminating because you’re not expecting anything.

 

"My choices in painting are intuitive. I spend a lot of time looking at the canvas I am working on. I will first "see" a color, and then depending on the color, I will have a sense of the shape of that color." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

Kim Uchiyama, "Light Study #4," 2011. Oil on canvas. (Photo by Kevin Noble)

 

 

"I was always drawing as child and very much wanted to become an artist, though I wasn't really sure how to go about it. Drake University had a program in Florence, Italy which I attended in 1975-76 with the idea of studying art history. Living there, and standing before the great originals I'd seen only in reproduction, inspired me to paint." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

Did you grown up in an artistic household or did you have to make your own way as a young artist? You have a small image of Florence in your studio. Was Florence significant to your artistic development in some way?
 
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Paint Palettes of the Old Masters

August 8, 2011 in Images with Comments Off

Vincent van Gogh's palette (Photo courtesy the Telegraph)

Why is van Gogh’s paint palette worth preserving? Lucy Davies, photography critic for the Telegraph, tackled this question in a blog post she wrote last year:

“The daubs of raw pigment or the mixes left in position can be an intriguing index to the working method and the mind of the artist…Where and how colour is laid can convey emotion, psychology, religious significance. ‘The whole value of what you are about’ wrote John Ruskin in his Elements of Drawing, first published in 1857 ‘depends on colour. If the colour is wrong, everything is wrong: just as, if you are singing, and sing false notes, it does not matter how true your words are.’”

These photographs of palettes used by painters like van Gogh, Gaughin, and Degas are fascinating to peruse. You can read Davies’ full piece on the use of color in painting here.

The palette of Paul Gauguin, who said, "Pure colour! Everything must be sacrificed to it.” (Photo courtesy the Telegraph)

 

Eugène Delacroix's paint palette (Photo courtesy the Telegraph)

 

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