Daniel Sroka, Art Influences

Daniel Sroka is a photographer living in NJ. This May, he was named a nominee in the Abstract category of the 3rd Annual Photography Masters Cup for his photograph Mask ( fallen leaf) His work is represented by Artful Home, one of the preeminent online art galleries.
His blog offers the male perspective of trying to raise kids at home and make art at the same time.

I like what he says about his blog :"Watch behind the scenes as fine art nature photographer Daniel Sroka tries to make a living from his art. "



Glass Slipper (abstract of melting ice. 20x25)

"I am inspired by the quiet voices of nature. Every season, I walk through my neighborhood and collect the leaves, sticks, flowers, and seeds that I find along the path. These fallen leaves and seeds are like fossils, preserving a record of the passing seasons.

Every stick and flower is uniquely formed by the life it experienced, and as they dry and fade, they tell stories about their lives. Stories about the intensity of the summer light, the periods of rain and drought, and the attacks of insects they endured. I try to tell these stories through the abstract, dream-like portraits I create of these small and usually unregarded parts of nature."

Influences:

Alexander Calder I love the story of how Calder showed up for a solo exhibit at Harvard with no art. When the students who came to pick him up asked where his art was, Calder pulled out of his pocket a spool of wire and pliers. He then proceeded to create the entire exhibit of wire sculptures from scratch.

Marcel Duchamp The guy knew how to poke fun and have fun. Art can be so pretentious, and his work never fails to make me laugh and remember the sensory pleasure that art should always be.

Charles Shulz (cartoonist): He may be "just a cartoonist", but more than any fine artist, his work has has a deep and personal impact on my life. I love Schulz’s ability to express a gut-felt emotion through a simple image and a focused story. I also find myself inspired by uncompromising work ethic, and his ability to find balance between his work and his family.


Haruki Murakami (novelist): Murakami is one of my favorite writers. The worlds he creates are deceptively simple, elegant creations, with massive geologic flaws running straight through them. In his stories, very normal people encounter very odd situations, but it all seems real and natural.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison (photographers): I was simply blown away when I first saw their work at the Eastman House. They showed me what a photograph could achieve in the telling of a story or capturing of a mood.

Ted Orland (photographer): I had the pleasure of being in the same galley as Ted for a short time. I love the simple expression of mood and place he expresses in his work. And his books on life as an artist (such as "Art and Fear") are clear, honest, and inspirational.

John Chervinsky (photographer): A witty combination of science and art.


Dragon (abstract of fallen leaf. 17x25)






Unravel (abstract of a fallen leaf. 25x17)

Between the Lines

Between the Lines 4 encaustic on paper 17 x17 LPressman

Over the years I have collected vintage postcards and old books that collect dust and take up space around the studio and house. Recently, while working, I grabbed two books and began tearing pages from them: Crime and Punishment and Love's Labor's Lost.

Between the Lines 9 encaustic on paper 17 x17 LPressman

Now it would be terrific if I could come up with some brilliant connection and intellectual conversation of the reason why I am using these two texts-but I haven't figured it out-yet. Perhaps when I get around to reading them that will enlighten me.

Between the Lines, Moment, encaustic on paper 17 x17 LPressman

All I know is that I am going page by page in each book. Most of my work in the past year or so has at least a page of one or the other. I love the feel, texture and color of the old pages and the hidden text that peeks through the images.

Between the Lines 10 encaustic on paper 17 x17 LPressman

Between the Lines 11 encaustic on paper 17 x17 LPressman

Tim McFarlane's influences

I first saw Tim McFarlane's work two years ago at Bridgette Mayer's booth at the Red Dot Fair . I remember looking around and seeing his work leaning against the floor. His work speaks to me, has a freshness and an authenticity that is exciting.By the way there is a great new interview with him at Brenthallards Blog.



Gravity's Architecture, 2009, acrylic on panel, 16" x 16"



Tim 's work will be in the Touch Faith Group show curated by Jeffrey Cortland Jones in November 09 at Semantics in Cincinnati, OH. He will also be included in an Untitled group show in Baltimore, MD at Area 405 . He is represented by Bridgette Mayer Gallery at 709 Walnut Street, 1st Floor Philadelphia, PA, 1910




LIttle Speaker Groove, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 36"


Another Place, 2009, acrylic on panel, 36" x 36"

About my work: Abstraction that references man-made and natural environments is my primary interest. The loose, grid-like forms employed in my works reflect the known world, but are not direct interpretations of it. Instead, the architecture of man and nature provide a starting point for my investigations. The paintings and works on paper are built up in layers, with each successive layer being influenced by the previous ones. Color and composition are the main aesthetic organizational concerns of my works. Loosely painted linear and grid-like forms have dominated my work for several years and continue to do so in various manners. My surroundings provide the templates with which my paintings and works on paper are built. Filtered through experience, observation, and memory, the works become the means for a dialogue that reflects personal experience but are hopefully open-ended enough to allow for possible multiple readings.

Pour, 2008, acrylic on panel, 16" x 16"

Tim says:
Influences: This is tough because I'm all over the place in terms of influences.

1. Cezanne
2. Matisse
3. Monet
4. Chardin
5. Philip Glass
6. Richard Serra
7. Franz Kline
8. Wilem de Kooning
9. Susan Rothenberg
10. Degas
11. Brice Marden
12. Sean Scully
13. Photography
14. Graphic design
15.Music: experimental, glitchy electronic music, house, minimal techno, jazz, rock, underground hip-hop and anything else that perks up my ears and helps things along in the studio.




TThis Moment (view from vault room door), 2009, acrylic on walls, dimeffnsions variable

Who are your art influences? Kirsty Hall

Kirsty Hall is an artist and freelance curator based in Bristol, England. She writes a blog, Up All Night and also worked on a year long project called The Diary Project.

"Capturing the traces left behind by events and finding ways to embody memory within objects are central concerns in my art. My work involves the accretion of large numbers of small objects – pins in fabric, knots in string or hundreds of envelopes – to make sculptures or performances that deal with fragility, decay, loss, repetition, obsession and time. My work is never fabricated by teams: when I burn 3,533 matches, tie thousands of knots in string or repetitively pin a length of material, it is my time and work that is being measured."

Drawing Statement: A few of the tiny drawings I've been doing lately. I'm restricting myself to pencil and gesso on pads of A6. I like working on this small size with such a restricted palette. It frees me up to work fast and loose in an uninhibited fashion, which is what I need right now.

3 Score & 10 String 2003 - 2005


3 Score & 10 is part of an ongoing series of work exploring the meaning and measurement of time. The knots represent the number of days (including leap days) that you would experience if you lived to your biblically allotted 70 years. It contains 25,568 knots and took just under two years to complete.

"Wow, my art influences - hmmm, that's a tough one because there's so many.I've gone for a mix of background stuff that's been a general influence and artists who've either had a long lasting affect or who were incredibly pivotal at specific moments in my artistic development."

In no particular order, apart from the first one:

1. Eva Hesse - absolutely top of my list and it definitely shows in my work

2. Paul Cezanne - it probably doesn't show in my work now but when I was just starting out, he taught me how to see.

3. Folk Art and Outsider Art

4. Giorgio Morandi - I find the quietness and paleness of his still lives very compelling.

5. Ben Nicholson - for his use of white and the way he isn't afraid of emptiness. He's someone I come back to time and again.

6. Petah Coyne - I strongly relate to her use of accretion and obsession.

7. Helen Chadwick - the first contemporary artist I fell in love with, all the way back in the 80's. When I saw her work, I realised for the first time that art could be more than realism.

8. Ann Hamilton - for her poetic narratives and also because she's one of those artist who regularly makes me think, "damn, I wish I'd made that!"

9. Tom Friedman - I love the way he sets up projects with very defined rules and sees them through to their ultimate conclusions. The way he combines humor with intellectual rigor is very inspiring to me.

10. Ernst Haeckel - a very big influence on my drawing. I love those crazy Victorians!

11. Museums and Cabinets Of Curiosities

12. The Japanese concept of Wabi Sabi

13. My granny on my Mum's side - she was my first model for what a creative woman looked like.

Scatter Statement: February 2006 Pins, fabric, wood

At what point does a labor of love become a futile obsession?

Scatter took 31 hours 24 minutes to make, spread over a period of 8 weeks. Altogether I pinned 280 rows and each row contained either 46 or 47 pins, which means that I put at least 12, 880 pins into this piece of fabric. However, because of the inherent fragility of the work very few of those pins now remain in the piece. With each row that I pinned more of the previous pins would fall out: in effect, the making of the piece also proved to be its unmaking. So my many hours of work have become almost invisible. Indeed, you only have my word that I did the work at all, although the tiny snags and pinholes in the material also bear witness to the thousands of missing pins.

What artists have influenced you ? Diane McGregor

Diane McGregor is an artist who lives and works in Santa Fe.
She is currently in a group show of 5 abstract painters, that opened
July 10th and is up through Sept 27th, at The Preston Contemporary
Art Center in Mesilla, NM. You can see more work at
her blog Working Space.



Conferring with the Moon, 2009, oil on canvas, 30x30 inches

Here is what she says about her work:


"My work is informed by Nature—specifically the landscape, the weather, the seasons. These images are not literal representations of a place or environment, but a synthesis of shifting viewpoints and moods. Painting is my way of going beyond the arguments of the conscious mind, allowing the brushstroke to be a quiet reflection of each moment. The painting, then, becomes a record of a solitary, contemplative practice that is both private and shared.

I begin each painting by methodically weaving together horizontal and vertical brushstrokes. This repetitive technique generates a grid-like structure during the very earliest stages of the painting. I use fan brushes, which lend a delicate, complex weave to the webs of color and light. As the composition gradually emerges from the matrix of layered brushstrokes, a subtle balance of form, color, and texture is intuitively recognized and responded to. Some areas of the composition are carefully blended into luminous color fields, while other passages remain more painterly and spontaneous. The process is extremely meditative, taking me back and forth between emptiness and fullness, surrender and control."

Sensing, 2009, oil on canvas, 12 x 12 inches


"Crossing," 2009, oil on canvas, 18x18 inches


Here is my list of my top 15 artistic influences (not in any particular order):

1) Rebecca Purdum - contemporary artist who I've been following since the 80s - ethereal abstraction (shows at Tilton Gallery, NYC)

2) Sam Scott - my professor at University of Arizona, initiated me to the true painter's life and art

3) 12th Century Chinese Southern Song painters - poetry of nature and the seasons, veiling and unveiling of forms, contemplative technique

4) Georgia O'Keeffe - paint handling, morphology of forms (the major influence upon my early work)

5) Agnes Martin - repetition, natural order, poetry of painting, the grid

6) Mondrian- composition, subtle balances and rhythms within geometric structures

7) Jackson Pollock - the spontaneous gesture; the importance of psychology and the unconscious

8) Rothko - the luminosity of color

9) Bonnard - light and color, paint handling

10) Turner - abstraction of landscape, use of thick and thin paint, use of light and dark

11) Kandinsky - for the spiritual in art

12) Cezanne - the importance of the underlying structure of a painting

13) Monet - the way he perceived light and color, the broken brushstroke

14) Donald Judd - clean lines, no-nonsense Beauty, repetition, transcending the grid

15) Joan Mitchell - abstraction of nature, luscious use of paint, use of the white ground, importance of the single brushstroke

Thanks for the opportunity - this was a fun and challenging project!

Butterfly's Dream, 2009, oil on canvas, 24x19 inches

Waiting

Taking the time to watch what is going on in my Lilac bush.........

Here they are


All photos by Jay Rosenblatt @2009

What artists have influenced you ? Rebecca Crowell

Rebeccca Crowell is an artist who lives and works in the midwest. She is represented by Darnell Fine Art, Santa Fe; Circa Gallery, Minneapolis; Wilde Meyer Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ; Grace Chosy Gallery in Madison, WI and Woodwalk Gallery, Egg Harbor (Door Co.)WI.

Slate Cliff, 60"x36" oil on panel 2009


I like what she says about her process:

To explain the process in a bit more detail, all of my paintings are carried out in an intuitive manner, with one thing leading to and suggesting another. I begin with a broad question or idea, which sets off a chain of events in the work-for example, I might start with a range of colors, certain kinds of marks or a compositional idea, but then allow each step along the way to influence my next move. I have my more cautious days when I do a lot of sitting and contemplating various possibilities, and also my more adventurous and impulsive days, when I might make a really radical shift or completely paint over or wash out whole areas. That is exhilarating-to get rid of something that wasn't working well, or was just "OK" in search of something truly good. After many painting sessions of all sorts, in the end I have made something I never imagined or envisioned. It's always like that-I end up in a very different place from where I started. My initial ideas were just jumping-off points for the journey that followed. At the same time, this process is not as random or unstructured as it may sound. I work within parameters that I've discovered over years of making art, that suit me--the individualized abstract language that I have developed, certain art materials and techniques that define my work as mine. These form a steady base from which I make my explorations.

Stones Along the Path 10" square, oil on panel Rebecca Crowell

"A few years ago I tried to pin down what has influenced my work, as part of an online art writing course. I started by randomly listing memories of exhibits, books, and speakers and people whose work I have been drawn to, and then I added other long-standing interests in my personal life, looking for what connections there might be. I learned that my influences have been far-ranging--from various media, styles and eras of art history—and that I have tended to be drawn to something for awhile and then move on. However, certain aspects of my various interests have continued to resonate for me, and have become part of an ever more complex mix. After sifting through all of my notes, I settled on a few general categories. This was helpful not only for seeing influences, but for defining some aspirations and goals for my work. A short version of my conclusions follows. (Artists and works of art listed under one topic often cross over into other categories.)


Warm Wall Outside 42 x36 oil on panel Rebecca Crowell

I’ve been influenced by:

1. work that is highly personal, idiosyncratic, or autobiographic. This includes many of the abstract impressionists, and the quilters of Gees Bend. Earlier on, I was very interested in artists like Frida Kahlo, Jonothan Borofsky, Phyllis Bramson, the Chicago imagists, and William Wiley. These artists influenced me more in their willingness to follow a strong inner vision than through their imagery or style.

2. cultures and situations in which art is intrinsically connected with spirituality, such as the Dreamtime paintings of Native Australian painters, ancient Egyptian art, cave paintings, petroglyphs, sculpture from various African cultures, and medieval illuminated manuscripts. I don’t claim to understand the complex cultural backgrounds of these influences but their power and presence is inspiring. I also respect the spiritual importance of the subconscious and attempt to allow this into my work.

3. the landscape, both as it has been depicted by many painters and photographers, and also as it exists before our eyes. The texture of lichen on a rock, the shape of clouds and flocks of birds in the sky, the ordered chaos of a patch of weeds—all kinds of images from nature influence my choices of color and texture and the degree of complexity I seek in my work. Specific artists that continue to inspire me include Andy Goldsworthy , many photographers of the American Southwest, and 19th century landscape painters such as George Inness and Corot.

4. in recent years, since my work has grown increasingly abstract and minimalist, I find myself appreciating simplicity and a certain spare quality more than in the past. For example, I like Cy Twombly, Agnes Martin, Martin Puryear, James Turrell, and Antonio Tapies."