Outside/Inside: View from the Studio,Tracey Adams and Rebecca Crowell

Here are two wonderful painters that are clearly inspired by nature. Check out their websites for more work and news.

Tracey Adams  

Lumenis  7

Cedar in Garden

Rebecca Crowell

Rose Veil 

     

Outside/Inside: Tamar Zinn

I have a continued interest in the connection of the view from an artist's window and their own work. Here is Tamar Zinn's window and view with one of her paintings.

Studio Window

Beyond the Curtain

  

Broadway 109

Tamar's fifth solo show opens in January at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, NYC.

January 3 - February 2, 2013

Artist Reception, Friday, January 4, 2013, 6:00-­‐8:00pm

For future blog posts and possibly another project@, I invite you to email me 2 jpegs (72 dpi): one of the view outside your window and the other an image of your work. Please include your website url. Here is another Outside/Inside post.

Small Work

                                                      10  8" x 6" each oil on board

Somehow I have ended up with numerous small works in progress in my studio. All paintings are hard to make but small paintings present big challenges. The other day I realized how much time, energy, consideration, materials, blood (literally sometimes I say with a sliced finger as I type) sweat and tears  are involved. There is a preciseness and economy of formal elements, along with the decision whether the piece is going to deliver a big punch or a quiet whisper. It is a challenge.

                                Small Gem 4/12  6" x 6"  encaustic

      Small Gem   5/12  6" x 6"  encaustic

      Small Gem  3/12  6" x 6"  encaustic

Small Gem 1/12  6" x 6"  encaustic

                                  Small Gem 2/12  6" x 6"  encaustic

    Small Gem   6/12  6" x 6"  encaustic

New Work in the Studio

Emerging 8' x 6" oil on board

Are You Listening 8" x 6" oil on board

                                  Untitled 1  8" x 6" oil  on board

Holdings 2 12 x 12 oil on board

The Light Again 24 x 24 oil on board

Barbara Fisher

I went to visit Barbara Fisher's studio when I was in Asheville this July and found a huge shift going on in her work. Known for her colorful iconographic gridded imagery, the work has moved to a dark, mysterious, atmospheric space with merging marks and forms. It feels like a thinking space on a chalkboard. Have a look:

All are oil, oil stick, charcoal, pastel on birch panel

Tangled Thoughts - 30 x 30

Hubris - 16 x 16

Evidence - 40 x 40

Unwinding - 16 x 16

Barbara lists her Influences: early ones include Van Gogh, Gauguin, Klee.The German Expressionists,  Guston.  New Image painters of the early '80's (Jennifer Bartlett, Susan Rothenberg).
Non artist influences - Carl Jung and other psycho-philosophers. Contemporary physicists - Mario Livio, Brian Green.

She is currently in  Southern Abstraction: A New Look at the Mobile Musuem of Art. In 2013 a solo show is planned for the Hickory Museum of Art, Hickory NC.

For years my artistic language consisted of iconic shapes and symbols, reduced to their simplest forms. I gradually began to break them up into what felt like pieces of images.  Recently they have disintegrated further into fragments of thoughts, gestural marks, and scribbles – hovering in undefined, unrestrained atmospheric spaces.   Switching from canvas to birch panel resulted in a dramatic shift in the work’s physicality. Spontaneous marks provide a history of transformation and change.   The paintings are worked over a long period of time, giving the appearance of old walls that have been written and drawn on for years.

 The history of process and transformation evident in the finished paintings continually reminds the viewer of the inevitability of change and the impermanence inherent in all things.   The wood surfaces are sanded, scribbled on, painted over, wiped off and otherwise distressed.  The essence of my creative inquiry is to dissect and examine again and again my perceptions of truth, reality, and the Self that derive from external sources, turning that experience into a visual record.

Thinking About Some Favorites

I have been updating my powerpoint about my work for teaching purposes and have been sneaking in some artists that I feel have influenced my work over the years. The power point is still in progress but I am expanding outside the idea of influences to adding work that speaks to me. Here are a few.

Henri Matisse

Eva Hesse

Joan Synder

Ree Morton

Susan Rothenberg

        Alberto Giacometti

                                                                                  

Edward Vuillard

Mark Rothko

 Rembrandt

     Paul Cezanne                

                                                         

                                                

Hannalore BAron

Giotto

Brenda Goodman

Philip Guston

Hans Hoffman

Joan Mitchell

Jackson Pollack

Brice Marden

Judy Pfaff

Martin Puryear

Paul Rotterdam

Amy Sillman

Julie Mehretu

Paul Behnke and Tremain Smith at The Rosenfeld Gallery

Sunday, September 9th was the opening of Paul Behnke and Tremain Smith at The Rosenfeld Gallery in Philadelphia. It is always nice to go to a gallery and see two artists' work that you are inspired by and respect. Walking into the gallery you first see Paul's big and bold sense of color, and shifting space done with a sensitivity to surface. Then you make your way back to Tremain's more intimate, layered and intricate sensibility. It was a great day for abstract painting. The show runs until September 30th. Get to the show or go to their websites for better viewing of the paintings.

 "My painting process is concerned with formal aspects. It is only after the fact that I can start to decipher imagery and any personal symbolism that may be present. I’m not interested in sharing any interpretations of forms with the viewer." Paul Behnke

Big Narcissus,(diptych), 2011, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 120 inches

Yello Nike (2012) - acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 inches

Happy Val Lewtons Day (2011) - acrylic on canvas, 46 x 48 inches

Arieles Table (2012) - acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 inches

Paul in deep conversation

 "Smith uses the grid as her departure point. From this basis she moves freely. The lines and planes are bridges or passageways; doors, walls and floor plans to inner realities. They become mappings of the unseen as she seeks to visually manifest access to the spiritual."

Tremain smiling in front of her sold painting

Birth, 2012 Oil, wax & collage on panel 16" x 16"

Clockwork, 2012 Oil, wax & collage on panel 36" x 48"

Motion, 2011 Oil, wax & collage on panel 48" x 24"

Current, 2012 Oil, wax & collage on panel 48" x 48"

Mystic Ascent, 2012 Oil, wax & collage on panel 36" x 24"