Was stoked to learn that the "Just Add Water" project with Golden's QOR Watercolors was being reborn at Kirkland Art Center and made the journey from Syracuse to collect an entry kit. Submissions due Friday July 21! go grab a kit and get involved.
Eye opening exhibit currently on display, had to take a minute to see. Socially + environmentally conscious, with the artwork all made from leftover bubble mailers, paper bags, household accouterments and fabrics. The work has a presence to it which belies the flimsy sounding ingredients, all of it harmonized by a rich color palette and emphasis on constructing figures in striking detail.
Heidi Brueckner - "Dracena", 2023.
Oil, fabric & buttons on recycled Amazon bubble mailers.
Heidi Brueckner - "Big Beatty Board Boss Brent", 2021.
Oil and yarn on recycled Amazon bubble mailers.
He's huge!!
Interesting!
Heidi Brueckner - "Seeing is Believing", 2020.
Oil on recycled paper bags & foil on canvas.
Heidi Brueckner- "It's Raining Love", 2023.
Oil, fabric, beads and sequins on recycled Amazon bubble mailers.
The show runs until July 15 2023, devotees of figurative art should make a point to see for themselves.
Walkthrough of the tenth annual "Made In Paint" exhibit at The Sam & Adele Golden Gallery at the Golden Artist Colors facility featuring works by the artists from the Golden Foundation residency program.
The show is open to the public until September 1 2023. For details about their hours and the artists in the show be sure to visit the Golden Foundation for the Arts page on the exhibit here:
Visiting the GAC facility for the first time since 2019 to catch the 2023 Made In Paint exhibit featuring artworks by the 2022 Artsts in Residence from The Golden Foundation's residency program. Had been sadly waylaid by malady at the time of the show's opening in April, and boy I wish I'd been able to rent a space suit and go anyway just to ask some of the artists what the heck is going on with their gorgeous, eye popping and thoroughly unexpected artwork. I still don't understand exactly what I saw even after staring at pix while sorting out the blog.
Which is why their Open Studios sessions at the AIR barn are so special to me. Gives a chance to not just meet world class professional studio artists at the peak of their form, but find out how they do what they do, learn things from their methods to apply back at my own studio setting. Not just ideas on using acrylics either but approaches to their creative act, what their motivations might be, and what comes next for them. So my apologies to this incredible group for not being able to ask in person. Catch up at the next one I hope!
Past year show catalogs. Pretty sure there's coverage of a few here that you can search, or just paw through prior posts (from 2019 or earlier) to the right. And please do visit the Golden Foundation's website to learn more about their residency program, the history of the Made In Paint exhibits, links for the artists in the show, and how to apply for next season's round of resident artists.
"Diversity, inclusion, and excellence in form" would be my summation. One of the best shows I've seen there yet, powerful but with an enjoyable down to earth humanity.
Left - Erika Whitney
Right - Elizabeth Gilfilen
Erika Whitney
Erika Whitney - "Cosmic Unkown". Acrylic and oil on plaster cloth over panel, 10x12x1.5 inches
Erika Whitney - "Stick To Your Own Circles". Acrylic and oil on plaster cloth over panel, 8x13x1.5 inches.
Elizabeth Gilfilen - "Antidote #2". Oil on canvas, 20x16 inches.
Laura Von Rosk
These captured my attention.
Laura Von Rosk - "Frog Pond". Oil on wood, 10x10 inches.
I have a thing about Frog Ponds. Famously fell into one in somebody's garden face-first during a family retreat about age six, and had to be pulled out by my ankles. We still laugh about it, and I've been enamored with the idea of humans terraforming little ponds for frogs to populate ever since. Did my own series of Frog Pond paintings for a few years on old tree core sections. And they float!
Laura Von Rosk - "Peeper Pond". Oil on wood, 10x10 inches.
Laura Von Rosk - "Spring Pond". Oil on wood, 10x10 inches.
Jacin Giordano - "Cutpainting 112 (Spider On Acid)". Acrylic on wood, 24x24 inches.
Artwork is apparently the result of layering colors over and over at fixed depths, then carving into it with some sort of instrument to excavate the various sections depicting the design.
Jacin Giordano
Jacin Giordano
Jacin Giordano - "Cutpainting 108". Acrylic on wood, 14x11 inches.
Cat Crotchett
Cat Crotchett - "Blossom 2". Acrylic on canvas, 9x9 inches.
Cat Crotchett - "Blossom 3". Acrylic on canvas, 13x13 inches.
Louise Mandumbwa
These paintings are downright sculptural in nature, like carved statues made of light and pigment. It is the canvas areas left blank which make the faces feel three dimensional, an intuitive skill set which I can only marvel at and hopefully learn from. My figurative method has always been rooted in outline of form. This is about carving the form out of the canvas with swatches of paint which culminate in a fully developed form.
Louise Mandumbwa - "Khulu". Oil on Arches painting paper stretched over cradled panel, 12x12 inches.
Louise Mandumbwa - "Nigel". Hard molding paste and oil on canvas, 12x12 inches.
Louise Mandumbwa - "Louise Seyala". Liquid graphite on Stonehenge paper stretched over cradled panel, 12x12 inches.
My favorite of them; And you have me at Stonehenge paper. Will have to learn more about this!
Louise Mandumbwa - "And Perhaps this too is a Constellation or something like it". Duralar on cradled plexiglass (detail), 12x12 inches.
Emily Zuch - "Split". Oil on paper, 38x32.5 inches.
You have me at the upside down strawberry container. And light sources.
Elisabeth Condon - "Flower". Acrylic paint and mediums on linen, 53x48 inches.
I get birds out of these? and doubt that a brush ever touched the surface. Incredible.
Elisabeth Condon
Huang Hua-Chen - "A Tree Planted by the Waters". Oil on canvas, 29.5 inches (diameter).
Artist knows something about greens.
Laura Duerwald - Title is "Traces #1". Acrylic, botanical dyes, and muslin canvas over cradled panel, 20x16 inches.
Wen Meng-Yu - "Wild Plants". Acrylic on canvas, 48x31 inches.
Wen Meng-Yu
"The sensuality of curve" was what I thought.
Huang Hua-Chen - "Study of Fluidity". Acrylic on canvas, 77x54.75 inches.
That same emerald (Jenkins?) green from the circular painting, this time getting to star in its own huge epic. The forcefulness of that swoosh of color at center fed energy into my soul. I walked away from this painting revitalized and ready to go home to paint.
Huang Hua-Chen
I'm getting a face out of this now? with the nose as a triangular form at lower left and the curved line almost dead center as a closed eyelid. Didn't notice at the time, was too intoxicated by the dynamic movement & flow.
Huang Hua-Chen
Not a misfire - Was interested in the boundary between the darker zone at right and the lighter surface towards in the center.
Eleanor Conover - "Over Under". Oil, acrylic, graphite, dye and bleach on linen with beveled pine, 50x37.5 inches.
I had to peer closer at this one, wondering if that was some sort of appropriated shield or coat of arms painted over as a found surface. Nope.
Eleanor Conover
Eleanor Conover
Mark Joshua Epstein - "The Potential for Redemption (in every moment)". Acrylic on artist made resin/fiberglass panel, 36x27x3 inches
Mark's latticework resulted in a moire pattern distortion on my fone screen which induced a sensation of vertigo, like driving over a really high bridge.
Mark Joshua Epstein
Mark Joshua Epstein
... Was trying to deduce how the layering of solid forms was harmonized to appear flat from across the room. I still don't know.
Laura Williams
Left - "Do Not Lick The Wallpaper: Tales of the Domestic". Acrylic on board, 12x9 inches.
Right - "A Quiet Autumn/Fall Day in October". Acrylic on board, 12x9 inches.
Laura Williams
Looks like the cover of an album by Jane's Addiction, one of my favorite bands - Hope that's not Perry there all hung up to dry! Egads.
Etty Yaniv
Left - "Hunting by the Pond". Acrylic with collage on canvas, 12x12 inches.
Right - "Morning by the Pond". Acrylic with collage on wood, 8x8 inches.
Lower - "Before Twilight by the Pond (with color instructions)". Acrylic with collage on canvas, 8x8 inches.
Etty Yaniv
I would like to spend a week there doing absolutely nothing, please.
Cristi Rinklin - "Collapse". Oil and acrylic on Dibond, 30x48 inches.
I want to take a painting class taught by this person. I have no idea what we are looking at and it messed with my head. Must have studied it for half an hour over the course of my visit, still cannot fathom what we are seeing. The mystery of the work crossed with the perfection of its execution was startling, and it is my privilege to share a look at it with readers of this blog.
Marcello Pope - "School Clothes". Acrylic on canvas, 40x30 inches.
Marcello Pope.
I believe we saw a work at the AIR barn by him as well? Has the word "Herbie" on it and made me think of the Love Bug. Playful nature to this work that made me think of a puzzle before it was put together, and I like how the masses of paint violate the smoothness of the rest.
Maeve D'Arcy
Left - "RINSE". Acrylic on panel, 12x12 inches.
Right - "Foundations". Acrylic on panel, 12x12 inches.
Maeve D'Arcy
... And I thought my starfields had lots of dots.
Maeve D'Arcy
Yeah I know. I go to people's nice art shows and end up taking pix of the lights. All those nice paintings on the wall and I'm spending data space on their track system, or how the works were tagged, or where the benches are placed & at what angle. Don't even have a gallery anymore and I still do it.
Also, I'd clipped this from the opening summation, didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea & meant as a Carl Sagan inspired complement - "Good art show to pack into a satellite and launch towards another galaxy, to demonstrate to anyone out there who we are and what we're capable of." Once we're done with it on our planet, of course. Or maybe they'll just find the blog.
Show hangs through September 1 2023, open to the public during the facility's regular business hours. Call ahead or check their webs to be sure. Go!!
