Bold Abstracts

Bold, simple abstracts at times seem to be the height of luxury; mental luxury.

Take this painting on paper by Lisa Hamilton as an example. Simply titled "012006", 2006 acrylic on paper, 22" x 28", it immediately pulls you in and then holds you still. It is bold and dynamic and yet peaceful, bright and clean. There is so much personality to this work.

The image is from her web site, where you'll find lots more to entertain your psyche.

It's always a treat to see how an artist progresses; to see the many twists and turns in their oeuvre as they mature. After you view all her other work, treat yourself by looking at the images in the category - "paintings from a previous body of work". You'll be surprised.

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Big Wave/Good Ride

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Postmodern Pointillism

The Hounds of Ill Gotten
Were Baying at Noon.
Someone Needed
Their Reward
Too Soon.

Underneath all those dots is a distant castle with ferocious, purple hounds in the foreground. As I did the dots of color, I thought about my boyhood home in Pennsylvania. For example, I can show you where the brick fireplace is in the backyard and the horse chestnut tree out front. On top of that, my friends convinced me to swap the panels, left to right. And there you have it.

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(Have no idea why the thumbs won't enlarge.)

Dean Aldrich - Master Artist

Is it just me, or do we all picture ourselves, from time to time, as great and famous artists ? And in those moments of reverie don't we look upon certain works as being totally representative of our oeuvre ?



I've always considered this work - "Roundelay" - a touchstone.
Gesso on a panel is terrific; it just begs to be written on. So I framed it from behind to give it preeminence. It has one thin coat and as the years pass the tone will change. The word puzzle says; "certain you were part of the play". Then there's the pieces of collage, cut from things that I've painted, either on paper or canvas and some are second generation collage. There's the strip of newspaper across the bottom with what looks like the title - "Heavenly Pieces of Devilishly FUN".

For me, this totally represents what I think is unique to me; sort of a primer on my oeuvre..

The World At Night

This is at once sublimely beautiful and totally scary.




Found this on Neatorama.com

Dotty & Delicious ?

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Notice how this painting immediately makes so much sense and then it becomes mysterious. It took a little bit till I saw the man in the bed. What's so cool is how this scene is just casually put on top of the picture of the bedroom and it just doesn't matter that it's all a-kilter. In fact that's what makes it so charming. That's what makes it work.

This is Farhad Moshiri; born in Shiraz, Iran, he lives and works in Tehran, Iran.

He has several interesting and different oeuvres that you might want to check out. But in this particular series he applies his paint by using a cake-icing dispenser, so the outline of the characters is 3-D and ornate. Pretty cool, eh ?

The image is from Daneyal Mahmood Gallery where you'll find more images and information on this interesting artist.

Iranian Gestural

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The artist is Koorosh Shishegaran.

And the image, "Abstract Still Life" is from Dedeh.com where you'll find more of his work.

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What A Wonderful World

Speaking of a rut; whens the last time you went for a hike. No, not some big production with lots of planning; just a whim and an hour or two in some strange place.

It's always a wonder and pleasure to visit the Kaukasus Blog by Hans and Nutsa. What we have here in this part of NY State are NOT mountains - just foothills. If you want to see real mountains and wildness from that other side of the planet, visit their blog.

And if you were wondering just where in the world the Caucasus Mountains were, the top image is from the site called Views of the Earth. You'll have a lot of fun seeing the world from space. The images enlarge real nice. I'm always fascinated by mountains. They seem so different and strange from that perspective.

The World's Gone Dotty

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This, of course, is the work of none other than Yayoi Kusama. And do we call this painting or sculpture or installation ? Either way, it's really nice to see the world in a different way and imagine the possibilities. It's so easy to always be in the groove, which is usually more of a rut. Things like this spark the mind and tickle the soul.

The image is from Universes In Universe where you can see 2 more.

See a different view of the trees here.

I Want To Fly

Turn up the volumn; the music makes it even more dramatic.

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New Exhibit

by Marc Katano , titled EURHYTHMIC A series of large scale paintings, is at Cheryl Plavin Fine Arts from May 14 - June 28, 2008; 13 Jay Street, New York, NY.

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View a slide show of the Exhibit here.

The image, "Straight Line", is from the Exhibit.

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Postmodern Trompe l'oeil

What you're looking at is an oil painting, not a work of collage. Titled "Blue Eye" 2006, this work really makes you think you're looking at an altogether cool looking collage made of tinted and colored papers and masking tape. I liked his work before I found out that these are oil paintings - which makes this all the more fascinating

Both images are from his site; KeesGoudzwaard.org.

You'll also find his work at the Xeno Gallery where you can see installation shots of his paintings.

Ingo Meller

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I guess this is as good a time as any to introduce you to Ingo Meller and what will seem like some very strange paintings. This guy's pretty cool because of his totally cerebral way of approaching painting. Ingo was born in 1955, lives in Cologne and studied in Germany with Eduardo Paolozzi and Daniel Spoerri. quote "His art education was centered on sculpture and the legacy of Marcel Duchamp. After graduating in the early 1980s, he received a grant from the German government and used it, oddly enough, to study old-master paintings firsthand. He traveled throughout Europe and the United States, visiting all the major museums. In a recent conversation, Meller told me that he tried to pay attention to how the paint looked in and of itself, independently of the image that it created." unquote. from BNET. This bit of information right here, is enough to make me pause and want to do some research. You can also read other short articles here and here.
But I digress.

Ingo's oeuvre is totally about 3 simple things; the canvas (linen), paint straight from the tube, and simple brush strokes. His unstretched and unframed canvases are cut about the size of a pillowcase and primed with transparent acrylic medium. (And eventually Velcroed to the walls.) He then loads his brush, which is about a fifth as wide as the canvas, with dollops of oil paint straight from the tube and proceeds to make his simple strokes, which are usually spare. The names of the paints become the titles of the paintings.

Personally, I've always had this "thing" for the names of paint. I'd much prefer to pick a paint (to buy or apply) solely on the merits of it's name and how it sounded or affected my emotions. There's many a painting where each of the colors used, were chosen because of the description or name on the tube. So for this particular aspect of his oeuvre, he's my hero. Actually I admire his whole train of thought; the way he's completely separated and respected the three basic components of painting. It's like he's giving equal respect to these elements by keeping it all to a very factual minimum.
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The two images are from Galerie Nordenhake, where you'll find more images and info.
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For seven other images of his work, go to Cheim & Read.
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And for a lovely automatic slide show of a few of his works and a shot of his studio with the paints all lined up, go here.

Eye Catching, Eye Candy

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This is Hsiao Chin. Quite a bit of his work does catch your eye, but I think these two are real Hits.

Both images are from Artnet.

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Blobs and Drips

And finally, in our Looks-like-Cy Twombly game, is Contestant #3 - Shahriar Ahmadi.

He's the youngest of the three, but is certainly no sloucher. Although Born in 1979 in Iran, he's shown in 50 solo and group exhibitions, in Iran, USA, London and China , and gotten awards.

With him, it's not so much simulation or emulation (there's certainly no confusing him with Twombly) as it is certain recognizable elements of that particular oeuvre. For example we have a fascinating green blob that dominates, complete with drips and then a few other supporting colors and gestures and what looks like unreadable script at the top. All of these are typical elements of a Twombly painting. But Shahriar makes these his own and for his own reasons.

This image is from and you can see other examples of his work at the B21 Gallery.

You'll find two additional images here.

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Honest Flattery

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Contestant #2 - Nelda Gilliam

Born in Texas, she studied fine art at the University of Houston and the Alfred C. Glassell School of Art in Houston and moved to Dubai in 1998.

You'll want to read the interview with her HERE. It pretty much fills in all the blanks. There seems to be a real sincere way in which she developed her oeuvre and I salute her for that.

She has her own BLOG where you'll find plenty of images of her work.

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Top image is from Panoptikon.

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Second image is from Nelda Gilliam (blog).

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Cy Twombly Look-A-Like

Contestant #1 - Fereydoun Ave

I had just recently discovered Cy Twombly and was naturally drawn to work that is somewhat similar to his. Fereydoun Ave has a unique relationship with Cy that I'm sure colors his own oeuvre. I'll let you read the article Here.

This image is from his show Lal Dahlias at the B21 Gallery where you'll find lots of images from that show.

Read a review and see images from his Show, Persian Miniatures 2006: A set of fifteen mixed media works with photography, at the Silk Road Gallery.

Also in Tehran Avenue.com, is a review and images of his Show, The Four Seasons II, at the 13 Vanak Gallery.

And you'll find an interesting interview in Time Out Dubai, here.

For an image of one of his collage works, go here.
When you see this piece from 1998, you'll probably understand my comments in the first paragraph.
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Alessandro Algardi

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I'm always stunned and amazed when encountering work by Alessandro Algardi. How gutsy and bold and yet completely simple and serene. From the looks of it, he must just use a tool and write in the paint; creating a relief of sorts. Just can't find anything about him in English. It seems that any site with his work is always in Italian. And you can't Google him or do any other kind of other search because the results are always about the other famous Alessandro Algardi who was born in 1598.

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Both of these images are from Glaucocavaciuti.com.

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And for a wider variety of images you can go to Artantide.com.

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Sydney Yeager

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Swirls of color that record the gestural activity of an artist who's cut loose from the grid. There seems to be a restrained exuberance in the work of Texas artist Sydney Philen Yeager. And there's definitely a lot more flow to her recent work that those, pre 2000. It's always interesting to see where an artist has "come from" in their oeuvre. Some artists make radical changes and drop back and put, while other slowly hone their skills. This is another great example of an artist finding a very particular niche and then letting her work evolve. You can read her Statement here, but for me it doesn't do much to fully explain all the arm-swinging gestural activity going on here. There are plenty of images of her paintings out there and a whole lot are the large open swirls, while others are smaller and more controlled. And still others are akin to colorful renditions of chop suey and then a few are more rigid brush strokes that still convey the feeling of motion.

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The installation shot is of the Exhibit - Pleats and Volutes, April 2006 at the Holly Johnson Gallery. The image is from their Website where you'll find 6 more photos. They also have several pages of examples of her work and you'll see what I mean about the variations.

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The top, right painting - "Flux Loops" 2003, is from the McMurtrey Gallery.

And they have 7 other examples of her work here.

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The bottom image - "Parchment Circle" is from the dberman Gallery. (click on the painting and see 8 examples of her work) See her Resume, Statement and more work here. And there's 13 paintings from the Particles Of Order Show in 2004 at dberman Gallery.