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Friday, January 14, 2011

Another large gap. Significantly longer than the time between the two previous posts. I sometimes think I should update this more frequently. I enjoy looking for contemporary artists who can help me in some way; or with less me me me in mind, can help others. Consistency is exhausting and the search for painters I like nowadays even more so. I'm working on that.

This artist is named Noah Davis. He works with a number of ideas, most obviously being that of figuration and African American identity. There's a video of him online at one of this exhibition receptions talking and meeting people he will probably never see again. In that video he describes a painting with Egyptian mythology in mind so there is more to the paintings than black guy, black girl, and here is what I am saying about that. I'm not one for complicated things so that seemingly limited concept is fine with me. I like a few of his paintings and don't like most of his other ones. These ones I liked. The first one seems to involve a more intimate painting session with the figure which in the end resulted in a structurally sound portrait. This deviates in other paintings and a whispy, airy figurative presence dominates. Lots of strange, flimsy compositions and mistakable drips, I can't say I'm a fan of those. But these, these are v. nice.

Richard's Reply
2008
Oil and acrylic on canvas
60 x 62 inches

Single Mother With Father In the Picture

2007-2008
Oil and acrylic on canvas
30 x 40 inches

I like Marlene Dumas. Maya Bloch likes Marlene Dumas. I am fond of Bloch's use of saturation and desaturation and using that to indicate depth of space as well as her use of multiple figures placed around a table, a theme she uses frequently. Looking at her pictures, I will consider the use of more transparencies and turp heavy mark making. Her use of color is interesting in that there is an abundant use of grays and middle hued colors dulling things down a bit but occasionally supported by vibrant colors used with even more vibrant colors. She can draw and I like that.

Untitled, (Seated figure)
2010
Mixed media on canvas
36 x 48 inches

Untitled, (Reclining figure)
2010
acrylic on canvas
59 x 47 in

I do not enjoy a lot of Catherine Ryan's new work. It is a mixture of charcoal and paint with more use of charcoal than paint and it all looks to cutesy for me to take. I'm interested in her older work on her website, the ones that use big flat divisions, big shapes and good patterns perhaps a little too graphically. Those things I like but the transition from that to her new work took a strange turn with a less than favorable result. Her use of the photograph is evident and can be somewhat clumsy at times but overall, mostly I think it works. Seeing her draw a face or two would be interesting, though.

Two Boys in Costume
acrylic and charcoal on canvas
48 x 60 inches

Two Boys
acrylic and charcoal on canvas
24 x 18 inches

I found an artist in a magazine but lost the piece of paper on which I wrote his name and still can't find it online. Putting the tags "gay" "bear" "art" into an image search doesn't direct me to the images of the art that I wanted but in my hopeless task, I managed to find another artist just by chance. He is also involved with, or maybe only comments on, gay culture, specifically that of the bear variety. Nolan Hendrickson does some things I like here. There is a use of very flat shapes drawn rather idiosyncratically and crudely. I'm not sure of the medium in most of his work as it is not listed on his website but most likely acrylic paint and possibly marker are used. Harsh diagonals in the paintings remind me of Kitaj, specifically an early painting of his titled "The Ohio Gang."

Gentle Leader
2008

Rest Area
2008

Catherine Kehoe teaches at Massachusetts College of Art. Her work revolves around perception and the ability to see. In Kehoe's case, this involves self portraiture, still life, and the subject of distant relatives she has never met. Her work is obviously comparable to Uglow and other Coldstream students who take on their work with meticulous attention, though likely maybe not as mathematical in its approach but just as serious in its capability to understand. The majority of her still life work isn't too interesting to me but its the way she handles paint in her portraiture that deserves praise of some kind. Her "Direct Descent" is also very worthy of attention.

Biala bluzka 3
2005
oil on panel
8 x 8 inches

Funeral
2006
oil on panel
11 x14 inches

9 months more maybe but others soonish I hope.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

More artists and more unwarranted criticism of their work.

Hello there. It has been a while since I posted anything on this blog. A few new paintings, a few new updates on my website but as usual this website remains relatively dormant and ignored.
My last post consisted of artists who where mostly new to me. I received some feedback from various people claiming that that post helped them in one way or another or at least found it interesting and as I said before in my previous post, I'd like to do that again. So I say:

Adrian Ghenie is an artist that came to my attention by way of a friend a while ago. I looked at a few of his paintings and forgot about them. Not because he lacks what I look for in painting or anything of that sort but I simply just did not remember his name. He came to my attention through another friend upon discovered him in a past issue of Modern Painters. I've seen a lot of his work in other magazines as well and think he is going to be one of the more prominant painters in the future. His is represented by Nicodim Gallery in L.A. though he lives in works in Berlin and Romania, or one of those. That gallery is mostly interesting. There seems to be a recurring aesthetic for some of the artists represented there. His new paintings seem very different to me. A link to paintings from his solo show can be found through the gallery's website. Though most are quite good, some are hit and miss. But enough of that and a few of Ghenie's paintings:

Pie Fight Study 2
2008
oil on canvas
55 X 59 cm

The Nightmare
2007
oil on canvas
145 X 200 cm

Matthias Weischer is a German artist that mostly paints interiors. A few older paintings, around 2001 or so, seem to be the better out of most that I have seen. I stumbled upon a video on Youtube with what I assume to be is recent work and the majority of it was just not good. They consisted of a new kind of idea with semi-emerging figures, sometimes abstracted and displayed in a collage-like manner existing in interiors that aren't quite as good as older work. I think more and more about it and I feel that judging and expecting someone's current work to be something that it was a decade or more ago is unfair. Maybe not unfair but something that I think is weird. It is important to evolve and do something new so I'm sure Matthias does not care what I think and is only doing what he feels is right, so that is that. I do like how specific the interiors are. Here are the good ones, or as I see them:

Untitled
2002
oil on canvas
102 cm x 120cm

Interior
2003
oil on canvas
75 cm x 96 cm

Cliffton Peacock is a strange name. And it does not surprise me that these are strange paintings painted by a painter with a strange name. The work that I have seen of his has been of portraits mainly, a couple of figurative ones, and one with a boy and a goat and a sun. They are weird, funny, idiosyncratic and above all, pretty good paintings. Peacock seems to be able to convey a sense of light on planes of the face without being silly about it, while simultaneously creating subtitles with color that I would feel funny about painting. Sometimes dull, dull colors that work. Sponsored by the Alpha Gallery in Boston. Given the recent handful of galleries that have closed due to the time, I'm excited to learn that this gallery still exists but disappointed to discover that I just missed his show. Here is the Peacock:

Untitled
2009
oil on linen
39 1/2 x 38 inches

Untitled
2009
oil on linen
37 5/8 x 40 inches

John Nieto is the name. He uses mediums that are not just limited to paint. Those being the giclee and serigraph. His use of color is interesting and I feel that it can be of use to me. Some of the work reminds me of Raimonds Staprans, the frontality and color, and some Rick Bartow those work I mentioned in the previous post 7 months ago. Maybe not Bartow as much, maybe just the ideas they share; Native American culture, wildlife, etc. But I did think of him initially. There is a lot of work on his website so it is difficult to just pick two but here they are:

Buffalo Medicine
Giclee printed on canvas
24 inches x 30 inches

Grizzly Greeting
Serigraph
26 inches 43 inches

Up next is a guy with a great name: Folkert Dejong. He makes sculptures using a variety of materials including styrofoam and polyurethane plastic. Most of his work alludes to some type of historical moment, or figure, occasionally commenting on political power or always commenting on political power. One of those. There are a select few pieces I have seen but the ones that I have are definitely good. A good deal of his work uses strange colors: whitish blues, florescent green, bright orange. It seems to me there is a degree of painting involved with his sculptures, or at least an awareness of it, and from what I can gauge, I am reminded of German Expressionism, particularly Kirchner.They have an enormity to them. Some of them are large, with one in particular touching the roof of a gallery. They are creative, quite terrifying, and insane and I'd love to see one in person. Again, hard to choose just two. Here they are:

The Death March: My Blood, My Oil, My Ass
2007
Styrofoam, adhesive

The Shooting At Watou
2006

There are things I like about Nina Chanel Abney's work. There is a flatness and use of bright colors that I like, patterns, etc. Her paintings without multiple figures seem empty but there are enough interesting parts in there anyway. There are a few contemporary artists whose work I can compare her to aesethically and in regards to employing a large quanity of humans in a vague but kind of specific setting. The comparrison really doesn't matter so much and is more of a superficial one, as Abney paints in an entirely different way. I find myself wondering about flat color and just how much of an impact it can have in a painting. Abney is young. Her paintings are few. They seem inventive and they work in their own way so whatever my opinion might be towards a specific painting of hers, I can at least applaud that. Nina's paintings:

Your Gig Is Up
2009
Acrylic on canvas

Paradise Found
2009
Acrylic on canvas

That's it for now. An update in 6 more months.

Friday, November 13, 2009

A few artists and unwarranted criticism of their work.

I'm working on a few things and expect them to be online in a couple of weeks or so. But for this blog, I thought I'd do something different. You can still go to www.stevencarvalho.com. And you should. Go there.

I've been looking at the same books, or the same artists for months, years, now. I still have a lot to learn from them, sure but I've been trying to find other artists. Mostly ones that work now and haven't been dead for a couple of decades. I've been looking at some new painters lately and wanted to share them. So here they are.

Brad Guarino is this guy's name. Some of his paintings are interesting. There is some stuff found in these paintings I'd probably never think of doing. I feel this is his best one. They get a little bit too weird and tastelessly idiosyncratic for me. But there are lots of things he does in an interesting way. I'm pretty sure it's his most recent and maybe, hopefully he continues to do this type of painting, in the future. His website is www.bradguarino.com. Has a lot of past paintings, prints and drawings on it.

An Imprecise Center of Gravity

oil on canvas(diptych), 48x90"

The following painting is by a painter by the name of Jennifer Warpole. I found her by accident on the Pennsylvania of the Academy of the Fine Arts website under the MFA section. I assume it's this year that she graduated and the link wasn't filed under past MFA graduates. Whatever the case, this painting is one of the four paintings of hers I found on that website, and possibly the best one for colors, and composition alone. What do I know really. Seems like a somewhat comfortable and uninhibited way of painting. To have that kind of freedom with paint. Nice. The site doesn't indicate the medium or title or year it was painted. And I actually can't find anything else about her online either so this is it I guess.

This guy's named was given to me by a friend, Pete. Thanks Pete. His name is Rick Bartow. He's a Native American artist and paints, prints, and creates work about themes and concepts regarding his heritage. Some of his work reminds me of Bacon and Baskin. There are a lot of good ones on his website, or the gallery's website so it was hard to pick one. His paintings, drawings and prints all feel similar and there is a noticeable crossover between the mediums. Good job Rick. This is a 22 year old guy who you will never know existed congratulating you on your work. Important.

When Women Were Doctors

2006 Monoprint - monotype, 1/1
30 x 22 inches

The next artist is a prinkmaker and painter, Dasha Shiskin. I liked this piece the most which is why I picked it. If you have a problem with that, send me an email and I'll meet you behind the parking lot of a McDonald's on a half day to "talk about it". She is kind of young, obviously looks at a lot of Darger and early Kitaj, and hangs her work randomly and seeminly without reason. Lines. Recently had a solo show in NYC last month, which I didn't go to since I am never there. Zach Feuer Gallery's website has much more work of hers so you can get a better idea. That is a good net.

That only which is real and permanent is truly good

2009, acrylic, ink and conté on canvas, 82.63 x 96"

I do not know much about Paul Laffoley and his ideas. The most I know is that he lives in Cambridge, MA and paints these type of paintings. I'm attracted to the hard edges, lines and colors, and some compositions, of pretty much all of his paintings. They tend to get incredibly cluttered and hardly understandable. Which may or may not be related to what he wishes to convey conceptually. Anyway, you can look at them. Or if you don't want to look at them, that is good too.

I, Robur, Master of the World, 1968
Oil, acrylic, vinyl lettering on canvas
73 1/2 x 73 1/2 in.

I very recently discovered Ryan Schneider's work. I can't really decided whether or not I enjoy this guy or kind of don't care. Actually, I enjoy it. Most of it anyway. Some things. Spatially, Schneider is interesting, usually creating this strangely distorted aerial perspective and flatness that kind of reminds me of Peter Blake's On The Balcony. Some of his paintings are just as awkard figuratively as Blake's early work and some of David Hockney's as well. The color is also something to be mentioned. There is a lot of his work on the Priska C. Juschka Gallery's website.

Against the Wash

Oil on canvas
72 x 48 in.
2009

Maybe you liked some of these artists. Either way, I will probably do this again in the future. Until next time.

Friday, October 23, 2009

A new website.

I might continue to use this blog. I'm still not sure. Either way, go to my new website that I made for my paintings.

www.stevencarvalho.com

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Some things.

Some time ago, I was featured alongside ten other artists for an exhibition titled This Collective Pull II. It was curated by Julie O'Boyle, Chris Sharp and Bea Modisett and was the second of its kind, with the first being held sometime back during June. Each show alternates in venue and artists. The show's main goal is to bring together Beverly based artists in an effort to establish a strong and fully functional community. This time, the exhibition was held in Julie and Chris' apartment who were great enough to offer their home as the space. My paintings Phil Spector and Ronnie Spector were featured in the show.

Phil Spector

Oil on paper
2009

Ronnie Spector
Oil on paper
2009

Apart from that show, this summer has been somewhat productive. Here are some things that went on during it.

Family Portrait
Acrylic and oil on canvas
2009

This past summer Peter Brefini ran around to create a drawing class for Montserrat alumni who wished to continue drawing the figure from a model without being enrolled in the school. The class was two hours long, directed entirely by the students, and paid for out of pocket to cover the cost of the model. The program was titled "Draw and Draft". You draw and then go out for a beer. Which no one did. The class mostly ran to fit around the summers hours of the school, which unforunately only limited it to the month of July. The entire thing would have not been possible without Pete and his hummus and lemonade. Thanks Pete. We met three separate times. I completed these two drawings during them.