"Against The Tide" - Online Exhibition and Book

Sharon Butler of Two Coats of Paint has posted an online exhibition, featuring a great line-up of artists. An exhibition book is also available here. The show includes Mary Addison Hackett's amazing painting "Two Oceans Full of Love", and work by many other exciting artists. I am really blown away by Magnolia Laurie's work.

Asynchronous Salon - installation

Last weekend Mary Addison Hackett was in town to help install Asynchronous Salon, and to perform her wall painting. I put her up in my newly converted artist's studio fantasy suite, complete with cat, clamp reading light, and sweet scents of linseed oil.
The Marsh Gallery at Herron School of Art is a beautiful space. It's on the east end of the main hall, and this show will be up through August 26, with a closing reception on the the 26th, 5 - 8 p.m.



Steven LaRose's series "The Barely Comprehensible Realm".


*MAH photo
*MAH photo
*MAH photo Nomi Lubin's collages. More work at "Paintings" and "Not Paintings".

*MAH photo My recent shaped panels paintings.

*MAH photo *MAH photo Mary Addison Hackett's Pool Paintings from Fluid: The Elusive Chapters from the Passage of Time.

*MAH photo

Mary Addison Hackett's alla prima wall painting which she did while listening to Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs." The album is 64:07 in length, as is the painting, per MAH's pre-established rules. A videotape of the painting will run throughout the exhibition.

*MAH photo "The Suburbs, 64:07"

Spacial weirdness. Ahem...above.

Until next time......

Virginia Yount

Electric Beach House (for Car Salesmen)

gouache and mixed media on paper

22" x 30"

2010

Miracle Mine (for Non-Believers)

gouache on paper

22" x 30"

2010

Climate Control (for Shut-ins)

gouache and holographic scratch-paper on paper

22" x 30"

2010

Protect what I want from me

Oil on canvas

2007

Words can't describe how exciting I find this work by Virginia Yount. Thanks for the link, Artnicks.

UPDATE: I just had the pleasure of meeting Virginia and viewing one of her paintings in person. Thanks to an unusual chain of events, along the lines of "friend's neighbor's daughter-in-law who happens to be in town this week", we met just five minutes from my house. I got to see the fabulous "Hasta La Vista".

Steven LaRose blog post

Steven LaRose, The Wise Men of Gotham, 2011
Oil on acrylic on wood, 6 x 7 inches

(click here for larger image)

Fish or Cut Bait: Repercussions: "Steven LaRose, The Wise Men of Gotham , 2011 Oil on acrylic on wood, 6 x 7 inches (click on image for a larger view) So there I am. It to..."

Asynchronous Salon

Nomi Lubin

Mary Addison Hackett

Carla Knopp

Steven Larose

Asynchronous Salon

Herron School of Art and Design, Marsh Gallery

August 2011

Artist of the Month: Steve LaRose

Steven LaRose is featured artist at Bodies in Space, and gives an excellent description of his painting process.

Artist of the Month: Steve LaRose

Kurt Knobelsdorf

Thanks MW Capacity for introducing Kurt Knobelsdorf. Show info here. Be sure to scroll through to the last few images here.

Polly Apfelbaum

Gun Club, 2002

Last Wednesday, Polly Apfelbaum gave an excellent lecture at Herron School of Art and Design. I had not really examined her work before. She took us through just enough of her process, that the unexplainable stuff fell right into place as well. It was great.

Nozkowski at The Pace Gallery

Thomas Nozkowski: Recent Work at The Pace Gallery. What can I say? I always end up serial-posting this guy. This link has installation views and pics of some of the work.

This New York Times article goes into the post-painting drawings and their process. It links to this slide show, "Drawing to Cool Down" of paintings with their subsequent drawings.

Nozkowski inspires me for what artists can do, and also for what people can do.

Nozkowski, Interview excerps

Excerps from Nozkowski's Brooklyn Rail interview with John Yau:

"Conciousness is complicated...."

"Ideas of perfection are usually based on what we have seen in the past, on what we already know. You can give anything a shot, any idea--no matter how odd or impossible seeming."

"...I don't believe success in a project like this can be measured by how easily readable my image is to other people--it is instead measured by how visually rich and complex the painting is. The picture will be of John, but it is really about what I can find in trying to see him."

"Improvisation, however, is essential to my work. I want my ideas to be located at the tip of my brush. I want my materials to talk back to me. I want to be surprised."

"I've talked about how I like painting best when it turns a little homely, turns away from the grandiose and opts for simple desire. To really want to possess something and to be willing to do anything to get it will take you pretty far. That's the reason so much outsider painting looks so great."

"This is the golden age for art-making. Not only do we have permission to paint anything in any way we like, but we also have audiences who are interested in playing the game along with us, willing to try to follow our ideas. In our studio life we are not only free--we are meaningfully free. Make a mark on the canvas. This mark can be said to represent anything I want--no problem. The success or failure of the painting has now shifted over from the subject to the strength and intelligence of the painter's work. This was always true, of course, but now it is self-evident. Keeping honest is the hardest part: If a mark can be anything, why bother grounding it at all?"

"One of the nice things about grounding works in the real world is that you don't need a position--you have a place. Willful eccentricity can be a real problem. It's not a high art crime, but certainly a misdemeanor--tiring stuff."

"Well, you know, there are people who want to understand visual language as something akin to advertising images, stop signs, and stick figures--the most banal graphic communication. This sense of communication is pretty bad, ridiculous conventions that shut off the possibility of really seeing and understanding something. At the best it's common denominator stuff--at worst it's authoritarian."

Links

Links from MW Capacity:
Thomas Nozkowski at Brooklyn Rail. This excellent interview with John Yau is all the rage amongst the painty bloggers. It's really good.

"Teaching Close Encounters" by Matthew Ballou When I want them to think about the tension between intuition and skill, the psychology of the creative mind, or the value of actively negotiating materials (as opposed to the preciousnous and creative constipation they so often exhibit), I break out Close Encounters.

Kim Dorland: New Material at Mike Weiss - good comment thread at MW Cap.

Link Branch

Ken Kewley, Chocolate Cake with Orange Slices, 2000, 8" x 10", oil on panel

Ken Kewley - writing on color - posted on Painting Perception blog. Re-posted and brought to my attention by MW Capacity, where it was commented on by Undercover Painter. Undercover Painter blog has the finest running sequence of artwork postings I've seen in some time, including Norbert Prangenberg. More work by Norbert from show at Betty Cuningham Gallery.

Norbert Prangenberg, FUR CASPAR (01.07.09) 2009

...handed to me on a plate

"Peak" paintings by Julia Kuhl courtesy of frosch & portmann gallery........

"Mount" paintings by Carla Knopp.

Julia's are so beautifully distilled to the essence of their painted imagery.

Mine seem self-indulgent and lacking the confidence to be simple. ....or to simply be.

Lately I've been pondering the honesty of my work. It seems I'm still overly influenced by external considerations. I really do best when I go hyper-insular. That's where the beautiful shit is, and it's my job to go find it. It is not my job to make sure everyone appreciates it. It's not my job to limit my findings to that which can be easily consumed by a mildly engaged audience. It's not my job to devise social constructs under the guise of art.

Go see all of Julia's work. I really like it and it deserves to be presented as its own post. But it's also such a weirdly direct lesson for me, that I had to compare. It's both devasting and exciting.

Mary Addison Hackett in Nashville, TN

I had a wonderful visit with artist Mary Addison Hackett last weekend, and she's posted a great photo essay of the trip on her blog, Process. MAH recently moved to Nashville, TN from L.A., and we so we went gallery hopping on their artwalk night. I also had the pleasure of seeing her paintings in person.

Great Things are a Stirrin'

A meaningful review of an excellent show.

Brenda Goodman Work 1990-2010 at John Davis Gallery.

Nomi Lubin Pompom Jive

Nomi Lubin, 3 1/2" x 6"

Stephen Stoller Auction

39th Street, Hell's Kitchen, 2009, oil on linen, 22" x 16"

Le Rendez-Vous, 8th Avenue, New York City, 1993, oil on linen, 21" x 29"

Sale 2216, June 8, 2010 10:30 at Swann Auction Galleries

Spring Ahead

Nomi Lubin

Collage, 4" x 4"

Brenda Goodman

Burial, 52" x 56", Oil on wood 2010

One of my favorite artists has just posted new work on her new blog! Brenda Goodman Art and Images.

Luis Coig Reyes

Other Important Things, 8 1/2" x 11", watercolor and graphite
Baby Jesus and the Larva, 2' x 2', watercolor

I recently found this wonderful work by Luis Coig Reyes, via his currently in stasis blog, Corpus Callosum. There I am included on a "like" list of artists that is pretty humbling. Wow. I'll be raiding this list for upcoming Rocktown posts.

Be sure to view the 102 Tiny American Paintings on Luis' site. Great accompanying statement. These are inspiring, they make me want to re-path my work.