Ben Quilty

March 26, 2013, 10:28 am

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Ben Quilty

Education

2001

Bachelor of Visual Communication, School of Design University of Western Sydney

1996

Certificate in Aboriginal Culture and History Monash University

1994

Bachelor of Visual Arts - Painting Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney

Ben Quilty paints like there is no tomorrow. In less than a decade he has become one of the country’s favourite artists. Quilty uses licks of luscious paint to conjure his subjects which include his beloved LJ Torana, his ‘wasted’ mates, his son Joe and more recently himself. His subjects are modern day memento mori; pithy reminders of our mortality and a call to live life in the fast lane.

Lisa Slade, Special Projects Curator, Art Gallery of South Australia

Ben Quilty

Ben Quilty paints relationships. His portraits of baby Joe, Grandpa and the tattooed Whytie are tributes to friends or family. But Quilty also considers technical relationships, specifically the teasing relationship between recognition of the paint medium and of the image. Appreciating paint as a tactile, sensual material and as means of representation, he engineers a balance of paint and portrait.

Quilty applies paint with broad gestural strokes, trowelled on to block out the broad masses of each face. The exuberant paintwork is held in check by contour and tone, which he uses to describe the features of his subjects. His meaty slabs of paint do not disguise the individuality of his sitters, which emerges through characteristic pose, familiar gesture or recognizable feature. Colour is called on to enliven the canvas and to create an emotive impression of character. Red and pink are used to evoke an emotional child, rainbow hues tell of a lively grandfather and simple browns and dark reds and blues slabs suggest the quiet strength of the tattooed man.

The very physicality of the thick paint plays a significant role in the recognition of the painting as an object and, simultaneously, as a building block for constructing likeness. Perception of the image tends to slide in and out of focus, moving between paint and likeness. Quilty negotiates likeness from the resistant materiality of the paint medium and the need for a recognisable image.

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Awards

2011 - Archibald Prize

2009 - Doug Moran National Portrait Prize

2007 - National Artists’ Self Portrait Prize, UQ Art Museum, Brisbane

2004 - Metro 5 Art Prize, Melbourne

2002 - Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship

1991 - Artexpress, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (Julian Ashton Summer School Scholarship recipient)

1989 - Rocks Painters Picnic, Age and Open Winner, Sydney Festival of the Arts

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Jitka Palmer

March 26, 2013, 11:03 am

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Jitka Palmer

My work is figurative, expressive and narrative and is inspired by stories and themes.

I love watching people, their body language and facial expressions.

I am on lookout for a special moments and situations accompanying every human activity.

Music, dance, theatre and poetry are my important sources of inspiration.

I use my sketchbooks, my books and my CDs as a valuable collection of raw material.

I draw on personal experiences, past and present, with a view to reflect the spontaneity of ordinary human life.

I pinch and coil large earthenware vessels and treat them as my canvases.

I use slips in very painterly way, building layers of colours with slips, oxides and stains.

I am trying to create tension between the outside and inside surface in order to give each piece another dimension.

I make hand built sculptural pieces from clay and porcelain.

I design and make hand cut mosaics and tiles.

My most recent sculptures are carved from Bath stone and Portland stone.

I draw and paint on paper, using ink, dry pastel and watercolour.

I try to combine my artistic skills with my knowledge of human anatomy and soul.

CURRICULUM VITAE

I was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

I grew up in Brno, Moravia, where I studied and qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1984.

I started teaching anatomy at Masaryk University in Brno and at the same time I set up my first studio.

In 1985 I moved to London and studied Ceramics at Croydon College of Art & Design.

After graduating I received a Crafts Council Setting-up Grant, which enabled me to start my studio in London.

For ten years I worked as a freelance artist, exhibiting both in England and abroad.

In 1995 I returned to the Czech Republic for three years, teaching English and Anatomy and Morphology for artists.

I also concentrated on developing my drawing and painting skills.

In 1998 I moved back to Britain and since that time I have been living and working in Bristol.

I taught master classes at Cardiff University, colleges in Bath and Bristol, workshops for children and adults.

I was involved with the CIP/Craftspace joint project in Birmingham, teaching women asylum seekers.

I have exhibited in Britain, Europe and USA.

My work is in private and public collections including Musee National de Ceramique, Paris.

I prefer working on a group of pieces linked by a central idea.

I like working towards solo and group exhibitions.

I take commissions and other challenges.

GRANTS AND AWARDS

Crafts Council Setting-Up Grant (1990) Grant for Anatomy and Morphology for Artists with Dr Vladimir Novotny (1997)

Marketing Bursary from South West Arts as a first time exhibitor at Chelsea Craft Fair (1999)

South West Arts and Crafts Award (1999)

South West Arts and Crafts Award (2002)

City of Bath College Stone Masonry Achievement Award (2010)

Jitka Palmer

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Eugène Begarat

March 27, 2013, 9:55 am

≫ Next: Abel Pann

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After joining the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs of Nice in 1960, Eugene Begarat studies at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts of Paris (1964).

He settles in Brittany, coming there under the influence of the Ecole de Pont-Aven and the Nabis, with artists such as Felix Valoton and Maurice Denis. He then embarks on a series of travels, during which he visits Italy, Tunisia, Marocco, Spain, before coming back to Paris and in 1993 Provence.

Following the traditions set up by the Post-Impressionists, his style shows close affinities with the work of Seurat and Signac, and he adopts the « divisionist » technique, juxtaposing colours in quick brushstrokes. He also likes working with bold areas of luminous colours, more reminiscent of the work of Paul Gaugin.

He has now settled a few kilometers from Vence, in Provence, and uses his garden as his main source of inspiration. One area has even been turned into a Japanese garden, witness to the Orientalist fascination also present in his œuvre. Other subjects include landscapes and marines, the main one remaining female figures.

Eugene Begarat is represented by galleries around the world : France, Switzerland, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Eugène BEGARAT

(né en 1943 à Nice)

En 1960, il entre à l'Ecole des Arts Décoratifs de Nice; en 1964 à l'Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Premiers séjours à Venise et à Murano.

Il s'installe en Bretagne et s'intéresse à l'Ecole de Pont-Aven et aux Nabis tels Félix Valoton et Maurice Denis.

Ensuite, c'est le début d'une série de voyages, Italie , Maroc, Tunisie, Espagne, pour retourner à Paris, dans l 'Oise, et en 1993 en Provence.

Peintre post-impressionniste, dans la lignée de Seurat et Signac, il se passionne pour la technique "divisionniste", véritable régal pour l'oeil.

Le réchauffement de sa palette évoque le Fauvisme. Ses toiles ne sont pas figées, au contraire, les personnages, les arbres, la mer sont en mouvement. Cette mobilité résulte de l'opposition deux à deux des couleurs primaires: rouge-bleu-jaune et des couleurs binaires: vert-orangé-violet.

Eugène Bégarat a une renommée internationale; il expose en France, comme à l'étranger (Suisse, Etats-Unis etc...) et figure dans les annuaires et guides Argus de la peinture : Schurr, Akoun, Bordas, Mayer.

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Abel Pann

March 27, 2013, 10:14 am

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Abel Pann

(1883-1963)

Abel Pann,(1883–1963), born Abba Pfeffermann in Latvia or in Kreslawka, Vitebsk, Belarus,sources vary, was a European Jewish artist who spent most of his adult life in Jerusalem.

Early career and war paintings

Pann studied the fundamentals of drawing for three months with the painter Yehuda Pen of Vitebsk, who also taught Marc Chagall. In his youth, he traveled in Russia and Poland, earning a living mainly as an apprentice in sign workshops. In 1898 he went south to Odessa where he was accepted into the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1903, he was in Kishinev where he documented the Kishinev pogrom with drawings; an effort that is thought to have contributed to his self-definition as an artist who chronicles Jewish history.Still in 1903, he moved to Paris, where he rented rooms in La Ruche, a Parisian building (which still exists) where Modigliani, Chagall, Chaim Soutine and other Jewish artists also lived.Pann studied at the French Academy under William-Adolphe Bouguereau. He earned his living primarily by drawing pictures for the popular illustrated newspapers of the era.In 1912, Boris Schatz, founder and director of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design visited Pann in Paris and invited him to come work in Jerusalem.

In 1913, after traveling in Southern Europe and Egypt, Pann arrived in Jerusalem where he had decided to settle for lifePann went to see Schatz and it was decided that he would head the painting department at the Bezalel Academy for several months while Schatz embarked on an extensive overseasfund-raising trip.According to Haaretz art critic Smadar Sheffi, a work form this period with the simple title "Jerusalem" shows a cluster of buildings at sunset "with a sky in blazing orange." The painting is "more expressive and abstract that is typical of his work," and Sheffi speculates that "the encounter with the city" of Jerusalem was a "strong emotional experience" for the artist

Pann returned to Europe to arrange his affairs before moving permanently to the British Mandate of Palestine, but was caught on the continent by World War I. Pann's wartime paintings would prove to be among "the most important" of his career. He made many posters to support the French war effort. He also made a series of fifty drawings showing the extreme suffering of Jewish communities caught in the fighting between Germany, Poland and Russia. Art critic Smadar Sheffi regards them as "the most important part of his oeuvre." These "shocking" drawings put modern viewers in mind of depictions of the Holocaust.Pann's drawings were intended as journalistic documentation of the fighting and were successfully exhibited in the United States during the War. According to Pann's autobiography, the Russians, who were allied with the French, refused to allow a wartime exhibition of the drawings in France. According to the New York Times, the drawings were published in Paris during the war, but the government intervened ot block their distribution on the grounds that they "reflected damagingly upon an ally" (Russia)

Upon his post-war return to Jerusalem in 1920, Pann took up a teaching position at the Bezalel Academy and wrote that he was about to embark on his life-work, the painting and drawing of scenes from the Hebrew Bible. He returned briefly to Vienna where he met and married Esther Nussbaum and purchased a lithographic press, which the couple brought home to Jerusalem.Pann began work on a series of lithographs intended to be published in an enormous illustrated Bible, and although that series was never completed, he is widely admired for the series of pastels inspired by Bible stories that he began in the 1940s.The iconography of these works is linked to the 19th century orientalism. He was part of a movement of contemporary Jewish artists interested in Biblical scenes, including Ephraim Moses Lilien, and Ze'ev Raban.All three were influenced by Art Nouveau and by the Symbolist movement. This influence can be seen in "You shall not surely die," a colored lithograph in which the serpent is represented as a bare-chested womanThe lithograph is reminiscent of the style of Aubrey Beardsley.

In 1924, Pann resigned from his teaching position to devote himself full-time to lithography.The lithographs met with considerable success on international tours. Pann told the New York Times that he found most illustrated Bibles boring, accusing the many artists who had illustrated Bibles before him of tending "to produce an impression that the Bible itself is a tiresome volume."He said that he wished to present the Bible's characters as "possessing the passions of human beings... with their virtues and vices, loves and hatreds."

Especially in his pastels, Pann envisioned Rachel, Rebekah, and other Biblical women as child-brides and imagined the teen-aged Jewish girls from Yemen whom he used as models along with young Bedouin girls, regarding both Yemenites and Bedouins as authentic oriental types. He posed them in elaborate traditional wedding and festival clothing and jewelry. In the twenties, the period when Pann was painting them, Yemenite and Bedouin girls did marry at the age of puberty. He often captured not only their youth and beauty, but the anxiety of a young girl about to marry a man she might hardly know. Other pastels capture the elderly matriarch Sarah looking "absolutely alive" and the care-worn facts of Jerusalem's Yemenite Jewish laborers, posed as Biblical patriarchs.

Pann's work reveals an intimate familiarity with the work of Rembrandt, James Tissot, and other European painters of biblical scenes.Among his most original approaches was a pastel of Potiphar's wife. This familiar theme had for hundreds of years and in the hands of innumerable artists conventionally depicted a mature beauty seducing an innocent youth, Joseph. According to art critic Meir Ronnen, Pann's interpretation, a late period pastel dating from the 1950s, depicts Potiphar's wife as a spoilt child, an extremely young and very bored girl who is "possibly just one of the lesser playthings of a gubernatorial harem." She turns her bored gaze on the young Israelite. Ronen considers her to be "the most brilliant of all Pann's creations."

Pann's youngest son was killed in the Israeli War of Independence. After that loss, he turned to painting scenes of the Holocaust. He died in Jerusalem in 1963.

For many years, Pann was considered an important artist in Israel, and had even greater success among Jewish art consumers abroad, but he "outlived his artistic times," fading in importance beside the new, modernist painters.Although many of his paintings are in museum collections, private collectors can sometimes find them at galleries such as the Mayanot Gallery. In 1990 art curator and Israeli art historian, Shlomit Steinberg submitted an MA thesis at the History of Art department of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, titled: "The Image of the Biblical Woman as Femme Fatale in Abel Pann's Works".

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Rene Murray

March 27, 2013, 10:43 am

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Rene Murray

EDUCATION

B.A. - University of Michigan - Ann Arbor,Michigan - l962

M.F.A. - University of Michigan - l964

TEACHING

University of Michigan - l963 - l964

Potters Guild, Ann Arbor, Michigan - l963 - l964

Clay Art Center, Port Chester, New York - l967 - 1968

Pratt Institute of Art, Brooklyn, New York - l973 - l974

Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn, New York - l994 - l997

Celedon Gallery, Gallery Talk, Watermill, New York, 2009

Funke Fired Arts, Workshops, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2011

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

1964 - 1971 - Studio Potter at Clay Art Center, Port Chester, New York

1971 - 2011 - Studio Potter at Rene Murray Studio, Brooklyn, New York

MUSEUM

COLLECTIONS

Detroit Institute of Art - Detroit, Michigan

Everson Museum of Art - Syracuse, New York

HONORS and PUBLICATIONS

2009 - Article - Ceramics Monthly, Nov. 2009, Vol 57 #9

2006 - Ceramics Art and Perception, Issue 65, "Rene Murray, an Urban Potter"

1999 - Susannah Keith Gallery, Dexter Michigan - Purchase Prize

1996 - BACA/Brooklyn Arts Council - Citation - Outstanding Artist And Teacher

1966 - 23rd Ceramic National - Everson Museum of Art - Purchase Prize

1966 - Craftsman '66 -Wilmington, Deleware - National Merit Award

1964 - Michigan Artist-Craftsman - Detroit Institute of Art - Purchase Prize

All of my work has its foundation in the age-old techniques and conventions of the potter. Whether the piece is functional or sculptural it is always based on a vessel form. The simplest thrown plate as well as the more intricate hand built sectional hilltown sculpture are conceived of and built from the inside out and become upon completion a type of clay container.

There is a flow in my work, from one piece to another, from one series to another. A new idea takes shape. The first successful piece inspires the next. Several pieces have similar ideas and become part of a series. Variations occur within the series. Some variations spawn a new idea and the cycle begins again.

I keep completed work on display around the studio so I am constantly absorbing information about older pieces. What can I learn from them? How can I improve on the mistakes and utilize the successful elements?

My creative process is circular, always moving, taking in new ideas and inspirations, while keeping in view all that has gone before.

Here is an example: The view from the backyard of my Brooklyn studio is of a water tower topping a local housing project. Its massive form raised on stilts had been my visual inspiration for two years. I translated into clay the contrasts between the solidity of the body and the delicacy of the legs.

In April l997, a short trip to the hill towns of Tuscany exploded my architectural vocabulary in new directions. Back home, these new Mediterranean visions formed the basis of the first ‘Fantasy house’ series. Although the original stilts were still part of the pieces, the solid bodies were opened up to form windows and doors.

Then after viewing some ancient Japanese, Haniwa sculptures at the Minneapolis Museum of Art, I returned to my studio and transformed these houses into horses. Although I continued to use the same visual punctuations of openings (windows and doors), these newer pieces became more blocky and statuesque and the handles on the tops of the houses became the manes on the horses.

Perhaps my earlier stated circle of creation is also like a DNA spiral, one which affords a view of completed work from a new perspective while providing a glance of the road ahead.

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Tony Natsoulas

March 27, 2013, 12:35 pm

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Tony Natsoulas

"After receiving his Masters of Fine Art at the University of California at Davis in 1985, Tony has been working as a professional artist in ceramic sculpture. His main interest has been in large scale humorous figurative ceramic sculpture. In undergraduate and graduate school he was fortunate to have studied at the University of California, Davis' TB9 ceramic studio with the artist that put figurative ceramic sculpture on the map, Robert Arneson. Since then he has been showing in galleries and museums around the world and has been commissioned to do several public and private sculptures in bronze, fiberglass and ceramic.

Tony Natsoulas (born 1959), like his art, is funny, offbeat and awkwardly charming. "I just do what the little voices tell me to," reads the bumper sticker on his pick-up, a statement that seems not far from the truth. A bard, a sonneteer, and a prankster in clay, Natsoulas wants us to appreciate the humor in the banal, and to look nostalgically at some of history's self-indulgent pleasures.

Small in stature-his wife Donna holds his ankles lest he fall in while stacking his top-loading kiln. It is the pounds-per-square-inch of energy and charisma that make Natsoulas a force of nature. His ebullient personality is matched only by his work in clay, which surmounts various technical challenges to become monumental sculpture that shocks, entertains and amuses.

The humor and irreverence of Natsoulas's art should come as no surprise, considering the inspired lunacy of his mentors. A descendant of Pop and California Funk, Natsoulas's work goes beyond both. Embracing what may be best termed "camp"-that which is outrageous in its artificiality, affected, and referencing the out-of-date in an amusing manner-he has manufactured a style distinctly his own.

Natsoulas received his bachelor's of arts degree in 1982 at the University of California, Davis, and his master's of fine arts in 1985 from the same institution. He studied with many celebrated names in California painting and sculpture-Robert Brady, Roy DeForest, Wayne Thiebaud-and has also been an informal student of artists David Gilhooly and Clayton Bailey, who have both greatly influenced him. His most significant teacher was the sculptor/ceramist Robert Arneson, who Natsoulas credits with changing his life by giving him the incentive to pursue art as a career.

As an undergraduate, Natsoulas began sculpting full-length figures that sell shoes, play guitars, drive automobiles and wait tables-the everyday activities with which he readily related as an artist just starting out. His more recent work has focused on larger-than-life busts of famous-or infamous-characters. With huge flat heads and tiny torsos, these busts exist in two seeming dimensions, subverting the third. Each piece narrows when viewed from the side, a technique that he first saw and liked in a sculpture by Robert Arneson. The intended views are the front and back, sculpted as if by a painter of portraits or a caricaturist. He lavishes attention on features that grab his attention and minimizes those that do not.

In the past year, Natsoulas has begun a new series of busts inspired by the eighteenth century. Looking to both the Baroque and Rococo eras, he coined his creations Barococo. Loving the extravagance and decoration of the period's costume, hairstyles and make-up, Natsoulas lovingly details powdered wigs, ruffles and penciled beauty marks. Not stopping there, he pushes this abundance to absurd levels through flowers, birds, pets and other accoutrements. The dynamism this adds to his pieces is seen in the figure of an eighteenth-century woman who wears an enormous wig teeming with hummingbirds; in a cane-sporting gentleman who clutches a pug dog by the scruff of the neck; and in a fashionable vixen who nearly drowns in the abundance of bows on her dress. While the figures are not universally recognizable, they do represent the artist's spouse, friends and colleagues he uses as models.

In creating these parodies of the past, Natsoulas at times looks to Hollywood, and art history. He is particularly enamored with French period artists and portraitists such as Hyacinthe Rigaud, Jean-Antoine Watteau, and Francois Boucher, and distills humor and biting commentary from the famed English satirist William Hogarth. Other eighteenth-century prototypes specific to Natsoulas's medium are figurines produced at the Meissen porcelain factory. He uses these figural groups like maquettes for his own work, borrowing costumes, hairstyles, and expressions, as well as color and approach to ornament. By blowing them up to colossal scale, Natsoulas eradicates the preciousness of the originals, instead making them bold and engaging, humorous and challenging to the viewer. Because the sculptures are so unabashedly silly, the artist reminds us that perhaps we needn't take art and history-and by extension ourselves-quite so seriously.

Scott Shields, Crocker Art Museum.

Artist Bio

Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, Tony Natsoulas and his family would travel from California to New York City to visit relatives who were Greek immigrants from Symi and Cyprus. One of the benefits of these visits was being exposed to the city’s incredible art galleries and museums, which his parents dutifully brought him to. The museums and their collections impacted him, but the then-contemporary art movement of the day, pop art, influenced him the most, particularly the work of Claes Oldenburg and George Segal.

Natsoulas grew up in Davis, California, where his father was a professor of psychology at the University of California. In grade school, he went on field trips to Sacramento’s Crocker Art Museum, where he saw David Gilhooly’s ceramic work for the first time. He never forgot seeing a sculptural ceramic casserole dish with a multi-breasted frog goddess of fertility on its lid. At that moment, he knew that art would be his vocation. Just eleven, he began to dabble in clay and has never stopped.

In 1977, Natsoulas started making large ceramic sculptures at Davis Senior High School. His teacher, Donna Hands, was impressed with his work and recommended he take concurrent classes at the University of California at Davis. His teacher there would be Robert Arneson, a man that Natsoulas would later credit with giving him the incentive to pursue art as a career. Also influential was artist Clayton Bailey, who Natsoulas met during a visit to the artist’s studio on a class field trip. Bailey shared his “THE WONDERS OF THE WORLD MUSEUM” with the eager students. It was a captivating moment for Natsoulas, who was fascinated with Bailey’s fabricated Big-Foot bones, Cyclops skulls, a mad scientist laboratory, and other incredible paraphernalia. After taking two classes with Arneson while still in high school, Natsoulas graduated and went on to attend California State University, Sacramento. There, he took ceramic classes from Robert Brady and Ruth Rippon. In 1979, he returned to the University of California at Davis, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1982. His teachers included Roy de Forest, Wayne Thiebaud, Manuel Neri, and other prestigious artists. They were not only very successful in their teaching professions, but were also great role models in that they produced art and exhibited.

In 1983, Natsoulas was accepted to Maryland Institute, College of Art, for graduate school, feeling that he needed to attend an East Coast school for a different perspective on art. He met fellow artist Eddie Bisese, a graduate student in painting there. Bisese’s series of paintings of people with large heads and expressive faces struck a chord with Natsoulas. Yet, after a year in Maryland Natsoulas grew homesick for California and the art department at Davis. Before enrolling in the Davis MFA program in 1985, however, Natsoulas attended the Skowhegan summer school of art in Maine, where he worked with several artists including Judy Pfaff and Francisco Clemente.

During his art training, Natsoulas began to produce life sized figurative ceramic sculptures, concentrating on form and gesture. Standing directly on the floor, they drew viewers to them, demanding interaction. He used these figures to work out his feelings and thoughts about social issues, phobias, politics, and his own internal conflicts. Shortly after leaving graduate school in 1985, Natsoulas was invited to exhibit at the Rena Bransten gallery in San Francisco, where he had two successful shows.

In 1993, Natsoulas married Donna George, who he credits as his primary inspiration and muse. Although his wife has served as the direct inspiration for numerous works, she also shares and champions the popular culture influences that inform almost all of Natsoulas’s work. Absurd television shows, people, toys, cartoons, plays and nostalgic movies inspire Natsoulas the most, and the artist references them through larger-than-life exaggerated ceramic busts which he began making in 1997. For example, as a child he watched the 1950's T.V. sitcom The Honeymooners starring Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden, an overweight, loud and opinionated man married to Alice, played by Audrey Meadows. When the show aired, women were portrayed as mothers, wives, and happy homemakers. They had few opinions, made no fuss, and their lives were neat and tidy packaged drivel. Alice, however, was different. She stood up for what she believed; she was not afraid of her loud and overbearing husband. She was wise, firm, and loving, yet still feminine. Natsoulas sculpted the feisty and admirable Alice as part of a series of busts that also included Inspector Clouseau, Uncle Fester, Auntie Mame, The Duchess from Alice in Wonderland, and more.

In 2001, Natsoulas continued to sculpt another series of more of his favorite celebrities. He depicted Pablo Picasso because he epitomized a fine artist who not only painted but worked with clay. He also depicted Clayton Bailey’s alter ego, Dr. Gladstone. From the silver screen he portrayed Audrey Hepburn, known for her beauty, grace, and her humanitarian work. He also sculpted all four Beatles, each from different periods in their history. The series also included portraits of Carmen Miranda, Rosalind Russell, Eddie Izzard, Pee Wee Herman and Hercule Poirot.

In 2002, Natsoulas had a successful exhibition at the Crocker Art Museum, which included 12 large busts of his wife and friends as 18th century characters. He loves the outrageous colors and attitudes of that era. The show was installed in the Crocker's ballroom, which made a fantastic environment for the work. The show traveled to the Triton Museum of Art.

In 2002 Donna and Tony bought their first house after looking for about two years. It was also a Streng Brothers house like Tony’s childhood house. It is a three-bedroom two-bath ranch with a darkroom and a two-car garage. The garage has been completely renovated, insulated, the electrical all updated to illuminate the working space, making it a state of the art, working art studio.

In 2004 he was chosen as “ONE of the Top 100 Artists living in the USA today” by the Archives of American Art, The Smithsonian Museum and the American Craft Museum in NY. The Archivist for the Smithsonian came out to interview Tony and the interview will be kept at American Archives, at the Smithsonian Museum and the interview is now on their website and is housed at the Smithsonian.

In 2006 He was invited to go to Japan for five weeks as a Artist in Residence at the Shigaraki Cultural Ceramic Park. The Shigaraki Museum of Ceramic Art in Japan flew out to meet with Natsoulas and invite him to show in the first exhibition of figurative ceramics in Japan. They chose three larger than life sized sculptures to be included in the exhibition. The show traveled to other museums throughout Japan for a year. One of his pieces from the show is in the now in the museum's permanent collection.

For the next 3 years Natsoulas won three large commissions to do several bronze sculptures in parks in Sacramento and Stockton.

Currently, he is working on a series of large bust of more friends that will be drawn from more stories and folk tales.

Since I was a child, I have been making, breathing, and living art. My parents took me to museums in the ’60s and ’70s in New York City while visiting relatives. In high school I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. I did not want to do a receptive job; I wanted to do something creative, so I chose art. I figured I was good at it after winning prizes in high school art contests. While still in high school, I took some classes at the University of California, Davis, where Robert Arneson was teaching. People bought my work, and I got a positive reaction to my art even at a young age, so I wanted to make a go of living off of my artwork, and working doing something I loved and enjoyed.

I have been able to make my living making my art. The folks who buy my work are fine art collectors, museums, craft collectors, restaurant owners, gallery owners, teachers, curators, friends, neighbors, and cities that commission me to do pieces for them. I also do workshops and PowerPoint lectures for schools, create websites and curate shows at two galleries; the Blue Line Gallery and Shimo Center for the Arts.

As far as promotion goes, I have put together a large website, and do public presentations for commissions. I have landed several museum shows by sending the directors and curators a portfolio and résumé. I have been fortunate; people aware of my art, our art collection, who have seen a show, seen me lecture, or do workshops, have asked to feature my work in articles, books, magazines, television, and such. Kind of like a snowball effect, I put myself out there and it grows from there. I also send announcements via email and Facebook when ever I finish a new sculpture or am having a show.

The advantages of how I market are that I get to control my own career, prices, money, how my art is represented and presented—and whom I want to see it. The money I earn is not split with anyone but my wife and cat. The artist is his or her own best advocate. When you control what is sent out on your behalf, you know it is all to your high standards and that the material written is correct. I can feel good about how I am being represented, because I take the responsibility in representing myself for the most part.

Current economic conditions really haven’t made me change or adjust anything. I am able to do more of my own work, now that the public commissions have slowed down. And my perception of the sculptor’s life hasn’t changed much over time. I have one rule: If you keep your overhead down, you have the freedom to do anything you want and enjoy. It has certainly worked for me.

I look at as much art (all mediums) as I can. I go to museums, galleries, studio visits, lectures, art and craft shows, talk to fellow artists, subscribe to many magazines, travel, go to movies, and am always aware of what is out there and what is going on in the world.

Ceramics should not be in a category by itself; it should be just another medium in the fine arts world. I don’t get it when I hear that critics don’t understand or know about ceramics so they can’t write about it. It is just another sculpture. Why do we have any shows, magazines, collectors, galleries or museums dedicated to one media? I don’t get it.

When I graduated from undergraduate school and was going to off to Maryland Institute College of Art, Arneson said to go to New York City and get a gallery and a studio. I wanted to keep making large-scale ceramic sculpture and could not see how I could do it there due to the high cost of living and the lack of big, affordable studio space. I have several friends who went to New York and had to wait tables and try to get artwork done in their time off. I feel like I may have missed out on getting a good fine arts gallery to represent my work on the East Coast at that time, but I think by staying here on the West Coast, I got a lot more work done. Looking at it now, I think I made the right decision for myself.

I am on health insurance through my wife’s work. Before that, we paid for our health care every month and the premiums were very expensive. I have never mixed glazes or clay due to the danger it poses to have dry chemicals and dust floating around the studio. My philosophy is that the commercial glaze and clay companies mix this stuff better and more efficiently than I do, with more consistency. I do try to stay fit and have in the last year given up using all leaded glazes on my work after finding more lead in my blood than the average person. Since then, it is lower than the average person. I try to wash out my studio once a week, and keep the large garage doors open so that I am not breathing that much dust from the clay and glazes I use.

If you’re interested in pursuing sculptural ceramics as a profession, take control. Be responsible for yourself, your art, and your own career. Be involved with every aspect of the business and keep your overhead as low as possible. Also, make what is in your heart and what you love or have some passionate feeling about. Get to know your medium, what it can do and what it can’t do. Learn your technique; you have to learn to spell and put words together before you can write a great poem. Look, look, look at everything and as much art as you can. Also, try to stay as humble as you can."

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Nora Naranjo-Morse

March 27, 2013, 2:28 pm

≫ Next: Rose B Simpson

≪ Previous: Tony Natsoulas

Nora Naranjo-Morse

Nora Naranjo-Morse (born 1953) is a Native American potter and poet. She currently resides in Espanola, New Mexico just north of Santa Fe and is a member of the Santa Clara Pueblo. Her work can be found in several museum collections including the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, the Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minnesota, and the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, where her hand-built sculpture piece, Always Becoming, was selected from more than 55 entries submitted by Native artists as the winner of an outdoor sculpture competition held in 2005.

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Rose B Simpson

March 27, 2013, 3:08 pm

≫ Next: Tim Storrier

≪ Previous: Nora Naranjo-Morse

Rose B. Simpson

"Rose B. Simpson was born in Santa Fe, NM, and raised among an extended family of artists in Santa Fe and Santa Clara Pueblo. Her mother; Roxanne Swentzell, a known ceramic sculptor within the Indigenous art world, and her father; Patrick Simpson, a contemporary artist in wood and metal introduced her to the art world at a young age. Please visit Contemporary Art News on the Chiaroscuro home page to read more about Simpson in a recent article in New Mexico Magazine.

Of both Indigenous and Anglo descent, with art and philosophy primary in both families, she has pursued the pure expression of truth through many forms of art including sculpture, printmaking, drawing, creative writing, music, and dance. Her work often signifies the constant struggle between the two worlds that most modern Indigenous peoples survive through; traditional and the colonist perspective/assimilation.

She has participated in many group shows, including the annual "Pop Life" events around the country curated by Apache Skateboard Artist Douglas Miles. In the summer of 2006 she participated in "Relations; Indigenous Dialogue", an exhibition at the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum in Santa Fe, NM.

After studying for three years at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, she transferred to the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM, and graduated in 2007 with a BFA in Studio Arts.

In 2011, she obtained her Masters of Fine Arts in Ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI. While attending the Rhode Island School of Design, Simpson participated in “Clay in Japan”, a foreign study opportunity, which resulted in a group show of work in Kashihara-Jingumae, Kansai Prefecture, Japan."

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Tim Storrier

March 27, 2013, 3:38 pm

≫ Next: Vasily Martynchuk

≪ Previous: Rose B Simpson

Tim Storrier

Winner: Archibald Prize 2012

The histrionic wayfarer (after Bosch)

Medium

acrylic on canvas

Further information

Tim Storrier was represented in last year’s Archibald Prize with another self-portrait without a face. Entitled Moon boy (self-portrait as a young man), the figure was represented by a suit of empty clothes hanging as if on a scarecrow in a barren landscape.

This year’s self-portrait is, as he notes, a work in a quite different mood. ‘It refers to a painting by Hieronymus Bosch called The wayfarer painted in c1510 where the figure is believed to be choosing a path or possibly the prodigal son returning,’ says Storrier. ‘It also has other references, I believe, but they are rather clouded in biblical history and time.

‘A carapace of burden is depicted in The histrionic wayfarer, clothed in the tools to sustain the intrigue of a metaphysical survey. Provisions, art materials, books, papers, bedding, compass and maps, all for the journey through the landscape of the artist’s mind, accompanied by Smudge, the critic and guide of the whole enterprise.’

Though there is no face to identify him, Storrier believes that identity is made clear by the clothes and equipment carried. Storrier has included a drawing of himself in the painting, scribbled on a piece of paper being blown away by the wind.

Born in Sydney in 1949, Storrier studied at the National Art School in East Sydney and now lives and works in Bathurst. Renowned for his mysterious, poignant landscapes that capture the melancholy vastness of the Australian outback, he has exhibited all over Australia and in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, New York and London. He won the Sulman Prize in 1968 at age 19 – the youngest artist ever to received the prestigious award – and again in 1984. His work has been collected by all major Australian art museums and is included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Australia and the Art Gallery of New South Wales among others. In 1994, he was awarded an Order of Australia (AM) for services to art.

quote

Born in 1949 in Sydney, Tim studied at the National Art School. He lives in Bathurst NSW.

Tim Storrier was a Trustee of the Art Gallery of New South Wales; he was awarded the Order of Australia AM for his services to art; and a Doctor of Arts (Hons.) from Charles Sturt University, New South Wales.

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Vasily Martynchuk

March 28, 2013, 2:39 am

≫ Next: Reinhard Gade

≪ Previous: Tim Storrier

Vasily Martynchuk

Born 31.07.1959g. in Ukraine.
graduated from the Lviv Academy of arts and crafts.
Solo Exhibitions - Japan (Tokyo), France (Limoges), 8 solo exhibitions in Grodno.
Member of the Belarusian Union of Artists.
works are in private collections around the world.

Martynchuk Vasily - Василий Мартынчук
also here

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Reinhard Gade

March 28, 2013, 2:54 am

≫ Next: Zlata Privedentseva

≪ Previous: Vasily Martynchuk

Reinhard Gade (1937-2012)

Born 1937 in Luebeck, Germany, as a painter I need to fix every day a cartoon about the crazy world around. Taking in that way a deep and healthy breath. But as a painter, my principle is: I never draw or paint what I know - but what I see with my "Eyes wide shut", as the great Stanley Kubrik named his wonderful but very last work.

As the New York critic Dominique Nahas wrote about my work as a painter in his essay titeled "Complex Beauty" at the beginning: When Reinhard Gade paints subjects, objects or situations that recall portraits,fruits or landscapes,his deep connection with a vision of autonomous beauty tinged by malevolence seems evident. His unusual painter's touch and glow that emanates from his work induce not only specific images but also an entire atmospheric world."

Education

Studies of Painting and Graphic Design at the Art Academy of Berlin and at the Folkwangschule of Essen, Germany.

Last Exhibitions:

2008 Walter Wickiser Gallery, New York

Liliana's Art Gallery, Edmonton, CND

International Art Fair of Toronto

Artist Fair Miami Beach

2009 Exor Galleries, Boca Raton, FL,US

..."En 1975 fue responsable del diseño de El País. Más tarde, en 1982-84, realizó grandes reformas en ABC e inventó el diseño de la revista Política Exterior.Gäde había nacido en Lübeck, 1937. Se graduó en Artes Gráficas en Essen y trabajó luego a las órdenes de un profesor de Bauhaus, en Berlín."

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Zlata Privedentseva

March 28, 2013, 3:12 am

≫ Next: Alyona Krutogolova

≪ Previous: Reinhard Gade

Zlata Privedentseva

"My name is Zlata.
I was born in Russia in family of artists and I continue family traditions. My first creative work could be categorized as graphics. I was fond of japanese culture and even learned japanese. When I studied at the art college of Krasnodar, oil collors opened up a new world for me, and I understood with help of my teacher that it is where my talents lie. After art college where I got the degree 'Teacher of fine arts' I attended the Kuban state university where I studied for another 5 years, working to improve my skills.
Some time ago I moved to the Netherlands and I am charmed with all the nice landscapes and nice people.
I call the style in which I paint expressionism, because my paintings are full of emotions. I am not going to write about my work, it is much better to watch it.

yours sincerely

Zlata"

quote

"Hallo mijn naam is Zlata irina Privedentseva, ik kom uit Rusland. Ik ben geboren in een schildersfamilie(30-10-1981).Vanwege mijn liefde voor kunst, schilderen in specifiek, heb ik ervoor gekozen om de familietraditie voort te zetten. Na het voortgezet onderwijs heb ik een 4 jarige studie aan de kunstacademie van krasnodar gedaan, waar ik gespecialiseerd ben in het volgende onderdeel 'teacher of fine arts'. Tijdens deze studie heb ik, met behulp van zeer ervaren docenten, de mogelijkheden van olieverf ontdekt. Om mijn technieken verder te verfijnen heb ik nog een 5 jarige vervolgstudie gedaan aan de Kuban State University. In deze jaren heb ik veel ontdekt over creativiteit. Sinds kort ben ik verhuisd naar Nederland. Ik vind het nederlandse landschap erg mooi en de mensen zijn aardig. De stijl die ik hanteer met schilderen heet expressionisme, hierover ga ik niet schrijven want dat kan je beter zien op mijn website.

Met vriendlijke groeten Zlata "

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Alyona Krutogolova

March 28, 2013, 4:47 am

≫ Next: David Martiashvili

≪ Previous: Zlata Privedentseva

Alyona Krutogolova

Алёна и Евгений Крутоголовы

Kiev artist Allen and Eugene Krutogolovy create his own artistic language, which is based on a simplified form, decorative deliberate and ironic vision. In his works, they synthesize the traditions of folk art, naive art and modern art trends, thus expanding the boundaries of the artistic space and inhabiting its amazing fabulous creatures - Thrifty rabbits, cats, dreamy, wandering cows, pestrokrylymi moths. It's a wonderful world, which immediately fall in love and adults, and children.
It is impossible not to draw attention to the author's original technique, a rich palette, bright open colors that give a sense of the heat.
In our time, people overloaded difficulties in dire need of simple and clear things. And the greatest achievement of Alena and Eugene Krutogolovyh is that they have created paintings give joy to people all over the world from South Africa to Norway.

Киевские художники Алёна и Евгений Крутоголовы создают свой художественный язык, в основе которого лежит упрощенность формы, намеренная декоративность и ироническое видение мира. В своих произведениях они синтезируют традиции народного творчества, наивного искусства с современными художественными тенденциями, тем самым расширяя границы художественного пространства и населяя его удивительными сказочными созданиями - домовитыми кроликами, мечтательными кошками, странствующими коровами, пестрокрылыми мотыльками. Это чудесный мир, в который сразу влюбляются и взрослые, и дети.

Нельзя не обратить внимание на оригинальную авторскую технику, богатую палитру, яркие открытые цвета, которые дарят ощущение настоящего тепла.

В наше перегруженное сложностями время человек остро нуждается в простых и понятных вещах. И наивысшим достижением Алёны и Евгения Крутоголовых является то, что созданные ими картины дарят радость людям во всем мире от Южной Африки до Норвегии.

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David Martiashvili

March 28, 2013, 5:34 am

≫ Next: Lucia Chocholáčková (Luccho)

≪ Previous: Alyona Krutogolova

Artist at the third generation David Martiashvili was born in 1978 in Tbilisi, Georgia.

He graduated from the" School of the Arts "for gifted children, then - Tbilisi Art Academy

. The artist works in the style of primitivism, with colorful Georgian overtones. Aesthetics of the school creatively rethought their conscious and became motivated to find new means of expression

. The synthesis of primitive forms with a complex painting technique revealed a different quality
impact. Aesthetic credo of the artist - painting, which would have the effect of
jewelry - fully managed. The rich palette, a special writing technique,
(passed on from father and son talent-rich) - this is the road to the result. "My pictures
should call a person who has bought them a sense of celebration - recognized artist. -

They just have to cheer up, because the optimistic spirit. And this - he says, -
particularly important in the world of disharmony and violence. " The works of David Martiashvili are
in private collections in USA, England, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, France.

Currently the artist lives in Kiev, Ukraine.

source

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brother of Zurab Martiashvili -Зураб Мартиашвили , already here

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Lucia Chocholáčková (Luccho)

March 28, 2013, 6:20 am

≫ Next: Inna Shirokova

≪ Previous: David Martiashvili

Lucia Chocholáčková

Lucia Chocholackova, 1979 born in Sala

Study:

1993-1997 Grammar school Pavol Horov, Michalovce

2000-2005 Faculty of Humanities and Natural Sciences University of

Presov , Department of Art and Education

Actions:

International workshop of fashion in Florence:

1.Fashion between past and future 2003

2.Napoleons empire 2004

I m illustrated children s book : ,,Fairy tales UnderKarpat Slovak,, Media Group,

Michalovce, 2001

Common exposition realized on the international abreast one part of this project

was educational workshop - ,, Noe's arch,,.

Lucia Chocholáčková študovala v rokoch 1993-1997 Gymnázium Pavla Horova v Michalovciach. V rokoch 2000-2005 absolvovala štúdium na Prešovskej Univerzite v Prešove, Fakulta humanitných a prírodných vied, Katedra Výtvarnej výchovy a umenia.
V oblasti tvorby sa venuje: architektúre, mestským pohľadom, samotným životom neživých vecí a očareniu zvieratami. Časť tvorby je počítačová grafika - najmä ženská krása.

Aktivity

Spoluautorka ilustrácií detskej knižky: Rozprávky podkarpatských Slovákov. Michalovce, 2001.
Medzinárodný workshop módy vo Florencii:
- 1. Móda medzi minulosťou a budúcnosťou 2003
- 2. Móda empíru, obdobie Napoleona 2004

Výchovno - vzdelávací workshop 2004 (Trebišov, Prešov, Poprad) "Noemova Archa".

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Inna Shirokova

March 28, 2013, 8:20 am

≫ Next: Thaddeus Erdahl

≪ Previous: Lucia Chocholáčková (Luccho)

Inna Shirokova

"Was born on the 1st of June 1937 in Kirov (Russia).
Both her father and her mother were artists as well. During 1961-1972 she worked at art centers where her supervisors were People's artist of Russia V. Sidorov and Honoured artist of Russia V. Gavrilov. Every year since 1964 Inna takes part in exhibitions in Russia and abroad.
Merited Artist of the Russian Federation."

Inna Shirokova Инна Широкова

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Thaddeus Erdahl

March 28, 2013, 11:59 am

≫ Next: Andréa Keys Connell

≪ Previous: Inna Shirokova

Thaddeus Erdahl

Thaddeus Erdahl was born and raised in La Porte City, Iowa. He has exhibited his sculpture and presented workshops regionally and nationally throughout the United States. His art and background in education started at the University of Northern Iowa where he received his BA in Art Education and a BFA in Ceramics. Upon graduation, he substitute taught in the public school system, instructed ceramics courses at a local art center and served as an interim art educator. Thaddeus actively practiced and taught a variety of art media including ceramics, drawing, assemblage, sculpture, painting, and graphic design. Thaddeus received his MFA in Ceramics from the University of Florida where he was a University of Florida Alumni Fellowship recipient during his three years of graduate study, from 2006-2009. In the summer of 2008, he attended Think Tank III, a national arts in higher education symposium, as a Graduate Fellowship Recipient. In 2009 he was selected as one of four Artists-in-Residents at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinlburg TN for an 11 month residency program. At the end of his tenure as an Artist-in-Resident, he was offered the position of Program Manager at Arrowmont, where he worked for 6 more months. Thaddeus recently moved to Princeton NJ to pursue his studio art career. He is currently the Visiting Artist at Princeton Day School, working in the Ceramics Studio.

Artist's Statement

"Our personal identities are a kaleidoscope of first person narratives influenced by the experiences and interactions with the world around us. As humans we are compelled to tell stories that illustrate analogies; blending together archetypes, shared experiences, and personal mythology. Who we are is an ongoing process of reinterpretations, observations, and personal connections.

Ceramic sculpture and portraiture, in particular, are forms of a visual narration that I use to satisfy my urge for documenting what I see in human nature. Evocative of well-loved toys and obsolete artifacts, I use the implied history of these objects to encourage the viewer to disconnect from the present situation and conjure their own individual narratives from my sculptures.

One of the most attractive qualities of human behavior, a coveted characteristic belonging to successful communicators in any field, is a sense of humor. Humor is the great lubricator that ultimately allows us all to move on, let go, and laugh at ourselves. I use humor as a veneer to cover certain autobiographical components of my life. Some things in life are so serious, you have to laugh at them. Working with concepts that are personal and sometimes narcissistic perceptions of the gloomy side of life, humor is my buffer. Dry or irreverent, it is humor that mystifies those tragedies. Sometimes in my work it confronts the viewer, creating an uncomfortable situation that simultaneously conceals and lays bare, guides and misdirects their sense of social standards and manners. I seek to convey not just the outward appearance of people, but also the intimate concept of self." ...

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Andréa Keys Connell

March 28, 2013, 12:22 pm

≫ Next: Jahar Dasgupta

≪ Previous: Thaddeus Erdahl

Andréa Keys Connell

"I build my figures hollow, starting with a toe, then moving upwards, forming each section of the body by pressing the clay from the inside outward. In this sense my process mirrors the major themes of my work: how trauma transforms the interior life of individuals. The constant pressure I apply distorts and swells the figures. My ultimate aim is to dissolve the characteristics of gender, age, and time. By removing these definitions I am attempting to remove the authority of their constraints, to encounter pain unencumbered by their weight, and to represent trauma as it is most viscerally experienced.

The absence of these constructs gives an ambiguity to my figures that doesn’t only question implied rules of gender, age, and time. Their ambiguity allows me to explore the burden of our most enduring archetypes. These archetypes are well known: the hero, the martyr, and the warrior, are several I have explored. I am interested in how these archetypes impose mythic expectations and pre-existing narratives that exile individuals from their own experiences. If archetypes exist to give a definition and meaning to existence, my work explores what happens when they implode upon the person.

Often the body language of my sculptures suggests there is something that only they can see. The viewer witnesses a representation of their pain undefined by constructs. Here, I hope, the viewer’s reaction points them to what might be the most raw and illicit opposite of pain - empathy, compassion, and even the beginnings of love."

Andréa Keys Connell

Andréa Keys Connell
Born 1980, Manassas, VA, USA
Education
2006
-
2009
M.F.A.
Ohio University, Athens, OH
2003
-
2004
Post Bac.
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
1998
-
2000
B.F.A.
Maryland Institute College Of Art, Baltimore, MD
Academic
Teaching Experience
2011
-
present
Assistant Professor and Head of Ceramics, Virginia Commonwealth
University
2010
-
2011
Fountainhead Fellowship
,
Faculty and Resident Artist, Virginia
Commonwealth University
2009
-
2011
Assistant Professor and Head of Ceram
ics, Longwood University
2007
-
2009
Instructor of Record, Ohio University

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Jahar Dasgupta

March 29, 2013, 1:45 am

≫ Next: Prasenjit Sengupta

≪ Previous: Andréa Keys Connell

Jahar Dasgupta

Jahar Dasgupta was born in Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) in the year 1942. His father Mr. Narendranath Dasgupta was a famous scientist. Narendranath admitted him to Kalabhavan, Shantiniketan and Jahar took his primary lessons under legendary mentors like Nandalal Bose, Ramkinkar Baij and Binod Bihari Mukherjee. He passed from Visva Bharati in the year 1964.

He is one of the main founder of Painters Orchestra. The seven young Indian artists establish this art organisation in 1969 and still it is going strong. Apart from him the other famous artist Partha Pratim Deb was one of the members.

He exhibited his paintings in very famous Jehangir Art Gallery, Lalit Kala Academy, Academy or Fine Arts in the earlier stage of his career. His works were not successfull at the begining in terms of money business, but his works were always been noticed by the critics. His works always been very bold. In his first stage of his career he was mainly worked with Oil Painting. Protest against the evil power and fight against all odds reflects in his canvases. He was so successfull in this concept.

Jahar Dasgupta knows how to blend his creations. He always in search of new inventions. Later he started to change his style and tried to come out from his monotonous format. Sometime he was successful sometime not. He was critisized. But he goes on working and experimenting the style in Pen & Ink, Water Colour, Achrylic, Charcol Drawing etc. Success comes his way day by day.

Apart from his profession he has ventured in few different things like politics where he stood in election. He is also a social worker. He was in business for few time. But he was not successful comparative to his own line.

He paricipated a huge number of group shows and solo shows through out the country and abroad. His paintings displayed in Jehangir Art Gallery, Indian Habitat Centre, Lalit Kala Academy, Academy of Fine Arts, Chitrakut Gallery, Gallery Chemould, Lokayata Art Gallery, Mulk Raj Anand Centre, Prince of Walles Museum etc. He ventured in Nehru Centre for Mumbai and London too. His works exhibited in Paris(France), Stockhome(Sweden), Oslo(Norway), Soki(Korea) and still to come. Presently his one painting went to the famous NGO - KHUSII for an exhibition and auction.

He has a nice family with his wife Indrani, son Indranil and daughter in law Sylvia. Sylvia is too a practising painter.

Jahar Dasgupta is known for his ability to successfully marry traditional imagery with the zeitgeist of contemporary painting, in a skillful blend of a tribal culture and their influence in society. Some paintings highlights that women are the integral part of his paintings and nature is closest to him. He is rebel in his own world, challenging the barriers imposed by traditional ideas as well as contemporary theories.

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Prasenjit Sengupta

March 29, 2013, 3:55 am

≫ Next: Suhas Roy Radha

≪ Previous: Jahar Dasgupta

Prasenjit Sengupta

"Born in 1964 in Silliguri West Bengal, graduated (B.V.A. Painting) in 1988 from Rabindra Bharati University Kolkata. Has held the following Solo Exhibitions: 1996 -ABC Art Gallery, Varansi presented by ABC India Limited, 1994 - Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai presented by RPG Enterprises & 1994 - Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Kolkata. Has participated in several group shows from 1986 to 2008 at Pondicherry, Kolkata, New Delhi, Darjeeling, Guwahati, & Chennai. He lives and works in Kolkata.

Prasenjit Sengupta, one of the younger artists of the 80’s has carefully skirted around the highly clever and screaming avant-garde practice of many of his contemporaries all seemingly bent on setting the pace in the 21st century. He has veered neither to abstraction nor to a figurative idiom marked by a free, loose unconnected assemblage of figures and forms on the pictorial space of uncertain setting. He has instead built up a repertoire of strategies to paint and draw motifs sourced from the world of visual experience.

There is no need to introduce Prasenjit’s current suite of acrylics with a sticker of stylistic label as everybody can see he has talent and well-honed skill for meticulous representation of visual reality centering round a chiseled portrait of one or two young men. While standing in front of his paintings and contemplating the vivid, almost photographic evocation of real-life forms and objects one may feel least bothered to know whether these wonderfully crafted images on fairly large canvas spaces are realist, photo-realist, hyperrealist or even surrealist in style or technique. All that matters are the fairly stunning scale and skill, infinitely subtle surface and edge and finely nuanced textures and tones in a palette of limited range of shades. "

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