Helen J. Simmonds

February 7, 2013, 5:09 am

Helen Simmonds depicts classic still life subjects; from fruit or flowers found in local markets, ceramics scoured from antique or bric – a – brac shops to objects that carry more lasting memories for the artist. She is drawn to an object by its shape, colour, the way the light plays on its surface; ‘an unspecified quality which catches or delights’ her interest. In the tradition of still life painting, Simmonds paints all her subjects from life, using only natural light.

Simmonds early training in sculpture continues to have a significant influence on the way she paints today, creating her compositions in the round.

‘I am not interested in just painting the objects; it is an interest in all elements present and their interaction; the colour, the shapes, the spaces between them, the shadows, the type of light. I am continuously shifting these elements until I find a balance.’

(Helen Simmonds 2011)

Helen Simmonds (b.1962) in Hertfordshire, now lives and works near the North Wilshire Downs. She gained a Fine Art degree (Hons) in Sculpture from Bath Academy of Arts (1982 – 1985). During this time she was awarded The Gains Trust, Fine Art Student Travel Scholarship, which she used to study at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Simmonds recently won The Royal West Of England Academy Public Choice Award, at the 159th RWA Autumn Exhibition 2011.

28/11/1962, Watford, Hertfordshire, UK. Studied sculpture at Bath Academy of Art, B.A.Hons 1985. Has been painting full time since 2001, influences- spanish and dutch still life painting, Chardin, William Nicholson, Morandi. Her paintings vary in size from small 'alla prima' works, usually about 8" by 10", to larger works up to 35" by 44". She paints from life using natural light only (a difficult yet wonderful challenge)

B.A. Honours Bath Academy of Art 1985

Awards - Gains Trust travel scholarship

Royal West Of England Friends Prize 2011

Exhibits regularly in the West Country, Bristol and London.

source

↧

Harry Steen

February 7, 2013, 5:27 am

≫ Next: James Gillick

≪ Previous: Helen J. Simmonds

Harry Steen was born in Calgary, Alberta, in 1977. He received a BFA in Art from the University of Calgary in 2002. He then spent some years teaching himself how to paint to his own satisfaction, or at least closer to it. He is represented by Jonathan Cooper in London

He still lives in Calgary.

Education

2002

University of Calgary, BFA with distinction in Art

↧

James Gillick

February 7, 2013, 6:25 am

≫ Next: Sidi el Karchi

≪ Previous: Harry Steen

James Gillick

"Figurative painter James Gillick lives and works in a quiet, beautiful backwater of rural Lincolnshire, England where he runs his busy studio. He makes all his materials by hand using techniques that date back to the 17th century. James’s work ranges from the smallest of still lifes, including game paintings to life size horse paintings. He also works on a wide variety of commissioned projects including portraiture and historic restoration."

James Gillick (b. 1972, Norfolk) is an artist working in the figurative tradition. He works from his studio in Louth, Lincolnshire. His paintings range from the smallest of still-lifes, including game paintings to large scale portraits and horse portraits, as well as church (building) re-ordering and gilding.

At a time when too much contemporary art is both adolescent and unexciting, it is a joy to find a true artist, committed heart, soul and hand to celebrate the beauty of the world. James Gillick sees this beauty in the ordinary: nothing here is picturesque or Romanticised

Using techniques that date back to the 17th century, Gillick handcrafts all the materials he uses within his studio; from the oil paints, waxes and glues, to the varnishes, canvases and stretchers. He deliberately uses a limited palette of six colours plus black & white, having prepared the oils from ground pigments. This gives the paints a thicker, stronger consistency, allowing him to employ a very wide range of brush strokes in a work from thin strongly coloured glazes to heavy impastos.

An art historian cannot help but sense in his works the distinguished genealogy of William Nicholson (artist), Giorgio Morandi and Fantin-Latour, and hear echoes that reach back to Luis Egidio Melendez and beyond.

Gabriele Finaldi of the Museo del Prado

James is the son of social critic Victoria Gillick and theatre set designer Gordon Gillick. James has an identical twin, the sculptor Theodore Gillick. James is cousin to 2002 Turner prize nominee Liam Gillick, and his great uncle and aunt were the sculptor Ernest Gillick & medallionist Mary Gillick.

James gained a degree in Landscape Architecture from Cheltenham and Gloucester College in 1993. In 1998 he won a commission to paint the Rt. Hon Baroness Thatcher. The three quarter length portrait was commissioned by the University of Buckingham to commemorate her six years as the chancellor of Britain’s only private university. Baroness Thatcher was, ‘absolutely delighted’ with her portrait and commented, ‘Can I thank the artist for doing the impossible – a kind portrait of me in a way I would like to be remembered.’ 2005 saw the completion of a portrait of Pope John Paul II commissioned by The Bishop of Nottingham, England, the Rt Rev. Malcolm McMahon, O.P.. The portrait now hangs in the Lady Chapel at St Barnabas' Cathedral in Nottingham and an identical copy tours the country’s parishes on request. Further commissions include the Most Rev. M. Couve de Murville, Archbishop of Birmingham in 1999.

An example of church restoration work by James and his family can be seen at the church of St Gregory and St Augustine in Summertown, Oxford, the parish church where J. R. R. Tolkien was a parishioner. The work here includes a new reredos for which James has painted panels featuring the patron saints St Augustine, St Gregory and the Virgin and child, plus a further ten panels in a type of iconostasis.

↧

Sidi el Karchi

February 7, 2013, 2:30 pm

≫ Next: Crystal Barbre

≪ Previous: James Gillick

Born 1975 in Sittard. Lives and works in Sittard and Maastricht.

EDUCATION

1999 School of Fashion, Sittard (NL)
2001 Academy of Fine Arts (A.B.K.), Maastricht (NL)
2009 Artist in Residence, I.S.C.P. New York City, New York (USA)

AWARDS

2011 Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds Limburg (NL) Inspiration Award for painter Sidi El Karchi

↧

Crystal Barbre

February 7, 2013, 3:27 pm

≫ Next: B.B. Flockling

≪ Previous: Sidi el Karchi

"Crystal Barbre touches upon a beautiful deviance through the scope of her painted work.

Fearless and without censor, she plays with themes that would make most uncomfortable.

She embraces the pornographic and revels in our animalistic urges, perfectly rendering our true

nature in spite of what the media has trained our minds to believe and balancing our dark side

with a dark humor. There is no shock to Crystal's artwork, only a confidence and a playful

honesty that comes with a true artist's brush stroke.

Trained at the Gage Academy of Art, Crystal creates with brilliant technique and a Master's eye.

It is no wonder she has been on the radar of publications like Juxtapoz and Bizarre Magazine,

as she is definitely an artist to watch. Sex is not dangerous…In this current art climate,

Crystal Barbre is."

source

↧

B.B. Flockling

February 8, 2013, 4:28 am

≫ Next: Hope Gangloff

≪ Previous: Crystal Barbre

A little bit of magic

↧

Hope Gangloff

February 8, 2013, 6:48 am

≫ Next: Eric Bailey

≪ Previous: B.B. Flockling

Born in Amityville, New York 1974.

Educated Cooper Union, New York 1992-1997.

"About The Artist

Hope Gangloff is known for creating vibrant and truthful portraits of her friends as a way to share her view of modern American life. By capturing this generation of young adults in her illustrations and paintings, she documents this era's struggle during these tumultuous economic times.

Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Curator Mónica Ramírez-Montagut says about Gangloff's works: "Her paintings and drawings make us feel her and her subjects and feel for them as well; they make us feel for ourselves and the period to which we belong. In the midst of the struggles of our current everyday lives, Hope finds both beauty and passion."

Gangloff studied fine art at Cooper Union in New York. After leaving art school, Gangloff worked in a bronze foundry and made illustrations for publications such as the New York Times, the New Yorker, Spin Magazine, and Built by Wendy. Her work now hangs in galleries and museums around the world.

Hope Gangloff Gallery Art"

source

↧

Eric Bailey

February 8, 2013, 7:54 am

≫ Next: Spencer Herr

≪ Previous: Hope Gangloff

"Having many sources of fascination from an early age, the heart of artist Eric Bailey's practice is in the influence he draws from his surroundings. From the coastal settings of Big Sur and Santa Cruz, Ca to the streets of San Francisco, Bailey finds artistic inspiration in the natural meets modern. This comes through in his classical style oil paintings that fuse glamour with nature and turn a contradictive eye on the traditional thought of luxury. Bailey currently resides in San Francisco, Ca where he intends to take his concept of naturalism versus materialism even further. Intermingling the two-standout energies of Northern and Southern California, Bailey plans to give life to the final product. When executed the collection will be a facetious concoction of the organic beauty of unrefined settings meshed with the polished refinement of extravagance".

Eric Bailey

↧

Spencer Herr

February 8, 2013, 8:48 am

≫ Next: Mustafa Maluka

≪ Previous: Eric Bailey

Spencer Herr was born in Kansas City, MO in 1974. He moved to Scottsdale, AZ in 1980 and currently lives and works in Asheville, NC. In 2000 He earned his BS from Northern Arizona University. His work is shown across the US including Santa Fe, NM, Asheville, NC, Charleston, SC, and Chapel Hill, NC. He has shown at the Hickory Museum of Art and the Out Sider Art Fair in NYC.

His work centers on the social and cultural impacts of religious and philosophical ideas. Layers of acrylic, crudely scratched lines and deftly drawn/painted detail construct his figurative images.

↧

Mustafa Maluka

February 8, 2013, 1:11 pm

≫ Next: Thierry Carrier

≪ Previous: Spencer Herr

Born in 1976, Cape Town, South Africa
Lives and works in Finland

Mustafa Maluka (b. 1976) cites various art historical and cultural sources in his work. His interests range from design and fashion to art history, cultural analysis, philosophy and psychology. Maluka’s working method is the process of selecting and assembling portraits. He collects images of faces that have a particular look, that project a particular energy and pride. He liberates the images from their original context and recreates them in a new form on canvas with many layers of paint. Mustafa Maluka studied at the De Ateliers Art Institute in Amsterdam. He lives and works in Helsinki and New York.

↧

Thierry Carrier

February 8, 2013, 2:39 pm

≫ Next: LoveringArts

≪ Previous: Mustafa Maluka

"Thierry Carrier ne se qualifie pas comme un portraitiste. Les personnages représentés dans ses toiles, qui sont souvent son propre reflet, ne sont en aucun cas ancrés dans un espace géographique reconnaissable. Les tableaux sont sans titre et par cela, ne remplissent pas les codes habituels du travail d’un portraitiste.

On se retrouve devant différentes mises en situation d’un état, un monde de silence, une représentation dépouillée de l'Homme, un être en suspend et insondable dont la poésie certaine semble inénarrable :

« Cette couche multi-feuilles enferme en son épaisseur une certaine notion du mutisme. Ainsi je me retrouve peu à peu entouré d’imposants monolithes. Statues en vibration, elles semblent tout ingérer; même le temps ralenti semble sursauter sous les coups de pattes patinées. De ce qui accompagne le texte s’évapore, s’affaisse, l’intelligible survole avec l’intellect ces chants gris bordés de noir. Cette même surface des abysses confondant une quiétude chère au faiseur. Chemin vers la sage immobilité, sûrement, expression de l’indicible beauté, je ne pourrais l’avouer, juste le susurrer dans la lente ondulation de ce qui danse sur le fil de la solitude. Celle-là même qui s’oppose, qu’on peut apprendre à perdre et qu’il est si dur de construire. J’apprends là le son de ce qui ne se dit pas. »

(Extrait du texte écrit par Sébastien LAYRAL pour l’exposition « NOUS, VOUS, LISSES » de Thierry Carrier, en @telier à Châtelguyon en Octobre 2010)."

quote

↧

LoveringArts

February 8, 2013, 3:49 pm

≫ Next: Przemek Blejzyk (aka Sainer)

≪ Previous: Thierry Carrier

"I started late to watercolours five years ago ! I wanted to go to Art School as a kid , but my parents decided it was not a real job ! so I missed out the opportunity ! so some thirty five years later I decide to have a go at watercolour ! and to my surprise realised I had retained my creative juices. So upward and onward I can not stop myself from aspiring to get that elusive watercolour , and someday set up shop for myself ."

LoveringArts

↧

Przemek Blejzyk (aka Sainer)

February 9, 2013, 2:44 am

≫ Next: Darrell Hill

≪ Previous: LoveringArts

"Polish graffiti artist, Przemek Blejzyk (aka Sainer), as Aryz, is distinguished by hisfrescoes gigantism. Walls of several levels, areas in kilometers, height as weight does not scare him. Next to this delusions of grandeur, is expressed an exceptional graphic sensitive. Author of oil and acrylic canvasses, Sainer paints the mankind, from a faithful naturalism to the extremest surrealism. Colors, postures, expressions, each character testifies about the human diversity being physical, mental or cultural" ...

quote

↧

Darrell Hill

February 9, 2013, 4:22 am

≫ Next: Vicky Mount

≪ Previous: Przemek Blejzyk (aka Sainer)

"Born 1941 in Hillsborough, Illinois and raised in California, he received formal art instruction at the College of the Sequoias, Fresno State University and Brooks Institute, School of Fine Art in Santa Barbara."

"Art connoisseurs consider Darrell M. Hill "one of the finest bold impressionists alive today." The subjects of Hill's paintings are as diverse as the Hawaiian paradise in which he lives ? beaches, florals, tropics, landscapes and beautiful native people ? but the "Hill touch" is unmistakable in each of his works.

Strong contrast, bold use of color, and light with surface texture are hallmarks of Hill's paintings. He has a gift for observation and the ability to paint with both freshness and emotion. Darrell Hill paintings, which are featured in collections worldwide, capture the moment of light that often reflects a story. They are described as colorful and comforting, warm and inviting and sometimes, courageous.

As demand for his work grew, it became necessary for Hill to devote his full energies to gallery sales and the creation of larger paintings. Many of his works are over nine feet. Since making that decision he has enjoyed outstanding success in his career; which now spans more than two decades. In addition to his beautiful work in oil, Hill also works in watercolor and drawing.

Influential in Hill's work are such artists as Monet, John Singer Sargent, Joaquin Sorolla, Van Gough, Klimt and Gauguin."

RIP Mr. Darrell

↧

Vicky Mount

February 10, 2013, 5:25 am

≫ Next: Giorgio Pignotti

≪ Previous: Darrell Hill

Vicky is an established artist living and working in Edinburgh. Her oil paintings represent the quirkiness and love of everyday life.

"I look at the world with a gentle humour, believing that in smiling, it is easier to live in a complicated world. If I had to say what my paintings are about (in a very small nutshell) I’d say they were about love, work, death, friendship and loneliness and longing, escape…and hope…and…I’m going to need a bigger nutshell.

I hope you like what you see."

Vicky Mount

↧

Giorgio Pignotti

February 10, 2013, 2:39 pm

≫ Next: Jeff Musser

≪ Previous: Vicky Mount

Born 09.07.1979

Education

Academy of Art

Professor in Photography& Graphic, Institute of Art O.Licini (AP).

↧

Jeff Musser

February 10, 2013, 2:55 pm

≫ Next: Li Hongbo - 李洪波

≪ Previous: Giorgio Pignotti

"I see in the tattoo one of the most dramatic aesthetic status shifts within American society in the last decade. Tattoos have changed from the ink splotches of the damned, those at the very periphery of polite society into a legitimized fine art now widely accepted by the mainstream. Indeed, those who bear them proudly invite the public to read their skin like an open diary, with each inked image telling a story — an indelible histogram that can detail a point in time as well as a journey. This form of expression, far beyond anything on the Internet, is one of the defining languages of my generation, more enduring and more intimate than any digital medium could ever be. More can be read at my site, www.jeffmusser.com I've had 6 solo shows, taken part in 36 groups shows all over the United States, most recently in Siena Italy where two of my drawings can be found in the permanent collection of the Siena Art Institute. My work can be found in numerous private collections around the United States, most notably, Oprah Winfrey as well as collections in Asia and like I said, Italy.

Education

BFA The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL 2000"

↧

Li Hongbo - 李洪波

February 11, 2013, 2:42 am

≫ Next: Celeste Keller

≪ Previous: Jeff Musser

Born Siping City, Jilin, 1974. Lives and works in Beijing

Even for a book editor and designer, Li Hongbo has an unusual attachment to paper. “I love it and collect it,” he says. He also does increasingly audacious experiments with it. The installation Paper (2010) began when Li Hongbo bought one of the “honeycomb” paper balls used for festive decorations in China and took it apart to see how it was made. “I realised it’s really quite simple,” he says. “Yet the flexibility in terms of shape and properties is amazing.” His take on this craft tradition is indeed amazing, and it is made entirely of common paper. With the help of an assistant, Li Hongbo stuck more than 30,000 sheets together with carefully placed stripes of glue to form what look like two large blocks of balsa wood. Using an electric saw, he carved these stacks into identical human figures. One he leaves intact, except for a toppled head; the other is stretched out like a vast accordion, its torso and limbs looping around the gallery space like a gigantic Slinky toy. Many visitors find it hard to believe that it ever looked anything like its upright twin. The artist hopes the work will awaken viewers to what captivates his own imagination: “the endless possibilities of paper.”

Li Hongbo - Pure White Paper from Dominik Mersch Gallery on Vimeo.

↧

Celeste Keller

February 11, 2013, 3:27 am

≫ Next: Magdalena F. Merino

≪ Previous: Li Hongbo - 李洪波

Celeste Keller is a Toronto based artist, a figurative painter who focuses on the connections between the figure and the space that surrounds it. She is particularly interested in the portrayal of ‘urban moments’, finding the extraordinary in the ordinary and then expressing it through paint.

Celeste received her formal training at the University of Guelph from 1989-1994. Studying under Tony Scherman, Margaret Priest, Ron Shuebrook and Greg Murphy, she obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. In 1995 she attended the Ontario College of Art to further her Painting and Drawing skills. She later attended George Brown College where she became certified as an Interior Decorator and a Feng Shui Practitioner.

In 2003, Celeste began a small business incorporating her Fine Art skills with Interior Decorating. Her services include Paintings, Murals, Designer Wall Finishes, Colour and Feng Shui consultations.Celeste began exhibiting her paintings throughout Ontario in 2007. She was recently awarded the Edward Jones

Award of Merit for her subway portraits in the Neilson Park Creative Centre’s 16th Annual Juried Competition.

Education

2009OCAD/CARFAC, Bridging the Gap for Artists

2009Haliburton School of the Arts, Advanced Independent Painting

2008Haliburton School of the Arts, Advanced Independent Painting

2007Haliburton School of the Arts, Advanced Independent Painting

2001OCAD, Life Drawing and Figure Painting

1994 - 1996OCAD, Painting and Drawing

1989 - 1994University of Guelph, BFA

↧

Magdalena F. Merino

February 11, 2013, 4:09 am

≫ Next: Pedro Rodríguez Garrido

≪ Previous: Celeste Keller

MAGDALENA F. MERINO

Madrid, 1963

OBRA EN FUNDACIONES-COLECCIONES

Sus obras se encuentran en colecciones de EEUU, Singapur, Europa y España. Por ejemplo Fundación Newmann Assotiations (EEUU). Colección Eileen Olchowala, Aldo Castillo Arts Foundations (Chicago, EEUU), Museum of Science & Industriy (Chicago EEUU), Corparación Hispano-Hotelera, Multinacional Grey Trace. Confederación de Cajas de Ahorros (Madrid, España) Fundación Confemental (Madrid, España), Centro de estudios de Miguel Hernández , futuro Museo Hernandiano (Alicante, España).