Art Stimulant

Nathan Mabry

2012-01-16T08:26:00.001-08:00

Nathan Mabry
The Week of Kindness, 2011
Bronze, powder coated aluminum, paint
111.75 x 63 x 28 inches

Nathan Mabry’s work transforms the known into the new and the unexpected. Mabry engages with both art history and normative objects as readymades. A Duchampian trajectory is balanced by an art-making urge that springs from other early Modernists such as Brancusi, Lipchitz and Picasso, whose visual avarice led them to a range of “exotic” cultural material in an effort to create their own visual language.

Excerpt from the Cherry and Martin website.

Dreadful Sorry Clementine

2011-11-03T19:36:00.000-07:00

Elisabeth Higgins-O'Connor's exhibition Dreadful Sorry Clementine takes its name from a children's nursery rhyme - the original being sing-songy and childish, but contrasted with dark, melodramatic lyrics. Elisabeth's work walks the line between familiarity and chaos. Working with commonly available materials such as bed sheets, bedding and other discarded domestic fabrics. Elisabeth's execution of the materials suggests both obsessive anxiety and wild abandon.

Excerpt from the Charlie James Gallery Press Release November 5 - December 17, 2011.

Trudy Benson

2010-11-24T10:33:00.000-08:00

Trudy Benson Studio View

Trudy Benson
Inside Out, 2010
Oil on canvas
72 x 80 inches

Brooklyn based artist Trudy Benson just picked up by Mike Weiss Gallery in New York. I love this work.

KF + CM 4EVER

2010-11-17T14:27:00.001-08:00

Keltie Ferris
!@#$%^&*()
2010
Oil, acrylic, oil pastel & sprayed paint on canvas
80x80"

Keltie's work is non-verbal, more like noise then language, more akin to flashing lights and potential energies then anything nameable. Therefore each painting is titled by a set of punctuation marks, such as (((!!!))) created by the artist and are emblematic of the emotive, nearly expletive nature of her work. Other titles (including the title of the show) allude to bathroom graffiti, notebook valentines, as well as the ambition of marking a space and marking a future.

Excerpt from the Horton Gallery Press Release November 18 - December 30, 2010.

Red, Yellow Blue

2010-10-04T13:06:00.000-07:00

Portia Hein
Starry Night, 2010
Oil on canvas
48 x 36"

Portia Hein
Pastel forrest (PH10_15), 2010
Oil on canvas
36 x 48"

Portia Hein's newest paintings and drawings continue her translation of the natural world into a personally resonant language of marks, color and texture. Images of birds, trees and celestial bodies find themselves coalescing or breaking apart amidst rays of light, night skies and turpentine washes...Working largely from memory, Hein draws on the emotional as well as the physical attributes of place. Like memory, the surfaces of her paintings are varied. Some parts are thick, vibrant and richly textured, while others, like gaps in memory, are thinly painted and vaguely suggested rather than wholly depicted.

Excerpt from the Traywick Contemporary Press Release October 3 - December 18, 2010 .

Moonmilk

2009-08-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

Ryan McGinley
Blood Falls, 2008/2009
C-print
66 x 101.6 cms / 26 x 40 ins

Alison Jacques Gallery announces the first UK solo show of acclaimed American artist Ryan McGinley with an exhibition of 24 new colour photographs shot in caves across North America. Over the last year, McGinley and his crew explored huge caves underground, venturing into unknown territory, seeking out spectacular natural spaces, some previously undocumented. The title of the show “Moonmilk” alludes to the crystalline deposits found on the walls of many caves; it was once believed that this substance was formed by light from celestial bodies passing through rock into darkened worlds below.

Excerpt from the Alison Jacques Gallery Press Release September 11 - October 8, 2009

Albert Oehlen

2009-06-08T21:56:00.000-07:00

Albert Oehlen

Del ahorro, 2008
Oil and paper on canvas
106 1/4 x 122 inches

In this new group of works, Oehlen paints over, under and around Spanish advertisement posters. The original commercial content of the posters is undermined by Oehlen's reworking of those images as well as his juxtaposition of unrelated advertisements. His interest lies not in the manipulation of pop iconography, but rather in the unnerving emotional effects generated by its obtrusive presence. In contrast with previous work, the use of paint has been reduced, giving focus to the center of the composition and emphasizing the subtle interactions between the paint and the posters. These highly charged paintings eschew formal convention and ultimately advance the medium's function through the artist's continued practice of the deliberate negation of imagery.

Excerpt from the Luhring Augustine Exhibition, APR 25 - MAY 30, 2009

Albert Oehlen
Untitled, 2008
mixed media on paper
11.75" x 8.25"

Albert Oehlen is also exhibiting with Corbett vs. Dempsey in Chicago, May 14 - June 27, 2009

The Rose

2009-02-25T14:55:00.000-08:00

Cy Twombly

Installation view

Each painting comprises four wood panels on which three roses in full bloom are depicted in pulsating colours, ranging from deepest burgundy to tangerine, gold, violet and crimson, set against a background of vibrant turquoise. Inscribed on the last panel of each painting are fragments from Rilke's poem cycle "The Roses." Stanzas scrawled in a gestural mode reflect Twombly's characteristic conflation of painting and poetry, image and word...Some aspects of Twombly's new works recall his earlier cycle of paintings, Analysis of the Rose as Sentimental Despair (1985), now in The Menil Collection, Houston, which also referred to quotations by Rilke, as well as Rumi and Giacomo Leopardi, embracing conceptions of nature dominated by its inevitable demise....

Excerpt from the Gagosian Gallery London exhibition, February 12 - May 9, 2009

German Enlightenment

2008-10-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

Anton Henning
Interieur No. 384, 2007
Oil on linen
74.21 x 86.5 inches

Zach Feuer Gallery's second exhibition of work by German artist Anton Henning includes paintings from 2000 - 2008 and offers an insightful overview of Henning's painterly preoccupations. The titles (Interior, Portrait or Still life) announce rather traditional themes. Henning's headstrong definition of these paint motifs, however, challenges our way to categorize art by blurring the borders between genres. The show title "German Enlightenment" is a reference to both the artist's cultural background and to the tangible fact that the paintings are illuminated only from the light within the frames. The gallery space is transformed into a room-filling self-illuminating installation; the paintings stand out from the wall and capture the exhibition space.

Excerpt from the Zach Feuer Gallery exhibition, October 15 - November 26, 2008

Ivin Ballen

2008-06-26T18:18:00.001-07:00

Ivin Ballen
"Poodle"
2007
Fiberglass, aquaresin, acrylic, absorbant ground, gouache, oil
69 x 65 x 5 "

I love this work on every level. Learn more below:

Excerpt from The Brooklyn Rail Review in February 2008 - "Ivin Balllen 50/50" by Lynn Crawford

I first saw Ballen's work in his graduate studio at Cranbrook in 2006. I, like other visitors, thought I was looking at a two-and-three-dimensional assemblage (a la Robert Rauschenberg) made from packaging materials we frequently use, even rely on, but rarely consider (shipping boxes, duct tape, to-go containers, coffee cups, plastic water bottles), and was astonished to learn that the art works were not made with physical objects, but were actually trompe-l'oeil paintings of them. Ballen constructed maquettes from the previously mentioned items, cast them in aqua resin and fibergalss, painted them to look uncannily just like the original things, and used them to build fantastically shaped pieces.

Ballen is currently exhibiting in a group show ISN'T IT at Tony Wight Gallery, June 13 - August 16, 2008.

Ivin Ballen website

Urbanology

2008-06-06T12:09:00.000-07:00

Mary Livoni
"Elston"
Charcoal, chalk on paper
40 x 48"
Collection of Wesley Kimler, Chicago

"I felt that this world, despite it's massiveness, was somehow dangerously fragile.........."

Richard Wright, American Hunger

A poignant lead in to Mary's amazing charcoal and chalk drawings. Please check out her website to view more.

Mary Livoni website

Bonsai

2008-05-27T12:35:00.001-07:00

Jared Pankin
"Half "
2008
Wood, fake fur, foam
68 x 25 1/2 x 47"

The exhibition title “Bonsai” aptly describes Pankin’s continued search of man’s investigation of and attempts to conquer nature...Chinese Bonsai is said to be the landscape of imagination and often conjures up the idea of the miniature. “To appreciate and find pleasure in curiously curved potted trees is to love deformity,” Pankin states. For the Japanese, on the other hand, Bonsai represents a fusion of ancient beliefs with Eastern Philosophies of the harmony between man, the soul and nature.

The materials Pankin uses are seemingly random mostly synthetic materials ranging from carpet remnants, to expandable foam and tinted latex grafted with taxidermied parts and selected discarded wood acting as armatures and that have been cut, nailed, and glued to suite the artist’s aesthetics....It is this process that has enabled the artist to create sculptures of enormous power and subtle humor that tears down and reconfigures what is natural or man-made.

Excerpt from the Carl Berg Gallery exhibition, April - May 2008

Wilderness Overload

2008-05-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

Casey Roberts

"Steady Work (the charm offensive)"
2008
cyanotype drawing w/collage
69" x 60"

Casey Robert's work illustrates a fantastic landscape. It represents nature's subtle way of dealing with the peculiar aspects in the relationship with mankind. A giant glow-in-the-dark heart, or a pile of precious gems tells us that we are loved, just as blood squirting from an oak tree trunk says, all is not well. Inspired by his conversation with the landscape, Casey imagines long monologues where pine forests make him laugh and mountains test his patience.

These paintings are created with a photochemical process known as cyanotype. The cyanotype is a civil war era process that when exposed to sunlight and developed gives a vibrant blue image.

Excerpt from Casey Robert's website

You are one step closer to learning the truth

2008-03-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

Deb Sokolow
You are one step closer to learning the truth (detail)
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City
141 foot-long drawing inked onto the walls
on view until June 14, 2008

Deb Sokolow, a California native and the granddaughter of a Chicago bookie, developed a curiosity for the city and its nefarious nature in her formative years. Also, at a young age, Sokolow was introduced to the vast universe of politics and intrigue while witnessing a suspicious briefcase exchange in a Washington, D.C. McDonald’s fast food restaurant in 1986 and while working as a congressional intern on Capitol Hill in 1991. A decade later, these interests would surface as subject matter for the paranoid, diagrammatic drawings she would begin to make as a graduate student at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. These days, Sokolow continues to live and make art in Chicago, but spends the majority of her time investigating the dark, gritty recesses of urban life, reading about the exploits of drug lords, and speculating on various conspiracy theories concerning individuals and occurrences within the world’s political landscape.

Excerpt from the Vonzweck Gallery exhibition, March 2008

The Fall

2008-02-01T16:52:00.001-08:00

Robyn Voshardt / Sven Humphrey
The Fall, 2006, (3 min 43 sec), dvd video/sound, dim. variable

This meditative yet ominous footage came from a rural area in Nova Scotia that stands on the brink of over-development. A branch from a 150 year old apple tree is the focus of this extreme view of natural and metaphorical decay.

Voshardt/Humphrey website

How Some Rich People Died

2008-01-27T21:23:00.001-08:00

Shawnee Barton
"How Some Rich People Died"
Bathtub video

Below are excerpts from Shawnee's artist statement and list of her least favorite things.

I am interested in contributing to the depletion of art-world-angst through the creation of humorous, clever, and/or lighthearted work. I like to have fun making art and I want my viewers to have fun experiencing the objects and images I create.

A list of my least favorite things
Tami
Ivory Soap
Black Jelly Beans
Cilantro
Ear aches
Snakes

Shawnee Barton website

Examination of the Over-Sensitive

2008-01-24T22:18:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth Huey

"Examination of the Over-Sensitive"
48 x 96"

Elizabeth Huey gets her inspiration from:

Random google searches, church basements, mental illness and master paintings, machinery, colored waters, crazy rants from gutter bums, ancient psychological manuals and old dictionaries, at the dog run, in my bathtub, in my dreams, American and European history, clothing and costumes, muffled giggling, documentaries new music and the my warped ideas about the wilderness.

Got to love that!

Elizabeth Huey website

The Hyena and Other Men

2008-01-23T14:17:00.000-08:00

Pieter Hugo

Mallam Galadima Ahmadu with Jamis, Nigeria
C-Print
2005

Pieter Hugo created the series The Hyena Men while traveling in Nigeria with a troupe of animal charmers and their collection of tenuously domesticated hyenas, monkeys and snakes. The portraits feature groupings of men and animals surrounded by the barren urban centers of northern Nigeria. Taken during quiet moments between the spectacles of street performances, the photographs depict a stillness that subverts the tense physicality of the animals and their trainers.

Excerpt from the Yossi Milo Gallery Press Release November 2007