Recent art that you liked

[stlukesguild]

David Jagger- Model Resting

Another lovely nude.

 

[stlukesguild]

Kees van Dongen- Portrait of a Woman

I've never seen this painting by Van Dongen before in spite of being quite familiar with his work.

 

[stlukesguild]

-Harry Wilson Watrous: Just a Couple of Girls 1915

Lovely painting. I like the contrast between the realism of the figures rendered tonally and the flat stylized stage set of the background rendered in light pastel colors.

 

[Artyczar]

Me too.

 

[john]

100x80 cm acrylic

Reality and Imagined Meditative States Converge in Tomás Sánchez's Tranquil Landscapes — Colossal

Through serene, idyllic landscapes, Tomás Sánchez visualizes his long-harbored fascination with meditation. The practice, the Cuban painter says, is “where I find many of the answers to questions that transcend from the personal to the universal. Meditation is not always a fleeting time...

www.thisiscolossal.com

The kind of discipline skill and effort to make something like this just blows my mind.


Through serene, idyllic landscapes, Tomás Sánchez visualizes his long-harbored fascination with meditation. The practice, the Cuban painter says, is “where I find many of the answers to questions that transcend from the personal to the universal. Meditation is not always a fleeting time. Meditation is not a punctual exercise; it is a constant practice.”

Rather than conceptualize the exercise as a temporary state, Sánchez views mediation as a lens to interpret the world, a recurring theme that has foregrounded much of his work during the last few decades. His acrylic paintings and hazy graphite drawings, which take months if not years to complete, highlight the immensity and awe-inspiring qualities of a forest thick with vegetation or a nearby waterfall and offer perspective through a lone, nondescript figure often found amongst the trees. Distinct and heavily detailed, the realistic landscapes aren’t based on a specific place but rather are imagined spaces available only through a ruminative state.

 

[stlukesguild]

I've been aware of and admired Tomás Sánchez' paintings for some time now. He is truly a late Romantic... or perhaps more accurately, he falls within the Latin American tradition of Magic Realism.

 

[john]

I know that Paul Klee is a favorite of Ayin's. I like him too but I never saw so much of his art. Yesterday I watched this video collection of 277 of his works and I was thinking. I give up. Klee has done all the good abstractions already and better than I could ever do. I'm just going to curl up in a corner somewhere now.

And one thing I noticed is that there is feeling of good vibes. It's on the cheery light side of strange. After seeing it I felt good, like everything is OK.

 

[stlukesguild]

Klee was a real eye-opener for me. While I was still a student in art school, a major retrospective of his work traveled from the MoMA in New York to Cleveland. At the time I had absolutely no use for Abstraction and very little interest in Expressionism. But the Cleveland Museum of Art was right across the street from the art school and as a student, I was given free admission to the special exhibitions.

I remember thinking that I shouldn't like this stuff... but I was absolutely enthralled. Even the abstract works grabbed me...

The surfaces, the inventive techniques, the child-like playfulness all impressed me... and struck me as somehow akin to the works of Joseph Cornell... who I was also just then discovering...

To this day, I remember being absolutely blown away standing in front of Ad Parnasum

I was so enthralled with Klee that I ended up buying the catalog for $40... which was a fortune for a poor art student at the time:

Today I still have the original copy... all dog-eared, written in, paint-spattered... and a newer copy that is in far better condition.

 

[Artyczar]

Remember he was one of the pioneers/inventors of this stuff John. Don't let it get you down or want to give up. Let him inspire you to the ends of the earth. His influence and awe can't be anything but good. I would recommend the book The Diaries of Paul Klee and to look at a lot of his drawings to see how his preliminary ideas come to fruition. Very cool concepts and a way to see how originality and imagination develops in individual ways.

 

[john]

Remember he was one of the pioneers/inventors of this stuff John. Don't let it get you down or want to give up. Let him inspire you to the ends of the earth. His influence and awe can't be anything but good. I would recommend the book The Diaries of Paul Klee and to look at a lot of his drawings to see how his preliminary ideas come to fruition. Very cool concepts and a way to see how originality and imagination develops in individual ways.

Yeah, I'm half kidding. But I look at some of his works, like the geometric cubist? colorful town scenes and think - oh that would be nice to do something like that - but he's already done it. I suppose it's hubris to think I can own it. All art is built on the previous. The second cave man spray painting his hand probably felt the same way.

 

[Artyczar]

Yup, I know exactly what you mean!

 

[stlukesguild]

I should have posted this a few days ago for the Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year. The painting is by an unknown Korean painter from the 1800s... and perfect for the "Year of the Tiger". I stumbled upon it on one of my social media feeds and was surprised to find it is actually in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

 

[stlukesguild]

I just stumbled upon this piece today:

Aryballos (a small spherical or globular flask with a narrow neck used in Ancient Greece) featuring the faces of two women, one Greek and one Ethiopian, with an inscription reading “ΚΑΛΟΣ” (meaning beauty). Dating back to 520-510 BC, it is now held at the Louvre Museum. It is somewhat enlightening to realize that Ancient Greece and Ethiopia were trading with each other at this point in history.

 

[stlukesguild]

I suspect many of us have certain contemporary artists who we continue to watch. The Japanese painter, Yasunari Ikenaga, is one such artist for me. His works focus upon imagery of attractive and fashionable young women... often known models. This... and some of the formal elements, including the flatness, is suggestive of Japanese Ukiyo-e prints. At the same time, Yasunari builds upon the tradition of Japanese painting employing mineral pigments, varnish, ink, gold paint on linen mounted on wood panel. His paintings also suggest the patterns, colors, and compositions of the Preraphaelites... especially William Morris.

- One of his most recent paintings, The Nightengale That Doesn't Sing- Maria is the first nude I have seen by Yasunari... and one of his finest paintings IMO

 

[Artyczar]

One of my favorite artists, Jennifer Packer, is showing at the Whitney until April 15th. Here are a few of her paintings. The first may be a self-portrait, but I'm not sure. It's not recent.

The next are more recent works:

 

[stlukesguild]

A good many of the modern/contemporary artists that I find most engaging fall outside of the dominant strain of Western MFA graduate art stars of the big New York/London galleries. More than a few of my favorites are Japanese artists. I just stumbled upon Matazō Kayama. Kamaya was born in 1927 and graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts in 1949. His works were predominantly landscape paintings employin g a mixed media technique:

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[E.J.H.]

Really like the group of birds in the forest.

 

[Artyczar]

All of these are absolutely fricken gorgeous! WOW!

 

[john]

Peter Doig. I hate him. I should be him but he was him first. He stole all of my ideas, just because he went to art school, and lived the life that I would have if I were him. And now I have to paint like me, which is like his, so mine be will seen as more just Pete frikkin Doig.

Every time I see his paintings I think..."Thanks Pete, that's one more idea that I can't use". That's after I admire the painting. " You just used up all the ideas . And the textures and ways of looking....."

I'm kidding of course. I can do better than this. RIght?

 

[Enyaw]

Ok. So this gal looked at a statue and then makes a series of paintings loosely based on the statue. Legal: I assume. Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning. Anyway I like it but it seems a bit of a rip.