Brandt-Roberts Galleries

I am excited to announce that I will now be showing at Brandt-Roberts Galleries in the Short North Arts District of Columbus, Ohio. This is a brand new gallery, they are having their grand opening tonight (Friday Oct. 29th) and will be open and rolling-right-along next week for the first Saturday Gallery Hop (Nov. 6th).

If you are in that area, stop by and have a look. I am told thousands of people converge on the Short North District for first Saturdays, evidently it is the place to be, lots of galleries, boutiques, and restaurants doing it up right.

I have two pcs. at the gallery right now, and a few smaller paintings headed there for a small works show next month.

Brandt-Roberts Galleries
642 N High St
Columbus, Ohio 43215
614.223.1655
www.brandtrobertsgalleries.com
info@brandtrobertsgalleries.com

Pike Takes 2nd

Pike was awarded 2nd place this month in the Bold Brush Painting Competition. I am humbled to place at all, each month a lot of amazing artists turn out. A big thanks to Daniel Keyes, the judge, for choosing my work!

Duveneck, Twachtman, Ohio

I have always been a fan of William Merritt Chase, but a couple others from the same time and group definitely worth admiring are Frank Duveneck, and John Henry Twachtman. These guys kind of blew the doors off American art at the time, bringing impressionism and/or loose brushwork into play. They all inspire me, and although it may or may not be apparent, they likely have, and will have, some influence on my work...you never know what slips in.

On a side-note, subtly related...in that they were a major part of art in the midwest...and to a degree Ohio...I will soon be showing in Ohio...Columbus...the Short North District...more on that to come. (I know that was a stretch)

Charleston Art Auction

My painting, "Masu", will be included in the Charleston Art Auction Saturday, November 6th, 2010. This is a huge honor, and I am extremely humbled to be alongside some amazing talent and ridiculously famous artists. A big thanks goes to Wells Gallery and Morris Whiteside Galleries for making it possible.

If you like art, like auctions, like Charleston, I would recommend registering and attending!

Red Star and Gallery 903

These are a couple new paintings, Red Star and Red Star 2, both 24"x 24", 28"x 28" framed.

I am very excited to say that I am showing again in Portland. I will be represented by a brand new gallery in the Pearl District, Gallery 903. The gallery just had their "soft opening" this past Thursday. Both paintings from this post are hanging there now. The newly remodeled space looks great, and it was awesome to see a LOT of traffic there at the opening which coincided nicely with Portland's "First Thursday" event.

Here is the link to Gallery 903

Diebenkorn, Westmark, Evans

I really liked this past statement I came across by John Westmark.

(John is featured on ArtistADay today)

"Since 1999, my work has been predominately influenced by Diebenkorn, and to a lesser extent, Matisse. I agree with their approach of moving beyond the initial architecture of a painting by concealing and correcting previous marks, with the goal of maintaining a stance of unself-consciousness and rightness. I believe that the relationship between the unconscious, spontaneous reaction and the premeditated, intentional mark is the key to a successful painting. Developing the intuition to know when, and when not to rework, is paramount. Ultimately it is this dichotomy that creates the painting - a collection of brush strokes and marks that reflects the energy and spirit of the artist at the time of its creation.

My subject matter is derived from collected experiences and memories. Each painting becomes a struggle to create a unique visual language - an abstraction of color and form - and not to adhere to a literal translation of a scene or object. This lack of dependency on the literal translation is usually a liberating aspect of the work."

This statement coincided with a Diebenkorn kick I have been on lately. I have never been a huge fan of his actual paintings, but I have found that I agree a lot with aspects of what he has to say about painting. Both Diebenkorn and the statement above say it in a bit more philosophical and elegant way than I would have written, but the concepts are there.

The painting attached to the post is actually by a totally different artist John Evans, which I came across on this recent Diebenkorn voyage. He has done a series of paintings that feature what seem to be a pretty extreme overhead view, something I had started to look into, and first attempted with my painting "Farewell". His are much more successful in my opinion, and certainly more "Diebenkorn-esque", but I continue to attempt these ideas in my own way as they come along.

Southwest Art - 21 Under 31

I had the honor of being included in Southwest Art's "21 Under 31" feature this year. The article is in the September issue, which should be on shelves now, so go check it out if you get a chance!
www.SouthwestArt.com

Flight

Wells Gallery posted this one on their blog, one more painting for the upcoming show, "Flight" 24" x 30". Only a few days now, looking forward to heading down to Charleston for the opening.

Artist A Day

I made an appearance on Artist A Day (artistaday.com) for July 31st. If you have not checked out their site it is pretty cool, as the name makes apparent, they feature a new artist every single day. It is overwhelming and inspiring when something, like this site, makes you realize just how many talented artists are out there creating right now!

Thanks for the post!

CFADA

CFADA (Charleston Fine Art Dealers' Association) has a quick blurb on the upcoming show. It gives another sneak peak for the show, my painting "Pike" and Evan's painting "Dry Dock". Wells Gallery is going to post all the work to their site a few days before the show, you can also contact them if you would like see the work before then.

Juxtapose

I like these Cy Twombly paintings, and to juxtapose with a TOTALLY different artist, also came across this great J.M.W. Turner piece this week.

June Update

Man, time flies, half of the year gone already! Quite a lot has happened over the past month, here is the latest.

I am still working towards my August show at Wells Gallery in Charleston with Philadelphia artist Evan Harrington. I have now settled on 10 pieces for the show, 8 are done, and 2 are in process. This show is meant to be work that is a bit different than what people are used to seeing from Evan and I. I will still have some of the interiors people tend to gravitate towards, but I will also have a touch of landscape work, still life, and some rather experimental stuff...but do not be afraid, it will not be TOO far removed from my previous work. I am pretty excited for this one, and the buzz is just now starting to grow as the Aug. 6th opening approaches. The painting on this post will be 1 of the 10, it has been titled "Everett" and measures 30" x 24".

In a bit of bad(?) news I have officially removed my work from the Lawrence Gallery here in Oregon. I won't go into it here, but I will say that I am sleeping just a bit better now. I am currently looking at new representation in the area, as I believe it is important to have a presence in your local art community. I will post more on that when I have figured out where to land.

Lastly, I have received word that I am one of the young artists chosen to be in the 2010 Southwest Art Magazine "21 Under 31" feature. I am not yet sure which painting will be featured, nor if I placed, but we will all know when the Sept. issue lands.

Stuart Shils

My favorite artist for the past couple weeks (which changes frequently), Stuart Shils. Within a fairly simple statement there is a wonderful energy and sense of immediacy, incredible atmosphere, emotion, and mood, great palette...nice. Here is Stuart Shils' website.

May Show Changes

So there have been some changes to the show in May, most notably the location. Lawrence Gallery Portland has been closed, temporarily or permanently is yet to be decided from my understanding. SO, the show has been moved to Lawrence Gallery Sheridan, which is their Oregon wine country location. The Sheridan location is a great gallery, just a bit of a different feel than the Portland Pearl District. Since it is not in Portland the opening reception does not coincide with "First Thursday". The opening reception will now be on Sunday, May 2nd from 2-4pm. It has been crazy, I have felt a bit tossed around in gallery politics, but I will be glad to have the show still go off, and I am sure it will be great! All of the paintings for the show are now posted to my website.
As the Blue Print 3 declares, "on to the next one". I am now painting towards my show in Charleston SC at Wells Gallery this August with Evan Harrington. This should be a fun show, I am looking to do a whole variety of pieces, I will keep some updates coming.

Portland Preview

Here are a handful of the interior paintings that will be a part of my Portland show in May. If you are interested in this show, you may want to contact Lawrence Gallery Portland and let them know you want to be notified as the work arrives. I believe they will be doing pre-sales, and possibly a private viewing before the opening.

All Ten Plagues

Although this is mostly a blog of painting work, I also do illustration and design. I appreciate all three very much, and am continually inspired by artists in all these fields. In my work the three have remained very different and separate, and over the past few years I have tried to come up with ways to meld them all, but have kind of let them remain separated. I guess they all show up in one another in subtle ways. I was cleaning up some computer files and came across these illustrations. A year or two ago I had a job to illustrate the ten plagues of Egypt. At one point I had posted a few on here. Since then I have had a few people ask me to see them in their entirety, so here they are. As a whole I am pretty happy with them given the constraints of the project, one of which was a ridiculously short timeline. Coming up with fresh and individual ideas quickly for ten very dramatic scenes is tough, especially differentiating between flies, gnats, and locusts. I took a lot of shortcuts, and definitely like a few better than others. They were intended to be in a storybook style, almost children's book illustration, with a simplified "cutout" feel.

Leyendecker Book

I wish I had more money to spend on art books, there are a lot that I pass up that I wish I could buy. This is a Leyendecker book I bought a few weeks back, really nice, great prints, high quality, some of the best reproductions of his work I have seen. If you have an extra $40 it is worth the purchase.

Painting update: I have 13 of about 20 paintings done for my May show in Portland. I sent 2 paintings down to Wells Gallery in Charleston this week. Looks like I may be having another show at Wells Gallery with Evan Harrington in Charleston late this summer, which will be awesome. Our show together last year was a lot of fun, he is a really young guy, still finishing up school, doing amazing traditional work. Also, on another front, I am trying to figure out what to paint for an invitational in Tulsa this summer called "Masters of Influence" put on by the Lovetts Gallery. They pick a famous artist each year and ask artists to create a piece based on, or inspired by, the chosen artist. This year they chose Frank Lloyd Wright, which will be fun because he is an interesting character himself, I am a fan of his architectural work, his sketches are great...there are a lot of ideas to pull from!