Category: contemporary art

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Paul Villinski

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Paul Villinski (born 1960) is an American sculptor best known for his large-scale installations of individual butterflies made from aluminum cans found on the streets on New York City.He briefly attended Phillips Exeter Academy and the Massachusetts College of Art, and graduated with a BFA with honors from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

With a lifelong concern for environmental issues, Villinski’s work frequently re-purposes discarded materials, effecting surprising and poetic transformations.An avid pilot of gliders and single-engine airplanes, metaphors of flight and soaring often appear in his work.As an artist, Villinski coaxes clouds of aluminum butterflies into a lyrical orbit.His primary muse has taken the form of butterflies rendered in multiples as they swirl across walls or carefully organize into shapes.

More of Paul Villinski’s creative art can be found at http://paulvillinski.com/.

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Adolfo Wildt

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Adolfo Wildt (1868 – 1931) emerged as one of the most influential and distinctive sculptors of the early 20th century.Born into a family of limited means, at the age of twelve Wildt was apprenticed to Giuseppe Grandi (1843-1894) in Milan, the leading sculptor of the Scapigliatura movement, before learning the art of marble carving from Federico Villa.The artist is distinguished for his meticulous craftsmanship and innovative approach to form and material.Wildt’s works encapsulate a profound synthesis of symbolism, modernist experimentation, and a deep engagement with Italy’s evolving cultural landscape.His sculptures, characterized by their intense emotional expression, innovative use of materials, and complex iconography continue to resonate within art historical discourse as exemplars of Italian modernism.

.His development as a sculptor was deeply influenced by Italy’s rich artistic heritage, as well as by the burgeoning movements of Symbolism and Art Nouveau that swept across Europe at the turn of the century.Wildt’s career spanned a transformative era, from the late 19th century through the tumultuous interwar period, during which he established himself as a master of allegorical and expressive sculpture.

More of Adolfo Wildt’s marvelous sculptures can be found at https://www.thelondonlist.com/culture/adolfo-wildt.

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Peter Max

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Peter Max (born Peter Max Finkelstein -1937) is a German-American artist known for using bright colors in his work.

After immigrating to the United States in 1953, Max continued his artistic pursuits by enrolling at the Art Students League in New York City.

Works by Max are associated with the visual arts and culture of the 1960s, particularly psychedelic art and pop art.

Max’s diverse cultural experiences, ranging from his Jewish heritage to his exposure to Chinese and Buddhist art, laid the foundation for his unique artistic vision. 

An instant media sensation when he made his debut in the 1960s as the go-to artist for the leading rock bands in the heyday of the Woodstock era, Max’s career became ever more public over the decades.

Max’s journey as an artist reflects a lifelong dedication to pushing artistic boundaries and capturing the essence of the ever-evolving cultural landscape.

Through his vibrant paintings and iconic artwork, he has created a visual language that transcends time and continues to captivate audiences worldwide.

More of Peter Max‘s extraordinary artwork can be found at https://petermax.com//

 

 

 

 

             

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Sir Grayson Perry

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Sir Grayson Perry (- 1960) is an English artist known for his ceramic vases, tapestries, and cross-dressing, as well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene, dissecting British prejudices, fashions and foibles.

Perry graduated from Portsmouth Polytechnic with a BA in fine arts in 1982.

Perry is renowned for his eccentric and politically charged artworks.

There is a strong autobiographical element in his work, in which images of Perry as Claire, his female alter ego, and Alan Measles, his childhood teddy bear, often appear.In his work Perry reflects upon his upbringing as a boy, his stepfather’s anger and the absence of proper guidance about male conduct.Perry’s urns are rendered with an incomprehensible master-craft: their surfaces richly textured from designs marked into the clay, followed by intricately complicated glazing and photo-transfer techniques.A master of the incongruous juxtaposition, Perry scrawls savage satirical messages alongside sentiments of nostalgia for lost innocence.More of Grayson Perry’s unique vases can be found at https://www.artsy.net/artist/grayson-perryson-perry

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Heath Satow

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Heath Satow (-1969) is an American artist who works in fabricated metals. Satow attended North Carolina State University School of Design where he graduated with honors with a concentration in sculpture.The curved facets of his sculptural surfaces pull apart our visual surroundings, distort and re-order them in unexpected ways, creating a new interpretation of the world we usually tune out and take for granted.Satow’s intention with these pieces is to tune us back into the world around us.”I work primarily with mirror-polished stainless because of the visual variety it offers daily,” Satow shares.

“As natural light changes, as the colors of the seasons change, even as people’s fashion changes, all these permutations are literally reflected in the work.”More of Heath Satow’s amazing sculptures can be found at https://www.publicsculpture.com/.

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Adam Lee

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Adam Lee (1979-) is a contemporary artist from Melbourne, Australia.Lee holds a Bachelor and Masters of Fine Art, and a PhD from RMIT University.With a personal outlook informed by a wide range of sources – folklore, legend and biblical narratives to natural history, music, film and literature – his works on canvas and paper build elaborate worlds where allegory and atmosphere converge.Lee’s work references a wide range of sources including historical and family photographs, spiritual narratives, natural history, and contemporary music, film and literature to investigate aspects of the human condition in relation to ideas of temporal and supernatural worlds.His painting and drawing practices tie together narratives of memory, imagination and transcendence.These explorations find their physical manifestation in Lee’s well-honed individual style, characterized by moody landscapes and a contemporary take on tenebrism (a style of painting that uses strong contrasts of light and dark for dramatic effect.)

More of Adam Lee’s creative artistry can be found at  https://adamlee.com.au/ and https://stationgallery.com/artist/adam-lee/.

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Jeff Koons

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Jeffrey Lynn Koons (-1955) is a famous contemporary artist whose work is influenced by an eclectic array of sensibilities.The artist studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to New York in the late 1970s.

Koons made a name for himself by using everyday objects in special installations that touched on consumerism and the human experience.His art originates from a place and mind informed by strategy and intention for how the cultural world impacts the role of the artist and vice versa.

His work is reflective, energetically charged, and empowering for the viewer.Koons has stated that there are no hidden meanings or critiques in his works, yet critics come sharply divided in their views of his art.Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as kitsch, crass, and based on cynical self-merchandising.As with all artists, the meaning of his work is up to you.More of Jeff Koons’ impressive art can be found at https://www.jeffkoons.com/.

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Adel Abdessemed

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Adel Abdessemed (-1971) is an Algerian-French contemporary artist.He fled Algeria after the beginning of the 1992 civil war, taking with him the memory of the war and the range of atrocities.The artist has been educated at the International City of Arts, Paris, National School of Fine Arts of Lyon, France, the higher School of Fine Arts of Algiers, and Regional School of Fine Arts of Batna, Algeria.Abdessemed embraces a wide variety of media, including drawing, sculpture, performance, video and installation. His work often deals with the themes of war, violence and religion and is characterized by brutal imagery that attempts to depict the inherent violence of the contemporary world.

He is known for his strong works, breaking and transforming the flow of images and the tension of today’s world.Abdessemed manipulates familiar materials and images to create provocative and often violent works influenced by his exposure to the Gulf War and its global impact.

More of Adel Abdessemed’s heartfelt artworks can be found at https://www.adelabdessemed.com/.

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Paitoon Jumee

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Born in 1978, Paitoon Jumee is a contemporary Thai artist known for his portrayals of the female face.Jumee studied at the Thai Vijitsil Art School from 1993-1996, later graduating from Pochang University in 1998.The artist was trained in multiple disciplines including lithography, sculpture, and xylography.Of his collections, the series of paintings depicting female portraits remains his most popular. The majority of these faces feature calm serene expressions, often with closed eyes and pan-Asian features such as almond-shaped eyes.Jumee applies painting techniques such as the superposition of repetitive patterning to create layers beneath the surface of the portrait.Perhaps this reflects the idea of a portrait which reveals the person’s many aspects of character beyond surface deep.The use of the drip technique, among other textural effects, can be considered Jumee’s signature touch.

These flourishes add depth and melancholy to what would otherwise appear a clean and detached portrait. Jumee’s works display his innate sense for textural depth and allow his work to be instantly recognizable.More of Paitoon Jumee’s unique art can be found at https://onarto.com/artists/paitoon-jumee/ and https://tuskgallery.wordpress.com/thai-artists/paitoon-jumee/.

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Armando Mariño

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Armando Mariño is a renowned painter, sculptor and installation artist, and one of the most popular Cuban contemporary artists.Born in Santiago de Cuba, living and working in the U.S., Mariño received his art education at the Pedagogical Institute of Arts from Havana, and the prestigious Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam.

He is widely praised for his mesmerizing works that offer a unique and sarcastic approach to art as a space of power and exclusion.The imagery in Mariño ’s work is usually part of media reports about everyday social issues like refugees, war, economy crisis, and ecology that he incorporates in his art.

Mariño’s paintings are characterized by his distinctive and highly saturated color palette – bright pinks, oranges, greens and yellows that are offset by deep, dark shadows.

Influenced by periods of time living in the varied landscapes of Cuba, the Netherlands, France and New York’s Hudson Valley, the artist’s large-scale works explore relationships between the figure and the natural environment.

Each of his paintings is build up with multiple layers of a strong, vivid, intense, and fluorescent palette of oil or watercolors.

Indeed, Mariño has described painting as an idea that uses color in order to think.

More of Armando Mariño‘s colorful artwork can be found at http://armandomarino.com/  and https://www.widewalls.ch/artists/armando-marino.

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Léa Roche

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After having long painted in traditional way, in oil, acrylic or watercolor, French artist Léa Roche turned her talent into a modern and very contemporary mix of urban and pop style.Roche invented her own brand and working technique under the name of ‘FuzzzyArt’.An artist with a passion for colors and technology, she is inspired by her travels, nature, and especially animals, to create unique multicolored paintings full of life.Roche specializes in portraits of animals, with a predilection for cats and felines, but also works with female faces, abstract scenes and other works.Her paintings come alive with bright colors, abstract shapes, and distinct personalities.There is a depth and beauty to Roche’s renditions, a connection of souls, between the artist and her canvas.More of  Léa Roche can be found at https://lea-roche.artmajeur.com/.

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — David de la Mano

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David de la Mano is a Spanish contemporary artist best known for his stunning murals often depicting silhouettes, trees and other monochromatic imagery.Born in Salamanca in 1975, de la Mano has a degree in Fine Art from the University of Salamanca and PhD studies in Public Art from the University of Valencia.

He is known for his minimalist aesthetics while using black and white themes depicting human figures.His large-scale, black and white pieces provoke reactions among the viewers and encourage their emotions and ideas through a minimalist aesthetic.De la Mano is particularly interested by the theme of the link between human beings as a mass which evolves, in groups, as a flow, or the link between human and nature also as a danger or a union.He observes others and their social or anti-social behavior, exploring every corner of both in his practice, using silhouettes of men, women, or the masses as narrative metaphors.Through these figures, he gives poetic visions of the the human condition in society and the ways human perceive the world.

More of David de la Mano‘s imaginative work can be found at and at  https://daviddelamano.blogspot.com and https://bottleneckgallery.com/collections/david-de-la-mano.

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Ken Grimes

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Ken Grimes was born in New York City in 1947 and grew up in Cheshire, Connecticut.For more than 30 years, he diligently maintained a stark palette of black and white, which he believes to be the most direct way of illustrating the contrast between truth and deception. Grimes’s works are conceptual, never-ending reflections on the themes of extraterrestrial intelligence and cosmic coincidence.
He opens a window to a world where aliens may have and continue to exert some forms of influence on the thoughts and actions of humans here on Earth.
Grimes is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, yet has never let his condition stop him from sharing his vision.
Grimes is a visionary, passionate artist and a dedicated and obsessive researcher who ceaselessly explores myriad bits of arcane data drawn from popular accounts of scientific research, as well as science fiction, news reports, and his own life.The artist’s work is in the permanent collections of the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and he received a Wynn Newhouse Award in 2013. 

Artists always find their calling and share it in their own way. Grimes’ work makes you stop and think of art in a different light. More of Ken Grimes‘ work can be found at https://www.riccomaresca.com/ken-grimes-works-on-paper/ and https://www.outsiderartfair.com/artists/ken-grimes.