Tag: modern art

Sunday Evening Art Gallery (midweek) — Naoko Ito

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

 

Naoko Ito is a Japanese artist based in New York.Born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, Ito received a BA in Science of Design with a concentration in museum studies from Musashino Art University.Her project “Urban Nature” was inspired by the relationship between man and nature.Ito cuts the branches of trees into several pieces and places them in glass jars.Her choice of material originally stems from a desire to replicate the luminosity and fragility of ice, a natural material that shares the quality of preservation with jars.Stacked precariously on the concrete, the works are evidence of an unfaltering hand.Her offerings are unique, fragile, and symbolic.More of Naoko Ito’s exhibition can be found on her website, https://naokoito.com. 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Anthony Grootelaar

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

One of the things about Anthony Grootelaar‘s artwork that I immediately was drawn to was his attention to texture.

Texture can come in many forms, including depth, repetitiveness, and colors.

That is why every picture is so very different. So hard to choose which ones to showcase.

Grootelaar is a self-taught artist, well into the generative- and integrity-based decades of his life.

He strives to make art that is both “interesting” and “practical”, interesting as in arresting, and practical in that it can hung on any wall without any other intent than  to be a dynamic and positive element.

His work can be any mix of pen, paper, paint and brush, high definition photography, digital processing,  and ink jet printing,

Grootelaar says, “Art, as I see it, always starts out as a problem I try to move in a aesthetic  direction. Future directions will include large scale works to maximize the impact of color and composition.”Even if the design or color is not to your palate, the combinations shine together, bringing texture and aesthetics for the forefront.

More of Anthony Grootelaar‘s imaginative work on his website, My Monkey Mind. Be sure to look him up and follow his amazing art journey.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Sam Shendi

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 6 Comments

Sam Shendi is an Egyptian-born British sculptor. He uses contemporary industrial material, steel, stainless steel, aluminium and fiberglass to create his figurative work.

Shendi believes that his works whittle down the human figure to its simplest form, enabling the exploration of the idea of the human form as a vessel.

His colors enhance his sculptures, bringing an extra layer to his abstract forms.

By reducing the human body to a container or minimal shape, his creations become centered on an emotion or an expression.While he appreciates the abstract form, his interest is in the human andpsychological dimensions he adds to his sculptures.

Describing himself as a figurative sculptor it is important to Shendi that the work, however minimalistic, still has an impact on the viewer visually and emotionally.

His work is colorful, inventive, and something that makes the observer stop and just….look.

More of Sam Shendi’s bright modern art can be found at http://samshendi.co.uk/.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Vesna Krasnec

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 6 Comments

Vesna Krasnec is a self-taught artist living in Vienna.

Each of her pictures is a window to a world of relationships: between man and animal, between man and plant, between mother earth and her children.

The viewer finds a world in which man, as a seeker, has found his destination in the Garden of Eden. In this garden we rediscover our lost innocence.Through her distinctive talent for drawing and her strong compositions, Krasnec is able to convey her image idea with conviction and in a forceful way to the people. She keeps away from today’s common attitudes to want to be modern in the art scene, knowing that all contemporary and current are short lived.

She believes that it is only important that her work retains the authenticity which is the characteristic of an art that originated in the middle of the person.More of Vesna Krasnec‘s work can be found at http://vesna-krasnec.com.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Cassius Marcellus Collidge

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (September 18, 1844 – January 13, 1934) was a drugstore owner, painter, bank owner, and inventor.

But Coolidge (who at times signed his work Kash” or Kash Koolidge) became well known as the creator of the dogs-playing-poker genre of painting, a subject which grew out of the 19th-century tradition of visual humor.

His knack for crafting playfully surreal images culminated in his magnum opus, the absurdist canine series for which he’s best remembered today.

According to the advertising firm Brown & Bigelow, then primarily a producer of advertising calendars, Coolidge began his relationship with the firm in 1903.

From the mid-1900s to the mid-1910s, Coolidge created a series of sixteen oil paintings for them, all of which featured anthropomorphic dogs, including nine paintings of Dogs Playing Poker,] a motif that Coolidge is credited with inventing.

His work was purchased by cigar companies, who made copies of his paintings as promotional giveaways, and by the printing firm of Brown & Bigelow who made his work widely known by using it in advertising posters, calendars, and prints.

You can find more of Cassius Marcellus Coolidge’s artwork across the Internet.

Thursday Evening on the Veranda (with a coat) — Ben Ashton

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 10 Comments

Alas, my art gallery affectionados…this is the last evening standing on the veranda, showing off unique and wonderful art. It’s getting to the point where a sweater is just not enough.

As I was wandering from one point to another, I came across this bizarrely amazing artist Ben Ashton.

On his website he has many different types of artwork.

But I came across these paintings and I wondered….what was he thinking?

Was he trying to smear the most intimate parts of the human body?

 

Looking at the magical paintings, we will never know.

More of Ben Ashton‘s work can be found at http://www.benashtonart.com/

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Chrissy Angliker

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

Chrissy Angliker is a Brooklyn-based Swiss/American artist who was born in Zurich and raised in Greifensee and Winterthur, Working from controlled subject matter, she quickly loses herself in the chaotic magic of the process.

 

Her first painting did not go as planned. “I thought I would begin with a self portrait,” she explains. “I began to paint the eyebrows, and the paint began to drip unexpectedly. It was beyond my control, and I had a very strong emotional reaction.”

The beauty of her method of drips is a connection to the chaos she finds in her art.

More of Chrissy Angliker‘s art can be found at https://www.chrissy.ch/.,

Astronomy — the Song, not the Science

~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

giphyLike lesser birds on the four winds
Like silver scrapes in May
And now the sand´s become a crust
Most of you have gone away

Come Susie dear, let´s take a walk
Just out there upon the beach
I know you´ll soon be married
And you´ll want to know where winds come from

Well it´s never said at all
On the map that Carrie reads
Behind the clock back there you know
At the Four Winds Bar

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Four winds at the Four Winds Bar
Two doors locked and windows barred
One door to let to take you in

The other one just mirrors it
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Hellish glare and inference
The other one´s a duplicate

The Queenly flux, eternal light
Or the light that never warms
Yes the light that never, never warms
Or the light that never

Never warms
Never warms
Never warms
The clock strikes twelve and moondrops burst

Out at you from their hiding place
Miss Carrie nurse and Susie dear
Would find themselves at Four Winds Bar
It´s the nexus of the crisis

And the origin of storms
Just the place to hopelessly
Encounter time and then came me
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Call me Desdanova
The eternal light
These gravely digs of mine
Will surely prove a sight

And don´t forget my dog
Fixed and consequent
Astronomy… a star [repeat indefinitely]      ~ Blue Oyster Cult, 1988

 

This is a blog that wraps around my friends the poets.

I have written poetry — I think everyone has. Beauty is in the eyes (and ears) of the beholder. Some are just better than others at it.

I was listening to oldies music at work the other day and I pulled this song out of my flash drive repertoire. Listening to the words made me curious, so I Googled them, and here they are. And I wonder.

What do they mean?

There are lots and lots of songs (especially from the 60’s) with psychedelic melodies, lyrics, and mushroomed foundations. I suppose when you saw God from another planet anything was possible. And there are lyrics far more cryptic than those above.

But, like abstract art, I don’t get it.

I am not a scientific, linear thinker. Far from it. My stories include time travel, magic, computers that write their own stories, and women who follow shadows. But I suppose I always need one foot in reality, or else nothing will make sense.

The lyrics of songs are just as powerful as a sonnet, a haiku, or free verse. They can say so much, so little, be deep or light or anything in between. It’s just harder when it’s ME that has to figure out what it all means.

Like modern art, I know there are things I’m supposed to figure out on my own. Like a Jackson Pollock painting or a Craig Haupt sketch. There is a feeling, a meaning, behind its creation. Sometimes, if the artist is alive, I can plain ask (like Craig!) Other times, if the artist is long gone, I’ve got to either figure it out myself or Google that, too.

In the end, I guess I just liked moondrops and astronomy.  And that is meaning enough for me.

****

P.S.  I just looked up the meaning of the story…I like my own imagination better.

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Gustav Klimt

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was the leading figure of the so-called Vienna Secession, an art movement that rebelled against the established art concepts and introduced a new style similar to Art Nouveau.

the-kiss

To bring more abstract and purer forms to the designs of buildings and furniture, glass and metalwork, the group  gave birth to another form of modernism in the visual arts and they named their own new movement: Secession.

portrait-of-adele-bloch-bauer-i-large

Klimt was seen as an artist who was far ahead of his time.

lady-with-fan-large

Much of the work that was produced during the Austrian born artist’s career, however, was seen as controversial.

the-three-ages-of-woman-1

Although symbolism was used in many of his art forms, it was not at all subtle, and it went far beyond what the imagination during the time frame accepted.

pallas-athene-1898

Klimt’s primary subject was the female body, and his works bordered on eroticism.

judith-i-1901-large

Although his work was not widely accepted during his time, some of the pieces that Gustav Klimt did create during his career are today seen as some of the most important and influential pieces to come out of Austria.

baby-1917-18-large

More of Gustav Klimt’s work can be found at http://www.klimtgallery.org and http://www.gustav-klimt.com.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Bořek Šípek

~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

Bořek Šípek (June 14, 1949 – February 13, 2016) was a Czech architect and designer.

After studying furniture design at the Art School in Prague, architecture at the Art School in Hamburg, and philosophy in Stuttgart,  Šípek finished his doctorate in architecture.

He taught industrial design and architecture, then started his own studio for design and architecture in Amsterdam and Prague.

324-102_Anna_Pawlowna

Bořek Šípek has always felt like an architect more than a designer.

332-104_Dalibor

Šípek explains, “I try to interpret new contexts in a new way. It is much closer to me to newly explain something that has roots than to experiment.”

322-089_The_Princess

His fantastic works can be found in important museums in Europe, Japan and America, among others.

SIPEK GLASSTABLE_Page_09

Bořek Šípek is a master of glass, chandeliers, lamps, carafes, wall hangings, all manners of creative art.

327-099_Svata_Voda

 But for this round, I treat you with his tables.

More of Bořek Šípek‘s beautiful work can be found at http://www.sipek.com and http://www.borek-sipek-design.com.

*

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Modern Museums

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 7 Comments

I love Art Museums.

When I used to work in downtown Chicago, I used to walk to the Art Institute during my lunch hour and wander through its halls one room at a time. I could meander for months and never see it all. The building’s step-back-in-time classical architecture is what art museums are all about.

But in my quest to open my mind and soul to other forms of art, imagine my delight in the structure of modern art museums.

 Museum-of-Modern-Art-Milwaukee_780x432Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin

 You can’t help but notice the unique, almost impossible, angles.

National Museum of American Indian, Washington

 National Museum of American Indian, Washington

Like most Modern Art, these buildings challenge your senses.

Boston Museum of Contemporary Art

Boston Museum of Contemporary Art, Massachusetts

Their designs ask you to make sense of sleek lines and sensual curves.

porsche museumPorsche Museum, Stuttgart, Germany

Sparkling glass and sleek stainless house countless creations that reflect a different side of the human mind.

Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth TX

Modern Museum of Art, Fort Worth, Texas

I admit that I don’t always understand a Modernist’s point of view.

 Museum of Contemporary Art, New York

But one does not always have to understand to appreciate. Or to feel.

Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum (Minnesota)Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minnesota

And, after all — isn’t that what Art is supposed to do? Make you feel?

NITEROI CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUMRio de Janeiro, Brazil ...

 The Niterói Contemporary Art Museum, Brazil

Art Thou Curious?

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 15 Comments

thWhen I think of museums, I think of antiquities. Old, musty books. Relics from the Renaissance. Crystal serving pieces from the Russian Dynasty. I am not a Modernist. Or a Futurist. But I have recently discovered that I am a Fascinationist. And what a delight! Through the magic of one of my favorite bloggers, Hugmamma’s MIND, BODY and SOUL, (http://hugmamma.com), and a newly followed blog, Sandra at Third Person Travel (http://thirdpersontravel.com) , my senses were awakened by images of art and buildings that just blew my mind.

The museum was the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (http://www.guggenheim-bilbao.es), which, in all closed-mindedness, I’d never heard of. The image that caught my fancy is called “Maman”, by  Louise Bourgeois, who, according to Guggenheim, “created a rich and ever-changing body of work that intersected with some of the leading avant-garde movements of the 20th century.” To an armchair museumist, that doesn’t ring home. Ring a bell. Ring a doorbell. But how cool is this?

Bourgeois-281x197

You don’t have to be a modern art aficionado to be able to appreciate a bronze, marble, and stainless steel sculpture.

Or how about Tall Tree & The Eye by Anish Kapoor?

Kapoor-A-357x500 (1)

 

The Gug says, “This illusionistic work continues the artist’s examination of complex mathematical and structural principles embodied in sculptural form. The mirrored surfaces of the orbs reflect and refract one another, simultaneously creating and dissolving form and space.”

That’s a lot of four-dimensional words for a wonderful stainless steel and carbon steel sculpture of shiny balls.

I am an over-the-top advocate of teaching old dogs new tricks. You don’t always have to understand something to appreciate it. To enjoy it. To experience it. I never had sushi till I was 50. Who would have thought? Who would have thought that squeamish me would look forward to watching The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones — bloody, flashy TV shows?

Sometimes your introduction to something new is through your kids. I know my TV voyeurism came from my college son. I just tried quinoa for the first time two weeks ago. That was recommended by my best friend. There are as many types and tastes in food, art, books, and movies as there are fish in the sea. Almost. Why not open your mind to some of them?

I have to admit I would not have wandered to the Guggenheim Museum in Spain had I not spotted that unusual sculpture on another blog. Through other blogs I have seen the most amazing pictures, poetry, and points-of-view. Opportunities I never had when I was younger because we didn’t have the Internet when I was younger. We could be voyeurs by reading books and magazines and taking classes.

But now…

Now the world is open to all of us. We don’t have to age mentally, artistically, or metaphysically. Give something new a chance. You don’t have to live with giant metal spiders in your back yard, but appreciating the creativity that went into something like that takes little effort at all.

I have to admit I don’t get modern paintings that are all one color with a different color circle in the corner, or a plate with a piece of kale and a silver dollar-sized scallop and one drizzle of green that’s called dinner. But then again, not everyone finds fantasy fiction interesting (which is what I write).  There is something out there for everyone. Something new. Every day.

I encourage you to check out the Guggenheim (there is one in Spain, Venice, Abu Dhabi, and New York). Since this blog is about art, why not check out a local art fair?  They’re at  local colleges and in the park and even in the mall. Look at the world through someone else’s eyes.  And, of course, a day trip to a museum would be frosting on the carrot cake of life. Squeeze one into your summer.

It will add years to your soul life. And couldn’t we all use a few more?