Monday, October 19, 2015

Terrific Torrington

So this is happening right now.  It is an amazing little show filled with some pretty cool new stuff that is a little off my usual beaten path. Stop in any time Monday through Friday to Founders Hall.  The show closes October 29tth so you still have time!

T-town 1, watercolor mixed media, 4 x 5 inches, 2015

T-town 2, watercolor mixed media, 4 x 5 inches, 2015

T-Town 3, watercolor mixed media, 4 x 5 inches, 2015
 More news on this one later!




T-Town 4, watercolor mixed media, 5 x 5 inches, 2015

T-Town 5, watercolor mixed media, 5 x 5 inches, 2015

T-Town 6, watercolor mixed media, 5 x 5 inches, 2015

T-Town Tire Fire 02, 5.5x5, inches, watercolor, 2014

T-Town Tire Fire 03, 5.5x5, inches, watercolor, 2014

T-Town Tire Fire 04, 5.5x5, inches, watercolor, 2014

T-Town Tire Fire 05, 5.5x5, inches, watercolor, 2014

T-Town Tire Fire 06, 5.5x5, inches, watercolor, 2014

Torrington Towers from FPI Factory Building, oil on paper, 10 x 10 inches, 2013

Torrington Water Street at Alfredos, oil on paper on canvas, 10 x 10 inches, 2013

Torrington Wires at Church and Water, oil on paper, 6 x10 inches, 2013

T-Town Tire Fire 01, 5.5x5 inches, watercolor, 2014

Torrington Sky Wires, oil on paper, 10 x 10 inches, 2013  
 I think the titles of my work are great.  I am like the count...ONE little T-Town painting.  TWO little T-Town painting...ha ah ah ah ah!

Monday, May 18, 2015

Richard Serra repost



This is the post I wrote for the First Street Gallery blog:

Richard Serra is one of my favorite minimalist artists. My first encounter, strangely enough, was a rather offensive steel structure at the Tate Modern and I remember distinctly thinking how dangerous and difficult it must have been to get that particular mass and weight up to the fourth floor. I was unnerved by the prospect of the process alone. Also I was very hesitant to go near it looking as unstable as it does.  
 
Trip Hammer, 1988, photo courtesy of http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/richard-serra-1923

  

The second time was Inside Out, 2013, Weatherproof steel, at the 21st Street Gagosian. I was changed by walking through that installation sculpture. Again I thought about logistics at first, but there was a guard having a panic attack from standing at the center of the warped space and I could feel the manipulation of my own personal, comfortable space waxing and waning.   It was incredible.  Beautiful.  Indescribably intelligent.   As a painter, “manipulating the viewer” became a really important concept to how I viewed and made art.  Like all natural wonders, Inside Out made me feel insignificant. 
Image courtesy of Hyperallergic, http://hyperallergic.com/92340/mr-big-stuff-richard-serra-piles-it-on/


Richard Serra’s drawings, Vertical and Horizontal Reversals, at David Zwirner were just as incredible.  The black pigment spread thick like an exotic butter on raw whitepaper had my painting sensibilities enraptured. 
Photo courtesy of David Zwirner, http://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibition/richard-serra-vertical-and-horizontal-reversals-2/


Richard Serra: Equal at David Zwirner was just as incredible to me.  Like childhood blocks, stacked high only to be knocked down in a powerful swoop, giving the player confidence and building the ego, these blocks are stacked but reverse the power lesson.   These blocks cannot easily be knocked down.  They are massive, weigh tons, and impress the viewer with the wonder of those ideas.  Like natural wonders, the blocks effectively reduce the viewer to insignificance in the greater universe.
I do believe that Jerry Saltz put it best in his three sentence review.



Photo: Richard Serra: Equal, David Zwirner, New York, 2015 Photo by Tim Nighswander/IMAGING4ART, Courtesy of David Zwirner, New York/London Artwork ? 2015 Richard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Richard Serra: "Equal"
David Zwirner
537 W. 20th St., through July 24


“By now it's not unusual when confronting one of Richard Serra's gigantic, metrically menacing, magnetically mighty curving steel sculptures, which are simultaneously architectonic and geological, to walk all around its meandering curves, maybe spot lovers kissing in the center of one, look at it in utter awe, yawn, and say, "Great!" This new show consists of four huge stacks of two cubic slabs, one atop another, and find Serra's mastery of material, mass, gravity, density, and an almost uncanny not-thereness now joined by ideas of the empty spaces between these shapes of steel and the tremendous forces acting upon them — but nevertheless being empty presences, interstices that you can look into and know in your body. This is his best show in more than 15 years of great shows, and it resounds with a complexity and cosmic instability not seen in solitary objects since Giorgio Morandi's miraculous vibrating arrangements.” - Jerry Saltz

Richard Serra is at David Swirner until July 24 but if you’re like me, don’t just go once!
For more information go to: http://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibition/richard-serra-vertical-and-horizontal-reversals-2/

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Elaine de Kooning

Elaine de Kooning, (left) “Ornette Coleman” (c. 1965), pencil on paper, 13 9/16 x 11 inches and (right) “Ornette Coleman” (c. 1965), graphite with stumping paper, 13 9/16 x 11 inches. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (© Elaine de Kooning Trust)


Check out this article on Elaine De Kooning.  It is an interesting read for sure.  The image choices are great!  I don't know about you but seeing images like these puts me in a working mindset.  They make me want to draw. 

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Who's who?

Tracy and I have been tagged, and hyperlinked as artists to Rural Intelligence's Who's who page for the Kent Land Trust Wine Tasting!



And then

This magical thing happened!
Backyard Deep Freeze 02 and 03, watercolor, 12 x 12 inches framed, 2014

Yay for red dots!

Thanks!











First I need to thank everyone for all the support I got from my second solo show at First Street Gallery!  It was a great show and successful for many reasons!  Firstly it was successful because the work.  The work was so different than my first show and so much better, in my opinion.  It was also so much more risky.






Monday, September 15, 2014

FIRST STREET GALLERY blog: Stanley Lewis


Stanley Lewis, Westport, 2010-2014, oil on canvas 21.25 by 35.25 inches

FIRST STREET GALLERY blog: Stanley Lewis: Hello followers!   With the new season upon us, we are reinvigorated and are re-encouraged to record our thoughts and adventures!   ...