BEST OF THE ART GALLERIES:
MARLBOROUGH
No Boundaries Now through -Apr 01 2017
No Boundaries, a group exhibition featuring sculptures by thirteen women: Magdalena Abakanowicz, Alice Aycock, Lynda Benglis, Deborah Butterfield, Petah Coyne, Lesley Dill, Louise Nevelson, Michele Oka Doner, Beverly Pepper, Judy Pfaff, Davina Semo, Kiki Smith, and Ursula von Rydingsvard. The exhibition is open Now and will remain on view through April 1, 2017. Live Link here: http://www.marlboroughgallery.com
BUREAU GUEST ARTIST: NATHAN WALSH
By BUREAU EDITOR J. A. TRILIEGI
Somewhere between the very concise, concrete and physical realities of time and place in locales like San Francisco, New York City, Chicago and the Ideas of a Utopian Eye of the Mind, The Painter, Nathan Walsh has produced a series of large scale, time intensive works that equal, in counterpart, in scope, and in end result, the works of a master Novelist, Filmmaker or Architect. Nathan Walsh, is setting the bar, so high, on the painters of his generation, and those who actually have, and will, in the future, participate in this publication, that we here, are now becoming concerned for everyone else. The scale, the vision, the intricacy, the colors, the patterns, the schematics and the overall attention to detail is, absolutely, some of the best artwork we have ever seen: Now, Before and Since. His draftsmanship skills are up there with the best of the architects: Frank Lloyd Wright. His paranormal and somewhat panoramic views of intricate cityscapes rival the classicist photographers: Edward Steichen. His vibrant and variable color choices are as good or better than some of the best comic illustrators alive: Daniel Clowes.
Nathan Walsh is doing something quite different, at a magnitude and an altitude of dizzying heights. That all said, the works are mature, whilst still being fun. They are pleasing without losing anything to complexity. They are light sensitive, while still achieving refracted objects in detail. And all the while, they are somehow mathematic, without lacking the very soul contained within all truly great art. The entire body of work contains a strange balance between the sober documentation of an actual reality and an impressionistic and stylized view of a world interpreted by a rather scientific minded work-a-day, no nonsense technician. These days, in the so-called, 'Modern Art World,' becoming a house hold name, often registers automatically, due to a happenstance moment in time or place. A sex tape is revealed, an actor turns artist, a war between two parties creates a stir, an artist pushes a political or allegoric analogy, or the big end all, an artist dies, at the hands of themselves or someone else. The media or the name gallery, or the collector, rushes in and, 'Boom,' fame is bestowed upon and forever tied to the art, the artist and the story therein. Nathan Walsh is going about his business in a manner, a style, a breadth, and a fidelity to excellence, based on his own vision and expectation, that, whether any of the usual art world accidents ever do, or do not occur, he is assured a future. And we here, are proud to have him, in the present, front and center, our Guest Artist for this, our Newest Edition.
Nathan Walsh is doing something quite different, at a magnitude and an altitude of dizzying heights. That all said, the works are mature, whilst still being fun. They are pleasing without losing anything to complexity. They are light sensitive, while still achieving refracted objects in detail. And all the while, they are somehow mathematic, without lacking the very soul contained within all truly great art. The entire body of work contains a strange balance between the sober documentation of an actual reality and an impressionistic and stylized view of a world interpreted by a rather scientific minded work-a-day, no nonsense technician. These days, in the so-called, 'Modern Art World,' becoming a house hold name, often registers automatically, due to a happenstance moment in time or place. A sex tape is revealed, an actor turns artist, a war between two parties creates a stir, an artist pushes a political or allegoric analogy, or the big end all, an artist dies, at the hands of themselves or someone else. The media or the name gallery, or the collector, rushes in and, 'Boom,' fame is bestowed upon and forever tied to the art, the artist and the story therein. Nathan Walsh is going about his business in a manner, a style, a breadth, and a fidelity to excellence, based on his own vision and expectation, that, whether any of the usual art world accidents ever do, or do not occur, he is assured a future. And we here, are proud to have him, in the present, front and center, our Guest Artist for this, our Newest Edition.
CHICAGO IN THE RAIN [ Drawing ] Nathan WALSH BUREAU Guest Artist SPRING LITERARY
Joshua TRILIEGI : Photography plays some key role in your style, could you discuss how you utilize the Images from photographs ?
Nathan WALSH : Whilst my paintings are very much the product of studio activity they are also closely associated to the experience of being at a particular location for a period of time. They make direct reference to photography and the photorealist movement of the 1970s. Photography does play an important role in my process but not to a point where I am dependent on it. On a practical level, it is the most effective way of gathering a large amount of raw material when I am visiting a new country or city.
However Instead of a painted photographic record or recreation of my memories of the location, my work exhibits an independent logic and exists solely on its own terms. It's aim is not to mimic our own world and the laws within it but to suggest a different world with it's own parameters. Like a lucid dream or hallucination it aims to describe this world with a precision and clarity equal to photography. [ cont - ]
CHICAGO IN THE RAIN Nathan WALSH / BUREAU Guest Artist SPRING LITERARY
Nathan WALSH : [ - cont ] To be fully appreciated the first and perhaps most inventive generation of photorealist artists need to be viewed in real life. I think part of the problem with the work that has succeeded it or been inspired by it has been based on viewing it in reproduction. For example Richard Estes and John Salt were painters first and foremost, the strength of their work rooted partially in the personal exploration of methods and materials. Their work is dependent on expressive mark making and creative thinking, too close an adherence to photography or digital imagery I believe can lead to overly mechanical and artificial outcomes. When I make work I understand that the success of a particular painting will be dependent on my decisions not the solutions a camera or software package might offer me. The more it becomes about my decisions the more it moves away from objective reality, not perhaps where it becomes dreamlike but certainly the best work I’ve made has a hallucinatory quality. Most art movements start out as radical but over time become increasingly conservative. If Hyper / Photorealism is to remain interesting, then its practitioners must find ways of extending its parameters in new and unexpected ways, technical proficiency is a given and not enough to mark an artist out as significant. It will be interesting to see where this new exploration leads us, there are certainly signs over the past couple of years that some artists are making leaps forward.
Nathan WALSH in Studio Creating Drawing 59Th Street BUREAU Guest Artist SPRING LITERARY
Joshua TRILIEGI : Your paintings shift between exacting photorealism and abstract animation, explain how you, 'design,' an image.
Nathan WALSH : People often assume my work is an accurate description or document of a specific location or recreation of a view. In actuality this is very far from the case, all pictorial elements are subject to change whether it be their inclusion or omission from a painting or their relative size or position within the composition. So in essence they are an abstraction from reality, I pick and chose what information to leave in and what to leave out. As you have noted this leads to an extended or heightened sense of the world we live in, different views get combined together, colours become accentuated and the paint itself as physical material is explored. I still want the viewer to be convinced by this new world and imagine they could inhabit it but fundamentally its a construct based on my decisions. In the future I can imagine this being extended further leading to the work becoming increasingly divorced from our own world.
Nathan WALSH 59Th Street BUREAU Guest Artist SPRING LITERARY
Joshua TRILIEGI : The drawings that prep each painting, to me, are artworks unto themselves, its really an amazing process, share that early work with readers.
Nathan WALSH : Experiencing the city as a human being is an immersive experience. I wanted to find a way of translating that experience in a convincing way which removed the detachment involved using a camera. My approach to drawing explores this is hopefully sympathetic to this idea, allowing the viewer to see not just what's in front of them but whats around them.
Drawing allows me to make human pictorial decisions instead of relying on the mechanical eye of a camera or software package. This process is open ended and changes from one painting to the next. Whilst I employ a variety of perspectival strategies, these methods are not fixed or rigid in their application. Working with a box of pencils and an eraser I will start by establishing an horizon line on which I will place vanishing points to construct simple linear shapes which become subdivided into more complex arrangements. By using simple mathematical ratios I can begin to describe concrete form within my picture plane. Over a period of time I will draw and redraw buildings, manipulating their height, width or nature in relation to other pictorial elements. By introducing spatial recession to these elements I aim to present a world the viewer can enter into and move around.
Nathan WALSH LITTLE RUSSIA BUREAU Guest Artist SPRING LITERARY
Joshua TRILIEGI : The size of your landscapes are rather healthy, is this due to the amount of visual information you wish to provide ? Explain scale and perspective, in your work.
Nathan WALSH : My paintings are large because I want the viewer to relate to them in a physical way. I want them to function almost as alternative realities where whoever is stood in front of them feels they can almost enter into the world I’ve created. There is a huge amount of visual information contained within the paintings but hopefully there is also space and air for that information to be read effectively. I try to use perspective in a creative and fluid manner. I don't follow any particular strategy nor concern myself too much with making something that is mathematically correct. I combine and use traditional techniques with digital software in an attempt find new ways of describing space. Each new drawing or painting I make is a development from the last, in an attempt to make more complex and convincing scenes based on the world we live in. As an artist I use perspective simply as a tool to be played with not something to stick rigidly too at the expense of pictorial invention.
Nathan WALSH APPLE HIRES BUREAU Guest Artist SPRING LITERARY
Joshua TRILIEGI : Lets discuss time and investment in each painting. Walk us through the process of your Painting entitled: TransAmerica .
Nathan WALSH : In 2011, I made a three week trip from the West to East Coast of America, which included 4 days in San Francisco. Before I visit a city I tend not have a clear idea of what I’d like to paint, I just tend to amble around, very much like a Flaneur waiting for something to connect with. When I do find something of interest I’ll take numerous photographs of a location and normally a series of thumbnail drawings in a sketchbook. Back in the UK I will sift though the raw material I’ve collected and make a series of postcard sized drawings which suggest potential paintings. I pin these to the studio wall and live with them for a while, most get rejected but whichever one I eventually chose must have the most visual potential to make a dynamic full scale painting. Once I’ve decided on the size of the painting I start to draw elements in a fairly loose and organic way. [ cont - ]
Nathan WALSH DETAIL of Drawing for TRANSAMERICA BUREAU Guest Artist SPRING LITERARY
Nathan WALSH : [ - cont ] This drawing stage can take up to a month for a large painting, In some ways it could be argued as the most creative part of my activity. Once complete I brush over a glaze of oil paint and begin blocking areas of colour with heavily diluted washes of paint. Over the subsequent months paint layers are built up and sanded away. The goal is not to mimic the flatness of a static photograph but to make reference to a rich linage of European and American painting, seeing my work up close reveals a personal system of mark making and investigation of the physical properties of oil paint. Surface and texture has becoming increasingly important to me, finding new ways of applying and manipulating paint leads to richer and unexpected outcomes.
‘Transamerica' Is a reflected view of a San Francisco street seen through a Chinese gift shop. Instead of a real reflection I have 'sandwiched' together photographs taken in front of me with shots taken directly behind. By describing a series of layers of information some opaque, others translucent the intention is to suggest a heightened reality, one we could not experience in the real world.
Nathan WALSH DETAIL of PAINTING TRANSAMERICA BUREAU Guest Artist SPRING LITERARY
Nathan WALSH : [ - cont ] I like the idea of dipping into the resources and technology that are available in a fluid and open ended way. The ‘Transamerica’ was a composite of information, part photographic, part observational drawing, part vector based artwork that I’d downloaded then mapped to my preparatory drawing. Many of the objects including the Chinese Dolls in the foreground were bought in the UK and painted from life in the studio. Using Don Eddy and Tom Blackwell’s window paintings of the 1970’s as a point of departure the painting became a palimpsest of cobbled together information. The challenge then of course is get these different types of information to function together in a coherent way. Whilst in essence the painting is a fantasy my aim was still to make it a believable one.
The methods that I’m adopting are in part a conscious attempt at avoiding the numerous pitfalls open to contemporary realist painters. Instead of employing a ‘catch-all’ strategy for making work I’m accessing different approaches in an attempt to reveal new ways of depicting the world.
Nathan WALSH PAINTING GROUND ZERO BUREAU Guest Artist SPRING LITERARY
Joshua TRILIEGI : Where did you go to school and how did that particular experience make up who you are as an artist, site influences.
Nathan WALSH : I followed a fairly typical art education in the UK, an interest in art at school led to undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at University. I studied drawing, painting, printmaking and typography all of which have left a mark on my current activity. People often assume that I’ve had some formal architectural training but this isn’t the case. Whilst realist painting is not particularly popular in the UK ,I was fortunate on my Masters degree to be taught by two exceptional realist painters, one of whom, Clive Head I have remained in dialogue with till today. Head is one of the most significant contemporary figurative painters and his works and writing have been a significant influence on me.
Joshua TRILIEGI : Do you actually use projection when creating the original impetus, if so explain, if not explain ?
Nathan WALSH : No, freehand drawing is fundamental to all of my work allowing me to take full ownership of photographic material. Rejecting the mechanical transfer of imagery forces me to construct each object from scratch and allows for a fluid and inventive approach. Fixing pictorial elements to separate vanishing points allows the construction of a space independent of both reality and any photographic record of the scene. A shifting horizon line allows to viewer to look up and down into the space, and question their position in relation to the scene. I have nothing against the use of projection as part of an artists methodology, but for me its a limiting activity and would lead to predictable results.
PIRANESI ETCHINGS Influence of PAINTER Nathan WALSH BUREAU Guest Artist SPRING LITERARY
Joshua TRILIEGI : Can you recall an early painting influence, visit to a Museum, art book, etc ?
Nathan WALSH : I started collected art related books as a student. This has served as daily form a of inspiration and guidance for my own practice. Looking at significant artists and paintings of the past can often be intimidating but can also suggest ways forward. My inspirations are numerous and varied from Piranesi’s engravings to the decorative tiles of William De Morgan. What connects all of these interests is a strong sense of structure and pattern. Most of the artists and designers I admire had or have a rigorous approach to composition and commitment to process perhaps more than outcome. I often think my own work as “sampling” these inspiring figures, whether it be the palette of Bonnard or the dynamism of a Bernice Abbott photograph.
I also have quite a close network of artist friends which serve as quite a supportive network whether that be through email dialogue or visiting each others studios or exhibitions. Painting by its nature is as a solitary activity so the sharing of ideas and experiences with other like minded individuals is often a healthy exercise.
Nathan WALSH DETAIL of Drawing for Z BAR BUREAU Guest Artist SPRING LITERARY
Joshua TRILIEGI : Does music or literature or film help you in your process, if so please site examples ?
Nathan WALSH : Film is probably the most important of the three in terms of an influence on my studio life. I’m not that interested in narrative, more visual language and spectacle. To give you a taste here’s a list of films that I’ve connected with: Alphaville, Koyaanisqatsi, Bladerunner, Man with a Movie Camera, Inception, 2001: A Space Oddyssey, Metropolis, Stalker, Solaris, Brazil, Her, The Seventh Seal, The Cabinet of Dr. Calgari, Synecdoche New York, The Holy Mountain, The Master, Videodrome.
BERNICE ABBOT Photo Influence of PAINTER Nathan WALSH Guest Artist SPRING LITERARY
Joshua TRILIEGI : What drives you to commit to each painting and then to actually persevere ?
Nathan WALSH : I believe some people are born with a desire to respond to their environment by making things. This might be a piece of furniture or jet engine, but the initial impulse is the same. I’m not sure I ever made a conscious decision to try and become a full time artist, but I certainly had a desire to develop and improve the paintings I was drawn to make. The notion of improvement is essential to my activity in that its very difficult to justify spending time on something which I already know how to do. Although many artists have a successful formula for making work the idea of doing the same thing over and over again doesn’t appeal to me. I’m excited to see how far ideas can be explored and how I can find more elegant and complex solutions to visual problems. The paintings are very labour intensive and dependant on their size and complexity I might only make two large works a year. Sometimes I’ll make a smaller work but I find myself drawn to making increasingly larger and more complex work. I usually paint six days a week but often that can turn into seven as one week blurs into the next. My day follows a fairly fixed pattern. I leave the house at 7am and arrive at the studio for 7.30. After cleaning my palette from the day before I start painting at 8 o’clock. I’ll work through till 12, go and have lunch then return for 1. I’ll normally work till 6pm but the afternoon painting session always seems tougher than the morning. This daily ritual is crucial for the work to progress in any reasonable fashion. Painting full time is rarely a physical job but a long day of concentration often leaves you exhausted. There are many potential distractions but in time you learn to ignore them and focus on the ever present problems of painting.
Bernarducci Meisel Gallery
37 W 57th St #3, New York, NY 10019
THE BUREAU GUEST ARTIST : NATHAN WALSH is Represented in New York City By The Bernarducci Meisel Gallery at 37 West 57 Street at 5th Avenue A long established crossroads of the art world. The focus is the presentation of the finest contemporary realist art including established and emerging artists of the genre. Since the Gallery's inception, our artists have exhibited both nationally and internationally and their work has been included in important museum surveys and featured in solo museum exhibitions. In 2010 the Gallery expanded from 3,000 to 6,000 square feet at 37 West 57 where we now occupy the entire third floor. In addition to greater visibility, this larger space gives us the ability to present more comprehensive exhibitions, now and in the years to come. Our goal is to provide the foremost opportunity for the world's leading realist painters and sculptors.
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WELCOME to The SUMMER Music 2016 Edition BUREAU of ARTS and CULTURE MAGAZINE. The BUREAU Guest ARTIST INTERVIEW Realist Painter CHRISTOPHER STOTT . This New Edition Contains The BUREAU MUSIC ICON Essay: HANK WILLIAMS . PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAYS and ARTICLES BY THE INFAMOUS MR. ART SHAY . MATHEW BARNEY at MOCA LA Plus BUREAU PROFILE : ANDREW HOLDER . The BUREAU PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW with LAURA STEVENS in PARIS . BUREAU FILM : BLUE VELVET at THIRTY . ART of MILES DAVIS "The SHAMAN" . PRINCE TRIBUTE plus MUSIC INTERVIEW with Singer-Songwriter: JOSHUA TATE . SOUND ARTIST : CÉLESTE BOURSIER - MOUGENOT with CHRISTOPH COX . DESIGN : ITS ABOUT WALLPAPER . COMEDY INTERVIEW with Andre HYLAND . John DOE . Aimee MANN . Chris STAPLETON . BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL : KWAME BRATHWAITE'S New HARLEM RENAISSANCE . DANNY LYON at THE WHITNEY MUSEUM + R. CRUMB at SEATTLE MUSEUM . Reviews & New Online Articles All Year Round at The New BUREAU CITY SITES RAP MUSIC'S : TUPAC and ICE CUBE with PHOTOGRAPHER Mr. Mike MILLER . BUREAU TRIBUTE TO " LEGENDS OF THE FALL'S," WRITER : JIM HARRISON . Plus BUREAU ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAYS, REVIEWS and ARTICLES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EMILIE CLARK : GOD IS A SHE
By J.A. Triliegi for BUREAU OF ARTS AND CULTURE MAGAZINE SPRING LITERARY 2016
It is rare, in today's modern art world, to view an artist's work, that is new and refreshing, stimulating and advanced by the works of scientist's from the 1800's. Emilie Clark has been creating a refreshing series of watercolors over that past few years that have caught our eye. A balanced mix of botany, zoology and eco - friendly feminism that carries none of the dogmatic baggage that often aligns itself with movements, theories and schools of thought. The works are detailed like lovingly woven tapestries of an overgrowth of ideology that reminds one of the great garden of life itself. The artist explains, "I wanted the drawings to feel like one was within the composting process - the process that is so eloquently spoken about in Walt Whitman's, "This Compost," - "Such Sweet Things are Made of Such Corruptions," and indeed, the goal has been achieved. As if we have walked in the forest, among the fallen leaves, the wandering rivers edge, within the mud and guts of life's true force, during a torrid rainstorm, and suddenly, the sun begins to part through the clouds, the birds and other creatures emerge and quite miraculously reveal a fecundity abound.
" If air, water and food are what biologically
make up the earth's household, one is faced
with the overwhelming reality that
that is literally everything. "
- Emilie CLARK / Artist
Culling inspiration from Martha Ann Maxwell, the first female field naturalist, vegetarian and taxidermist, has empowered and informed the visual style of the watercolors, as well as the various installation works that often accompany Ms. Clark's exhibitions. All of this background information is well and good, but, more to the point, the artworks themselves actually transcend all of the education. Too often, we are either dealing with, an artist with a whole gang of education and not enough technique, or a great efficiency and mastery of form, and a lack of honest knowledge. In this case, the stimulus does not override the end product, and for that, we need be grateful to this great body of work and the artist. The artwork itself also begs a much larger and more important question: Who actually created all of this gorgeous grandeur, this magnificent madness of life ? And if Women are the only human beings actually entrusted to carry the children into this world: Plant, Animal, Mineral and Human, than why is God, if there is one, always called a HE ? Ms. Clark's bewitching works have me thinking otherwise, neither bothered nor bewildered: simply blown away.
MICHEAL KAGAN: SPACED - OUT !
By J. A. TRILIEGI for BUREAU of ARTS and CULTURE Magazine
Long before Brooklyn based painter, Michael Kagan was born, in 1980, the television told us, through original airings and constant re-runs, that,"Space," was, "The Final Frontier …" Man's obsession with the machinery of morrow and yore have always played a key role in the arts and in history, be it mythological or otherwise. When Louis and Clark set out to document The America's, they utilized a simple vessel, armed with paper, pencils, pigments. We see their journey through maps, through drawings and documentation.
Man's journey to the moon, utilizing a much more complicated device, is a touch more challenging in it's documentation. The power of images on reflection are often uber-fascinating to those of us un-born during the battles. A good many of us have seen how a canoe floats upon a body of water, carrying people and parcels, to and fro. Water, fire, air and earth are trustworthy elements, difficult to deny. Add to that, Gravity, and you know exactly which side is up. In Space, that particular aspect of register is denied and so we must constantly ask ourselves: Where are we and which side is up ? It is one thing to hurl an object through space, it is another altogether, to land it properly, be it on the side of a flowing river, or on a far off, distant planet.
Now, Michael Kagan has taken the stuff of young men's obsessive imagery of a popular variety, Astronauts, Race Car Drivers, Cock Pits and The Concord Mountain, to encapsulate some idea of reaching the top. His oil on linen, application and techniques are laden with a fine art style, loosely and abundantly applied brush strokes that create a final result which, in scale and in form, are indeed impressive. The full size painting, entitled,"There Is No End," which measures 96" x 72", serves as the frontispiece of a recent exhibit, his second one man show at the Joshua Liner gallery in New York City. . Kagan, who is in his mid thirties, has already worked with the Smithsonian, collaborated with cultural mastermind Pharrell Williams and received recent large scale commissions: he is headed toward the top. Of course, for those who race the cars, drive the planes, climb the mountains, there indeed, is and End. Just as every writer, eventually meets the bottom of the page: Happy Landing.
Michael KAGAN : Lights OUT / Paintings Recently Exhibited at The Joshua LINER Art Gallery
540 W. 28th Street NY, NY 10001 / Tuesday – Saturday 11 am - 6 pm / JoshuaLinerGallery.com
BUREAU GUEST ARTIST PAINTER ERIK OLSON
image : BUREAU GUEST Artist Painter Erik OLSON / Courtesy of The BRAVIN LEE Gallery
Joshua TRILIEGI : Modern Artists in today's day and age, seldom paint, yet you, a youngish artist, have taken to the medium with a 'Very Painterly Style', brush strokes abound: Why?
Erik OLSON : There is no reason to paint really. I’ve always made drawings but it was around the time that I got my first job, painting houses, that I also started trying to put paint to canvas. That summer I found a love for the medium – it’s transformative potential – and I’ve been focused on it ever since. Painting is one of the oldest, most basic and direct art forms. In the same way that we need stories, singing and dancing we need painting.
image : BUREAU GUEST Artist Painter Erik OLSON / Courtesy of The BRAVIN LEE Gallery
Joshua TRILIEGI : You discuss color and utilize its power accordingly. Would you talk about that power a bit theoretically?
Erik OLSON : One of painting's particular qualities is its direct connection to pure color. The relativity of color and its interplay within a canvas is fascinating to me. I try to tune my colors higher than in nature: I am not trying to make an image that is realistic, let alone photographic. I try to use color to express what it is like to think or feel. I work with images but it is color that puts me most at ease in its evocative, suggestive and flexible interpretations.
Joshua TRILIEGI : When it comes to creating bold bodies of work, I have always felt that genuine curiosity in a proficient talent can take leaps and bounds above a real pro who is seasoned to perfection.
Erik OLSON : Curiosity, at large, leads me to topics of interest, at least for myself. A body of work often begins with an open question on a topic or something I am interested in. I follow my curiosity down these roads without knowing exactly where I’ll end up. It’s a balance of heading in with intention and direction but also reacting to the unplanned and unexpected. The world is a fascinating place, if I chase the sites and situations that most interest me, I tend to end up in some pretty interesting places. I let the paintings flow from that. The need to make paintings, the need to communicate, is what drives me and yet it’s what I discover along the way that in turn informs the paintings. I try to use this process with all my work.
image : BUREAU GUEST Artist Painter Erik OLSON / Courtesy of The BRAVIN LEE Gallery
Joshua TRILIEGI : Give us a list of your most lucrative alliances with music, your paintings and why?
Erik OLSON :
1 Bob Dylan: If marooned on a desert island, I’d bring the Dylan records.
2 Philip Glass: The repetition keeps me on point.
3 The War on Drugs: One of my favorites these days; Great, rolling, driving, experimental rock.
4 David Bowie : Especially the early albums and the late ones.
5 La Düsseldorf : Local talent from Düsseldorf itself.
6 Recomposed Vivaldi : the Four Seasons by Max Richter & Robot Koch.
7 VietCong : Kick-ass band from my hometown, Calgary.
8 Joe Strummer : Always been a fan of the Clash, but love his albums with the Mescalero’s.
9 Amjad Ali Khan : Heard this man play the Sarod while in India. Incredible Indian classical.
image : BUREAU GUEST Artist Painter Erik OLSON / Courtesy of The BRAVIN LEE Gallery
Joshua TRILIEGI : Size also plays a key role in your work, yet power is seldom sacrificed, some of your smallest works seems extremely effective, ruminate on all things large and small and how they affect us.
Erik OLSON : That's one of the things about a painting, it is an image but it is also an object with a particular scale. The painting and the viewer, the relation of scale between the two is one of the variables, like color or imagery that you have to entertain within the painting. The scale of the painting and the scale of the subject matter, the dynamism between these scales is hard to describe but is something I think about and try to use. I think some of my really small portraits are some of my most powerful paintings and some of the really large pictures the most playful.
Joshua TRILIEGI : You dabble in sculpture and also have a clean-collage-like-technique when building a painting, talk about the diagonal split that we see in some of the early work.
Erik OLSON : The “diagonal split” first appeared in a painting I made of a multicolored shack that I saw on the island of Roatan, Honduras, in 2005. The shack was built from broken pieces of differently sized and painted slats of wood in what, at a cursory glance, appeared to be an utterly haphazard manner – and probably was – but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and the integrity of this “spontaneous and fortuitous assemblage” has stayed with me. I have used the motif of that structure in many of my portraits, in my sculptures and even in some early landscape paintings. I’ve made many more paintings than sculptures but I also think about sculpture a lot as I paint. I like to take my time on the sculptures and have them sitting around the studio as I work. Slopping paint on them from time to time as necessary.
Joshua TRILIEGI : Does literature or design or film or philosophy enter into your process, share some impressionable works which have directly influenced the work?
Erik OLSON : I try to let it all in – literature, design, film and philosophy – Not all at once, of course... but it might be more accurate to say that wherever my interests lead me I try to leave myself open to recognizing it when it turns up, whether in film, architecture, park design, advertising, graffiti, even – imagine – when it arrives from viewing art. While I was motorcycling through India in 2010, I read 'The Living Tradition' by the painter K.G. Subramanyan. His generation of artists in the 1960's were responding to modernism and how to deal with it in relation to Indian folk art traditions. His writing explores the idea of the “living tradition”, the notion that it is possible to maintain a cultural tradition and yet allow it to grow and change by merging with outside influences. As an artist of my generation there’s something about this attitude that appeals to me. I always try to keep the artists of the past that I love in my back pocket while looking forward. It’s really this idea that if you take something from the past, combine it with something from the present you’ll end up with something new. This seems to be an approach that almost all of the artists I admire use to some degree. It is not that the point is to make something new or novel, I think that it is more important than that: I think that this is fundamental to how creativity works.
Joshua TRILIEGI : You have been working overseas in Germany, take us on a small tour of Düsseldorf.
Eric OLSON : Düsseldorf is cool place to be right now. It is a relatively small city – about a half million proper – but is right next door to a bunch of interesting cities; Cologne, Bonn and Mülheim to name a few which collaborate to create an urban area of nearly 18 million with all the attendant myriad of galleries, museums and culture you might expect in a European metropolis. However, when in Düsseldorf it's all about Kunstakademie, which is what originally brought me here. The Kunstakademie is an unusual experience. The building, constructed in the late 1800’s, is a huge neo-classical structure with vast studio spaces. It was purpose-built for painting and I think perhaps more than any other school in the world, it retains a bold posture towards avant-garde painting. In many ways it’s more a giant studio building than an art school in its gritty physicality.
Joshua TRILIEGI : Do you believe that art can change the world: Picasso's Guernica for instance, or are we here to make the place [ Earth ] look better, Papa Matisse for example ?
Erik OLSON : Francoise Gilot put it much better than I am able to in her book 'Matisse and Picasso': Matisse wanted to reach a non-dualistic, global vision of the universe as permeated by love in the broad sense of the term. His primary goal was to unite. Pablo was possessed by the desire to know, to analyze, to discover, even if that meant in part to destroy or to divide. Matisse seemed to believe that the ultimate reality in the universe was an innate thrust toward coherence in all things, and he wanted to join in, while Pablo suspected an inherent malignancy in the general scheme of things. Basically Manichean, he felt that the die were loaded, that it was incumbent upon him to find out where and why.
Joshua TRILIEGI : Do you have some advise for Younger artists ?
Erik OLSON : Always stay in a state of becoming.
PAINTER : TRISTAN EATON
The POST MODERN PAINTINGS
By Joshua A. TRILIEGI / BUREAU OF ARTS AND CULTURE MAGAZINE / 2016
All Images are Details from Mr Eaton's Work originally Exhibited at Subliminal Projects
We Highly suggest that You Download The Entire magazine for a complete View of the Art
Today, we are looking into the paintings of one, Mr. Tristan Eaton. Whom I had the pleasure of meeting recently and more than that, thoroughly enjoyed his new paintings that were briefly on display at Shepard Fairey's Art Gallery in Echo Park, California USA. Mr. Fairey, having helped to elect an American President, almost eight years ago, and since then, been sued by a number of people from the Associated Press to cities and countries worldwide, for plastering his images around the globe, has opened his own gallery, thus saving 50% of all sales to one day, send his kids to college, and to, know doubt, settle the many lawsuits from either appropriating images to placing them upon buildings and billboards which did not want those images placed.
He is a keen businessman as well as an artist and now, a gallery owner in his own right. Mr Eaton's recent exhibit, is indeed, one of the best, so far. Large, small and medium size paintings that could indeed be described as Post-Modern. Which we will soon find out, is an impossible to define word, that has saved me a hell of a lot of trouble in having to, "Tell You," what this art is all about. Beauty, as they say, "Is In The Eye of the Beholder." What does that mean exactly ? He or She who sees the beauty, owns and even possesses that Beauty. Or quite possibly, Beauty is a thing that looks beautiful, to any eye that thinks so. My last name's not WEBSTER, no worries. My own eye's indeed see much beauty in Mr. Eaton's work. I [ EYE ] also see a swift and serious improvement in his application of materials, in his ability to balance the story, in his composition and the entire range of subject matter, colors choices and serious style.
" The Paintings Vex A Viewers Visceral Verisimilitude."
Utilizing airbrush, silkscreen, hand painted and all manner of tools. Mr. Eaton has crafted, cobbled and cajoled a series of pre-existing images from a wide variety of sources, some familiar, others obscure. Like a giant bowl with hundreds of ancient matchbooks in a thrift shop somewhere along Route 66. Employing ephemera of multi-colored pamphlets, maps, newspaper cutouts and popular imagery across the American diaspora. The paintings vex a viewers visceral verisimilitude. There is no turning away from his work. The art demands to be looked at. Sometimes it is the color vibrancy : Florescent Orange. Other times it is simple line that swirls around the subjects.
More often than not, it is the painstakingly pure and eye-popping representation of a particular subject : A Native American, A Woman's Face, A Surveyor's Tools, A Horse Rearing, A Lion Roaring, The Statue of Liberty and Plenty of graphic sign painting styles that allow Mr. Eaton's imagination to enter into our own. The Newest Works have transformed from experimentation and dabbling into a realm of Mindscape/Landscapes.
These are full on visual flashbacks, as sweet as the candy coated paint job on any Low Riders 1965 Chevy and as informed and interesting as any Professor or Art historian's lectures, from Hoboken to Harvard. Not overly educated, neither overly erratic. Mr. Tristan Eaton is simply, "Blowing-Doors," [ A Surf Term which could be defined as : Knocking over all the kooks in his path. Possibly derived from the story of The Three Little Pigs and the Wolf at The Door Fable.] on wanna - be's all across the Art World. Let's forget about the definition of POSTMODERN. Mr. Tristan Eaton is a Painter, an Artist and a Storyteller with skills, style & broad strokes that cannot be denied. This is THE END.
TRISTAN EATON : The PAINTER + POST MODERN PAINTING
Exhibited SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS: http://www.subliminalprojects.com
Visit The ARTIST TRISTAN EATON: http://www.tristaneaton.net
The BUREAU INTERVIEW MATHILDE GRAFSTRÖM
BUREAU : How did PHOTOGRAPHY originally attract You as a Medium to express oneself ?
Mathilde Grafstrom : I grew up with a father who loved to photograph, and I used to read his National Geographic magazines as a teenager. The photographs fascinated me and I began to dream of traveling around the world and becoming a great photographer someday. I would also like to share my father's interest to be able to spend more time with him, so I asked him if he would teach me the art . He quickly lost patience in me, because I am a slow learner and did not understand his explanations . But it did not take the spirit from me, I taught myself the art over the years. I must admit that I wanted to impress my father by being clever enough to create images, but I never really managed to do so, in spite of my current success as a photographer. To this day, I seek his approval, even though I know it's silly, I guess, I am, in many ways, still a little girl seeking for a fathers love and approval.
BUREAU : Could you explain your most recent project and how the cancellation of your photo exhibit thrust your photo art into the international limelight ?
Mathilde Grafstrom : My current project, which I have worked on for almost three years, openly displays what natural beauty is. I photograph a woman from her truest side and thus one sees what qualities she posesses. I do not understand the deeper issues such as philosophy or that kind, so I stick to what I do best: to show women's beauty through my lens. And maybe I can show that beauty is not what is on the surface, but what you exude when you are most yourself. Since I am a simple and self taught girl from the country side in Denmark, I do not entirely understand what the recent international breakthrough means, but of course, I hope that people out there are enjoying my pictures and that one day I can make a difference in the world with my projects. I understand now what neo - puritanism means and that it is not good for society, so if my breakthrough can change this sad trend, I am very satisfied. How my art got to the international media, was through the danish TV2 who wrote about my exhibition that was not allowed by the authorities, and this was picked up by the Independent in Britain, and after that the articles exploded all over the world!
BUREAU : How long have you been taking pictures and what is it about the female form do you think is always so ' controversial, ' according to governments across the world ?
Mathilde Grafstrom : I have photographed since I was about 13 years, but the female beauty project started 2.5 years ago. What I think makes my photographs of the female bodies controversial is that they stand in contrast to the wave of neo - puritanism which is upon us today. It feels like we are living in the 1950s in many ways. The naked and innocent body obviously cannot be tolerated by many because we have become too uptight in our attitude to the body and we judge it as being something dirty and that sexuality is something dangerous that we should not talk too much about. My work is a reminder that it is not the body itself, which is impure, but people's attitudes towards it.
BUREAU : Has the most recent intent to edit your works changed the way you look at art, explain how it has effected your work ?
Mathilde Grafstrom: The censorship I've experienced has not affected me in such a sense that I photograph any different than before. I am just becoming more aware that advertising and money has become more important than art. It's incredibly sad that art is suppressed in this way and I have set myself up to fight for my right to be an artist and to show my work, and it's not only a fight for myself as an artist, but also for other artists living in Denmark and in the world. I believe that it's important that art is higher up on the priority list than money! Politicians in Denmark, due to recent censoring from the authorities, have begun to look at whether the rules should be changed, and I am delighted by that. The police must not be a moral authority, and art should only be censored on quality not on the degree of nudity, that is absurd. Naked bodies have always been a major part of the arts, and it must remain like that despite people's prudishness.
BUREAU : Could you discuss why these images are important to you as an artist and why ?
Mathilde Grafstrom : My art is important to me in the sense that it is the work that makes me happy. And it's important to me that young women's self - image is more natural. Many women suffer from today's beauty ideal and I'm happy to be able to show images to the world of what natural beauty is, and hope that they make such a big impression that they can influence society in a healthy direction. I think it is unhealthy for women to always think they are not beautiful enough. We are naturally beautiful as we are. Why make us into something false which is not beautiful and it makes us so unhappy? I love the cliché, "Love Yourself As You Are," because it is so true. But first we must look at who we have become and then find ourselves again.
BUREAU : Let our readers know how they can view, purchase and participate in your upcoming photographic projects.
Mathilde Grafstrom: My photographs can be viewed and you can also support the project by buying a picture or contact me directly to actually participate as a model or investor.
HENDRIK BEIKIRCH / BUREAU EUROPEAN ART PICK / SPRING 2016
BUREAU EUROPEAN ART PICK MURALIST HENDRIK BEIKIRCH
Long ago, paintings and particularly the portraits of individuals were relegated to royalty . In America, The famous New York "Ash Can School," as it was commonly known, broke those traditions. In Europe, Van Gogh, Lautrec and later, Cezanne and The Fauves, did the same. These days artist's such as Germany's, Hendrik Beikirch are following in that tradition. Taking the common man and giving him or her the kind of attention and respect, through portraiture, that president's and royalty usually receive. Beikirch's work is utilized and celebrated on a grand scale. He created the, "Largest Work in Asia," in 2012, located in South Korea's second largest city, Busan. He has followed that record breaking work with the largest Work in India and continues to seek invitations across the world. Most Muralists, for the sake of accurate application, utilize grid patterns or projectors, Mr. Beikirch does not.
Tap The Link to Visit The Artist's Personal Website : HendrikBeikirch.com
Tap Link to Visit Museum of Modern Art in Berlin : BerlinischeGalerie.de
The PAINTER: GEORGIA O'KEEFFE
Georgia O'Keeffe, as a person, was precocious, defiant, intelligent, unwavering and spirited. Throughout her education and early years as a painter, she produced an original abstractionist style that had preceded a group of New York painters of the male variety that has, to this day, remained wholly original, breathtakingly expansive and sexually charged in a way that empowers feminine energy and iconography. O'Keeffe rejected analysis of her works from start to finish, from her early years in New York, to her later years in The West, everyone seemed to get it wrong. So then, let us look again at the paintings and life of Ms. Georgia O'Keeffe and see if we can put this incredible body of work into a new and contemporary context with a fresh eye and revisionist look at this phenomenally bold American.
THE BUREAU ICON : GEORGIA O'KEEFFE
Georgia O'Keeffe is born in Wisconsin in 1887 to Irish - Hungarian parents. By the time her years equal her fingers, she discovers art. Early study of watercolors leads to college, art school in Chicago and the Arts Student League in New York City. She recalled, later in life, "I only remember two things that I painted in those years - a large bunch of purple lilacs and some red and yellow corn." Subjects and colors she would return to throughout her life. By her twentieth year, she is awarded prizes and still seems to reject the praise, due mostly to the fact that her art education seems to reward technique over originality. Adding, in those later reflections, "… I never did like school." While in New York, she and a group of fellow students visit the progressive Art Gallery, 291, eight years later, her own drawings will land in the hands of 291's founder, Alfred Stieglitz, who will become one of her greatest friends, confidants and legally, her husband. In the interim, Georgia O'Keeffe quits painting for four years straight, then, at the University of Virginia and later while studying for a teachers credentials at Columbia College, she falls under the tutelage of Arthur Dow and is set free to pursue something new and wholly original. "I decided to start anew - to strip away what I had been taught, to accept as true, my own thinking. This was one of the best times in my life. There was no one around to look at what I was doing - no one interested - no one to say anything about it one way or another. I was alone and singularly free, working into my own, unknown - no one to satisfy, but myself." This particular statement is extremely important to the core of her character, as it displays O'Keeffe's disdain for any particular reactions to the work, either casually, by fellow artists or formally, by the art critics. As a woman who was decades ahead of her contemporaries, in terms of abstraction in both form and color as well as feminine energy personified freely and independently in an iconic manner: O'Keeffe took a beating by the critics. Some of the blame often falls on Alfred Stieglitz and his in depth photographic series of Ms. O'Keeffe in all her natural beauty as a young woman. Unfortunately, the public discovered Georgia O'Keeffe as the muse of an older male rebel on the front lines of intellectual battles which included, photography as art, the importance of european abstraction and American art as a whole, before they had gotten to discover the original paintings and watercolors of O'Keeffe as Artist. The timing was off and Ms. O'Keeffe, although celebrated on a national level in art circles, was also widely dismissed through the lens of new psychological trends that included the great Freudian fraud which attempted to minimize the feminine energy that Georgia O'Keeffe's work so boldly personified. Once again, from the beginning of time and written history, the female is minimized by rhetoric & ideology through the powers that be, when all along, Georgia O'Keeffe is actually winning the game. From the modern perspective of 2015, it is time to liberate O'Keeffe's eroticism.
O'Keeffe's journey into public notoriety had all started through a mutual friend in 1916 when Stieglitz famously receives a series of charcoal drawings by a young Miss O'Keeffe and immediately is smitten by the originality, the boldness and no doubt by the fact that the drawings are created by an American who is both young and female. He has seen nothing like it before and in a letter that is formally typed and mailed to O'Keeffe, he expresses his admiration. "What am I to say ? It is impossible for me to put into words what I saw and felt in your drawings. As a matter of fact I would not make any attempt to do so. I might give you what I received from them if you and I were to meet and talk about life. Possibly then, through such a conversation I might make you feel what your drawings gave me. I do want to tell you that they gave me great joy… If at all possible, I would like to show them." O'Keeffe would later describe the 291 gallery, "The things you saw at Stieglitz's place sent you off into the world, just like his conversations did… It was a place that helped you find your own road: It was the only place."
"The things you saw at Stieglitz's place sent you off into the world…"
Alfred Stieglitz and his artistic efforts had been on the verge of the vanguard since the early 1890s. In the beginning, through his own photography in New York City and later in Austria, Italy and Germany. His trips to Paris and his friendship with Edward Steichen had exposed him to the works of Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and Rodin, all of whom would later be exhibited at 291 Gallery. Culturally speaking, there was a fight for the new and Stieglitz had taken the side of The Moderns, "The search for the truth is my obsession." he describes, "The camera fascinated me and photography became my life." While many people enjoyed the new found art of the photograph, there were purists, such as Baudelaire, who hated photography. Although, at the same time, a new group of painters, also in search of truth on American soil, began to create a new type of painting, which became known as the Ashcan School, painters such as Bellows, Shin, Luks and Sloan, who did not shy away from everyday people, subjects and locations of the populist working class lifestyle.
Alfred Stieglitz walked the streets of New York from 1893 to 1895 capturing photographic images of everyday life. He came from a wealthy family, married into another wealthy family & soon found incompatibility, he took refuge into photography. In 1902 Stieglitz started a magazine, opened a gallery and founded a new group of photographers with Edward Steichen called The Photo Secessionists, by it's very name and definition, it was a rebel act of separation from the norm and it began a steep and unsteady incline towards a peak of cultural defiance that would slowly lead upward to the very top. At the start, Alfred Stieglitz's fight was for photography as art and he indeed found supporters and subscribers. Eventually, he began to fight for modernism at all levels, which included much of the art from the newest and most outrageous European painters. In 1907, while on a ship headed for Europe, Stieglitz has an epiphany through a photographic image that, as he describes was, "A Step in my own Evolution."
Georgia O'Keeffe Pedernal with Red Hills 1936 oil on linen, 19 3/4 x 29 3/4 inches. Collection of the New Mexico M.O.A Bequest of Helen Miller Jones
While in Paris, Alfred Stieglitz photographs Rodin, he views Cezanne's new cubist watercolors and Picasso's paintings, including, "Madame's De Avegnons." A year later, in 1908, his exhibition of the sculptor Rodin's drawings causes a stir by their very nature and erotic simplicity, again, he is ahead of the pack and slowly loses the photographic subscribers who originally supported 291 Gallery and the magazine. In 1911, Stieglitz's Gallery is the first American gallery to exhibit the drawings of Pablo Picasso.
"Alfred Stieglitz's 291 Gallery is the first American gallery to exhibit the drawings of Pablo Picasso"
The public reaction to Picasso's new modernist and primitive approach is abhorrent and with only a single sale, Stieglitz felt obliged to purchase a work himself. His magazine, "Camera Work," was the very first to publish the writings of Gertrude Stein, who would go onto become a modernist wonder of literature and a champion of Picasso's work around the world. Then in 1913, The New York City Armory Show pierces the veil of modernism and justifies many of Alfred Stieglitz's prior decisions. Soon he realizes that the struggle for American Art is lagging behind the europeans and his next cultural battle is for the validity of an American modernist art form by American artists.
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Why all this history, you wonder ? I thought this was an article about Georgia O'Keeffe, you ask ? Yes, dear reader, it is, but to comprehend the importance of the beauty, the freedom and the defiant nature of Ms. O'Keeffe's work, you must first understand the fight that preceded her grand entry and the very importance of the simple fact that Georgia O'Keeffe was a very solid American woman with ideas and images stirring inside her imagination that would come into existence and be related directly with a man that had been searching for just such an ideal for over a decade.
"Everyone began talking about the search for… The Next Great American Thing."
When Stieglitze found Georgia O'Keeffe, he had found: "The Great American Thing." As Georgia O'Keeffe herself had described time and time again, looking back at those heady times, "Everyone began talking about the search for the next Great American Novel, the next Great American Poem, the next Great American Painting, The next Great American Thing." Well, my dear readers, I am very happy to inform you that Georgia O'Keeffe not only filled that void, she had been working on the equation, without actually defining it as such, from the time she was ten years old. Now she was twenty-nine years old, had been discovered by Stieglitz and was about to take center stage.
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) Yellow Cactus, 1929 Oil on canvas, 30x42 in. Dallas Museum of Art Texas. Courtesy Colorado Springs FAC
The world of the 1920s and it could be argued, that the world of today, is a male dominated world, where woman are subjugated to second class citizenship. Georgia O'Keeffe along Steiglitz's other contemporary painters including John Marin, Marsden Hartley and Arthur Dove helped to define a new and original abstract form in painting that had never, ever, been expressed before. Ms. O'Keeffe did not copy, she did not follow, she did not supplicate, she Invented a whole new 'Thing' and it had all been based on her inner life, her female power, her very sexual and erotic nature.
"The Interesting thing about O'Keeffe is her ability to learn from the Steiglitz gang and the opposing faction of artists commonly called the precisionists ..."
It was new, it was beautiful, it was bold, it was sensual, it was exciting, it was tempestuous, it was authentic, it was avant-garde, it was unblemished, it was purely Georgia O'Keeffe and above all: It was a New American Art Form. The Interesting thing about O'Keeffe is her ability to learn from the Stieglitz gang and the opposing faction of artists commonly called the precisionists group, which culled inspiration from factories, architecture & machinery, leading the way into modern pop such as Andy Warhol's work. O'Keeffe's work includes both a very personal inner emotional and naturally inspired oeuvre and a very precise and overall interest in architecture & modernism. She won by simply using techniques, ideas and methods that did not devote themselves to any school or group.
Pelvis IV, 1944 Georgia O’Keeffe Oil on Masonite 36 x 40 (91.4 x 101.6) Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
But not so fast, there is still so much to say, so much more to explain, this is really just the beginning and yet, due to O'Keeffe's consistency, in both style and technique, the works she will produce, from 1918, when she moves to New York, up to her big abstract art exhibition in 1923, compare, very much in power, in expression and in composition with the works she will produce for the rest of her life: Amazingly so. Georgia O'Keeffe the artist, was seldom in search of a style, if anything she had abandoned her own original approach briefly, only to return to it and then held steadfast to what has now become the O'Keeffe method, with a clearly recognizable iconic brand in todays contemporary world of art. Her move from teaching in Texas to living with Stieglitz in New York happened relatively easily and her adjustment to the big city, where she had briefly studied was seamless. Having been promised by Alfred Stieglitz that she could work for a year straight, without interruption, the original vow had turned into the pledge of an entire lifetime. Though, there were times when his photographic objectification not only was a hinderance to her personal space, it did ultimately damage her perception in the public's eye and personally, she was hurt by the mainstream reaction, especially by the critics. Two years prior to her one person abstract exhibit, Stieglitz displayed 145 new photo works, many of them were of his new muse and lover, Georgia O'Keeffe.
Pelvis Series, Red with Yellow, 1945 Georgia O’Keeffe Oil on canvas 36 1/8 x 48 1/8 (91.8 x 122.2) ) © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
The images of O'Keeffe are comparable, in modern times, to that of, say, a celebrity power couple such as Jay-Z and Beyonce'. The sexualization of Georgia O'Keeffe had begun. Lets remember, this is by no means the 1930s with Clara Bow or the 1940s with Greta Garbo or the 1950s with Marilyn Monroe or the 1960s with Bridgette Bardot or the 1970s with Raquel Welch or the 1980s with Madonna or the 1990s with Sharon Stone or the 2000s with What's - her - name: This is 1921. On top of that, we are talking about a very serious artist, not a broadway showgirl, not a singer, not an actress, an intellectual visual artist who, in the words of Arthur Dove, one of the male painters in the Stieglitz art gallery stable, "…Is Actually Doing What All The Guys are Trying to Do." O'Keeffe's Abstract Art show is more than impressive, but due to the harsh criticisms, she gives up abstraction for the next few years and switches to representational objects. Though, her choice of subjects such as fruit and flowers is a rather subtle change. If we look closely at the psychology behind this maneuver, we can see that it was entirely calculated and was actually a bold move toward flipping the script on the subjective mind-scape that had pervaded the times via Freudian theories that were trendily in vogue. By creating representational works that still contained a fierce and even blatantly sexually charged nature, Georgia O'Keeffe was tempting critics to fall on their own swords. The critics had originally tried to intimate that she was a sensual animal, expressing her hidden desires through her paintings. Two years later, when O'Keeffe showed up with pears, apples, flowers and the like, all incredibly and beautifully rendered, with the definite possibility of being interpreted as orifice - like shapes and feminine curves that one might taste or touch, she had set a trap for the critics and still marched on into the next sixty years doing exactly as she had from the very start.
Black Hollyhock Blue Larkspur, 1930 Georgia O’Keeffe Oil on canvas 30 1/8 x 40 (76.5 x 101.6) © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
On the one hand, O'Keeffe had won the battle, on the other hand, we still must wonder what might have been, had the critics not been so foul. It seems that in Georgia O'Keeffe's very nature, there was a sly, humorous, independent human being with a philosophical bent that took each challenge, like a boxer might take a rap on the chin, she simply shook her head and got right back in the ring. A year later, Stieglitz handed her a different type of ring and the two began a journey that would last up until his death in 1949, he was twenty-three years her senior. Many years after his death, O'Keefe described their relationship in the simplest of terms, "I was interested in what he did and he was interested in what I did: Very Interested." Decades later, Georgia O'Keeffe had also taken a much younger lover and partner, shocking those around her and creating the same type of stir that had originally started her career in the first place. Her life had come full circle. Georgia O'Keeffe's first visit to New Mexico in 1929, five years after their marriage, started a new love affair with the landscape, which included annual summer stays and eventually a permanent home that would provide an entirely new style, technique and viewpoint which harkened back to her earliest works, before the critics had tried to sexualize, demonize and project a nasty glaze over her very robust, sensually charged paintings that, to this day, will get just about anyone thinking about the beauty of love. If I find myself looking at an O'Keeffe for very long, well, there is no other way to put it, I get turned on. Anyone who says different is either sexless, afraid or most likely, simply too young or a virgin. O'Keeffe's images simply approve of passion, desire and the art of lovemaking. It is also safe to say that, were she alive today, O'Keeffe would most likely dismiss this entire analysis. The fact of the matter is, for a painter so, 'In Love with Color,' language, words and any verbal communication seemed almost rudimentary compared to the purity of visual expressions by a genius.
The BUREAU ICON : Georgia O'Keefe / Summer 2015 / Written By Joshua A. Triliegi
To Download The Entire MAGAZINE ARTICLE FOR FREE SIMPLY Tap This Link : SUMMER EDITION O'KEEFFE
GEORGIA O'KEEFE EXHIBITIONS AND RELATED LINKS
GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM: Georgia O’Keeffe: Line, Color, Composition
May 8 – September 13, 2015 TAP THE LINK: www.okeeffemuseum.org
PHOENIX ART MUSEUM: From New York to New Mexico: Masterworks of American Modernism June 7—September 7, 2015 TAP THE LINK : phxart.org
FINE ARTS CENTER COLORADO SPRINGS: Eloquent Objects: Georgia O’Keeffe and
Still Life Art in New Mexico June 27 – Sept 13 2015 TAP THE LINK: csfineartscenter.org
SCHEINBAUM & RUSSEK LTD: Representing Photographs by Todd Webb & Myron Wood
TAP THE LINK : www.photographydealers.com
TACOMA ART MUSEUM: TAP THE LINK : www.TacomaArtMuseum.org
DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART : Georgia O'Keeffe in The Permanent Collection
TAP THE LINK : www.DMA.org
INTERVIEW : JON SWIHART
THE PORTRAIT PAINTER
Joshua TRILIEGI : Lets discuss, Commissions. You were recently commissioned by Brad PITT to create a portrait in relation to his wife's new film project on the American war hero Louie ZAMPERINI. Discuss how this came about, how you approach the assignment and how much time you may spend on a daily basis for each overall portrait.
Jon SWIHART : The whole experience surrounding Louie Zamperini really felt like kismet, because before I was commissioned by Brad Pitt to paint Louie, I had been approached a few months earlier to paint his portrait for an organization. At that time, I read Unbroken and was enthralled and clearly envisioned how I would portray Louie dressed in his old WW2 bomber jacket and officer's cap, his body deteriorating but his spirit still resilient and unbroken. So,it was hugely disappointing when that first commission fell through. Then out of the blue, fate gave me a second chance when Pitt saw my recently completed portrait of the artist Don Bachardy, which gave him the idea of having a portrait of Zamperini painted as a talismanic gift for Angelina Jolie. Laura Hillenbrand had written the book, “Unbroken”, telling the amazing story of Louie’s life through WWII. After spearheading efforts to bring this epic story to life on the big screen, Angelina Jolie was also directing the picture. While doing her research, Jolie became very close to Louie, admiring him and taking strength and inspiration from his indomitable spirit. I went to Zamperini’s home to do the photo shoot and had the opportunity to visit with him for a bit. It was obvious that behind the 96 year old façade was the same determined and precocious young man from the book. Even in his frail condition, he exuded a zest for life that was inspiring in itself. Louie was known to those close to him, for an expression in his eyes, so with the family’s help, I was able to capture this expression for the painting. Now, inspired by the book, but even more so by the man himself, I set out to do the painting. I was extremely honored and excited, but also, a little intimidated by the task at hand.
I was confident about getting a likeness, but unsure about striking a balance between the reality of his frailness and the dignity of the man and his history. For instance, in reality the bomber jacket was much larger on Louie’s shrunken frame, so I had a friend come over and pose in a similar leather jacket so I could accurately compromise between reality and the painting. The portrait took 6 weeks, working about 8 hours per day. When the painting was completed, I brought it to Louie’s home so he could see it in person and I could get his feedback. I thought I was confident about the final result until I got a big thumbs-up from Louie and felt this huge wave of relief flow over me. His family was also very happy with the portrait, which meant a lot to me. Formalities over, I spent the next hour listening to Louie tell stories and had the opportunity to ask him questions. I had been wondering about the ethereal music he heard late in his time on the raft while marooned at sea and wondered if it would be recreated in the movie. Louie said he did remember the tune for some time afterwards and had been whistling it in the prisoner camp when another prisoner who was a musician asked where he heard that wonderful piece of music. Over time, he forgot the melody and, unfortunately it hadn’t been written down. I made one more visit to bring Louie a framed photo of the painting for his 97th birthday. He was in good spirits, making plans for a birthday dinner and happy to have more visitors. Unfortunately, this would be the last time I saw him. This commission was the most meaningful of my career. I have painted many ‘famous’ people, including ex-presidents, movie stars and astronauts, but I felt that in honoring Louie, in my small way, I was also honoring all of the thousands of men and women in uniform with untold stories of courage, determination and character.
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ARTIST INTERVIEW : ROBERT SHETTERLY PAINTER
Guest Artist for Spring 2015 Literary Edition of BUREAU of Arts and Culture Magazine is Painter and Social Historian Robert Shetterly. He is the Creator of an On - Going Series of Portraits entitled, "Americans Who Tell The Truth." Yeah, the title alone is loaded with a multiplicity of meanings & interpretations. We were initially attracted to the Artwork itself, and have since been drawn in by the large cast of characters that make up this original and interesting series. Today, We honor the Art of Robert Shetterly & Americans Who Tell The Truth.
by Joshua A. TRILIEGI for BUREAU OF ARTS AND CULTURE LITERARY EDITION SPRING 2015
At first glance, one notices the vibrant colors, the bold backgrounds and the striking faces staring directly at the viewer. Closer inspection reveals inscriptions and quotes scratched directly into the canvases. Looking closer yet, one begins to actually behold the energy, the spirit, the 'vibe', if you will, of the subject. Somewhere between the WORDS they have spoken and the faces they were given and often times, mingled with the historical aspects of American history: Robert Shetterly's subjects come to life. The portraits are awake, they speak to us, they educate us, they demand respect in one way or another. There is bravery, beauty and brevity in this body of work. For sure, it is indeed, politically charged and at the same time, on either side of the aisle, politically speaking, many of these, "Truths," being espoused could ultimately be embraced by any person who cares deeply about America and beyond that, the rights of human beings everywhere. On the American front, the subjects vary from respect for the environment, to the right to be a pacifist, to the concerns of racial equality, to the rights of women, to the original values of the native Americans and on into the original purpose of creating a country like America to begin with. This is a series of paintings that many of the founding fathers and mothers of America would appreciate. With over 200 portraits and no shortage of subjects to honor, Mr. Shetterly has found a way to take his inspirations and hand them directly back to the people of the world in an absorbing and educational manner.
The subjects vary from extremely famous personalities to little known local activists who have brought to light the simplest universal truth to an issue that concerns themselves and the broader world. In a time of increasingly draconian rule with multiple abuses of power at the highest levels by some of the most powerful overbearing decision makers in America: The Series is a Beacon of Light. The power of an Individual, You, or Mr. Shetterly, or Me, or any of the American Subjects lovingly painted here, is very much alive. One may not even realize this fact, without perusing the Series itself. It is a very liberating and honest sequence of images, ideas and complete revelations. America is a beautiful idea, it promises so much freedom, so much opportunity, so much success and yet, the flip side of that promise is the very fact that if we as a people do not stand up for those original values, we stand to lose them and quite possibly, we already have. "Americans Who Tell The Truth," is an important, relevant and absorbing series of works that, in my estimation, is one of the most forthright, timely & intriguing series of paintings to have ever been created about America. Why? Because the truth is very hard to come by these days. The truth is a commodity, like money or property. Those who have it know how good it feels. Those who want it will do anything to get it. Those who try to take it away will lie to do so and in that act itself, become the antithesis of TRUTH. Such is the paradigm of the equation. Telling The Truth in America can lead to many sorrows and yet, it could also lead you to the presidency. Retaining that truth, once you get there, may be all but impossible. Mr. Shetterly's art retains an integrity and a value that will last well beyond the terms of any president, senator or congressperson, so too his subjects. How then do we proceed ? For starters: Simply Tell It like It Is.
ROBERT SHETTERLY: INTERVIEW
Joshua Triliegi : The Project entitled, "Americans Who tell the TRUTH" is a very intensive and wonderful body of work. How did this series come about ?
Robert Shetterly : The Americans Who Tell the Truth project was not something I intended to do. I had never painted a realistic portrait. In the wake of 9/11 our government began using 9/11 to beat the drums of war for an attack on Iraq. Iraq, as I hope you all know, had nothing to do with 9/11, no links with al Qaeda, nor did it have weapons of mass destruction. This was a tumultuous time. The 2000 election was full of corruption, then 9/11, then an avalanche of lies and fear to promote an unnecessary, illegal, immoral war. I was in a rage of grief for all the potential victims. And I was in a rage of grief for the total failure of our democracy. I was not surprised that the government was lying, but I was outraged that the corporate media was cheer leading for war and not exposing the lies. In a functional democracy, the Iraq war could not have happened. I felt alienated and marginalized more than I ever have in this country.
"The answer for me turned out to be very simple. Instead of obsessing about the people who were lying, I chose to begin surrounding myself with Americans I admired. I painted their portraits & scratched quotes from them into the surface.I chose a constituency I believed in and could draw strength from to stand up against a corrupt government."
I had a career as a surrealist painter and print maker, but all of my work seemed irrelevant now. I knew that I had to use the thing I do best -- art -- to gain a voice. And I also knew that if I presented my anger through my art, no one would be interested. I had to take the energy of that anger and use it in the service of love, compassion and justice. But how? The answer for me turned out to be very simple. Instead of obsessing about the people who were lying, I chose to begin surrounding myself with Americans I admired. I painted their portraits & scratched quotes from them into the surface. I chose a constituency I believed in and could draw strength from to stand up against a corrupt government. The US has always had a large gap between the values it professes and the reality of its actions. I was painting some of the people who have dedicated their courage and persistence to closing that gap so that the ideals of equality and dignity and freedom are present for everyone. I began with a goal of 50 portraits. I've now painted over 200.
Joshua Triliegi : The Title itself has a connotation, almost humorously, that not all Americans DO tell the truth. What is your criterion for choosing a subject and tell our readers about the working process of a single portrait ?
Robert Shetterly : Frequently, when I tell people the title of my project, I get an incredulous look and the comment, "I didn't know there were any Americans who tell the truth." Most Americans are deeply cynical about the level of dishonesty in all of their institutions, but particularly the government, the media, the corporations and the financial world. Sadly that cynicism most often translates into apathy. Apathy as much as institutional dishonesty destroys any hope of democracy. People also know at some level that governments all over the world are failing to govern, and that unless some serious world issues are dealt with, we will all be overwhelmed by these problems.
"When governments fail to do the right thing, the people must lead. I've been choosing to paint people both past & present who have done that leading. Without facing the problems and telling the truth, there is no trust; without trust there is no hope. I try to choose people to paint from the entire spectrum of fundamental issues of social, economic and environmental justice. I choose some very well known people and many unknown."
When governments fail to do the right thing, the people must lead. I've been choosing to paint people both past & present who have done that leading. Without facing the problems and telling the truth, there is no trust; without trust there is no hope. I try to choose people to paint from the entire spectrum of fundamental issues of social, economic and environmental justice. I choose some very well known people and many unknown. My point is not to paint only icons, extraordinary people who make the rest of us feel insufficient. I want to show that many great changes for the better were instigated by very ordinary folks. I spend more time researching my subjects than I do painting them because this project has become all about education. I spend most of my time now in schools showing the portraits, telling the stories, exhorting, and hopefully inspiring, kids to be better citizens.
Joshua Triliegi : The Works themselves are beautiful. They are somehow connected to early portraits of The Founders of our Nation, and at the same time have a slightly folk sensibility and yet they are very freshly presented. Tell us about your education and how that influenced the actual style and look of the work.
Robert Shetterly : I'm a self-taught artist who learned to draw & paint by copying the work of artists I admired. Leonardo, Durer, Degas and Goya taught me to draw. Rembrandt, Matisse, Magritte and Francis Bacon taught me to paint. There were many others. And you are right --- I am greatly influenced by folk and outsider artists because of their intensity and honesty. But the style of these portraits was a direct result of my intent --- to paint people of integrity and make that integrity the context of the painting. That's why the backgrounds are only color fields.
"I've learned enough about art to know that the quality of the painting is what authenticates the message. I'm trying to honor people I admire and present them as role models. Whatever success I may have at doing that depends on the my attempt to make real art, not simply political placards. So, as simple as the basic composition of these portraits is, it's very important to me to make beautiful paintings"
I want the viewer to focus entirely on the character of the subject and then on the subject's words. However, I've learned enough about art to know that the quality of the painting is what authenticates the message. I'm trying to honor people I admire and present them as role models. Whatever success I may have at doing that depends on the my attempt to make real art, not simply political placards. So, as simple as the basic composition of these portraits is, it's very important to me to make beautiful paintings. If viewers can appreciate the work for its artistry, they may be more inclined to be sympathetic to its message.
Joshua Triliegi : The color Fields in your work are extremely important, you also utilize quotes and then there is the actual portrait itself. Discuss the challenges and rewards in committing to a project such as Americans Who Tell the Truth.
Robert Shetterly : I think I may have answered the first part of this question. I'll focus on the second. When I first began this project, I really didn't think I could do it. Besides not having painted portraits previously, I decided I would not sell the portraits --- selling them seemed wrong. The people I paint have freely given so much. But how was I going to live? I had supported myself and family by selling art. I told myself that I needed to take this leap. That I would trust the world to either support the project or not, but I needed to do it. Frankly, though, choosing not to sell the art gave me a great sense of freedom. I could say whatever I wanted, make all my own choices about whom to paint.
"When I first began this project, I really didn't think I could do it. Besides not having painted portraits previously, I decided I would not sell the portraits --- selling them seemed wrong. The people I paint have freely given so much. But how was I going to live? I had supported myself and family by selling art. I told myself that I needed to take this leap. That I would trust the world to either support the project or not, but I needed to do it."
If it failed and I ended up with some portraits in my basement that nobody wanted to see, that would be OK. Instead, as soon as I began to show them I began to be asked to talk about them, to tell stories, to talk about history, ethics, social change. It's been over 13 years now that I have committed myself to this project and my learning curve is still vertical. My life has totally changed. The portraits have required me to be an artist/activist/teacher. I travel to schools, colleges, museums, libraries, and churches all over the country and even outside the country to talk about the portraits. The great challenges remain --- never relaxing the quality of the work and doing enough research so that I can talk intelligently and accurately about history, politics, economics and social change.
Joshua Triliegi : Please explain to our readers about the line you walk between artist, social Commentator or witness to truth, in this case, and the actual organization level of presenting these works in the way you do around the world.
Robert Shetterly : Part of the obligation I've taken on by spending so much time --- literally & figuratively --- with my subjects is the necessity to attempt to act in the world with the same degree of courage. On the one hand, in schools I present the portraits and the quotes as places to begin dialogue: What do you think of this person? What she said? Is he right? Why? What forces was she up against? What's the historical context? Could you do that? Why was it necessary? But on the other hand, as an activist I need to put my body & integrity on the line, commit civil disobedience if I need to, take risks. If I don't do that, I undercut the lesson I am trying to teach about commitment. I have a great small team that works with me on enhancing the educational goals of the project, and another group I do political action with. Each reinforces the other.
"I present the portraits and the quotes as places to begin dialogue: What do you think of this person? What she said? Is he right? Why? What forces was she up against? What's the historical context? Could you do that? Why was it necessary?"
Joshua Triliegi : Looking at your list of Portraits, one immediately realizes that Americans that Tell The TRUTH, sometimes, pay a big personal price. Here at the magazine, we have indeed begun to experience some of that. Discuss, if you will, your views on Honesty in America.
Robert Shetterly: When one witnesses for the truth, stands up against the power of the status quo, one takes a risk. When one tries to expose institutional corruption and hypocrisy, that attempt can be very divisive and meet with ridicule, humiliation and attack. Power wants to maintain itself and all the profit that flows from that power. Challenging it makes one vulnerable to all the means it controls --- law, police, media, politics. But then where would this country be without the people who have challenged the status quo? Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rachel Carson, Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden. Thousands more.
Joshua Triliegi : I see a touch of Andrew Wyeth in your work. Would you discuss your formative Influences ?
Robert Shetterly : My influences are various. I'm particularly interested in portrait painters who succeed at revealing the character of their subjects. Andrew Wyeth often does that. So does Alice Neel. I think, though, what's important to stress here is that an influence is someone who has helped you see. Not to see like him or her, but see for yourself. For me, having the patience to learn how to draw well has been my most important portrait influence. Being able to render the the eccentricities of any face, to really see what is there, is a big part of honestly conveying the character of the person.
"Most of our courageous whistleblowers don't even have have the opportunity to make their case to the public. The powerful use the law to sequester their voices. But, often the facts can overwhelm the attempts to suppress them ---whether it's about climate change, torture, mass surveillance or political and financial corruption. In a sense this is a great opportunity for truth tellers in America."
Joshua Triliegi : Edward Snowden and Bill Ayers are in the series and have names from more recent contemporary social events. Where do you think America is headed in terms of Truth ?
Robert Shetterly : That's a tough question. Never in our history has the media been so pervasive, so powerful, so continuous in its denunciation of those who challenge political orthodoxy or risk everything to tell the truth. That's intimidating. Most of our courageous whistle blowers don't even have have the opportunity to make their case to the public. The powerful use the law to sequester their voices. But, often the facts can overwhelm the attempts to suppress them ---whether it's about climate change, torture, mass surveillance or political and financial corruption. In a sense this is a great opportunity for truth tellers in America. The general public has so little trust in the honesty of most institutional leaders that they are open to the prophetic voices. The problem is for those voices to get access to the media. The powerful are not trusted, but they do still control who gets heard.
Joshua Triliegi : Do you have any particular Portraits that are significantly memorable, if so please describe why.
Robert Shetterly : Well, each portrait is memorable if only for the energy expended in attempting to make a good painting. But many of the subjects have become friends whom I continue to work with. For instance, Lily Yeh, the woman who founded Barefoot Artists & uses art to rebuild broken communities all over the world. I went with her to work in a village of genocide survivors in Rwanda & to a refugee camp in Palestine --- some of the most memorable events of my life. I painted John Kiriakou, the CIA agent who blew the whistle on US torture policy and we unveiled his portrait together in DC right before he was sent to prison. I got to know Judy Bonds, the courageous activist from southern West Virginia against Mountaintop Removal Coal extraction. Actually, I don't like answering this question because each portrait has a story like this & has enriched me enormously. I want to tell them all. Each person brings me into contact with courage. And, as William Sloane Coffin says, "Without courage there are no other virtues."
"… Each portrait has a story like this & has enriched me enormously. I want to tell them all. Each person brings me into contact with courage. And, as William Sloane Coffin says, "Without courage there are no other virtues."
Joshua Triliegi : Whats going on with The project this year and how can our readers support and participate ?
Robert Shetterly : AWTT keeps expanding. We are launching a series of new educational initiatives. I would hope people would visit the website and spend some time there exploring the people, the issues, the ways of teaching. Your readers can support our work by modeling their own citizenship on some of the portraits, by telling teachers about the project, by buying cards and posters, by writing to me with suggestions of people to paint. But mostly your readers can understand that most of the institutions that we have entrusted to care for the common good, to care for the future of our children, to care for stewardship of the earth, to care for the maintenance of democracy have failed. It is up to us not only to insist on better governance, but to do it ourselves. Our institutions --- political and economic --- are locked into systems of profit and exploitation which are endangering the future. We don't have to accept that. We shouldn't accept that. Morally, we can't accept it. And there is great personal and communal joy in building a sane, sustainable world.
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F. SCOTT HESS: PAINTER
By BUREAU of Arts and Culture Editor Joshua A. Triliegi
F. Scott Hess is an American artist with an education and techniques informed by European Masters. Mr. Hess was born in Baltimore in 1955 and raised in Wisconsin. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, picking up ancient skills that were employed by the likes of Vermeer and Boticelli. Six years later, with a buying audience in Europe, he took a chance on obscurity in America, but soon found an audience at home as well. Mr. Hess's work could be described as narrative - figural with a heavy hand on the psychological symbolic field, though, I beleive, there is something much deeper going on in this man's body of work. There is an obvious shock value that we could affiliate with other great new artists born in and around the same time as Mr. Hess, such as Angus Young of AC/DC or even Johnny Lydon of the first punk rock band, The Sex Pistols. Some people in the audience may find trouble getting past the first few songs and for them, we are very sorry, if you stick around for the entire concert, you are bound to be changed. Utilizing history, poetry, dreams and a very keen discerning eye for light, situation and relationships of a social nature, with a healthy dose of very dark humor: Mr Hess is a social critic, willing to put himself on the front lines of the art world and bare his soul in the process. He is also a teacher and in turn many of his paintings work on so many levels that the casual passer by, the educated and the intellectual, will all see something entirely different while standing in front of the same painting.
Mr Hess's references are steeped in art history at all levels, from Hopper to Velasquez, from Lucien Freud to Rembrandt, he is immersed in the core knowledge of previous painters and it informs the narrative, the style and the symbology in a way that a Jazz great like Coltrane or Thelonious Monk might apply a classical riff by Mozart or any number of composers of note, while still retaining an originality and strange interlude that we as the audience applaud. Mr. Hess, who went through a family separation at an early age and is fully aware of it's effect on his emotional make up, shares that anguish, that pain, that angst, rather than hides it. Hess is sort of the David Lynch of figural painters, taking on material, subjects and narratives that create a sense of mystery or allow us to peak into the darker side of America: Blue Velvet on canvas. Hess understands the process and indeed has stated that, although it is not entirely the most comfortable aspect of working, "The process is the most important." He has undergone various transformations and even sites being hired by a film director to teach an actor how to paint like DaVinci as an influential experience, one that brought in more earth tones to his palette. Mr Hess's work of the 1980s has everything in common with the New Wave of music at the time: The anger of Elvis Costello, the color of The B52s, the social commentary of any number of punk bands such as Black Flag or The Circle Jerks. Many of these bands focused on everyday life and what a drag it really is. Suicidal Tendencies had a song called, "Institutionalized" wherein a story is told by a boy who is sitting in his room, he asks his mother for a Pepsi, "All I wanted was a Pepsi …" the next thing he knows, they're threatening to take him to a psycho ward: this is Mr. Hess's world in the 1980s. The art transforms as new information comes in, each personal discovery effects the work visually, from having a dream, to reading a poem, to disagreeing with a critic, to learning about his personal geneology. He is a jester without a king and some might say, he is dangerous, he is blasphemous, he is obsessed with sexuality [ who isn't ? ] but if you look closer, at the craft, at the guts, at the naked truth as someone like Leonard Cohen might say, you will see a poet, you will see a narrator, you will see a social critic, you will see a boy, in his room and all he wanted was a Pepsi.

F. Scott Hess's work of the 1990s and currently is decidely less electric, the colors are slightly subdued, not entirley, and this is not an artist one can generalize about, but due to the extreme vibrato created in his early work, there is a transition. Fatherhood, family relations and the discovery of a Southern American relative in the armed forces of ancient day produces entirely new works emblazoned with a fiery gusto and an understanding as well as a criticism that could easily bother sensibilities. Hess has no problem at all making waves, rocking the boat, screaming into the drunken night like a wounded howling animal, the big difference being, he does it in tune and it actually sounds incredible. He is much like the late great Los Angeles writer Charles Bukowski in that regard, intensely gutteral, poetically honest, sexually expressive and brutally critical of society, all the while laughung and crying for all that he has seen, felt, won and lost. If F. Scott Hess were not a painter, one gets the sense that he would somehow find a way to share his knowledge of humanity, history, archeology, poetry and or prose. When you have this type of technique, you can do what you will, when you will and roll the dice accordingly: Hess does not play it safe. There is experimentation in color, in relationship, in technique and in style. Just as soon as we think we know a Hess painting, he changes it up. Specifically, when he decides to allow a single figure to exist on the canvas such as the painting entitled, "Learning the Language of Water."
A beautiful Boticelli like figure with fiery red hair sinks to the bottom of the rich deep blues of a reflection pool, staring upward toward the surface. Rather than a 'relationship painting', as he is known for, the journey is now into self and in doing so, Mr. Hess takes all that energy and detail and applies it to the figures reflection, which appears to be data or language or text, as if she is reading her own story. It is a haunting and beautiful work that is both primal and contemporary. Hess is washing humanity of all the numbers, the stocks, the internet data that we so readily feel is important and immersing us into the naked realities of what would really be important, if all of it were suddenly taken away ? Certainly to have a body, to inhabit that form, to walk, to talk, to exist and on top of all of that, to actually be beautiful, what a gift, to be lovely, to be sensual, to be vulnerable. Hess captures all of this and more. The sinking figure reaches to the surface, she is not exactly drowning, but clearly, she did not expect to fall in. Because Hess tells stories through symbology, this indeed invites speculation. If water is emotions, then this woman is surely overcome, if reality is the surface, than she is drifting far from it, if numbers and letters and data are at the very surface, there is a good chance she will not return, better to see what lies beneath, rather than stay at the shallow end.
" Mr. Hess's references are steeped in art history at all levels, from Hopper to Velasquez, from Lucien Freud to Rembrandt, he is immersed in the core knowledge of previous painters and it informs the narrative, the style and the symbology … "
Going with this train of thought, it is safe to say that Hess is a deep painter with a magical and mischevious bent, a seductive style that conjures as it cojoles, he is a tempest willing to terrify as well as to terrorize our senses and all the while, he does it with such penache, grace and out and out visual poetry, that we find it hard to turn away. Hess is a master painter who has stayed in touch with his vulnerability and has no problem sharing those fears, desires, ideas with the viewer, and for those of us still in the audience, after each and every encore, we will never forget it. This body of artwork is as dangerous as an Egon Schielle drawing or as insane as a Salvador Dali print or as beautiful as any number of works, you name it. Hess has passed through the looking glass, he dove deep into the dark waters an ugly duckling and came back to the surface as a swan on a dare. No one can win everytime they go to the track, step up to the roulette wheel or roll the dice, but some gamblers choose wisely, they take educated guesses, they study the horses and when they win, they win big. F. Scott Hess is indeed a winner and for my money, I will always take a willing tip from this artist rather than any simple cashier sitting at the ticket counter any day.

Joshua Triliegi: What was a very young F. Scott Hess like and how did he view the world ?
F. Scott Hess: As a kid I was a bit introspective. I hated speaking in class, though I didn't mind clowning around. I lived in Florida and I remember doing things that make my hair stand on end when I think about it now. My friends and I were adventure seekers. We hacked out pathways and constructed forts in wild areas adjacent to the Kensington Park housing development in Sarasota. We built rafts and swam in drainage ditches where there were poisonous snakes, snapping turtles, and alligators. I set fire to the back yard playing with sparklers, and sitting on the roof of the house I blew up condoms I'd found in the trash. I didn't know what they were for, and my mother stood below yelling at me to "put down those dirty things!" When I was ten my family moved to Stoughton, Wisconsin. Again I set the backyard on fire, this time playing with gasoline. Inspired after visiting an archaeological dig, I built an earthen hut in the woods behind our house, and was visited one morning by the Chief of Police and the building inspector. I'd made the mistake of cutting the logs for my hut's roof support from city property, and a neighbor had turned me in. I worked on a city tree farm for a week to pay for my sins. The nature that surrounded our house, and me growing up, became a source of wonder and inspiration. My maternal grandfather was a minister, but at age eleven I decided there was no god, and found answers to life's questions in the natural world. I drew from an early age, and drawing was the only place I felt I had any control over my life. There I was master and magically controlled events.
Joshua Triliegi: An individual artist can indeed influence the world with a viewpoint, who were your earliest influences in the arts and how did it effect your work ?
F. Scott Hess: I did not see a lot of fine art growing up, and my parents also frowned upon low-brow comics. I remember being in the hospital at eleven and seeing the kid in the bed next to me with a slew of Marvel superhero comics. I had an embarrassing little pile of comic "Classics" that didn't interest him in the least, but still influenced me in some ways. Toward the end of high school I tried to work like Andrew Wyeth, but once college started I learned how uncool he was in academia. Being interested in erotic art, my first art love was Egon Schiele. I'd discovered a fat book on him in the Lawrence University library & that started an obsession with Viennese art. I focused on drawing & printmaking, and sought out artists that were good at that. After graduating from the UW-Madison I flew into Heathrow, hitchhiked across Europe, and set up a studio in Vienna. I started studying at the Academy of Fine Art there, in the Meisterschule of Rudolf Hausner. He was one of the famous Vienna Fantastic Realists, and very supportive of my work. I began to paint under his tutelage, and thus learned some very classic painting methods, like the egg-and-oil Mixed Technique. Learning the basic traditional skills required of representational painting through the centuries perfectly dovetailed with the kind of figurative imagery I'd wanted to make since I was seven years old.

Joshua Triliegi: Artwork that displays enough magic or craft or ability, then has the chance to seduce the viewer into a whole other realm, your work is obviously at that level. How does literature or music or memory play a part in your current works ?
F. Scott Hess: My work is narrative, but not in the sense that it delivers a finished story. If I read a book, that's it. If it was goodI might read it again, but not until years later. A painting, on the other hand, sits on the wall of a person's home for decades (this is my ideal place for my work, not a museum where the average attention span is five seconds). It is always visible, and it should continually deliver something unexpected, a new discovery, and new way of looking at something. So I layer meaning, constructing narratives that have depth and resonance, but no linear story and no neat conclusion.
One of the great advantages of painting is that all the information is constantly in front of the viewer's eyes. In a linear, time-based narrative, like film or literature, the flow of the narrative must be constructed in a way that is coherent temporally. Stuff has to be left out that might conflict with the flow of that time-based narrative. Painting can simultaneously hold all that conflict before the viewer, who can pick up and hold these opposing narrative threads, turn them over in the mind, consider the options, go with the multiple meanings. These in turn resonate with the viewer, purposefully triggering specific responses, but also giving the viewer's imagination enough space to ruminate endlessly on the possibilities. I aim to hit the viewer at a subconscious level. Through the movements of my characters I hope my audience 'feels' the content before they have a chance to cognitively analyze it.
The importance of embodied simulation has been ignored in recent art theory, and is just being rediscovered, this time with scientific studies that investigate exactly how it operates in the human brain (Freedberg & Gallese, Motion, Emotion and Empathy in Esthetic Experience, 2007). Intellectually investigating my work is fine and hopefully rewarding, but I want to own my viewer's soul before they have a chance to think about it.
Joshua Triliegi: The paintings are like good fiction, based in reality, dangerous and interpretable based on a certain state of mind. Discuss the psychology that envelops your characters.
F. Scott Hess: The interactions of the people in my painting has been crucial to me since I first started making images. Many of my students at Laguna College of Art & Design are pretty good at painting a solitary figure, sitting still, against an empty background. Social media is full of well-painted heads and solitary static figures that seem quite popular, but I get really bored with these, no matter how well done they are. So I have my students put a second figure into their images and suddenly there is a psychological interaction. Give one or both figures a little movement and you not only start to build a narrative, you'll imbue them with an internal life. The ancient Greeks discovered this in sculpture, when they moved from the stiff kouros style to contrapposto. Suddenly those sculptures had a believable inner existence. In developing the psychological interactions of those characters further I've discovered that a good rule is to use only as much expression and movement as is required to express the emotion you desire in the figure, and nothing more. As little as possible to carry your idea. Anything excessive becomes unbelievable and distracts the viewer, limiting their acceptance of the depicted action. I'm also not worried about creating pleasant people or getting likenesses of my models. I want character and a sense of inner life. I want to get at motives that really animate these invented people, to make them seem real, and many of those human motivations are not pleasant or positive.

Joshua Triliegi: Many of your paintings are reminiscent of the classics, specifically how you decide to position your subjects. Rubens utilized a similar suggestive figural style. Discuss how you technique.
F. Scott Hess: Most often there is a vision, a scene that pops into my head. I don't write it down, or sketch it out, because at this age I realize I get a lot of ideas. If the idea is still floating around in my head a few weeks later, then it is psychologically resonant with me and I have to develop it further, to turn it into a painting. Most often the backgrounds, the setting, is an invented space. I learned linear and atmospheric perspective well and long ago, so this invention comes easily to me and is enjoyable. I wander through the space even as I invent it. Models are most often people I know, myself or friends and family. If a nude is called for I'll hire someone who I've worked with in teaching. In advance I think out the poses I want the models to take, feel my way into it, think about what I want from them in turns of movement, gesture, facial expression. Then, when they arrive for a photo shoot, I direct them like a movie director, except I'm really bad at it. I forget what I want, get a little flustered with time constraints and never get everything I need to work from. So the process of getting them onto the canvas is one of using the information about reality that is delivered via the camera and inventing the parts that come from my vision of the scene. Flow and movement in a figure and a composition usually have to be invented. This relies on years of skill-building and anatomical knowledge to pull off effectively.

Joshua Triliegi: People often confuse the artist with the art, how important is it for you to be able to express a certain idea, regardless of its ' correctness ' or ' acceptability ' and what might you tell younger artists about this particular challenge ?
My work has always disturbed people more than a little bit. I have often wished I was more like these artists that don't seem to have a dark thought in their heads, make pretty works that easily decorate a home, and sell like hotcakes. It ain't me. I still have that kid in me, standing in the backyard with a can of gasoline in his hand. I have some burning issues to deal with, and art is the best and perhaps only place to play those out. Art is a place to play out fantasy, even if they are dark and socially unacceptable desires. However, that doesn't mean a venue has a requirement to show something just because it is considered art, or that a critic can't blast it for being artistically or humanly backwards, or that anyone else has to accept it because an artist made it. But an artist has to make what they need to make.


Joshua Triliegi: The early work of painter Paul Cadmus and even Thomas Hart Benton seem to have a relationship with some of your work, how much does art history actually affect a contemporary artists oeuvre ?
F. Scott Hess: I studied the great artists of Europe when I was in Vienna learning to paint. These old masters developed figurative painting to an extraordinary level. I don't think any art done in the last hundred years in America or Europe comes close to matching the greatness of what they did. That said, I really love the work of both Cadmus and Benton. Neither were influences, but we learned at the feet of the same masters. Like me, Benton and Cadmus absorbed all of this knowledge from centuries of European painting, and then gave it a pumped up American sense of color and a homegrown content. Why art teachers these days in academia think artists can communicate knowledge visually without skill is hard to understand. Building a multi-figure composition, with a believable illusion of deep space, and psychological connections between your actors, and content that relates to art history, history, mythology, current events, philosophy, politics, sociology, and personal experience, all while creating an object that visually attracts, has resonance for the viewer, aims for transcendence in some form, is intellectually challenging, and unique… is a tall order. The artists of the past who could juggle all of these things simultaneously are the ones Western culture reveres and remembers, like Rubens, Velasquez, or Rembrandt. I aim high, trying to juggle dozens of things, because I'm just not impressed with artists who can juggle two things at once. I expect more of myself.

Joshua Triliegi: Lets talk about the process in your studio, how many paintings do you work on at one time and what drives you to tell these particular stories ?
F. Scott Hess: When the idea sticks in my head long enough, and I know it will become a painting, I'm focused just on that. For most of my career I've worked on just that one piece, and only have that going at that moment. There are exceptions to this, like my conceptual exhibition, The Paternal Suit: Heirlooms from the F. Scott Hess Family Foundation, where I had as many as ten pieces going at once. But most of the time I work on one piece at a time. When I've sketched it out, planned it, and begin painting, the process is very exciting. I put on loud music, like Talking Heads, or The Stones, and bop around the painting, using fat brushes and trying to cover the canvas as quickly as I can. The second half of the process is more like grunt work. The new reality can be glimpsed, but needs to be completed. The flaws are evident. Some I'll fix, some I'll let ride. I just have to put in the hours to bring it to a point where the created alternate reality is believable across the canvas. Nothing is allowed to stick out of that reality that would jar the viewer out of their visual exploration. I've noticed that many of my students have more fun painting than I do, but for me it isn't about having an enjoyable time, but about realizing the vision in my head, pushing it out into the real world, making it exist.
Joshua Triliegi: Once you have completed a work or a series, does the result tell you or indicate what might be the next work ? How do you challenge yourself each time you step up ?
F. Scott Hess: I've never set out purposely to challenge myself, but I'm not at all afraid to take on difficult tasks. I generally have complete confidence that I can do something, I know I'll just have to put in the hours to complete it. When I have what I think is a great idea that is all I want to do. My enthusiasm for it drives the work ethic. I'd rather be doing that than anything else, except maybe sex, and that doesn't take so much time! Sometimes the ideas are simple, and sometimes they involve a 7 x 12 foot canvas with a crowd of hundreds that I'll paint live-streaming or in a public gallery space. When something is as important to me as painting is, and you do it because you need to, then it drives itself to a very high level. You don't allow so much repetition that you get bored with it. You push yourself to the next exciting thing, and throw everything you've got into that.
Joshua Triliegi: Notoriety and acceptance or at least recognition are all part of the art game, you have retained a certain style through the decades and even had a hand in bringing figural work back into vogue, to a certain extent, tell us about your trajectory from your point of view and how the public has perceived your work then and now ?
F. Scott Hess: When I first showed in Los Angeles, 1985 at Ovsey Gallery downtown, I think there were no more than a dozen people doing figurative work in all of Southern California. Now there seem to be thousands! That is really a great advance for figurative art, and one that has steadily grown over time. If I had a hand in that, then that is quite wonderful. I've heard from a number of artists that I was an influence on their development, but painting is such a solitary endeavor that judging the degree of that influence is difficult. In teaching it is a little easier to see, as I've directly impacted a couple of generations of painters at this point. To see these former students out in the world, creating kick-ass representational work, getting recognition, having important shows, and making a viable living doing it, I feel like my kids have become great successes! I'm a proud papa. 2014 has been an extraordinary year for me. It started with a solo show at Koplin Del Rio, and was quickly followed by a retrospective at two venues, Begovich Gallery at Cal-State Fullerton, and the Municipal Art Gallery in Los Angeles. Both were organized by Mike McGee, who also published the monograph, F. Scott Hess, that came out in October, covering four decades of my work. I'm in two other important books on representational painting that came out this year, The Figure edited by Margaret McCann, and Behind the Easel edited by Robert Jackson. My Paternal Suit exhibition came home after touring the country and filled the Long Beach Museum of Art from July through October, with record turn-out. I must have been in a dozen group shows as well, and a couple of Hollywood producers are doing a full-length documentary on me. How I can ever beat this in the rest of my years on this planet I have no idea! It is getting increasingly difficult to feel like a repressed representational artist with all this love raining down.
Bureau Profile: MARGIE LIVINGSTON
BUREAU: What originally attracted you to modern art and share with our readers an early inspiration?
Margie LIVINGSTON: Two things attracted me to modernism: the grid and a spirit of experimentation. Working with the grid connects me to many artists including Mondrian, Sol LeWitt, Eve Hesse, and Agnes Martin. But I’m also interested in a much earlier version of the grid: Renaissance perspective which, as Rosalind Krauss wrote, “is inscribed on the depicted world as the armature of its organization.” The entwined histories of the grid and painting inspired one of my new works, Falling Grid with Underpainting. To make it, I wove a three-dimensional grid out of string, to literalize the perspective grid in space, and then covered it with paint. Of course, paint doesn't have much tensile strength, so when I cut the grid off the frame, the painting slumped under the force of gravity. This kind of experimentation, where I push paint to do what’s not expected, is at the heart of my practice.
BUREAU: The series of works that are sculpture crafted from paint are extremely interesting, share how this technique was discovered and where you are currently taking it.
Margie LIVINGSTON: Six years ago, I started experimenting with acrylic paint to discover its physical properties in order to exploit them for their own qualities, not pictorial qualities. I glued dried paint directly to the wall, like a decal. One of the glues I tested failed, and the paint skin fell on the floor. Instinctively, I picked it up, brushed it off, and folded it neatly like a blanket. This accidental discovery led to a new body of work where I poured out gallons of paint to make huge paint skins that I then folded and placed on shelves. The “Draped Paintings” hang on a peg like a coat or scarf. When I make them, my relationship to the paint is sensual, body to body, as I must caress the paint skins to shape them. I work with the weight of painting and the paint sags in response to gravity--just like we all do. That paint so readily took on the properties of fabric led me to my newest works. I tack paint skins directly onto stretcher bars and the paint literally stands in for the canvas. Body of Work, a jumble of these paint-as-canvas works held together with wood and metal brackets, will be shown at UNTITLED 2014 this year by Luis De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles.
BUREAU: Do you subscribe to a specific thought process in your work, or is there a more tactile approach and please explain how theory meets reality in the actual creating of a work ?
Margie LIVINGSTON: My latest piece, Body of Work, provides a good example of my process, where the idea -- paint as canvas -- morphed and changed in response to the process of making. This piece came together using a combination of planning, model making, research, reflection, seat-of-the-pants problem-solving, and luck. Until I finally put it all together, I didn't know if the braces would hold. The stickiness of the paint is integral to its construction, but I didn't test that element at full scale until the final assembly, because putting two paint surfaces together creates a permanent bond. So I didn't know until the very end if I was making a prototype or the final work. This kind of problem-solving keeps things interesting. The white paint references Rauschenberg and Ryman, but a pile of white paintings reaches further back to the father of German Romanticism, Caspar David Friedrich, whose work I studied while in Berlin on a Fulbright Scholarship. The jumble of white paintings reminded me of his painting Sea of Ice (1823-24). As I worked on how to hang a pile of paintings on the wall, I made a small model out of foam core, balsa wood, and hot glue. The miniature paintings looked great on the wall, but I didn't like the way they hung there like a magic trick, denying the technical challenge of getting 18 canvases to hang together as one. This is when I added wooden and metal braces to hold them together, so its structure would be visible. I chose to use the utilitarian language of crating for this part of the piece, because I'm interested in the differences and similarities of making a painting and making a crate. During the three months it took to make Body of Work, I was imagining it hanging on the wall like a painting. The final twist came when I realized it looked great standing on the floor. As a sculpture built out of paintings, it blurs the line between sculpture and painting; it can either stand on the floor or hang on the wall with its ancestors.
ANDY MOSES
The BUREAU ART INTERVIEW
By BUREAU of ARTS and CULTURE Editor Joshua A. TRILIEGI
Joshua TRILIEGI: We have been following your work now for almost two decades, back when the magazine was an artists’ collective. You made a sort of break through with the Fire and Ice Series some years ago: could you talk about the process from that time to the present?
Andy MOSES: The paintings that you refer to as the Fire and Ice series are a series of paintings that I exhibited in Los Angeles in 2002. I had moved back from New York in 2000 after having been there for 18 years. The work I had been doing there was done in a similar fashion to how I currently work which is by preparing, pouring, and manipulating paint on a flat surface.
" After moving back to California I became interested in nature on a more human or tangible level and began making these panoramic paintings that were once again abstract, but now suggested horizons as seen from the ocean or the desert or the sky."
The paintings I did in New York were mostly done through chemical reactions. Those paintings were mostly abstract but they also suggested galactic or microscopic phenomena. After moving back to California I became interested in nature on a more human or tangible level and began making these panoramic paintings that were once again abstract, but now suggested horizons as seen from the ocean or the desert or the sky. They were made with one color of pearlescent white and were once again poured and manipulated on a flat surface. This time there were no chemical reactions. It was just the thickness of the paint that determined light and shadow. Shortly after that I made the first pearlescent white paintings I began making them on convex and then concave surfaces. I started making them convex and concave because of the way they interacted with light when you walked around them but also how the curve in the canvas seemed to suggest the curve of the earth and the curve of all space.
" They were made with one color of pearlescent white and were once again poured and manipulated on a flat surface. This time there were no chemical reactions. It was just the thickness of the paint that determined light and shadow. "
I have developed this work over the past 12 years going back and forth between being extremely monochromatic to working with color in extremely complex and varied ways, which is where I am at now. Also I have pushed the color from extremely subtle color variations to extreme contrast, which again is where I am now. Lastly the work has fluctuated between having what I call a defined horizon to being more topographical looking and more abstract.
Joshua TRILIEGI: Being a second-generation artist is both a gift and a challenge, I remember hearing people compare you to your father [Ed Moses] back in the day. Discuss what you have dealt with and how this has affected your own style.
Andy MOSES: Growing up with an artist Father has always made people make very strong assumptions about whom I am and where my work must be coming from. The truth is, both my brother and myself were consistently told that we could do whatever we wanted except be painters. We didn't grow up around the process at all as my Fathers studio was about five miles from our house and we were not encouraged to visit. Therefore I was never around the process of work being made growing up. I was however around finished work both in our house and at the occasional openings that we would go to. I was always intrigued by the work and always looked at it closely to try to figure out how it was done. We had a Sam Francis painting in our house for a while and I remember my Father always telling everybody that nobody knows how he does them. That intrigued me a lot - the fact that painting could be this mysterious and magical or even alchemical process. I went to Cal Arts in 1979 to study film. Once I realized how many chefs and how many elves had to be involved in film I realized I was a solo act. I had surfed a lot as a teenager and probably my favorite thing about it is that you could do it alone. You could paddle out by yourself and speak to no one and convene with the ocean. I had issues with authority as a teenager for sure and surfing was my escape. I was actually accepted into the art department at Cal Arts to make film. My teachers were John Baldessari, Douglas Huebler, Michael Asher and for one semester Barbara Kruger. Cal Arts was a very rigorous conceptual program that was extremely stimulating to me. I continued to work in film but added performance and installation to my repertoire. I did one pretty controversial performance/installation called Father Knows best. I did some paintings that were essentially like props for various installations. It was during this period that I experimented for the first time with painting flat and flowing the paint on to create an effect that I was looking for. This type of painting was like a drug for me. Once I tried it I knew I was hooked for life. Shortly after that, there was an artist visiting from New York who asked me to work for him in New York. I had only been at Cal Arts a couple of years and really loved it, but I knew I had the painting bug and I knew that it was going to take some time to develop these paintings. During that time I wasn't interested in having them critiqued as I was teaching myself how to do them and I figured, I would know when they were ready to put out in the world, to be looked at, and then critiqued,. So I moved to New York at age nineteen. When I got there the job I had been offered was gone, but that artist hooked me up with another painter Pat Steir and I worked for her. It was during the fall of 1981 that I did my first painting that I felt was successful. It was black and white and looked like a galactic explosion. I began exhibiting this work in New York in 1985 and had my first solo show in 1987 at Annina Nosei which was a very prestigious gallery for a 25 year old to have a first solo show. I lived in New York until 2000 when I moved back to Los Angeles. Some people had heard of me through my work in New York. Others who saw my work in the early 2000's just assumed that I had started painting a few years earlier and that this was the first work that I had ever exhibited. I didn't really have to deal with comparisons to my Father's work in New York but when I moved back to L.A. there were certainly some. I know that those comparisons would have been much more intense if I had never left L.A. I feel that it has been a double-edged sword for sure. I have definitely benefitted at times and have been afflicted at others, for being a second-generation artist, but I am certainly not complaining. Everybody who has ever lived has some kind of cross to bear. I will be having a thirty-year retrospective at the Pete and Susan Barret Gallery at Santa Monica College in 2016. For the first time my New York and L.A. works will all be exhibited together. I feel like this show will put a lot of ghosts to rest, as people in L. A. will be able to see how the worked developed and evolved over the last thirty years.
Joshua TRILIEGI: The current works are slightly concave, how important is surface in your work and tell us why?
The curves developed in an interesting way. I moved to New York in 1981. I was always very impatient and I wanted to make my stretcher bars as fast as possible so I could get to painting. I wanted to make paintings that had a weight and authority to them then so I decided to make my stretcher bars using 2x4's instead of something narrower and lighter. I wanted to make them 3.5 inches deep. I put the 2x4's together using only corrugated nails on the back. No cross bars and no triangles at the corners.
" I had to leave the studio really quickly to go somewhere so I just leaned the painting at a 45-degree angle to the wall because there was no room to lean it flat on the wall. When I got back the whole thing was lit up in a way that I had never seen before…"
As soon as I stretched the canvas the whole structure curved out from the wall like a sail. I kept that canvas hanging for a while because it intrigued me. I was just starting to make paintings flat on the ground by pouring and manipulating paint. I couldn't find a way to connect my paintings to that form and about 3 months later I had to move out of that loft so I took that curved structure apart. The idea of working on a curved surface remained dormant for twenty years. I had just moved to a new studio in Venice in 2002 that had incredible south light. I had just started making these very reductive pearlescent white paintings and the front of my studio was getting jammed up with clutter. I had to leave the studio really quickly to go somewhere, so I just leaned the painting at a 45-degree angle to the wall because there was no room to lean it flat on the wall. When I got back the whole thing was lit up in a way that I had never seen before, but if I moved a little to the left or right the color intensity would drop off and it had this much more mysterious shadowy look. At that moment the light bulb went on and I connected the dots. It was not long after that, I made my first convex painting and shortly after that, I made my first concave painting. I like the curves for a number of reasons.
" … If I moved a little to the left or right the color intensity would drop off and it had this much more mysterious shadowy look. At that moment the light bulb went on and I connected the dots. "
They blur the line a little between painting and sculpture. The curve has a functional aspect as I work with colors that shift in hue and intensity as you move from side to side and the curve enhances that. Also, I like the way that they refer to the physicality of the world at large, both the shape of the earth and the shape of space. I have continued to use and explore the curves since late 2002. I am just starting to really push the curved aspect as of late and have found some new materials to paint on. I have one painting in my current exhibition at William Turner Gallery called R.A.D. that I am really excited about.
" We didn't grow up around the process at all as my Fathers studio was about five miles from our house and we were not encouraged to visit. Therefore I was never around the process of work being made growing up. I was however around finished work both in our house and at the occasional openings that we would go to. I was always intrigued by the work and always looked at it closely to try to figure out how it was done. We had a Sam Francis painting in our house for a while and I remember my Father always telling everybody that nobody knows how he does them. "
- Andy MOSES / Painter
Joshua TRILIEGI: Abstraction has it's own challenges and rewards. Would you discuss some of your influences and how you developed a style of your own?
I have never thought of myself as a purely abstract painter. I was always looking to find a new direction through process-oriented abstraction into a new kind of language. I guess one of the things that draws me to abstract painting is it's freedom. It's free in terms of making a mark that is not beholden to anything outside of itself. I am very drawn to atmosphere as well as gesture, so I guess going back historically Pollock and Rothko sit in prime positions in terms of influence. A Rothko painting is filled with so much atmosphere and mood. A Pollock is infused with so much energy and turbulence and let's call it freedom. So historically I have been influenced in terms of abstraction by both of them equally. Yves Klein has been a huge influence as well for bringing this Metaphysical element to his work that is simultaneously extremely genuine and also somewhat staged. It keeps the viewer guessing. There are so many painters going back hundreds of years that have influenced my work as well. I love the Venetian Renaissance painters as well as the French Impressionists as well as Turner and John Martin, as well as the Hudson River school. I loved the radical approach of the early twentieth century and the Futurists, and the Surrealists and on and on and on. When I first moved to New York in 1981 there was an explosion of painting happening. I loved so many of the local painters and there were a group of young Italian painters being shown. Most of all, though, I loved the German painters that were being shown in New York. Their work went back to the sixties and Seventies but all of a sudden you saw it everywhere in New York and it was being talked about everywhere.
" I think what also gets lost a lot in an art world that is so obsessed with naming who is on top every five minutes is the contributions of so many artists that keep the language and dialogue moving forward. Every time I go to multiple galleries I see something that I find interesting on some level. "
My favorite German painters at that time were Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, and Sigmar Polke, and they still are. They brought gravitas and history to their work and their work was both figurative and abstract. Over the years though, I have really loved so much painting and so much art and so many artists that run the gamut of mediums and approaches. I always thought Barbara Kruger's work was so graphically strong and conceptually powerful and direct. John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha have carved out unique niches with their different kinds of deadpan humor. Jeff Koons with his perfection. The whole light and space movement out of Southern California, which is finally being appreciated internationally. All of the really radical art that has come out of Southern California since the seventies. Also there is so much great work being done right now pushing the envelope in photography, sculpture and installation. All of the great artists from Los Angeles who are still under the radar internationally, including Ed Moses. There are too many great artists to name. I think what also gets lost a lot in an art world that is so obsessed with naming who is on top every five minutes is the contributions of so many artists that keep the language and dialogue moving forward. Every time I go to multiple galleries I see something that I find interesting on some level. You see a lot of cynical and derivative work as well: but the good overshadows the bad. I think for the moment we are in a golden age.
" I made a very seminal painting in 1990 that was about Alchemy. I worked in Gold and Fuchsia and Black. This was the most color I had ever used and from that point on I was addicted to color. All through the nineties I worked with a lot of very intense color and the imagery although abstract hinted at earth forms and later back to galactic and microscopic forms. "
- Andy MOSES / Painter
Joshua Triliegi: What attracts you to a certain color, tone and creating combinations that develop into a series such as the current work?
Andy MOSES: Color has been an interesting exploration for me. Through most of the eighties I only painted black and white. I loved the immediacy and the contrast. It felt very powerful and very connected to the types of paintings which I was making which included abstract paintings that hinted at galactic, microscopic and rock like forms. In the late eighties I began silk screening images and text from the newspaper, which at that time was only black and white. In about 1989 I began using color for the first time and the color I chose to work in was blue. I was still working with these images silkscreened from the newspaper but now some of the imagery related to water and sky so it was a vey logical progression. I made a very seminal painting in 1990 that was about Alchemy. I worked in Gold and Fuchsia and Black. This was the most color I had ever used and from that point on: I was addicted to color. All through the nineties I worked with a lot of very intense color and the imagery although abstract, hinted at earth forms and later back to galactic and microscopic forms. In 2002 I sort of wiped the slate clean as I began working in one shade of pearlescent white. From there I brought color back in very subtle shades of pearlescent colors. In 2004, I was working again with a lot of blue as it hinted at water and sky, which the paintings were starting to make allusions to. I really exploded color again starting in about 2010. Over the last year, I have really pushed color saturation and contrast, the most that I ever have, as well as brought very complex and layered color palettes into the work. What I always look for with color is to cause sensations that physically overwhelm and create very strong visceral reactions. Usually the reaction I am looking for is a kind of euphoria but at other times, I want those sensations to be more aggressive or turbulent.
ANDY MOSES is Currently showing at William TURNER Gallery Santa Monica CA USA
Visit his Current Exhibition or The Official Gallery Website www.williamturnergallery.com
BUREAU: Tell us about the current piece at Angles gallery.
Linda STARK: “Fountain (crying eyes)”, is a caricature of the eternal crier, from the ongoing investigation of an archetype, and more specifically, woman as eternal crier. But in this work, she has full spectrum rainbow colored tears, so there is a combination of the auspicious with the tragic.My paintings and drawings operate as metaphors, sometimes for emotionally charged wounded states regarding the human condition, often from a particular standpoint of living in the physical body of a woman, in a world entrenched in patriarchal systems. Or they may be inquiries into feminine mysteries, and a woman’s relationship with nature. I like the pairing of opposites, expressing dualities, often with mordant humor.In this work on paper, the tears are dripped in watercolor, an ephemeral medium. But the idea stems from earlier oil paintings, such as “Crying Eyes” 1991, a face-sized self-portrait with paint heavily dripped from the eyes, like a murky gargoyle. At that time, I was influenced by the industrial storm drains, with their mineral buildup, near my downtown LA loft. I was drawn to explore the natural gravity and fluidity of oil paint, it’s tendency to drip, the way it builds up over an extended period of time, to convey a sense of geological and emotional density.
BUREAU: What originally attracted you to painting?
Linda STARK: I have always had a reverence for the activity of painting, instilled in me when I watched my mother from a distance, painting her pictures, in the garage on weekends, with special intensity. She painted out of inner necessity. It made me want to paint, but I didn’t start until college. It was in Cornelia Shultz’s Beginning Painting class at UC Davis, that I fell in love with oil painting. I still remember how she made the act of painting seem like an alchemical process. She taught me a valuable lesson on how to nurture and protect my creative flow. My paintings were expressionist then, and Cornelia told me to “go to the library and look at a book on Soutine, then put it back on the shelf, and walk away.” She cautioned me not to over-saturate my mind with other artists, in order to maintain a strong connection with my own voice.
BUREAU: Can you describe an early time in your life when a work of art spoke to you?
Linda STARK: When I was in grade school, we had a field trip to the Balboa Art Museum in San Diego. It was my first trip to an art museum. I remember sitting in front of a Gorky painting, entranced. I opened myself up to the painting and experienced what I later learned was synesthesia. I heard an orchestra of sounds, as I looked at the complex abstract forms. That was when I had a profound realization of a painting’s potential. It was talking to me.
Linda Stark received a B.A. from U.C. Davis (1978) and an M.F.A. from U.C. Irvine (1985). Her work has been exhibited in museums and public spaces such as Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Albright-Knox Gallery (Buffalo, New York), UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art (Ridgefield, Connecticut), Oakland Museum of California, Site Santa Fe, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, and Pasadena Museum of California Art. She is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowships, a California Arts Council Fellowship, a COLA Visual Artist Fellowship, and a California Community Foundation Fellowship. Stark lives & works in Los Angeles, California USA.
KRIS KUKSI: SCULPTOR
By BUREAU of ARTS and CULTURE MAGAZINE Editor Joshua TRILIEGI
Picture if you will, The Titanic, after submission. The bodies and their souls: passengers, crew and stow ways. What would it feel like ? What might it it look like ? Imagine a world in all it's minute detail that could illustrate such a scene & you will begin to fathom the world of Mr. Kris Kuksi's sculpture. An accomplished painter who happened upon sculpture by hobbling together preexisting objects into new and original arrangements which set the bar a notch or two above any previous ideas of sculpture since, say, French Rococo or Italian Baroque architecture of olden day. Mr Kuksi subverts the ideas of religiousity, empiric nobleness and the wreckage of a post modern society into a sort of anarchy of the mind. One of the very few artists in our known history to tap into an ephemeral world with all it's detail, all it's nightmarish qualities, all it's passion, lust, violence and posture, in a tone and style that is wholly original. Mr Kuksi is steeped in mythology, astrology, greek gods and a modern history that includes Napolean, Beethoven and Oedipus. Comparisons are few, though, I would suggest Dore', Heronymous Bosch and the films of Terry Gilliam. Kuksi manufactures an overall visual schematic that provides a battlefeild of ideas which suggest the afterlife of a major event, such as, The Civil War, The French Revolution or the end of the world.
" One of the very few artists in our known history to tap into an ephemeral world with all it's detail, all it's nightmarish qualities, all it's passion, lust, violence and posture, in a tone and style that is wholly original."
He creates a fantasy world come true in mono and duo chromatic form, that is entirley haunting, fantastic and when he is really on his game: darkly humorous.The artwork utilizes themes that freely criticize war, religious crusades and ideas of empiric ideology, while at the same time, employing the very devices, symbols and gestures that originally propagandized and sold those ideas to a hungry public. Kuksi is like a fiction writer who has established identifiable characters who will then willfully act out scenarios of a horrendous and beautifully haunting plotline that leaves us aghast, enthralled and sometimes in awe. When Jack Nicholson was asked to describe the filmmaker Stanley Kubrik after working on The Shining, he famously replied, "Brings new meaning to the word: Meticulous." To echo those sentiments and ride Jack's wave a bit, Kuksi, it might be said, brings new meaning to the word: Obsessive. Like Kubrik, he is creating a world that hints at a larger literary and historical idea wherein each character plays a part. So far, Mr Kuksi has spent a large amount of energy and time tackling European history. When he has focused on American history, there are modern takes on issues of politics and religion, though the canon is scant of our own story, such as the Native American experience or African American slavery, which is indeed a landscape worth considering. Mr Kuksi, who was born in 1973 has discovered and mined a mature style and body of work that has captured the attention of both collectors of fine art and the general populist, it will be interesting to see where he takes us next, whether it be Heaven or Hell is simply a matter of opinion.
RUSSELL NACHMAN
The PAINTER
BUREAU: The current paintings derive from a core story and literature, explain how that process works for you.
Russell NACHMAN: The basic answer is connective threads. In the case of my current show at Paul Loya Gallery, I was reading Stay, Illusion!: The Hamlet Doctrine,* when I first started thinking about possible themes for the exhibit. The book is an examination of Hamlet, combining literary theory and psychoanalysis. One of its themes conceives the temperament of Hamlet as a kind of impotent louche... which I found resonated with the insouciant temperament of my painting’s characters. As far as ideas based in literature, I have always found more inspiration in novels, poetry, and philosophy than I have in the theories of contemporary art (which I personally find circuitous). * by Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster
" My audience is that person out there, whoever he or she may be, who sees a painting, hears a song, reads a book that totally enriches their life, augments their thought, stirs their emotion, and adds to the quality of their life. That is what all the art I love has done for me and I want to return the favor."
- Russell Nachman
BUREAU: Your aesthetic is both post modern, punk rock and 17th century, that’s an interesting mix, how did this develop ?
Russell NACHMAN:I wanted to continue the art historical trope of the harlequin to best express my ideas and emotions via an “every-man.” My harlequin developed into a stooge wearing Black Metal corpse paint. The Black Metal death mask is meant to be seen in the same way that Japanese Kabuki face paint is meant to be seen—as an embodiment of a theme or emotion, not as an individual. Using these characters I want to explore the thoughts I have concerning what I see as a loss of relevance in the Other of religion and metaphysics. Now I’m not referring to a general mind-set, I am referring more to the current state of aesthetics, philosophy, science... basically the current state of serious thought. Historically, the underpinnings of expression most often had relationships to religion or to a metaphysics concerned with “something larger than ourselves.” Presently an ambivalent stance exists that dares neither to go forward nor to retreat. A stance curtailed by an understanding that it is almost certain that there is nothing to us but matter and energy (a “dead weight” of simple mass). The current theories of consciousness and free will rest on the basis of complexity rather than exteriority. To put it simply, you are an individual with free will because the mechanism of consciousness is so intricate and “un-mappable” that, as such, manifests identity. We are much more complex than toasters, and therefore, conscious, individual beings. I have reluctantly come to see this as a more probable truth than any metaphysical truth, however much I find a need for something more or outside to my being. As a result, I arrived at the idea of post-religious documents that are figured like Christian illuminated manuscripts, that depict a naive “fuck it” bacchanal of existential aporia.
BUREAU: When did you first utilize drawings and paintings as a way of expressing yourself and tell our readers about development.
Russell NACHMAN: I grew up drawing. For as long as I can remember drawing has been a constant companion and a source of joy in my life. I was a Sci-Fi, Fantasy, comic book kid and when I discovered “high” art in my late teens, I eschewed my former aesthetics, fearing them childish and low-brow. Fifteen years of avid exploration in art history and contemporary aesthetics found me constantly enamored of rebellious movements, such as DADA or FLUXUS, that challenged the status quo. With that under my belt and a dogged need for a truly individual voice in the art world, I returned to drawing and painting on paper— to the rendered image. Everything is permissible in the art world now, except for highly rendered “illustrational” images. So fuck, that’s what I’m going to use, not only to challenge the status quo, but because it is a part of who I am as an artist.
BUREAU: Cinema effects your subjects and characters quite a bit, explain how you relate to film in this way.
Russell NACHMAN: Cinema is the lexicon of facial expressions! I turn to cinematic images for moments, for those amazing expressions you see in freeze frame.
BUREAU: The paintings are brave, ruckus and yet disciplined and visually pleasing, who would you say you paint for and how important is finding your audience as an artist ?
Russell NACHMAN: It has always been my goal to craft a voice that is contemporary without being complicit. I’ve never wanted to be relevant based on a shrewd, “professional” adaptation that jibes with the current climate. I paint for me, above all else, but I also have a great desire to share my work with other people. I need people to see my work. My audience is that person out there, whoever he or she may be, who sees a painting, hears a song, reads a book that totally enriches their life, augments their thought, stirs their emotion, and adds to the quality of their life. That is what all the art I love has done for me and I want to return the favor.
Represented By Paul Loya Gallery in L A at http://paulloyagallery.com/
Represented By LMAK Projects in N Y C at http://lmakprojects.com/
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Bureau Profile: MARGIE LIVINGSTON
BUREAU: What originally attracted you to modern art and share with our readers an early inspiration?
Margie LIVINGSTON: Two things attracted me to modernism: the grid and a spirit of experimentation. Working with the grid connects me to many artists including Mondrian, Sol LeWitt, Eve Hesse, and Agnes Martin. But I’m also interested in a much earlier version of the grid: Renaissance perspective which, as Rosalind Krauss wrote, “is inscribed on the depicted world as the armature of its organization.” The entwined histories of the grid and painting inspired one of my new works, Falling Grid with Underpainting. To make it, I wove a three-dimensional grid out of string, to literalize the perspective grid in space, and then covered it with paint. Of course, paint doesn't have much tensile strength, so when I cut the grid off the frame, the painting slumped under the force of gravity. This kind of experimentation, where I push paint to do what’s not expected, is at the heart of my practice.
BUREAU: The series of works that are sculpture crafted from paint are extremely interesting, share how this technique was discovered and where you are currently taking it.
Margie LIVINGSTON: Six years ago, I started experimenting with acrylic paint to discover its physical properties in order to exploit them for their own qualities, not pictorial qualities. I glued dried paint directly to the wall, like a decal. One of the glues I tested failed, and the paint skin fell on the floor. Instinctively, I picked it up, brushed it off, and folded it neatly like a blanket. This accidental discovery led to a new body of work where I poured out gallons of paint to make huge paint skins that I then folded and placed on shelves. The “Draped Paintings” hang on a peg like a coat or scarf. When I make them, my relationship to the paint is sensual, body to body, as I must caress the paint skins to shape them. I work with the weight of painting and the paint sags in response to gravity--just like we all do. That paint so readily took on the properties of fabric led me to my newest works. I tack paint skins directly onto stretcher bars and the paint literally stands in for the canvas. Body of Work, a jumble of these paint-as-canvas works held together with wood and metal brackets, will be shown at UNTITLED 2014 this year by Luis De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles.
BUREAU: Do you subscribe to a specific thought process in your work, or is there a more tactile approach and please explain how theory meets reality in the actual creating of a work ?
Margie LIVINGSTON: My latest piece, Body of Work, provides a good example of my process, where the idea -- paint as canvas -- morphed and changed in response to the process of making. This piece came together using a combination of planning, model making, research, reflection, seat-of-the-pants problem-solving, and luck. Until I finally put it all together, I didn't know if the braces would hold. The stickiness of the paint is integral to its construction, but I didn't test that element at full scale until the final assembly, because putting two paint surfaces together creates a permanent bond. So I didn't know until the very end if I was making a prototype or the final work. This kind of problem-solving keeps things interesting. The white paint references Rauschenberg and Ryman, but a pile of white paintings reaches further back to the father of German Romanticism, Caspar David Friedrich, whose work I studied while in Berlin on a Fulbright Scholarship. The jumble of white paintings reminded me of his painting Sea of Ice (1823-24). As I worked on how to hang a pile of paintings on the wall, I made a small model out of foam core, balsa wood, and hot glue. The miniature paintings looked great on the wall, but I didn't like the way they hung there like a magic trick, denying the technical challenge of getting 18 canvases to hang together as one. This is when I added wooden and metal braces to hold them together, so its structure would be visible. I chose to use the utilitarian language of crating for this part of the piece, because I'm interested in the differences and similarities of making a painting and making a crate. During the three months it took to make Body of Work, I was imagining it hanging on the wall like a painting. The final twist came when I realized it looked great standing on the floor. As a sculpture built out of paintings, it blurs the line between sculpture and painting; it can either stand on the floor or hang on the wall with its ancestors.
ANDY MOSES
The BUREAU ART INTERVIEW
By BUREAU of ARTS and CULTURE Editor Joshua A. TRILIEGI
Joshua TRILIEGI: We have been following your work now for almost two decades, back when the magazine was an artists’ collective. You made a sort of break through with the Fire and Ice Series some years ago: could you talk about the process from that time to the present?
Andy MOSES: The paintings that you refer to as the Fire and Ice series are a series of paintings that I exhibited in Los Angeles in 2002. I had moved back from New York in 2000 after having been there for 18 years. The work I had been doing there was done in a similar fashion to how I currently work which is by preparing, pouring, and manipulating paint on a flat surface.
" After moving back to California I became interested in nature on a more human or tangible level and began making these panoramic paintings that were once again abstract, but now suggested horizons as seen from the ocean or the desert or the sky."
The paintings I did in New York were mostly done through chemical reactions. Those paintings were mostly abstract but they also suggested galactic or microscopic phenomena. After moving back to California I became interested in nature on a more human or tangible level and began making these panoramic paintings that were once again abstract, but now suggested horizons as seen from the ocean or the desert or the sky. They were made with one color of pearlescent white and were once again poured and manipulated on a flat surface. This time there were no chemical reactions. It was just the thickness of the paint that determined light and shadow. Shortly after that I made the first pearlescent white paintings I began making them on convex and then concave surfaces. I started making them convex and concave because of the way they interacted with light when you walked around them but also how the curve in the canvas seemed to suggest the curve of the earth and the curve of all space.
" They were made with one color of pearlescent white and were once again poured and manipulated on a flat surface. This time there were no chemical reactions. It was just the thickness of the paint that determined light and shadow. "
I have developed this work over the past 12 years going back and forth between being extremely monochromatic to working with color in extremely complex and varied ways, which is where I am at now. Also I have pushed the color from extremely subtle color variations to extreme contrast, which again is where I am now. Lastly the work has fluctuated between having what I call a defined horizon to being more topographical looking and more abstract.
Joshua TRILIEGI: Being a second-generation artist is both a gift and a challenge, I remember hearing people compare you to your father [Ed Moses] back in the day. Discuss what you have dealt with and how this has affected your own style.
Andy MOSES: Growing up with an artist Father has always made people make very strong assumptions about whom I am and where my work must be coming from. The truth is, both my brother and myself were consistently told that we could do whatever we wanted except be painters. We didn't grow up around the process at all as my Fathers studio was about five miles from our house and we were not encouraged to visit. Therefore I was never around the process of work being made growing up. I was however around finished work both in our house and at the occasional openings that we would go to. I was always intrigued by the work and always looked at it closely to try to figure out how it was done. We had a Sam Francis painting in our house for a while and I remember my Father always telling everybody that nobody knows how he does them. That intrigued me a lot - the fact that painting could be this mysterious and magical or even alchemical process. I went to Cal Arts in 1979 to study film. Once I realized how many chefs and how many elves had to be involved in film I realized I was a solo act. I had surfed a lot as a teenager and probably my favorite thing about it is that you could do it alone. You could paddle out by yourself and speak to no one and convene with the ocean. I had issues with authority as a teenager for sure and surfing was my escape. I was actually accepted into the art department at Cal Arts to make film. My teachers were John Baldessari, Douglas Huebler, Michael Asher and for one semester Barbara Kruger. Cal Arts was a very rigorous conceptual program that was extremely stimulating to me. I continued to work in film but added performance and installation to my repertoire. I did one pretty controversial performance/installation called Father Knows best. I did some paintings that were essentially like props for various installations. It was during this period that I experimented for the first time with painting flat and flowing the paint on to create an effect that I was looking for. This type of painting was like a drug for me. Once I tried it I knew I was hooked for life. Shortly after that, there was an artist visiting from New York who asked me to work for him in New York. I had only been at Cal Arts a couple of years and really loved it, but I knew I had the painting bug and I knew that it was going to take some time to develop these paintings. During that time I wasn't interested in having them critiqued as I was teaching myself how to do them and I figured, I would know when they were ready to put out in the world, to be looked at, and then critiqued,. So I moved to New York at age nineteen. When I got there the job I had been offered was gone, but that artist hooked me up with another painter Pat Steir and I worked for her. It was during the fall of 1981 that I did my first painting that I felt was successful. It was black and white and looked like a galactic explosion. I began exhibiting this work in New York in 1985 and had my first solo show in 1987 at Annina Nosei which was a very prestigious gallery for a 25 year old to have a first solo show. I lived in New York until 2000 when I moved back to Los Angeles. Some people had heard of me through my work in New York. Others who saw my work in the early 2000's just assumed that I had started painting a few years earlier and that this was the first work that I had ever exhibited. I didn't really have to deal with comparisons to my Father's work in New York but when I moved back to L.A. there were certainly some. I know that those comparisons would have been much more intense if I had never left L.A. I feel that it has been a double-edged sword for sure. I have definitely benefitted at times and have been afflicted at others, for being a second-generation artist, but I am certainly not complaining. Everybody who has ever lived has some kind of cross to bear. I will be having a thirty-year retrospective at the Pete and Susan Barret Gallery at Santa Monica College in 2016. For the first time my New York and L.A. works will all be exhibited together. I feel like this show will put a lot of ghosts to rest, as people in L. A. will be able to see how the worked developed and evolved over the last thirty years.
Joshua TRILIEGI: The current works are slightly concave, how important is surface in your work and tell us why?
The curves developed in an interesting way. I moved to New York in 1981. I was always very impatient and I wanted to make my stretcher bars as fast as possible so I could get to painting. I wanted to make paintings that had a weight and authority to them then so I decided to make my stretcher bars using 2x4's instead of something narrower and lighter. I wanted to make them 3.5 inches deep. I put the 2x4's together using only corrugated nails on the back. No cross bars and no triangles at the corners.
" I had to leave the studio really quickly to go somewhere so I just leaned the painting at a 45-degree angle to the wall because there was no room to lean it flat on the wall. When I got back the whole thing was lit up in a way that I had never seen before…"
As soon as I stretched the canvas the whole structure curved out from the wall like a sail. I kept that canvas hanging for a while because it intrigued me. I was just starting to make paintings flat on the ground by pouring and manipulating paint. I couldn't find a way to connect my paintings to that form and about 3 months later I had to move out of that loft so I took that curved structure apart. The idea of working on a curved surface remained dormant for twenty years. I had just moved to a new studio in Venice in 2002 that had incredible south light. I had just started making these very reductive pearlescent white paintings and the front of my studio was getting jammed up with clutter. I had to leave the studio really quickly to go somewhere, so I just leaned the painting at a 45-degree angle to the wall because there was no room to lean it flat on the wall. When I got back the whole thing was lit up in a way that I had never seen before, but if I moved a little to the left or right the color intensity would drop off and it had this much more mysterious shadowy look. At that moment the light bulb went on and I connected the dots. It was not long after that, I made my first convex painting and shortly after that, I made my first concave painting. I like the curves for a number of reasons.
" … If I moved a little to the left or right the color intensity would drop off and it had this much more mysterious shadowy look. At that moment the light bulb went on and I connected the dots. "
They blur the line a little between painting and sculpture. The curve has a functional aspect as I work with colors that shift in hue and intensity as you move from side to side and the curve enhances that. Also, I like the way that they refer to the physicality of the world at large, both the shape of the earth and the shape of space. I have continued to use and explore the curves since late 2002. I am just starting to really push the curved aspect as of late and have found some new materials to paint on. I have one painting in my current exhibition at William Turner Gallery called R.A.D. that I am really excited about.
" We didn't grow up around the process at all as my Fathers studio was about five miles from our house and we were not encouraged to visit. Therefore I was never around the process of work being made growing up. I was however around finished work both in our house and at the occasional openings that we would go to. I was always intrigued by the work and always looked at it closely to try to figure out how it was done. We had a Sam Francis painting in our house for a while and I remember my Father always telling everybody that nobody knows how he does them. "
- Andy MOSES / Painter
Joshua TRILIEGI: Abstraction has it's own challenges and rewards. Would you discuss some of your influences and how you developed a style of your own?
I have never thought of myself as a purely abstract painter. I was always looking to find a new direction through process-oriented abstraction into a new kind of language. I guess one of the things that draws me to abstract painting is it's freedom. It's free in terms of making a mark that is not beholden to anything outside of itself. I am very drawn to atmosphere as well as gesture, so I guess going back historically Pollock and Rothko sit in prime positions in terms of influence. A Rothko painting is filled with so much atmosphere and mood. A Pollock is infused with so much energy and turbulence and let's call it freedom. So historically I have been influenced in terms of abstraction by both of them equally. Yves Klein has been a huge influence as well for bringing this Metaphysical element to his work that is simultaneously extremely genuine and also somewhat staged. It keeps the viewer guessing. There are so many painters going back hundreds of years that have influenced my work as well. I love the Venetian Renaissance painters as well as the French Impressionists as well as Turner and John Martin, as well as the Hudson River school. I loved the radical approach of the early twentieth century and the Futurists, and the Surrealists and on and on and on. When I first moved to New York in 1981 there was an explosion of painting happening. I loved so many of the local painters and there were a group of young Italian painters being shown. Most of all, though, I loved the German painters that were being shown in New York. Their work went back to the sixties and Seventies but all of a sudden you saw it everywhere in New York and it was being talked about everywhere.
" I think what also gets lost a lot in an art world that is so obsessed with naming who is on top every five minutes is the contributions of so many artists that keep the language and dialogue moving forward. Every time I go to multiple galleries I see something that I find interesting on some level. "
My favorite German painters at that time were Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, and Sigmar Polke, and they still are. They brought gravitas and history to their work and their work was both figurative and abstract. Over the years though, I have really loved so much painting and so much art and so many artists that run the gamut of mediums and approaches. I always thought Barbara Kruger's work was so graphically strong and conceptually powerful and direct. John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha have carved out unique niches with their different kinds of deadpan humor. Jeff Koons with his perfection. The whole light and space movement out of Southern California, which is finally being appreciated internationally. All of the really radical art that has come out of Southern California since the seventies. Also there is so much great work being done right now pushing the envelope in photography, sculpture and installation. All of the great artists from Los Angeles who are still under the radar internationally, including Ed Moses. There are too many great artists to name. I think what also gets lost a lot in an art world that is so obsessed with naming who is on top every five minutes is the contributions of so many artists that keep the language and dialogue moving forward. Every time I go to multiple galleries I see something that I find interesting on some level. You see a lot of cynical and derivative work as well: but the good overshadows the bad. I think for the moment we are in a golden age.
" I made a very seminal painting in 1990 that was about Alchemy. I worked in Gold and Fuchsia and Black. This was the most color I had ever used and from that point on I was addicted to color. All through the nineties I worked with a lot of very intense color and the imagery although abstract hinted at earth forms and later back to galactic and microscopic forms. "
- Andy MOSES / Painter
Joshua Triliegi: What attracts you to a certain color, tone and creating combinations that develop into a series such as the current work?
Andy MOSES: Color has been an interesting exploration for me. Through most of the eighties I only painted black and white. I loved the immediacy and the contrast. It felt very powerful and very connected to the types of paintings which I was making which included abstract paintings that hinted at galactic, microscopic and rock like forms. In the late eighties I began silk screening images and text from the newspaper, which at that time was only black and white. In about 1989 I began using color for the first time and the color I chose to work in was blue. I was still working with these images silkscreened from the newspaper but now some of the imagery related to water and sky so it was a vey logical progression. I made a very seminal painting in 1990 that was about Alchemy. I worked in Gold and Fuchsia and Black. This was the most color I had ever used and from that point on: I was addicted to color. All through the nineties I worked with a lot of very intense color and the imagery although abstract, hinted at earth forms and later back to galactic and microscopic forms. In 2002 I sort of wiped the slate clean as I began working in one shade of pearlescent white. From there I brought color back in very subtle shades of pearlescent colors. In 2004, I was working again with a lot of blue as it hinted at water and sky, which the paintings were starting to make allusions to. I really exploded color again starting in about 2010. Over the last year, I have really pushed color saturation and contrast, the most that I ever have, as well as brought very complex and layered color palettes into the work. What I always look for with color is to cause sensations that physically overwhelm and create very strong visceral reactions. Usually the reaction I am looking for is a kind of euphoria but at other times, I want those sensations to be more aggressive or turbulent.
ANDY MOSES is Currently showing at William TURNER Gallery Santa Monica CA USA
Visit his Current Exhibition or The Official Gallery Website www.williamturnergallery.com
BUREAU: Tell us about the current piece at Angles gallery.
Linda STARK: “Fountain (crying eyes)”, is a caricature of the eternal crier, from the ongoing investigation of an archetype, and more specifically, woman as eternal crier. But in this work, she has full spectrum rainbow colored tears, so there is a combination of the auspicious with the tragic.My paintings and drawings operate as metaphors, sometimes for emotionally charged wounded states regarding the human condition, often from a particular standpoint of living in the physical body of a woman, in a world entrenched in patriarchal systems. Or they may be inquiries into feminine mysteries, and a woman’s relationship with nature. I like the pairing of opposites, expressing dualities, often with mordant humor.In this work on paper, the tears are dripped in watercolor, an ephemeral medium. But the idea stems from earlier oil paintings, such as “Crying Eyes” 1991, a face-sized self-portrait with paint heavily dripped from the eyes, like a murky gargoyle. At that time, I was influenced by the industrial storm drains, with their mineral buildup, near my downtown LA loft. I was drawn to explore the natural gravity and fluidity of oil paint, it’s tendency to drip, the way it builds up over an extended period of time, to convey a sense of geological and emotional density.
BUREAU: What originally attracted you to painting?
Linda STARK: I have always had a reverence for the activity of painting, instilled in me when I watched my mother from a distance, painting her pictures, in the garage on weekends, with special intensity. She painted out of inner necessity. It made me want to paint, but I didn’t start until college. It was in Cornelia Shultz’s Beginning Painting class at UC Davis, that I fell in love with oil painting. I still remember how she made the act of painting seem like an alchemical process. She taught me a valuable lesson on how to nurture and protect my creative flow. My paintings were expressionist then, and Cornelia told me to “go to the library and look at a book on Soutine, then put it back on the shelf, and walk away.” She cautioned me not to over-saturate my mind with other artists, in order to maintain a strong connection with my own voice.
BUREAU: Can you describe an early time in your life when a work of art spoke to you?
Linda STARK: When I was in grade school, we had a field trip to the Balboa Art Museum in San Diego. It was my first trip to an art museum. I remember sitting in front of a Gorky painting, entranced. I opened myself up to the painting and experienced what I later learned was synesthesia. I heard an orchestra of sounds, as I looked at the complex abstract forms. That was when I had a profound realization of a painting’s potential. It was talking to me.
Linda Stark received a B.A. from U.C. Davis (1978) and an M.F.A. from U.C. Irvine (1985). Her work has been exhibited in museums and public spaces such as Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Albright-Knox Gallery (Buffalo, New York), UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art (Ridgefield, Connecticut), Oakland Museum of California, Site Santa Fe, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, and Pasadena Museum of California Art. She is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowships, a California Arts Council Fellowship, a COLA Visual Artist Fellowship, and a California Community Foundation Fellowship. Stark lives & works in Los Angeles, California USA. Tap The Link Below Visit ANGLES L A
KRIS KUKSI: SCULPTOR
By BUREAU of ARTS and CULTURE MAGAZINE Editor Joshua TRILIEGI
Picture if you will, The Titanic, after submission. The bodies and their souls: passengers, crew and stow ways. What would it feel like ? What might it it look like ? Imagine a world in all it's minute detail that could illustrate such a scene & you will begin to fathom the world of Mr. Kris Kuksi's sculpture. An accomplished painter who happened upon sculpture by hobbling together preexisting objects into new and original arrangements which set the bar a notch or two above any previous ideas of sculpture since, say, French Rococo or Italian Baroque architecture of olden day. Mr Kuksi subverts the ideas of religiousity, empiric nobleness and the wreckage of a post modern society into a sort of anarchy of the mind. One of the very few artists in our known history to tap into an ephemeral world with all it's detail, all it's nightmarish qualities, all it's passion, lust, violence and posture, in a tone and style that is wholly original. Mr Kuksi is steeped in mythology, astrology, greek gods and a modern history that includes Napolean, Beethoven and Oedipus. Comparisons are few, though, I would suggest Dore', Heronymous Bosch and the films of Terry Gilliam. Kuksi manufactures an overall visual schematic that provides a battlefeild of ideas which suggest the afterlife of a major event, such as, The Civil War, The French Revolution or the end of the world.
" One of the very few artists in our known history to tap into an ephemeral world with all it's detail, all it's nightmarish qualities, all it's passion, lust, violence and posture, in a tone and style that is wholly original."
He creates a fantasy world come true in mono and duo chromatic form, that is entirley haunting, fantastic and when he is really on his game: darkly humorous.The artwork utilizes themes that freely criticize war, religious crusades and ideas of empiric ideology, while at the same time, employing the very devices, symbols and gestures that originally propagandized and sold those ideas to a hungry public. Kuksi is like a fiction writer who has established identifiable characters who will then willfully act out scenarios of a horrendous and beautifully haunting plotline that leaves us aghast, enthralled and sometimes in awe. When Jack Nicholson was asked to describe the filmmaker Stanley Kubrik after working on The Shining, he famously replied, "Brings new meaning to the word: Meticulous." To echo those sentiments and ride Jack's wave a bit, Kuksi, it might be said, brings new meaning to the word: Obsessive. Like Kubrik, he is creating a world that hints at a larger literary and historical idea wherein each character plays a part. So far, Mr Kuksi has spent a large amount of energy and time tackling European history. When he has focused on American history, there are modern takes on issues of politics and religion, though the canon is scant of our own story, such as the Native American experience or African American slavery, which is indeed a landscape worth considering. Mr Kuksi, who was born in 1973 has discovered and mined a mature style and body of work that has captured the attention of both collectors of fine art and the general populist, it will be interesting to see where he takes us next, whether it be Heaven or Hell is simply a matter of opinion.
RUSSELL NACHMAN
The PAINTER
BUREAU: The current paintings derive from a core story and literature, explain how that process works for you.
Russell NACHMAN: The basic answer is connective threads. In the case of my current show at Paul Loya Gallery, I was reading Stay, Illusion!: The Hamlet Doctrine,* when I first started thinking about possible themes for the exhibit. The book is an examination of Hamlet, combining literary theory and psychoanalysis. One of its themes conceives the temperament of Hamlet as a kind of impotent louche... which I found resonated with the insouciant temperament of my painting’s characters. As far as ideas based in literature, I have always found more inspiration in novels, poetry, and philosophy than I have in the theories of contemporary art (which I personally find circuitous). * by Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster
" My audience is that person out there, whoever he or she may be, who sees a painting, hears a song, reads a book that totally enriches their life, augments their thought, stirs their emotion, and adds to the quality of their life. That is what all the art I love has done for me and I want to return the favor."
- Russell Nachman
BUREAU: Your aesthetic is both post modern, punk rock and 17th century, that’s an interesting mix, how did this develop ?
Russell NACHMAN:I wanted to continue the art historical trope of the harlequin to best express my ideas and emotions via an “every-man.” My harlequin developed into a stooge wearing Black Metal corpse paint. The Black Metal death mask is meant to be seen in the same way that Japanese Kabuki face paint is meant to be seen—as an embodiment of a theme or emotion, not as an individual. Using these characters I want to explore the thoughts I have concerning what I see as a loss of relevance in the Other of religion and metaphysics. Now I’m not referring to a general mind-set, I am referring more to the current state of aesthetics, philosophy, science... basically the current state of serious thought. Historically, the underpinnings of expression most often had relationships to religion or to a metaphysics concerned with “something larger than ourselves.” Presently an ambivalent stance exists that dares neither to go forward nor to retreat. A stance curtailed by an understanding that it is almost certain that there is nothing to us but matter and energy (a “dead weight” of simple mass). The current theories of consciousness and free will rest on the basis of complexity rather than exteriority. To put it simply, you are an individual with free will because the mechanism of consciousness is so intricate and “un-mappable” that, as such, manifests identity. We are much more complex than toasters, and therefore, conscious, individual beings. I have reluctantly come to see this as a more probable truth than any metaphysical truth, however much I find a need for something more or outside to my being. As a result, I arrived at the idea of post-religious documents that are figured like Christian illuminated manuscripts, that depict a naive “fuck it” bacchanal of existential aporia.
BUREAU: When did you first utilize drawings and paintings as a way of expressing yourself and tell our readers about development.
Russell NACHMAN: I grew up drawing. For as long as I can remember drawing has been a constant companion and a source of joy in my life. I was a Sci-Fi, Fantasy, comic book kid and when I discovered “high” art in my late teens, I eschewed my former aesthetics, fearing them childish and low-brow. Fifteen years of avid exploration in art history and contemporary aesthetics found me constantly enamored of rebellious movements, such as DADA or FLUXUS, that challenged the status quo. With that under my belt and a dogged need for a truly individual voice in the art world, I returned to drawing and painting on paper— to the rendered image. Everything is permissible in the art world now, except for highly rendered “illustrational” images. So fuck, that’s what I’m going to use, not only to challenge the status quo, but because it is a part of who I am as an artist.
BUREAU: Cinema effects your subjects and characters quite a bit, explain how you relate to film in this way.
Russell NACHMAN: Cinema is the lexicon of facial expressions! I turn to cinematic images for moments, for those amazing expressions you see in freeze frame.
BUREAU: The paintings are brave, ruckus and yet disciplined and visually pleasing, who would you say you paint for and how important is finding your audience as an artist ?
Russell NACHMAN: It has always been my goal to craft a voice that is contemporary without being complicit. I’ve never wanted to be relevant based on a shrewd, “professional” adaptation that jibes with the current climate. I paint for me, above all else, but I also have a great desire to share my work with other people. I need people to see my work. My audience is that person out there, whoever he or she may be, who sees a painting, hears a song, reads a book that totally enriches their life, augments their thought, stirs their emotion, and adds to the quality of their life. That is what all the art I love has done for me and I want to return the favor.
Represented By LMAK Projects in N Y C at http://lmakprojects.com/
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HANS BURKHARDT : Within and Beyond the Mainstream
Jack Rutberg Fine Arts 357 N La Brea Ave LA CA 90036
A Pacific Standard Time participant
We can talk about the paintings of Hans Burkhardt. Born in Basel Switzerland
in 1904 and moved to New York at twenty years of age where he met and studied
under and practiced with Arshile Gorky and William De Kooning for the better part
of a decade. Each were new to America, none were born here. All three would make
their mark on America and visa versa. Though we cannot talk about Mr Burkhardt's
current exhibition and future shows without bringing to light his relationship
with L.A. Art dealer Jack Rutberg, the subject of a recent column in The Bureau
of Arts and Culture: August of this year featuring the works of artist George Condo.
Mr Rutberg whom you may call Jack, after spending an hour or so with in
his La Brea Gallery, met Mr. Burkhardt in 1973 and represented him up to
the moment the artist made a last request to his daughter on his deathbed
in 1994, " Have Jack sprinkle my ashes over the ocean ". A twenty one year
relationship that Mr Rutberg has continued to honor well beyond the life of
this great Los Angeles treasure. Hans Burkhardt was given the Lifetime
Achievement Award by the Academy of Arts and Letters in the spring of
1992 with a roster of artists and members that include : Allen Ginsberg,
Paul Theroux, Roy Lichtenstein, Edward Albee, Helen Frankenthaler,
Christo , Chuck Close, Wayne Thibaud's and Max Roach, just to name a few.
Without Mr Rutbergs staunch commitment and perseverance, it is safe
to say that a certain obscurity known to happen to L.A. Artists, writers
and rabble rousers through the years ( F. Scott Fitzgerald' s Funeral had
less than a handful of attendees when he died ) may have happened to Mr
Burkhardt. A testament to a rare commitment and friendship of the ' old school '
variety that does not exist much in todays day and age. Especially in
Los Angeles where trends come and go, names scratched like sand in the
desert, contracts fade and relationships are traded in like used cars
on Sunset Boulevard.
Picasso's Guernica was the game changer for Mr Burkhardt's generation. One
could say there is painting before the Guernica and painting after the Guernica.
Hans was extremely conscious of his contemporaries and those that preceded
him along the way. Matisse, Picasso, his pal De Kooning and of course Gorky.
But this is not a future point in his work by any means. Only a starting point,
Mr Burkhardt' s passion, technique, commitment and work ethic as well a
certain discipline and rebellious spirit put him in a special place that must
have blown the mind of a young Jack Rutberg whom committed wholeheartedly
to rep Burkhardt all the way to this day. Thirty-five years in the ring.
" Hans had a house up in Laurel Canyon, that he had kinda made from scratch,
a lovely place",Jack tells me over laughter and tears as he sets up booklets,
sketch pads, hand made holiday cards from 1939 stating the words, "PEACE "
on the back : Mr Burkhardt was extremely aware of what was brewing politically
throughout his career and never once faltered in his protest towards war and
fascism.To the point where certain museums and institutes were to label him a
certain color, unfairly so. The color he used so well to express anger, power,
passion and the flowers that inspired much of it : RED. One of his first jobs
was at a garden nursery, later he finished furniture, Mr Burkhardt came from
poverty.
"Hans always painted alone, he would sketch in a group setting, but when
painting, it was sacred." Jack explains, as he is setting labels and attempting
to decide what to include and how best to tell the story without overcrowding
the gallery. One gets the sense that he could hold an exhibition for Mr. Burkhardt
every month for a year straight. Or better yet open a Hans Burkhardt Museum as
was once rumored near the late eighties and when those rumors stopped, Mr
Burkhardts point of inspiration switched, matured, and entered into what we
would call the Winter stages of his career. The tragedies if you will. Black
American flags flown backwards with an extra stripe, ' for hope' , Jack chimes
in, hung over three burnt wooden crosses created shortly after the second L.A
Riots which must have effected him strongly. He had been invigorated by the
youth throughout his career and angered by the wars.His travels to Europe and
a ten year on and off studio in Mexico kept his inspirations flowing strong.
From the 1930's through to the early nineties his body of work is an amazing
canon to behold. Mr Burkhardt moved to Los Angeles in 1937 and continued to keep
a home here up until his passing. Every decade he finds something to hold onto,
rail against and rediscover, for us to see. Hans' style is one in which he reveals
to the viewer, process, technique and evolution all within a single painting.
He implores us to go abstract by starting with a figural aspect and begging us,
seducing us, turning us into a more imaginative individual. I have seen some
private collections in my day : Tiny Picasso sculptures never before photographed,
Francis Bacons paintings, ' given' to the Private Collector and Lucien Freuds
that have never been seen by the public. Jack Rutberg's collection of works by
Mr. Hans Burkhardt are by far the most interesting and underrated best kept secret
within the history of Los Angeles Art ever. This is no exaggeration : from 1945
through to 2009, every major and minor Art critic worth their weight in canvas
has chimed in for this collection and the value, integrity and brutal force of
beauty that he reflects in mankind, the world and our present dilemma's thereof.
Mr Burkhardt' s paintings are current, dangerous, beautiful and full of magic,
innocence and demise in a way that mankind itself is. Somehow he managed to
stay in touch with a Shaman - like aspect of knowing what was what and why
it was that way.
For the serious art lover, student and collector, I would suggest focusing on one
decade at a time. Meanwhile , the current exhibition which is being included in the
much ballyhooed Pacific Standard Time : Art in LA 1945 - 1980 Celebration at many
Galleries, Museums & Institutes throughout Southern California is among one of the
most important shows to see in the whole shebang . But this is just a taster, you
will want to buy the books and return to see the next Burkhardt show and spend
some time asking Jack Rutberg to tell you a few of the stories that we both decided
to keep off the record. Like any artist whom has thrived , worked, sweated, toiled,
travelled , lost, won, even triumphed, and sure could lay down a set of oils on
the canvas, charcoals on the paper and re-ignite his passion for things current,
the story continues well beyond the artists own beating heart.
As Jack planned out the schematics and let me peruse the private sketchbooks and
travel journals,I got the sense that what we do as artists is well worth the agony it
provides. We have to do this thing, there is no choice to quit, not when the world
needs our voice, for now and for later. Making and presenting Art, Music, Words :
these are our offerings, our ashes, and this too is that ocean.
Leaving the Gallery while the sun is setting, I get the feeling that Hans is smiling
down on the world as he once did from his studio in the Hills and says, " As long as
the sun shines, the soul of the Artist lives ." I take out my camera and capture it,
repeating this process several times until it gets dark.
By Joshua A. Triliegi for The Bureau of Arts and Culture / written 9 . 23 . 11
For more information go to : JackRutbergFineArts.com
