update & an obsession with Antonio Lopez Garcia

i haven't really been posting as many updates as i would like, but i've just gotten over the peak of my travel season for work. i did manage to visit the Art Institute of Chicago, the second largest art museum in the United States, while on the road. it was an amazing collection and three hours was not nearly enough time. i did take some photos, unfortunately i only had my iphone with me. here's a slideshow, but you're probably better off going to: Art Institute of Chicago



i haven't had the opportunity to put as much time as i'd like to in the studio lately, but with work slowing down a bit i hope to invest more time painting in the coming weeks. in the meantime, i've been doing a lot drawing, sketches and studies that i hope to evolve into a new body of work. the gestation has been slow and i've been filtering through a lot of new influences and ideas, but i hope to commit to some serious work soon.

by chance i ran into this excellent and concise write up on my favorite living painter Antonio Lopez Garcia. it is thoroughly well written and perfectly captures his work. here it is in it's entirety (the odd spelling is directly from the source, no idea why and i'm not going through and correcting it. i included this not only to share but to archive it for myself).

LONDON - An early highlight of this evening’s auction was Madrid desde Torres Blancas by Antonio Lopez (b. 1936) which sold for Ј1,385,250 / $2,760,803 / €1,744,030, becoming the most expensive work by a living Spanish artist sold at auction.

Created over a period of six years between 1976-82, Madrid desde Torres Blancas is one of Antonio Lуpez Garcнa's finest urban views. This vast, imposing vista is a product of the painter's devotion to the world of sense and feeling, and his almost obsessional focus on the objects within it. Like many Spanish artists who came of age during the Franco era, Lуpez Garcнa is not widely known outside Spain, where his penetrating approach, as well as his exceptional skill, has singled him out as one of the country's most revered painters. The reason for his limited exposure to the international art world lies in his painstaking painterly process -- he can often take years, even decades, to capture his impressions of reality and the irredeemable passing of time. Madrid desde Torres Blancas is one such labour of love, a magnificent, sprawling panorama of Madrid that uses reality as the starting point for a celebration of the visual side of existence.

As a boy growing up in Tomelloso, a town south of Madrid, Lуpez Garcнa displayed a precocious ability to paint and draw which his uncle, a committed artist, recognized and encouraged. At the age of thirteen, in 1949, Lуpez Garcнa's parents sent him to Madrid to study fine arts, and for much of his adult life the city has remained his home and his muse. Drawing his inspiration from painters such as Velбzquez and Vermeer, Lуpez Garcнa's studies of his home, his studio and the city that surrounds him underscore his dedicated interest in emphatically prosaic subject matter, to which he lends an immense gravity that encourages the viewer to re-examine the presence of ordinary objects. Lуpez Garcнa is keenly aware of the artistic lineage of which he is a part, and has continually aspired to the humanism and haunting realism of the Spanish old masters in particular: 'The measure of Greek art is the gods; that of the art of Velбzquez, men. With Greek art elevated concepts interfere.... In the great Spanish art--in Velбzquez, Cervantes, Goya--nothing interferes. They give you realism with a purity, with a tuning to reality not merely physical but psychological. One finds this in no other art' (cited in J. E. Kauffman, 'The Timeless Realism of Antonio Lуpez Garcнa,' The World & I, Dec. 1991, pp. 235).

Lуpez Garcнa began to paint views of Madrid around 1960, a project that became progressively more ambitious in their macrocosmic perspectives and physical scale, culminating in the vast urban landscape that is Madrid desde Torres Blancas. For this work, Lуpez Garcнa returned to paint the aerial vista above one of Madrid's busiest roads, the Avenida de Amйrica, over different months and seasons, creating a pictorial palimpsest of atmospheric change. Delighting in every shade and nuance of light as it falls at different times of the day and year, the painter confuses the solitude of the streets in August with a bright June sky, whilst also noting an evening hour on a clock in the foreground. By compressing time into a single image, Lуpez Garcнa does not try to cage a particular moment as photography might, but acknowledges the ever-changing conditions of existence and his own unique vision of external reality. Despite the absence of sentimentality, Lуpez nonetheless conveys an intriguing empathy with his subject. Without aggrandizing or exaggerating what lies before him, Lуpez enhances our experience of this ordinary scene, penetrating beneath the surface of the time and place in which he lives to create an image that transcends regional boundaries in its emotional appeal. 'I try to transmit this deeper, intimate feeling through my art,' he explains of his ability to transfigure the ordinary. 'It's not just showing things. It can be a mystery, this process of expressing that deepness, that inner feeling' (cited in G. Edgers, 'A Slow, Steady Hand', The Boston Globe, 6 April 2008, on www.boston.com).

Exhibited extensively since it's completion, Madrid desde Torres Blancas formed a centrepiece of Lуpez Garcнa's celebrated 1986 retrospective at the Marlborough Gallery in New York and London, for which Robert Hughes declared him to be the “greatest realist artist alive”. In a review of the show, Hughes went on to praise the painter's panorama of Madrid: 'Muted and austere, almost palpably grimy and smoggy, it sets forth miles of the dull high-rise architecture of Franco's economic boom with a dedication to truth that surpasses Canaletto's' (R. Hughes, 'The Truth in the Details', Time, 21 April, 1986). Despite his fastidious attention to the truth of what he sees, Lуpez Garcнa's painting technique is not enslaved to a meticulous attention to detail. In Madrid desde Torres Blancas, the painter creates the illusion of perfection through abstract passages of mosaic-like intricacy and broad brush marks that merely approximate the forms they are depicting. In this way, Lуpez Garcнa transcribes what he sees without denying the fiction of the painting's construction, which is unavoidably ruled by his own prejudices and preferences. The inherent subjectivity of the artist's process is further enhanced by the painting's many handwritten notes on the use of colour, the evolution of the light and the dates upon which he worked, thereby creating a visual diary that examines the relationship between art, reality and the psychology of perception. The quietude of the image suggests the experience of isolation in the great mass of the city, with the cluttered hive of human habitation offset against the wide smog inflected sky creating an image of melancholic beauty that testifies to the artist's lifelong appreciation of the sublime in the everyday.

- Cite Source

and so.

my life has gone through some major changes in the last few months. need to screw this head on straight and march forward. with urgency and strength. yes.

reignite.

mythological creatures cont.

mythological creatures

Long Pose Portrait Drawing Workshop with Hope Railey

Artist and friend Hope Railey will be having a Winter '10 Long Pose Drawing Workshop at her private studio in LA. I highly encourage anyone who can to sign up and attend. She is an excellent artist and instructor. I have recommended her to many friends and students and they are all very happy to have had her as a mentor and instructor. The details can be found below (click them to enlarge). You can visit her site here: Hope Railey

martyrs.

now that there are no priests or philosophers left artists are the most important people in the world.

Gerhard Richter

in loving memory of our sanctuary that once was...

the work of the art student is no light matter. few have the courage and stamina to see it through. you have to make up your mind to be alone in many ways. we like sympathy and we like company. it is easier than going it alone. but alone one gets acquainted with himself, grows up and on, not stopping with the crowd. it costs to do this.

Robert Henri

RUSTY KNIFE

been working on some initial studies for a new (and hopefully drastically different) series of paintings. these are not related to those paintings. these are for fun.

"And with his mouth closed purely for the thrill of opening it"

steal steal steal

updated my art links to the right. more to come.

the greatest love letter ever written

i just wanted to share my friend Jaime Ryan Heintz's short film, the greatest love letter ever written. i art directed the project so there are a few pieces borrowed from Orion Fisher, Jason Nam, and Sammy Macias.

enjoy.

the greatest love letter ever written from jaime ryan heintz on Vimeo.

inspiration and such

tumblr

"Chet Baker Sings"

american art and cultural critic Dave Hickey on jazz musician Chet Baker's impact on modern music from the essay A Life in the Arts:

the song plays the music and the music plays the player and that, consequently, the song, as played, is not the showcase for the player's originality, but a momentary acoustic community in which the players breathe and think together in real time, adding to the song's history, without detracting from its integrity, leaving it intact to be played again. "the thing you learn," Lou Reed told me in an interview, "is that popular music is easy. the song will play itself. so all you need to do is make it sing a little, make it human, and not fucking it up."

here's to not fucking it up.

such reflections

my image of the "ghost", including everything conventional about its appearance as well as its blind submission to certain contingencies of time and place, is particularly significant for me as the finite representation of a torment that may be eternal. perhaps my life is nothing but an image of this kind; perhaps i am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that i am exploring, doomed to try and learn what i should simply recognise, learning a mere fraction of what i have forgotten.

-Nadja
Andre Breton

Candice Bohannon & Julio Reyes

one of the biggest deciding factors when a student is looking at art schools is the quality of the student work. this was crucial to my decision to attend LCAD 5 years ago. the work of Candice and Julio convinced me that this was the school for me. since then, i have become acquainted with them and cannot fully express how unique and amazing they both are. true artists in any sense of the word. not only do they produce excellent work, but the honesty in their approach, from the initial stages in preparing the materials and studies, through their final product is something to seek to attain for oneself. i am always inspired by their hard work and the dedication they put into everything they do.

i am happy to share that they have both started blogs. so far they are already very informative and insightful. i hope they continue to update often.

Candice Bohannon





Julio Reyes

disembowellment

audio.video.link.photo.quote.brain spillage.

the complacency of role playing

sometimes we get too comfortable, complacent in our routine. we are confident in our own smug roles. our consummation. i am constantly trying to push myself forward in my work, but even then i get wrapped up in easy successes. and so comes the slow and difficult process of purging those things.

my friend and amazing artist Shay Bredimus contacted me to participate in a Vanitas show that he is curating for a gallery in Phoenix for their First Friday Art Walk of September. i'm not sure of the name of the gallery yet, but apparently this is one of the larger art walks in the states. the show will be up for 2 months and Shay seems to be very happy with the body of work he's collected from other friends, including Sammy Macias, James Miller, Brendan Sharkey, Orion Fisher, and many other great painters. I will post more information as it comes.

in the meantime here is the painting in its stages. sorry, i documented with an iphone so a few of them are blurry. i was very short on time due to life's compulsive need to interrupt, taking higher quality photos wasn't an option. the final image is hi rez though.

i can't help but love a vanitas painting. it's just such an appealing subject. the imagery, the mood, the symbolism, the connotations, all awesome.

i've been fooling around with the idea of approaching a vanitas painting in a more unconventional way. a still life lent itself very well to a little experimentation, and a skull painting is fully loaded to begin with allowing me to deal with more formal issues in painting.

the added use of the mirrors not only allowed me to experiment with application but also gave the work a little more substance dealing with issues of illusion and depth of space.

purge 2009,
12x12" oil on canvas



it is not good to settle into a set of opinions. it is a mistake to put forth effort and obtain some understanding and then stop at that. at first putting forth great effort to be sure that you have grasped the basics, then practicing so that they may come to fruition is something that will never stop for your whole lifetime. do not rely on following the degree of understanding that you have discovered, but simply think, "this is not enough".

one should search throughout his whole life how best to follow the Way. and he should study, setting his mind to work without putting things off. within this is the Way.


-Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
Yamamoto Tsunetomo, 1659-1719

e.p.c.d.t studios

james miller and i are currently renting a work studio in the canyon, just up the canyon from LCAD and two lots further up from the MFA building. the place is fantastic. plenty of light and room to work with. James is an ideal studiomate, bringing both his dedication and fresh ideas to the mix. for this, i am thankful.

we've decided to start a blog to document our shared time there and just for s&g. you can visit it here: e.p.c.d.t studios

ty.

moving forward

step back. evaluate. evolve.

many updates to come shortly

photo inspired by Phil Hale's The End of Fidelity

Steven Assael Cassandra Demo

in may of '08 i posted a Steven Assael demo that has driven a lot of traffic to my blog. because i am a whore, here is another demo in a slide show. once again, these have been shot by Sergio Sanchez.

Sean Cheetham Demo at LCAD: Updated with Slide Show

back in early december 2008 artist and instructor Sean Cheetham came by LCAD for a demo. he spent at least 2/3rds of the demo nailing the drawing and the shadow masses, measuring those transparent temperature shifts. working with a pretty simple palette, he moved into the half tones (this is where Sargent claimed all portraits were ultimately 'painted') working with a nice array of neutral colors, shifting subtly in temperature, color and value. only in the final minutes did he move into the lightest masses and highlights. unfortunately, the final photo does not do the demo justice.

overall, Mr. Cheetham came across as a very humble and capable instructor.

and just in case you missed the Steven Assael Demo...