Art Hound

Michelle Armas‘ paintings combine far-out abstraction and delicate, feminine florals. Very cool work, especially the dramatic dark background of Secret Garden (first image below). On another note, see photos of from my weekend here.

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Caroline Wright may be best known for her series, Migration, (below) which I featured back in February. These amorphous, dripped paintings are full of chaotic energy and, in my view, illustrate life’s unpredictability. Wright is now back with new work that shows a fascinating transition from her previous work.

It turns out that Caroline experienced a period of artistic ‘stuckness’ but managed to breakthrough this summer with an exciting new series, Desmoiselles. Her new paintings (below) represent some of the same ideas as her previous work but are very different stylistically. This shift signals an exciting new time for the artist, and lucky for us, Caroline agreed to chat with us about her new series, maintaining artistic integrity and advice for emerging artists.

Tell us a bit about your new series and how it came about.

I was feeling a bit stuck earlier this summer, as if every piece of work I was making was an imitation of what I’d done before. It’s easy to get distracted by what people respond to, but ultimately it’s really important to have periods where I block that out and let things get really messy. I was in this process when I discovered some early paintings by Joan Snyder, from the 1970s. The contrast of colorful drips in ordered space and the ugly/beautiful emotive quality of these works was thrilling to me, and I used her painting Demoiselles, which was done with a nod to Picasso’s break-through Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, as a starting place. Once I started painting in this way, I opened up all these old spaces, calling up my previous interest in textile and fashion design, all the way back to the drawings I made as a child. It’s been oddly therapeutic, and very fun.

Hard Sweetness (1971) by Joan Snyder

I think a lot of artists and art world people have insecurities about spending all their time on something that could be seen as superfluous or superficial and end up coating that in a veneer of inaccessibility. This is really irritating, because what’s beautiful and utterly necessary about art is its ability to remind us of our infinite potential, our smallness, and our connection to each other. Looking at painting is a visual experience, and people should not feel intimidated to engage with the art and have opinions about it. The other aspect of that statement is that I’m always looking for ways to slow down, to feel fully absorbed in a moment without the nag of impatience and worry. Looking at something that engages you, that is harmonious and rhythmical enough to keep your eyes moving around the surface, allows the mind to sit for a bit.

I think one of the best things you can have as an emerging artist is a good website. Organized, frequently updated, and with high quality images. This is how most people find my work. It’s also important to engage in your local art community by going to openings, lectures, and other events. Making real-life connections with the people who run galleries, organize events, and place art in larger venues is extremely helpful for getting you art up.

I’ve been really lucky to grow up believing it’s possible to have a life in the arts. My dad is a writer who never had a “steady” job while I was growing up, and grew his career by patching together free-lance work while becoming a published author. Both my parents have fervently supported my career path but also tethered me to the reality that it has to work financially. I think I’ve always had an entrepreneurial sense (as a child I decorated envelopes with marker scrawl and sold them door to door), and I don’t mind the book-keeping and publicity sides of the job. I’m also glad that there is an audience for the kind of work I want to make.

I hope to continue spending my time in the studio, as well as attending art residencies and having conversations with other artists. I’d like to do more collaborations with musicians, dancers and filmmakers, and to bring the art into larger spaces, exposing my work to a greater audience.

Prints of Wright’s work are available on artmuse.

Beautiful abstract and semi-abstract work by Los Angeles painter, Brooke Reidt, via BOOOOOOOM!. The third painting down shows another side of the artist, with work that is more figurative, pattern-based and youthful. I want to say that this style was probably a precursor to her more kaleidoscopic work but can’t confirm that from her website. Isn’t it fascinating how artists evolve over time?

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I discovered Jeff’s work on PAWLING Print Studio’s blog which is a new fav for me. Sisters Trisha and Janet of PAWLING Print Studio have an exquisitely tasteful line of hand-printed textiles and paper goods AND a beautiful blog to boot. If you love clean, simple minimalist design, you need check them out!

Back to my crush…Depner’s paintings are intricate color studies that build off of simple geometric compositions. This kind of abstract work tends to be overlooked when truthfully there are fewer good examples than you might think. One that comes to mind is Meghan Brady whose work I featured in a post on diamond shapes.

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Jessica Bell was one of my picks from the Cheaper Show #9*, but I’m featuring her again because her simple but stunning work deserves your full attention! Bell works with a variety of materials (acrylic, fabric, paper collage and drawing) to create her organic-feeling, exquisitely-structured mix-media pieces. The artist was born in Montreal but resides in Vancouver, home of The Cheaper Show.

* The Cheaper Show is an annual art show in Vancouver that features the work of many hot young artists. All work sells for $200. Very cool stuff.

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A while ago I came across the mixed-media work of Arpie Gennetian Najarian at Brooklyn gallery, Muriel Guepin, and I’ve been meaning to write about it since. Arpie’s work is soft and subtle, and much of its richness lies in the details. The artist previously worked as a graphic designer which you can see in her rather precise compositions. Her work explores the moment-to-moment changes in the world around us and as she says, “things that are both predictable and unpredictable at the same time, like a tree whose leaves vary slightly in shape, or the morphing outline of a spilled puddle of tea.”

Najarian’s work incorporates an unusual mix of materials: ink, pencil, thread and paper. The tactile act of sewing is an important part of Najarian’s craft, one that she learned from her grandmother at an early age.

In the artist’s words, “each piece is designed first by collecting and cropping portions of my own drawings, texts, and other works on paper. These elements are then carefully considered, sorted and arranged onto larger backgrounds and hand-sewn into place.” In this way the basic elements of Najarian’s work, her loose sketches and organic shapes, are layered in her work.

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Kentree Speirs‘ paintings are a hodgepodge of traditional landscapes, impressionism, abstract art and digital art. While I do find Speirs’ work to be on the busy side, I give her credit for remixing the tired genres of landscapes and abstract art and creating something fresh and compelling.

Spiers is showing in Departure Point at BICA, a gallery in Bend, Oregon which aims to foster public engagement in art.

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Keren Kroul showed in last summer’s A New Breed of Watercolors at Soo Visual Art Center with Betsy Walton, Serena Cole and others. Kroul’s work is vibrant and visually-ripe but fairly open to interpretation – a nice combination.

Kroul’s dream-like narratives are reminiscent of Betsy Walton’s work although while Walton’s narratives are grounded in the natural world, Kroul’s float in the transient space of the mental landscape. As the artist explains in her personal statement, “Memories and dreams flow forward and backward, turn over and over, are deconstructed, abstracted, reconstructed.”

Nevertheless, certain material landmarks (houses, flowers, clouds) appear in Kroul’s work, rooting these scenes in a loose context of identity, memory and mortality.

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Ela Blom is an artist I’ve been meaning to feature on Art Hound for a while. Her work, which is mostly abstract, really grabs you. It’s bold, graphic, feminine and subtly subversive. Plus I love the use of pinks and purples! Her work is a fresh interpretation of cartoon and graffiti culture. It’s a disorienting mix of hard and soft edges and a more aesthetic take on an anti-aesthetic counter-culture movement.

Ela’s work makes me think about why abstract work is often under-appreciated. I think because the “meaning” is less obvious, people sometimes have an uneasy reaction to it. Those with art history backgrounds, myself included, learn to view abstract art within the greater context of the history of art. In my opinion this is both good and bad.

Who cares about context? Well, it’s important to know that the first abstract painters sent a jaw-dropping message with their art: “Even without a subject, without depicting victorious men, lofty vistas or bowls of fruit, this too is art.” Today we take it for granted that something is art so long as someone says so. That kind of freedom, which at times veers into the ridiculous, has only developed in the last 50 years.

But abstract art is extremely powerful because of it’s lack of subject. Standing in front of a large abstract painting is about the closest thing to experiencing art without context – just taking in the visual expression. Art’s currency is how it makes you feel. Experiencing abstract art means taking a moment to shut down our brains and let our eyes do the work for us.

Beau Chamberlain is a Brooklyn-based artist whose semi-abstract paintings are rooted in biology and infused with kaleidoscopic color and sci-fi visual punches. Beau is originally from Portland and has lived in Brooklyn for the past 10 years.

How would you describe your work?

Fantasy based semi abstract landscapes.

I’m super critical about my work so it’s hard to pick a painting that I like for very long after I finish it. I’m just happy that I have continued to make work through this market slump and that the work seems to be really moving forward. It sounds a bit cliche but not doing 3 art fairs a year has allowed for growth and experimentation in my work, that might not have occurred otherwise.

Tell us about the biggest risk you’ve taken as an artist.

Really need to take more risks in my work. I’ve been messing around with sculpture all of which have failed up to this point.  Still planning on exploring that avenue soon.

What do you love most about Portland/ Brooklyn?

I grew up in Portland and moved to Brooklyn 10 years ago. In Brooklyn I am within walking distance to almost all my closest friends, studio, and a ton of restaurants. It really has a kind of  provincial feel to it. You get to buy your meat from the butcher and bread from the bakery. You are in the city but your neighborhood is where you live. Most of all I have a really great group of friends that are very supportive.

What makes Portland/ Brooklyn such a great place for independent art?

There is really just so many people making art in both these cities, that it just makes you want to produce. Especially in Brooklyn I feel like the type of people that make the move to live here are a little more motivated type personality. You can’t help but feed on that energy. It makes it so much easier to keep working when you are surrounded by close friends that are also making work.

Don’t miss this week’s Portland artist, Trish Grantham, on Habit of Art!