Archive for April 15, 2012

Julio Le Parc number 2…

{ April 15, 2012 @ 11:35 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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in the Awesome Acrylic Artist series I wrote about Julio Le Parc, in the photographs I mistakenly included another artist’s work and wanted to mention her work as well. So this will be a quick post on art and home decorating.

The artist who I mistook for Julio Le Parc is Anita Muise . See her blog at this address.   http://anitanh.blogspot.com/         This artist brings to mind some of the Op Art movement artists such as Bridgette Riley and Victor Vasarely. Bold color and fun repeating shapes that keep the viewers eye moving.  She sells many mediums dealing with art such as collages, jewelry, quilts, and beads . Below are samples of some work by Anita and her gallery is located in Wakefield, New Hampshire.

Rex Ray is an artist who uses very keen shapes and color to make outstanding collages as well as abstract paintings. If you are in Denver please visit the Vance Kirkland Museum where you can see some of his work just before entering the lower level.  I first became aware of the artist by his appearances in several art magazines, but one day I was looking thru a home decorating magazine and here was this artist’s work and I recognized it immediately. His work is the foundation of carpets and rugs.

Below is the address to see some of Rex Ray’s art that has been made into wearable art such as scarves and carpets.

http://www.samad.com/rexraystudio/

Short clip showing some of the artist’s carpets and rugs.

Rex Ray sells originals of his works as well. His work appears far better in person than in any magazine.

Another fantastic artist who has impressed me with her wide variety of mediums is Amelia Caruso. I first became aware of her art by a neat program in Colorado that gives jobs to artists to design industrial utility covers with fun designs.  She uses many circles combined with fun color combinations.  The artist just recently negotiated a deal for the use of her art on fabrics.

Think about all the objects you use in daily life that have some form of art. The possibilities are endless. Bath towels, beach towels, sweaters(its cold today!), collector plates, oven mitts, coffee mugs the list never stops. Find a genre or something you love to paint and could paint relentlessly for months at a time and go for it.

The artist loves working with circles and colors.  A short clip showing the artist at work in the out of doors.

Here is a link to a page showing her recently released fabric patterns. Her circles are all hand painted with only a paintbrush. She also sells her original paintings.               http://www.ameliacaruso.com/fabric.htm

Hope these three artists give you some inspiration to think about your design skills and using them on something besides canvas or panel.

Create!

D

Artists portraying food…..David James Gilhooly…

{ April 15, 2012 @ 12:42 am } · { Uncategorized }
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mediums used: clay, plaster, glass, marker

low price range: $2,500

high price range: $10,000

I had to change the title from artists who paint food to artists who portray food.  Another artist who inserts humor into his works, mainly thru ceramics although he has also done a fair amount of prints.

The artist  was born in 1943 in Auburn, California.  He was an artist of the Funk Art movement in the 1960s. The movement sought to bring humor and fun to subjects, to give them a character so to speak. He developed a style that focuses on the food and the interaction among frogs.

The artist attended college earning both a bachelor degree and master’s degree from the University of California at Davis. His favorite professor was Roy DeForest who also became his mentor.  The student became a teacher himself at the college level at his alma mater, the University of Saskatchewan, and San Jose State College. He became part of Funk Art Movement which was a collective of ceramicists mainly active in the San Francisco Bay area.

His first job directly after college was as a watercolor instructor at San Jose State College. He didn’t own a kiln at the time, but wanted to work with large animals.  For the structure he used chicken wire and covered it with wheatpaste. He had a number of bad experiences while working with paper mache seeing some works get moldy with exposure to the elements and another time a piece was folded in half due to wind while he was transporting it! He went on to anger the his fellow faculty members and was not fired only because he was so newly hired. He was put on probation for teaching such demonstrative ideas of how to use watercolor.  He went on to “break” the rules of watercolor and paper mache at other collegiate teaching engagements.

Studied with famed figure sculptor Manuel Neri. Neri will be included in my sculpture section coming up soon!

In 1982 Gilhooly did some work using Plexiglass as his medium.

The artist is included in museums from Honolulu, Hawaii to the Whitney Museum of Modern Art in New York City as well as museums in the Netherlands and Canada.

This artist inserts a great deal of fun and comedy into his works.  In the mid 1990s he quit working in clay and moved to working with shadowboxes.

He currently lives in Newport, Oregon.

website for the artist: http://www.davidgilhooly.com/

The website is full of much more information and the artist will respond personally if you ask a question. He doesn’t work full time in ceramics anymore, but you can be added to a mailing list notifying you when new works are available.