Pauloosie Sivual was both an accomplished painter and carver born in Puvirnituq, Quebec, Canada in the year 1930. The artist was a director of the Povungnituk Co-Operative in the 1960s. He was inspired to carve by watching his brother. Carved his first work in the late 1940s.
price range information: Works range from $500 to $2,000.
Some of his themes included birds and other wildlife. He also liked to portray Inuit life and the mother and child motif.
The artist was a well respected man of the community and as a result was not as prolific as other Inuit artists, though he did make a fair amount of both sculpture and graphic work.
Over an eighteen year period he created only print edition works. During the last years 4 years of his life he made more than forty prints. Better late than never I guess!
The artist passed away in 1986 at the age of 56 years old.
Alicia Tormey is a wonderful mixed media artist that works with encaustics. Encaustic involves blending paint with bees wax. To develop her work she uses a blowtorch and carving tools and puts much work and detail into each layer of work. Tormey was born the midwest United States in the mid 1960s.
She enjoys painting the feeling of landscape, but leaves much information out of the picture and starts building other patterns and forms on top of her original shapes.
For her artistic education Tormey attended the Art Institute of Seatte, Washington.
Below some great examples of a mixed media work by Alicia Tormey. We get to see the blowtorch in action!
What a unique way to use the blowtorch to create art!
Phlegm is a British street artist based out of Sheffield, England. He worked in the comic book field and it shows in the size and detailed finish of his works. He enjoys depicting boats and creatures of the sea. Usually works in an illustrative fashion working in black and white. He has also done work in Manchester and London, England.
The artist is still being “discovered” and not much is known about him.
price range information: None available.
A link to the website of Phlegm with some artwork for sale:
George Nakashima was born in Spokane, Washington in the yer 1905. Nakashima is renown for his woodworking skills. For his collegiate education Nakashima studied architecture at the University of Washington earning a bachelors degree. Nakashima went on to earn a masters degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He often used walnut for his favorite type of wood.
In this clip we visit the home and studio of George Nakashima:
After college he bought a ticket to go around the world in a steam ship. He explored the continents of Europe and Africa and wound up in Japan. He was able to find work in Japan as an architect. Nakashima stayed in Japan and study their style of architecture.
Nakashima started to produce furniture in India in the late 1930s. He returned to America, but during the second world war was sent to an internment camp. Here he was able to meet a renown woodworker named Gentaro Hikogawa who would go on to mentor the artist.
After his release from the internment camp Nakashima would go onto design his own furniture and receive important commissions including a very large order for 200 works from Nelson Rockefeller.
price range information: Works range between $3,000 to $90,000.
The artist passed away in 1990.
In this clip we learn more about the artwork of George Nakashima:
John Livingston is a Northwest Coast artist who wasn’t born into a tribe, but rather adopted by one. Livingston was born in 1951.
Based out of Vancouver, British Columbia.
In this work he talks about his work with human face and the sun. I love hearing about artists talk about their work:
The artist learned to carve by watching masters Tony and Henry Hunt. The father and son and taken over for Mungo Martin as the lead carvers at the Thunderbird Park carving program.
Livingston works in a very large format and has received many commissions. On some works he has done collaborations with other notable artists including Robert Davidson.
Has worked on nearly 30 very large traditional totem poles, hand carved since he began his career in the 1960s. These very large works are usually made to celebrate a particular time or celebration.
price range information: sorry none available.
In the tradition of art in their close knit community, only certain clans could work with certain imagery. Northwest Coast art was only to be made by its native peoples. Livingston though not a tribe member, was adopted by the Kwakaka’ wakw tribe and is allowed to practice their design and motif works.
Lowell Boyers is a wonderful artist that blends a mixture of botanical and figures in his artwork. Lowell Boyers was born in Queens, New York in the year 1966. For his artistic education Boyers attended the Rhode Island School of Design earning a bachelors degree. Boyers went on to earn a masters from Yale University.
price range information: Sorry none available.
Boyers works in a very large scale, also like Kushner, with many sizes nearly 4 by 5 feet, or 48 by 60 inches in size.
By reading his artistic statement Boyers tells us his art tells a story about multiple events that happen to a person over the course of time. In other words snapshots of time put in a collage form on one canvas. His works include a multitude of emotions that have taken place over time.
The mediums Boyers’ uses remind of the artist Robert Kushner. Both have similar subject matter and palettes. Many works of Boyer’s include acrylics, oils, resin, ink, and watercolour. In this case even a high def image can’t let us see how the different layers refract light. I remember the first time I saw one of Kushner’s works who uses all the above plus glitter in some works, my eyes never stopped moving as the canvas moved as I moved due to the resin, the reflection of paint and the glitter. Boyers work seems to have a similar look to it. Below an example of Robert Kushner’s style of painting flowers.
His process involves painting on raw canvas, not on a manufactured canvas but fresh off the roll!
Maria Sibylla Merian was born in Frankfurt, Germany in the year 1647. Merian would go on to be a fantastic botanical illustrator and also was among the worlds first entomologists (the study of bugs.) Bugs were seen as beasts of the devil plain simple, Merian broke the mold by collecting and studying how they changed over time. She loved to draw caterpillars as they progressed through their life span.
The artist has been included on a monetary note, the first image in the gallery.
price range information: She worked mainly in watercolour and gouache ranging fromm $4,000 to $300,000.
Born in 1647 her family was involved in the publishing industry. Her father passed away when she was only three years old. Her mother would remarry a renown artist named Jacob Marrel who would become the artist’s main mentor and teacher. Below a wonderful example of Marrel’s work:
When she was eighteen years old she married Marrel’s studio apprentice Johann Graff. He was from Nuremberg, Germany and the couple would move to this city and she continued to draw and paint and also gave lessons to the unmarried ladies of the wealthy social elite. These connections gave her access to the best gardens in the territory.
In this clip a montage of works by the artist including many of her engravings in additions to her paintings:
In 1669 the city of Amsterdam paid for her to travel abroad to South America and the country of Suriname to study the plants and insects. It was very unusual for a city to sponsor such a trip for a female artist. Merian would become famous from the books she published showing the world the wonderful botanical life that existed in these far off lands.
Maria Sibylla Merian passed away in 1717 at the age of 69 years old.
In this clip we view more works by the artist but this clip features nearly entirely paintings and no engravings:
Merian loved to study entomology and made a prolific body of work covering the illustrations of spiders, frogs, snakes, and beetles. If you enjoy bugs and butterflies be sure and check out my favorite bug artist Marc Dennis. This is an artist who even eats these exotic bugs that he paints. Very interesting! Below work by Marc Dennis:
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