Curated
A selection of artwork that inspires
Summer 2020
Miya Ando, Full Moon, Pigment, Urethane, 23k Gold, Mica, Resin, Stainless Steel, 48 x 48 in., 2019
In Miya Ando's work, it's possible to perceive the union between the time she spent in a Buddhist temple in Japan and in rural Northern California as a child, "her work pays homage to ancient techniques and ideas, fusing them with contemporary materials and forms." The influence of Buddhism in her work can be seen in the way she references "the idea that the fundamental nature of reality is that all constituent forms that make up the universe are temporary". The incorporation of the concept of reality and temporality is another place where past and present collide in Ando's work, where Buddhist notions and quantum physics theories meet.
Seth Armstrong, The Overlook, oil on wood, 51 ⅕ x 43 3/10 in., 2020
Seth Armstrong is a Los Angeles based artist. In his work, he incorporates a sense of hyperrealism joined with a mesmerizing understanding of lighting, which allows his oil paintings to feel almost like looking out of a window. His urban landscapes express the accurate way in which we have invaded but also learned to live around nature, without destroying it.
Antoine Rose, 4th of July, 2017, photography
Antoine Rose is a Belgian self-taught photographer. His work focuses primarily on two of his passions, travel and the sea. From an early age, he learned how to "capture and model the light through the lens of his camera." His unique way of capturing what he sees through the lens, combined with shooting from helicopters resulted in the Up in the Air series, in which, despite the adrenaline, he manages to capture serene moments on the beach or the sea. These images are almost like a modern interpretation of Cezanne's Bathers.
Olga de Amaral, Roca Azul, linen, acrylic, palladium and gold leaf, 51 x 51 in., 2015
Olga de Amaral is a Colombian textile artist whose work inspiration comes from a variety of sources ranging from pre-Colombian textiles and baskets, the natural landscapes that surround her, and even the golden relics of the Catholic Church. Her mostly site-specific installations are constructed using a variety of materials such as gold leaf, glass fiber, and paint, which resignify the centuries-old textile tradition in Latin America, while also providing a platform for women's work to be perceived as something beyond craftsmanship. Her work is now considered vital in the study of the avant-garde discourses of Latin American art.
Orlanda Broom, The Death of Grass, 47 ⅕ x 47 ⅕ in., 2018
In her work, Orlanda Broom paints either exotic landscapes or abstract pieces. Her landscape paintings allude to exotic and colorful spaces that "represent fantastical, re-imagined places, which in some sense are a rose-tinted view of the natural world. The surface joyousness is tempered by an uneasy sense of abandonment, a place untouched and timeless but a paradise that would ultimately ensnare. That the wilderness is encroached upon and could itself be a lost is a concurrent theme." She has currently moved from London to Hampshire.
Alex Katz, Wildflowers, 21 color silkscreen, 40 x 50 in., 2017
Alex Katz -considered part of the New York School- is an American painter known for his representation of landscapes, flowers and portraits. His work can be described as a "highly stylized aesthetic" and was developed as the artist’s personal response to Abstract Impressionism, a movement that was filling New York galleries in the 1950s. He works primarily in a flat and very colorful style that in many ways seems to anticipate what will happen with the art scene in the 1960s with Pop Art, and has even been called one of its predecessors.
Emma Ashby, Sea Breeze, encaustic, 18 x 18 in., 2020
Emma Ashby is a full-time artist and teacher living in the East Coast of New England. In her paintings, she incorporates her love for coastal landscapes and an avid interest in the encaustic technique; she is one of the few known artists to work landscapes with this medium. Each one of her paintings is a whole exploration and experience all on its own, in which the viewer can immerse into the different layers, textures, and colors, that give her work a sense of realism beyond the depiction of what is seen.
Raqib Shaw, Petal Gatherers, acrylic, enamel and graphite on paper, 20 1/10 x 20 1/10 in., 2019
Raqib Shaw's work is known for his multiple and diverse influences that range from Persian Carpets to Renaissance paintings, as well as the various materials he incorporates in his creations. His paintings and sculptures usually derive from mythology, religion, poetry, art history, and literature. All of the different sources that he uses allow for the production of multifaceted creations with something new to discover every time you take a look.
Tomás Saraceno, Mini Iridescent Cloud, metal, plexiglass iridescent, metal wire, steel thread, 27 1/5 × 43 3/10 × 37 in., 2018
Tomás Saraceno is a multidimensional artist who uses the techniques he learned from his formation as an architect, to create tridimensional pieces that explore the space they inhabit. With the incorporation of physics, engineering, aeronautics, and arachnology into his sculptures, he expects that the viewer will examine and consider alternative ways of inhabiting the planet.
Paulette Tavormina, Botanical VII (Tulips), digital painting print, 36 x 36 in., 2013
Paulette Tavormina is a New York based artist whose work is reminiscent of seventeenth-century Old Master still life paintings. She uses photography to recreate a centuries-old tradition to depict nature in such a genuine way that you can almost touch it, and she does so in a style that transports the viewer to another time in art history, while simultaneously speaking a very contemporary language.
Her Botanicals series (2013) is inspired by the work of the great Fleming artists that used their paintings as a way to study nature.
Spring 2020
Rania Matar, Nour #1, Beirut, Lebanon, archival digital pigment print, 25 1/5 x 30 in., 2017
Rania Matar was born and raised in Lebanon and moved to the U.S. in 1984. As a Lebanese-born American woman and mother, Matar's cultural background, cross-cultural experience, and personal narrative inform her photography. She has dedicated her work to exploring issues of personal and collective identity, through photographs of female adolescence and womanhood - both in the United States where she lives and the Middle East where she is from, in an effort to focus on notions of identity and individuality all within the context of the underlying universality of these experiences.
Sage Sohier, Mum in her garden, Washington, D.C., archival pigment print, 35 x 42 in., 2003
Sage Sohier has been photographing people in their environments for more than 30 years. In this series “Witness to Beauty,” she presents her ex-fashion-model mother. The photographer writes, “For a brief period in her youth, my mother was a model photographed by Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, and once was on the cover of LIFE Magazine. As a child, I grew up as a witness to her beauty: I used to lie on her bed with the dogs, and watch her try on clothes and study herself critically in the mirror. As I grew older there was no use competing with her and so I assumed my position, quite happily, on the other side of the camera.”
Julia Powell, Field of Flowers, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 in., 2020
“A realist depiction of what I see has never interested me as much as trying to create something that evokes a visceral reaction.” Julia Powell wants aims to paint a feeling, a mood, or a sense of place. She experiments with both the vastness and the immediacy of water, sky and trees, and renders them such as they appear even more magical and otherworldly on the canvas.
Lillian Burk Meeser (1864-1942), Still life with Japanese scroll, oil on canvas, 30 1/8 x 25 1/8 in.
Lillian Meeser studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Art Students League in New York, and the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. An early member of the Cape Cod art community and a member of The Eight Philadelphia Women, a group that organized exhibitions regularly. In 1905 she set up a studio and gallery in Wellfleet, MA. She is well known for her still life and landscape paintings.
Cig Harvey, Pink in a Touch, Red in a Stare, chromogenic dye coupler print, 20 x 16 in., 2019
Cig Harvey is a photographer whose practice seeks to find the magical in everyday life. Rich in implied narrative, Harvey’s work is deeply rooted in the natural environment, and offers explorations of belonging and familial relationships.
Christie Young, Roses and Lemons, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 in.
Christie Young enjoys tapping into her scientific side to observe and reveal her subject’s simplistic yet complex reality. She pushes this idea further by deconstructing her view into simpler elements while simultaneously including authentic moments to convey more elaborate ideas. She is intrigued with the interactions between negative and positive space as well as tactile and implied texture. To further simplify yet complicate her process she finds much satisfaction using a simple palette knife to create her work in its entirety in either oil or acrylic paint mediums.
Linda Etcoff, Spring/Summer/Winter, pastel, charcoal and crayon on paper, 40 x 26 in., 2019
Linda Etcoff displays her fecund imagination using charcoal, pastel and crayon. Drawing as an activity offers Etcoff an opportunity to engage in an exploration by utilizing her powers of observation. Through rendering, organizing and manipulating space, she moves toward constructing a composition which would otherwise be impossible to imagine in advance. Her process concerns developing a spacial construction with an unfamiliar reality, having no parallel or corresponding equivalent in nature.
Bertrand Flachot, Ex-Croissances XIII, ink jet print on paper, pigment liner, aluminum, wood frame, 16 1/2 x 23 1/2 in., 2019
Paris-based artist Bertrand Flachot fuses photograph and drawing in his delicate and elegant work. Beginning as a colorful photograph that is then drawn over with pen, the work is reminiscent of something you would find in a sketchbook. As the viewer, we see the process unfold to become the finished work. Flachot’s inspiration for these works comes from a personal tragedy. In February of 1990, his entire artistic production was destroyed in a fire. All he was left with were his memories. Flachot used art to reflect on the situation, the lines becoming to him symbols of memories that are constantly re-imagining a person’s past and present.
Peter Liversidge, BEFORE/AFTER, powder coated steel, bulbs, electronic timer switch, 14 x 162 x 6 in., 2012
Peter Liversidge’s object-based works are united by the artist’s tongue-in-cheek humor, and often include banal, everyday materials, or feature bold text. The artist begins every project by drafting a set of proposals on a typewriter, ranging from the practical to the fantastical.
Mary Kocol, The Garden on June 3, 2011, archival inkjet photograph, edition of 12, 34 1/2 x 23 in.
Mary Kocol’s photography has received acclaim for its transformation of ordinary domestic and street scenes into dramatic, richly colored compositions that convey an uncanny sense of both day and night. By photographing at dusk, with prolonged exposures, Kocol creates a melding of daytime and evening that transforms the mundane into the fantastic. In this series of photographs where shimmering blossoms are frozen in ice, Kocol draws upon themes of the garden, landscape, and the seasons.
Melissa Turner, Untitled, sculpting clay
Melissa Turner chose to use clay because of its softness and versatility. Malleable in its wet stage, accommodating to the human hand, and instantly responsive to the slightest impression, it is uniquely suited for tactile manipulation. Once fired, it has the strength and integrity of stone.
Nick Cave, Arm Piece, cast bronze and vintage tole flowers, 60 x 14 x 20 in., 2018
Nick Cave is a Chicago based artist and the director of the graduate fashion program at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is known for his unique fabric sculptures and performances, through which he explores and exposes issues of racial inequality in the United States. His inspiration comes from African art traditions, armor, ceremonial dress, fashion, and designed textiles which he uses to dispute stereotypical views of feminine and masculine in our society.
John Thompson, Howard, gouache and screenprint monoprint, 40 x 30 in., 2018
The basis for John Thompson’s work is from the landscape where he chooses specific moments and small elements for his focus. He begins by observing the landscape, particularly nearby ponds. It is the deep understanding of the character of a specific place that informs his work.
Deborah Weiss, Evening Blooms II, collage from hand painted papers, 22 x 18 in.
From the series “Sea Blooms”, each collage is created with the artist’s hand dyed and painted papers, cut and combined to create botanical blooms. These works celebrate a love for blue and white contemporary botanical designs.
Josiah McElheny, A Twighlight Labyrinth (Mercury), low-iron mirror, two-way mirror, electric light, hand-blown, polished, and mirrored glass; artist frame, 24 x 26 x 24 in., 2019
Josiah McElheny was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and apprenticed with master glassblowers Ronald Wilkins, Jan-Erik Ritzman, Sven-Ake Caarlson, and Lino Tagliapietra. McElheny creates finely crafted, handmade glass objects that he combines with photographs, text, and museological displays to evoke notions of meaning and memory.
Tom Curry, Bright, oil on birch panel, 36 x 43 in., 2019
Tom Curry’s path then took him to Maine, where he says about his life, “I still can’t believe how gorgeous it is; it’s serene but disheveled; it’s raw and not overly organized.” An accomplished technique, ease in presenting his vision, and a supercharged the brightness that makes one sense the “wildness and joy” inherent in living in Maine are all hallmarks of Curry’s style. Curry is at heart a plein air pastel artist and an accomplished oil painter. He is most at home on a hillside, perched over a Maine harbor, often sitting on a fieldstone wall, totally focused, totally absorbed, totally engrossed in creating.
Truman Seymour, Alhambra, Interior Room, watercolor on paper, 9 3/16 x 13 in.
Truman Seymour is a 19th century artist who spent a 30 year career in the military. Upon his retirement to Florence, he focused his eye on honing his superb watercolor skills. He spent the remainder of his life painting watercolors of Florence, the Italian Lake Region, Sevilla and Granada / Alhambra and Morocco. With saturated colors on his brush, Seymour captured the hot Mediterranean sun against the side of a stucco house in Sevilla, the detailed brickwork around the Alhambra in Granada and colorful market scenes in Tangier.
Geoffrey Johnson, Boat house in Winter, oil on panel, 36 x 48 in., 2019
Geoffrey Johnson draws much of his inspiration from his travel experiences and first-hand observations. Using a monochromatic palette of sepia hues, the artist says he strives to reproduce the places that inspire him. Johnson’s work is strongly evocative of the French Impressionists’ depictions of city life, interior spaces, and equestrian scenes. From Gustave Caillebotte’s steely, atmospheric renderings of foggy Paris streets and dusky rooftops to Degas’ spindly-legged racehorses, the influence of these artists upon Johnson’s painting is readily visible. His manner of distorting the human figure has also been likened to the skeletal, surreal forms of Alberto Giacometti.
Simone Leigh, Face Jug, salt-fired stoneware, 2019
Chicago-born, New York-based Simone Leigh creates objects that occupy the liminal space between figuration and abstraction. In recent years, Leigh has become increasingly recognized for her large-scale ceramic and bronze sculptures, which feature braided vessels and skirted body-like forms. Rendered at a scale that is often larger-than-life, the stand-alone sculptures are frequently installed alongside architectural installations. The work is defined by a combination of materials—such as clay, bronze, and raffia—traditionally associated with African art, yet which draw from a global array of references.
Holly Coulis, Vases and Citrus, Above, oil on linen, 50 x 60 in., 2020
Characterized by blocks of bold color, simple forms, and manipulation of depth, Coulis’s painterly style is distinctive, yet influenced by Manet, Picasso, Balthus and Katz. Her subjects, be they idiosyncratic invented characters or close-ups of fruits, vegetables, and floral bouquets, exude strong personality.
Alma Thomas, Forecast of Spring, acrylic on canvas, 24 1/4 x 18 1/4 in., 1967
In 1960, at the age of sixty-nine, Alma Thomas retired from teaching to devote her time exclusively to art. In 1963, her work was show in NYC for the first time, at the Artists for CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) exhibition, mounted by the prestigious Martha Jackson Gallery. In 1972, Thomas was given two major solo exhibitions — Alma Thomas at the Whitney Museum and Alma W. Thomas: A Retrospective at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC. She was the first African American woman to have a one-person show at the Whitney.
Richard Ryan, Nine Blue Poppies, woodcut on paper, 60 x 43 in., edition of 25, 2007
Richard Ryan’s still life and figurative prints feature high structure yet enigmatic compositions and a clear, luminous palette. Ryan’s work is realist in style, and is imbued with myth, mysticism, and the metaphysical.
Rebecca Hutchinson, Distending Pink, fired and un-fired porcelain paper clay, handmade paper, organic material, 6’ x 8’ x 18”
In nature there are diverse states of existence; the structure of nature, interactions between forces of nature, the resilience and the complexity of engineering in nature. All these states are rooted in the motivation for the need to survive, providing endless visual influences and conceptual possibilities for art making; speaking to the depth and complexity of living with the hopes of revealing the human condition in sculptural form.
Using diverse processes, Rebecca Hutchinson’s interest is in quality of craft, connections, structure, and conceptually to all physical parts to the whole. She builds site-responsive sculptural works made from clay and recycled materials, like old clothing or industrial surplus. She hand builds, slip trails, dips, layers, cuts and constructs with the surplus and handmade materials. Works are influenced by growth patterns, but do not replicate nature.
Lauren Herzak-Bauman, Stack 16, Part of the Stack Series, 9 x 4 x 7 in., porcelain
An ongoing series of sculptural ceramic forms taking influence from natural forms, paper, and objects found within decrepit abandoned spaces.
Abelardo Morell, Book Damaged by Water, gelatin silver print, flush-mounted on aluminum, 32 x 40 in., 2001
Cuban-born photographer Abelardo Morell surveys both the intimate and the majestic in his photographs of American people, objects, and landscapes. In 1991, Morell returned to the street, shooting scenes on a grander scale with a self-constructed camera obscura. The return to this centuries-old technology allowed Morell to better understand the origins of his medium and capture cities at a scale he felt was appropriate for comprehending them. In recent years, he transformed his camera obscura into a mobile tent, moving it to locations throughout America to capture landscapes on a monumental scale.