Eric Armusik, Fire Sale!, May 20 to June 20

I know Eric Armusik & his art through the ether that is the online community of artists and have long admired his paintings. Artists move on in their art, that doesn't mean their older art isn't of value, but many artists feel the need to get rid of it, get it out of sight, or even destroy it.

I've been going through a studio cleanout lately and destroying old work that I feel shouldn't be released and work older than 2 years is being recalled back from galleries and taken off the market permanently.

Eric Armusik has his own solution, a Fire Sale, buy the paintings in the next 30 days or they will set on fire! To prove he is serious, he sets one one on fire on this YouTube Video



Go to Eric's website by Clicking Here and rescue a painting from the flames.


Wonderful paintings like this one will otherwise burn.


2:00 AM, Oil on Oak, 2004, 18" x 24"

*Featured in the December 2005 issue of American Artist Magazine
Winner 2004 Allied Artist of America Award from the Salmagundi Club, NYC

Margaret Bowland, A Pop-Up Project, 12th of May, Washington, DC

A pop-up project is a series of innovative, curated art exhibitions and events that “pop-up” at various locations throughout Washington, DC. The "a pop-up project's" is curated by local curator and artist advocate Amy Morton of MFA Morton Fine Art.

For its inaugural exhibition a pop-up project will open I Dream Awake from March 26 to May 28, 2010 in the former Numark Gallery space located in Penn Quarter at 625-627 E St NW, Washington, DC 20004.

Exhibiting a variety of media, I Dream Awake explores original artistic expressions of awakened realities and unconscious dreams. Exhibition includes New York artists, Mikel Glass, Kenichi Hoshine and Margaret Bowland; Los Angeles artists Vonn Sumner and Susan Burnstine; and local artists Rosemary Feit Covey, Laurel Hausler, Lizzie Newton and Tim Tate.



Flower Girl, oil on linen, 52 x 44 inches


Artist talk with Margaret Bowland - this Wednesday 5/12, 6pm at 625 E St NW.

For more information Click Here

Location Click Here



Another Thorny Crown, charcoal & pastel on rag paper, 60 x 48 inches



Murakami Wedding No 2, oil on linen, 78 x 66 inches



Another Thorny Crown III, charcoal & pastel on paper, 67 x 49 inches


Sydney art dealer & writer Michael Reid has written an interesting article for The Art Market Monitor where he talks about trends in artist & gallery relationships, including the proliferation of pop-up, short term, art exhibitions in unorthodox spots.

Letter from Australia
by Michael Reid
A Matrix of Exhibition Behaviours

To read the article click here

Christian Rex Van Minnen, until June 26 at Bert Green Fine Art, Los Angeles

Christian Rex Van Minnen: Rainbow Blight – New Paintings

Christian Rex Van Minnen paints using a technique similar to “automatic writing” in which he allows the composition and its component forms to emerge from the subconscious. These works are reminiscent of 19th century portraits and Romantic landscape scenes, but they also have a powerful contemporary edge, which makes them unmistakably 21st century works. In these paintings, organic matter becomes portraiture as proxy; figuration without a pose or a human subject.




Pearburst, Oil on Canvas , 11 x 14", 2010



Artist statement, courtesy of Christian Rex Van Minnen & Bert Green Fine Art
I’ve always been fascinated with anatomy and physiology as well as biology and other natural sciences. There is something about looking at plants and animals in a field guide, alone on a white page, out of their environment that gives them a distinctly human quality. this is where I am finding mystery. In my process, I like to create a kind of mess of an underpainting, a primordial soup of paint and information that I can see things in and pull form from. A lot of the time, this results in bio-morphic images and sometimes representational images. I have recently been utilizing this technique within the language of portraiture, creating a portrait without a sitter. I think that because they incorporate these basic elements of portraiture, we want to see a face to complete the sentence or the dialogue. by not having the eye contact or immediately recognizable facial features the viewer is left to fill in the blanks, often with aspects of ourselves. There is no symbolism here.

I suppose I have always been attracted to the grotesque because there is a truth and beauty that is inseparable from what is immediately unpleasant. Our lives are filled with such unpleasant beauties and opportunities to make light of dark.


To read an interview between Christian Rex Van Minnen & Jon Beinart, Click here


My Love for You, Oil on Canvas, 28 x 22”, 2010




Pear with Stars, Oil on Canvas , 11 x 14", 2010




Marketplace, Oil on Canvas, 24 x 36”, 2010




Still Life 1.6, Oil on Canvas, 23.5 x 20”, 2010

Summer Sweet, until May 29, Bernarducci.Meisel.Gallery, New York

Summer Sweet, the title of the group exhibition currently open at Bernarducci.Meisel.Gallery is certainly worth a visit.



Luigi Benedicenti, Dolce Riflessi, 2009, oil on wood, 38 x 47"




Roberto Bernardi, La Tavolozza , 2010, oil on canvas, 22 x 30"




Ester Curini, Chet, 2010, acrylic on wood, 20 x 16"




Donald Jacot, Sweet Stuff , 2010, oil on linen, 9 x 12"



Paul Caranicas, Ozone 25, Mars Factory, NJ (Hackettstown), 2010, oil on wood, 16 x 20"

Julie Heffernan at P.P.O.W, until June 5, New York

Julie Heffernan is one of my favourite artists and her latest exhibition Boy, O Boy is currently on at P.P.O.W Gallery, New York.



Great Scout Leader III 2010, oil on canvas, 72 x 54 inches


Press release for the exhibition, courtesy of P.P.O.W
P·P·O·W is pleased to announce Boy, O Boy, our sixth solo exhibition of paintings by Julie Heffernan. Using the male figure for the first time, Heffernan's new works explore the idea of human progress on both personal and political levels. The figures are an homage to transition and the passing on of wisdom from one generation to the next. The space of the canvas meditates on how we move into new chapters of our lives, both personally and as a planet.

In Great Scout Leader III, there is a young boy carrying an overly large backpack filled with golden creatures, stamps and paintings amongst many other special items to help him on his journey. He is wearing a belt equipped with tools (books, apples, and ropes) which may be useful during his passage. He is partially holding up a world that he is about to enter, but this soon to be discovered world is not altogether sound, for there is an avalanche below. In other works such as Budding Boy and Boy in Flight there are boys high up in trees, each creating miniature ecosystems and managing their environments, even as they appear to unravel. Heffernan gives us endearing and fragile images of a new masculinity that signal her faith in a potential yet threatened future world.



Boy in Flight 2010, oil on canvas, 52 x 68 inches



In addition to the paintings of adventurous boys, there are multiple landscape paintings that imagine what alternative worlds would be like if the one we are familiar with vanishes. Self Portrait Moving Out envisions a place where pathways lead to disaster or, conversely, miniature Edens. Self Portrait Setting Up Camp is a proposition for how we might remake the world when it all falls apart. Personal amulets are revealed throughout Heffernan's paintings in the form of tiny images of faces, art treasures and vignettes which reflect history, wisdom and truths.




Self Portrait as Tree House 2010, oil on canvas, 68 x 65 inches



All of these works remark on the nature of human society, the cycles of life and the possibilities of renewal alongside the entrapments of compliance and stasis. Like Heffernan's women, her new characters carry heavy histories of the past as they try to valiantly reshape the future.



Self Portrait as Big World 2008, oil on canvas, 65 x 68 inches



Julie Heffernan was born in 1956 and received her MFA from Yale University. She has had numerous one-person exhibitions around the country and has shown internationally. She has received a Lila Acheson Wallace award, NY Foundation for the Arts award, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fulbright-Hayes Grant. She is the program head of the BFA in Studio art Montclair State University.




Tender Trapper 2010, oil on canvas, 66 x 60 inches




Gallery installation courtesy of Julie Heffernan & P.P.O.W

Rupert Bunny; Artist in Paris, until July 4, The Ian Potter Centre: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Rupert Bunny: Artist in Paris traces Bunny’s extraordinary life and art, from Melbourne to Paris and back again. Organised by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, this will be the first major exhibition of Bunny’s work since 1991 and includes over one hundred paintings, drawings and monotypes, some of which have never been seen before in Australia. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition and comprehensively addresses all aspects of the artist’s oeuvre.


Rupert Bunny: artist in Paris - Introduced by Curator, Deborah Edwards



Rupert Bunny (1864–1947) is an exotic in the history of Australian art. A creator of grand, sumptuous paintings of Parisian life in the late 19th century, Bunny became one of the most successful artists of his generation.

Bunny's romantic portrayals of beautiful women at leisure capture the charm and idyllic life of France's "beautiful era" – the seemingly endless summer of the belle époque. His dream-like paintings of mythological scenes reveal an inspired and imaginative view of life and art.


For more information on this exhibition Click Here



Pastoral [Sea idyll Pastorale] c.1893, oil on canvas, 142.0 h x 251.0 w




Rupert Bunny
A summer morning c. 1897




Dolce farniente c1897 (Sweet idleness).




Mme Sada Yacco ‘Kesa' c1900 (1907).




Summer time c1907, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Alan Feltus, until June 18, Forum Gallery, New York

Forum Gallery presents seventeen new paintings by award winning American artist Alan Feltus. The works in the current exhibition continue the artist’s neoclassical exploration of the figure, saturated by the colors and richness of Italy, where Feltus has lived for more than twenty years.



Journals, 2008, oil on canvas, 43 1/3 x 31 1/2 inches




Il Giornale, 2009, oil on canvas, 31 1/2 x 43 1/4 inches





Insomnia, 2008, oil on canvas, 39 1/4 x 47 1/4 inches




The Red Jacket , 2008, oil on canvas, 43 1/4 x 31 1/2 inches




Traveller, 2008, oil on canvas, 20 x 22 inches

Will Cotton, until June 19, Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris

Will Cotton's latest exhibition at Galerie Daniel Templon Paris, examines ideas of desire and lack: landscapes made of icre cream and candyfloss, the most ephemeral of sweets.



Consuming Folly. 2009-2010, oil on canvas, 183 x 244 cm





Fairy Floss, 2009-2010, oil on canvas, 311 x 142 cm





Apennine, 2009-2010, oil on canvas, 213 x 193 cm





Ice Cream, 2009, oil on canvas, 61 x 86 cm

Visionary Art, until May 5, Mondo Bizzarro Gallery, Rome

Last days to see VISIONARY ART a group show at Mondo Bizzarro Gallery, Rome. The exhibition features the work of Greg Simkins, Laurie Lipton, Naoto Hattori and Mike Davis.


Laurie Lipton, The Queen of Bones, 131 x 78 cm



Naoto Hattori, Inspired, 30.5 x 30.5 cm



Greg Simkins, The Goblin Whale, 61 x 46 cm



Mike Davis, Learning to walk again, 51 x 41 cm ca.

Mark Ryden, until June 5, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York

Mark Ryden's exhibition titled THE GAY 90'S: OLD TYME ART SHOW opens tonight (April 29th) at New York's Paul Kasmin Gallery.


Dress in your best "Olde Tyme" outfit and come to the
Opening Reception: Thursday Evening, April 29, 2010, from 5 to 8 p.m.
Paul Kasmin Gallery, 293 Tenth Ave. New York, NY 10001


The Gay 90's: Old Tyme Art Show, an exhibition of 23 new paintings and works on paper will be Ryden's first significant solo show in New York since 2003, as well as his first with this gallery.

"The central theme of The Gay 90s: Old Tyme Art Show references the idealism of the 1890s while addressing the role of kitsch and nostalgia in our current culture. "In the modern era, sentimentality and beauty have been disdained in the art world," he explains. "This new work is explores the line between attraction and repulsion to kitsch, and between beauty and banality." Through their visual richness and symbolic complexity, Ryden's infinitely suggestive dreamscapes invite us to enter their world and to indulge our sense of wonder."

Quote courtesy of Paul Kasmin Gallery.


To visit Mark Ryden's website Click Here



Incarnation, 2009, oil on panel 72 x 48 inches




The piano player, 2010, oil on canvas, 20 x 30 inches




The Grinder, 2010, oil on canvas, 37 1/2 x 25 1/2 inches




Virgin and Child, 2010, oil on canvas, 24 x 18 inches




Pink Lincoln, 2010, oil on canvas, 22 x 16 inches

David Kassan 2 hour live streaming Question and Answer Event from his Brooklyn studio

David Kassan's much awaited DVD launch is happening today CLICK HERE and David always being generous with his time has agreed to to do a 2 hour live streaming Question and Answer Event from his Brooklyn studio for the modest fee of only 10 bucks.

8:00 p.m. Wednesday April 21, 2010 US/Eastern Time
(12:00:00 Midnight Wednesday April 21, 2010 GMT)





David Kassan will be doing a little materials demonstration of how he applies and layers in charcoal, show clips from the new drawing DVD, and answer any questions about gallery representation, different approaches to drawing/painting, and anything else that is thrown at him during the 2 hours.


This event is sponsored by Lisa Gloria and Cindy Procious of http://artstudiosecrets.com/ who will be moderating the event.

To sign up to the David Kassan Live Webcast 4-21-2010 please Click Here







David Kassan at work

Francesca Sundsten, until April 30, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco

Francesca Sundsten's exhibition Portraiture at Jenkins Johnson Gallery is worth taking the time out to visit.



Tweet, 2010, oil on canvas, 12 x 12 inches


Portraiture

The traditional compositional standard of the centralized figure in portraiture provides a foundation for this body of work. The stability of the image allowed me to experiment with and explore elements that paint allows: atmosphere, shifts in palette, and minor abstractions.

It seems a mode of the times that we're each experiencing some form of identity crisis and re-evaluation of the status quo. In a way, these paintings go back to the self as reference for examination, each, whether human or animal, are a concocted version of a possible 'me'. It was interesting to allow myself greater breadth in the final collection of works, allowing each painting to become what it wanted to be rather than trying to tie them together in a more imposed fashion. It seemed a good time to push my boundaries. I hope to continue.

I also looked for a sense of lightness and air in the work, though in the end the ones lighter in value became darker in mood, while the darker in palette became more humorous. This is something I've only realized in retrospect as it was unintentional. If there is one thing that ties my work together through the years, it's the constant factor of dichotomy: realism/abstraction, graphic/atmospheric, humor/horror, beautiful/ disturbing, traditional/pop, observed/imagined, and so on. The combining of these opposites that appear to be mutually exclusive is my key to painting.

Artist statement courtesy of Francesca Sundsten and Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco




Tenebrium, 2010, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 inches




Deer, 2010, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 inches




Ether, 2010, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches




Owl, 2010, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches