Art

Shopping Local! (vers 2)

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Shopping Local II, acrylics on canvas, 8 x 8″, 20 x 20 cm
This is a smaller version of my submission for a special exhibit at Art Basel in Miami September, 2019.  The exhibit is about Consumerism.  
“The browsing, selection and purchase of goods and commodities have become one of the defining activities of modern urban life. In this consumer culture, shopping has become a crucial ritual for shaping and transforming our identities. Artists have always been fascinated and intrigued by the consumer culture and the way it shapes our society.
At first perceived as the American phenomenon, the consumerist lifestyle has soon spilled over to the rest of the world through globalization and the rise of the free market economy. Unlike Pop Art’s playful and often ambivalent attitude towards the consumer culture, the generation of artists that came after took a more decisive and hostile stand towards it. Since advertising has always played a crucial role in perpetuating mechanisms and values of consumer culture, many of these artists have made it the center of their practice. For example, Ron English has introduced the concept of billboard hijacking where he appropriated the mass media messages and imagery to create subversive and political statements. Today, many contemporary artists explore and criticize the idea of consumerism in a variety of ways. Employing various visual and conceptual strategies to question consumerism, artists such as Gabriel Kuri, Josephine Meckseper, Irina Korina or Martin Basher explore various aspects of commerce and exchange such as models of trading with it as in selling and buying, the labor that generates these goods, global distribution networks, social and economic structures that support it, the notion of value or the role of goods consumption in construction of our identities. Rather than criticizing the consumption on a superficial level, they tend to deconstruct this phenomenon from the inside out.”

Portrait of Frank Zappa

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Musician who became popular in the 1960’s.  1940 -1993.  From the Wiki:

He was an American multi-instrumentalist musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity, and satire of American culture.[2] In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist.[3] Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse rock musicians of his era.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa

Frank Zappa, pastels, 8.5 x 11, A4

 

Shopping Local!

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Shopping Local 1, acrylics on canvas, 10 x 10″, 25 x 25 cm pprox
The browsing, selection and purchase of goods and commodities have become one of the defining activities of modern urban life. In this consumer culture, shopping has become a crucial ritual for shaping and transforming our identities. Artists have always been fascinated and intrigued by the consumer culture and the way it shapes our society.
At first perceived as the American phenomenon, the consumerist lifestyle has soon spilled over to the rest of the world through globalization and the rise of the free market economy. Unlike Pop Art’s playful and often ambivalent attitude towards the consumer culture, the generation of artists that came after took a more decisive and hostile stand towards it. Since advertising has always played a crucial role in perpetuating mechanisms and values of consumer culture, many of these artists have made it the center of their practice. For example, Ron English has introduced the concept of billboard hijacking where he appropriated the mass media messages and imagery to create subversive and political statements. Today, many contemporary artists explore and criticize the idea of consumerism in a variety of ways. Employing various visual and conceptual strategies to question consumerism, artists such as Gabriel Kuri, Josephine Meckseper, Irina Korina or Martin Basher explore various aspects of commerce and exchange such as models of trading with it as in selling and buying, the labor that generates these goods, global distribution networks, social and economic structures that support it, the notion of value or the role of goods consumption in construction of our identities. Rather than criticizing the consumption on a superficial level, they tend to deconstruct this phenomenon from the inside out.

Muiden Castle, water color

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Muiden is a small town near Weesp.  It’s castle protected the entrance to Amsterdam from the southeast.  There’s a large lock controlling entrance to the Vecht River where the moated castle is located.  

 

Muiden Castle, Amsterdam’s protection, water color, 8 x 8″, 20 cm x 20 cm on Arches paper

Bridge in Edam, watercolor painting

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This is a watercolor painting of a bridge in Edam.  The narrow canal is protected from the Ijsselmeer by a lock.  There are 7 bridges.  A bridge tender takes you through, biking from one to the next.   It’s a lovely place to visit, by boat or otherwise.  

 

 

Bridge in Edam, watercolor, 8 x8,” 20 cm x 20 cm Arches paper

 

Woman in a Van Gogh Field

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I joined with two other artists in Valencia to hire a model with whom we enjoyed working.  She is able to hold long poses.  Over three hours I painted her in acrylics and later added the clothing and background.   I took as inspiration for the background the landscape paintings of Van Gogh, with a twist.

Woman In a Van Goghish Field, 75 x 36 cm, 30 x 14″ acrylics on paper