Artists Describing Their Art:
Steven Derks - Artist Statement: Color field Paintings & Gridscapes My work is best described as accidental beauty or Shibui as the Japanese call it. It's my job to reconstruct those accidents with diverse methods yet a consistent result. The two most important tools in my work are a stick to push and pull paint around, and the sun, to accelerate the drying. The desert is the perfect place to make this work. While the painting is in the sun cracking and crazing may happen. Placing a painting in the sun to dry is similar to putting ceramics in a kiln. I can anticipate the results but I can't always predict what will happen. Picasso used to say, " Painting is stronger than me. It makes me do things I normally wouldn't do". I'm influenced by Turners skies, Rothko's compositions, and Richter's method of pulling paint. STEVEN DERKS ...
Mavis Mcclure - Mavis McClure Born: 1967 Selected Exhibitions: 2004 Chaco Gallery (w/Nathan Oliveria & Peter Voulkos) 2002 Oakland City Gallery (w/Viola Frey), Oakland, CA 2001 Solo Show, LewAllen Contemporary 2000 "From the Fire", Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA "Contemporary Figure", LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe 1999 Solo Show, Jan Baum, Los Angeles, CA "Enduring Form", LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe SOFA Chicago, Sandy Carson, Denver, CO 1998 Solo Show, Virginia Breier, San Francisco, CA "Pedestals & Stretchers", LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM "30 Ceramics", John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA Olive Grove Sculpture Walk, Auberge du Soleil 1997 "Saving Grace", A New Leaf Gallery, Berkeley, CA "30 Ceramics", John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA 1996 "Au Plien Air", A New Leaf Gallery, Berkeley, CA Ceramic Sculpture, Virginia Breier, San Francisco, CA Publications: American Craft San Francisco Chronicle Santa Fe Magazine ArtWeek Albuquerque Journal Contra Costa Times San Jose Mercury News Trend Magazine Interior Design New York Times Collections: Doug Ring, Los Angeles, CA American Museum of Ceramic Art Fourth Street Shopping District, Berkeley, CA CB & Dick Watts, Los Altos, CA Howard & Matilda Rubin, Santa Fe, NM Estate of Jerry Garcia, Mill Valley, CA Mary & John Carrington, Newport Coast, CA Anita Roddick, West Sussex, England Robin & Leonard ...
Damon Hyldreth - Embodying the tension between stasis and impending movement, my work reflects a refined balance of positive and negative space while simultaneously existing as reductionist, self-referential form. In my artistic process of exploration, blending emotion with form, I allow the work to evolve, probing shapes, investigating their capacity to change. I seek to reveal the nature of the material, allowing it to take on a life of it's own. I'm continually looking for that special moment when a new sculpture comes to life. When I first arrive at something new, something that I sense as true, the sense of recognition I feel is like meeting a long lost friend, someone you knew long ago in a far away land, the memory of which is like smoke in a mirror. I use stainless steel, weathering steel, and bronze for their natural surface and permanence and their maintenance free ability to withstand weather extremes. When using mild steel I either leave it black and oil it, or paint it red. These materials, though different, all carry my forms well.. ...
Angelo Mazzoleni - ARTISTS ITALIAN CONTEMPORARY: BIOGRAPHY ESSENTIAL ARTIST Angelo Mazzoleni was born in Florence on June 7, 1952 .. It starts soon his artistic activity, cultivated already in the youth, under the guidance of some teachers and attending courses at the Accademia Carrara Bergamo.In these years, participates in the first exhibitions painting in Lombardy and in other Italian regions. Some travel, particularly in Germany and Paris, enrich his artistic and cultural baggage and affect its first part of pittorica.Si also interested in discovering paleontology in particular some important fossils, donated to museums in Milan and Bergamo, including a erionide a generally still unknown and which was given its name in the relevant publications scientifiche.L'interest in the mystery of the past, for history, especially early in his ancestral size, is one of the other elements that characterize the His research also in the field of painting, even before the foundation, with other artists, the group "NEW ART SINCRETICA." "The evolutionary path of the artist, now thirty years, is marked by a personal search for the origins of the world of its vital forces Which, despite the variety of themes and techniques, appears as a single inner journey through time and ...
Dj Whelan - Through the improvisational ideals of vernacular architecture, I've been exploring issues of loss, necessity, social function and creativity as they pertain to homelessness. The small dwellings I construct from bits of earth and recycled materials are inspired by the creative housing solutions of outsiders, squatters and displaced populations, and suggest the random yet deliberate order of building a home when the means of shelter are left to chance and inspired necessity. In an effort for survival and self-expression, man-made objects are married to nature, form and function overlap by default, and home comes together piece by piece. ...
Yucel Donmez - Yucel Donmez's place in Turkish and American Art History: Yucel Donmez has been continuing his artistic work in Chicago since 1980. He has staged many exhibitions both in Turkey and in the States and was accepted into one of the most influential art encyclopaedias to shape American art history, 'Who is Who in American Art' in 2000. His inclusion in the 'Biographical Encyclopaedia of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers of the U.S.' in 2002, followed by the 'Devonport's Art Reference' encyclopaedia, Donmez has secured a permanent place in American art history. Yucel Donmez also appears among the 63 artists from Chicago to have entered the renowned art reference book, 'Art Diary International', published every year by the famous 'Flash Art' magazine in Italy. Awards: 2003 'Who is Who in American Art' prize plaquette Donmez has been recognised by American art critics (Alan Artner, Chicago Tribune, 1989) as an artist who has shed new light upon the art of painting with his self-developed painting techniques. He obtained 'The National Medal of Art' one of the most important awards in the United States in 1995, for his 11-year-long ...
Ali Gallo - Uncovering and bringing to the surface what boils beneath creates the tension necessary for a dialog to begin between the idea and the artist and/or the art and the viewer. Finding anyway to create this tension, gouging, scratching, laying, etc in a painting or sculpture allows for deeper inspection, providing the incredible power of metaphor for the human condition....
Mark Dedrie - Mark Dedrie, an artist in motion by Robin d'Arcy Shillcock The first things you notice when confronted by work of Belgian sculptor Mark Dedrie (1962) are the stylized shapes and their highly polished finish. Although working within the tradition in which colour is omitted in favour of form, his approach is not so much classical an literal as turning a refined distillation of visual reality into a sculptural statement. He transforms a world of colour and movement into a world of presences, of volumes and elegant lines, and manages weightlessness in heavy bronze. This results in tactile, visually attractive sculptures. There aren't too many sculptors who know how to stylize animal shapes well, and even fewer that seek the degree of refinement Dedrie is striving for. It results in soft and sensual surfaces that underline the exquisite grace of birds like ducks and long-legged waders. There are honestly merely a few I can name. Francois Pompon (France 1855-1933) worked on Rodin's marble sculptures before becoming one of the greatest animal sculptors of the modern era. His work instigated what I call the Movement of Form, comprising the sculptors who preferred to distance themselves from ...
David Rocky Aguirre - ************** To me, Art seems to be a universal language. It can be used to portray something beautiful and uplifting, or to portray a tragedy to motivate and move people to act. To motivate them to help in some way as in Picasso's "Guernica 1937". I have a wide range in creative interests, from most forms of painting- oil to watercolor and on to print forms, sculpture, photography, film and computer animation. Contact me for any creative projects you may have....
Bruce Naigles - From a philosophical standpoint, all that we perceive in the world of form is an outer expression of an inner dynamic. Though my work is predominantly figurative, I find it to be the art of giving form to the formless; ideas, emotions, relationships, events. These are by their very nature intangible and essentially abstract, though they continually alter and effect our physical reality. We read them through our intuitive understanding of body language, much as snow blown about on a winter's day reveals the invisible movement and form of the wind. To 'clothe' these subliminal qualities in human figures and bring them forth in a sculpture, whether it be a simple figure inspired by a model's beauty or an allegory of our human condition, is the basic goal and driving force in my work. ...
Jack Hill - All of my sculptural work is bronze, cast in the "lost wax" technique. Besides sculpting the original work, I am hands on with all the phases of the casting process, including the molds, waxes, metal, and application of the patinas. My foundry experience allows me to ensure the quality and integrity of each idea, from inspiration to final presentation. The ideas are born from observation of the human existence, in all its splendor and absurdity. The addition of my own whimsy and uncommon approach brings about an expression of life in the permanence of bronze. People are only one part of the whole planet and my anthropomorphic works are an exploration of the blending of man into various parts of the environment. With attention to anatomic detail and a tongue-in-cheek twist I wish to stimulate the imagination and, maybe, tickle the funny bone. Questions? Call me at 305/240-3238 A new line of work has been added that I call "Body Armor". The human form is treated as if skin was an armor that could be put on or removed as needed. If it had been lost long ago and recently rediscovered, what would it look like. ...