I saw this artist's work in person at the Art Basel art show in Miami

Hung Lui's exhibition at the Bernice Steinbaum gallery
is called "Richter scale" and its INCREDIBLE. Some of the MFA and BFA students went to Art Basel Art Show in Miami December 4-7 2010. We got to meet Bernice Steinbaum herself. She's an older woman dedicated to the art collecting business for many many years. Shes a Jewish woman from New York and greeted us with mallard duck slippers on her feet. She's passionate and so in tune with the Fine Art world and showed us around the gallery with such love for all the pieces she's collected. Hung Lui is the showcasing artist in the downstairs of the gallery and WOW they are so moving. They are massive and if I could estimate, I would guess some are triptych or diptychs 20 feet long.

'Asparas- White' (2009
Bernice told us that when she's overwhelmed with her life, she looks at this painting of an old woman who has lost everything. Her daughter's been raped, her grandchildren have been killed, her land's been taken. And Bernice knows life isn't all that bad. This piece is moving to say the least. It's probably 7'x7'

But other images suggest the raw wounds of natural disaster, with an elderly woman crying aloud and a toddler pressing a surgical mask to her face: two images with similar titles Asparas (White and Black). Liu effortlessly balances life and death, yin and yang, hope and despair with her works without resorting to melodrama or overindulgence in hysterical gore.

"Richter Scale" succeeds in its storytelling, with a fresh and pertinent narrative, while maintaining a sincere dedication to viewing beautiful objects. Since when did modern art become beautiful to look at again? Many would think that the jarring, aggressive nature of contemporary art (a la Damien Hirst or Anselm Kiefer, for example) would be the "right" way to regard the darkness of the human condition. Liu reminds us that being aware doesn't mean having our minds (or our stomachs) continuously attacked.

I love the use of light in this one and the side painting to the left. The circle is a symbol she uses often

This is an artist I really like right now

Dana Schutz inspires me with her ability to create large scale paintings from very surprising and inventive narratives. She got her Masters at Columbia, studied at skowhegan and got her BFA at Cleveland Institute of the Arts. Her studio is in New York. I enjoy her titles also. I hope you guys appreciate these




Gravity Fanatic

"When I'm in periods like this, a lot of times I'll respond directly to what I just made," she said. "I wanted to stay away from figures and really saturated colors. So I started making abstract paintings, mostly because I have no idea how to make an abstract painting, and I was interested in that."

"I think that's just part of how it is with making art," she said. "Sometimes you're just flooded with ideas, and then other times you're questioning all the ideas you ever had before and everything is just ... lame."

Her work is interesting and she's also a very prolific artist. There are 43 images in the catalog and these are only the very best work - there are a lot more we could have included. Ideas sort of ooze out of her.
Schutz uses painting as a means to invent things which just can't exist in any other genre. In Chris's Rubber Soul, she uses two-dimensional medium to create a sculpture: half archaic technology, half totemic fetish. Bound by no other logic than its own representation, Schutz offers a form for no other reason that its own contemplation, of beauty, humour, plausibility and possible function.

Singed Picnic

Reformers
Dana Schutz's work has been described as ‘teetering on the edge of tradition and innovation'. 'My paintings are loosely based on metanarratives. The pictures float in and out of pictorial genres. Still lifes become personified, portraits become events and landscapes become constructions. I embrace the area between which the subject is composed and decomposing, formed and formless, inanimate and alive. Recently I have been making paintings of sculptural goddesses, transitory still lifes, people who make things, people who are made and people who have the ability to eat themselves. Although the paintings themselves are not specifically narrative, I often invent imaginative systems and situations to generate information. These situations usually delineate a site where making is a necessity, audiences potentially don't exist, objects transcend their function and reality is malleable .'

Gathering

Breeders

Twin Parts

Night sculpting

Dana in her studio

Jill Hoy

Today, Ian and I went to see Jill Hoy speak at UCSC. She is a friend of the one and only Art DiMambro...She had a wonderful way of speaking; enthusiastic and unanalytical. She talked about life in years and painting as a spiritual practice. She paints in Somerville and on Deer Isle in Maine...

Gel Transfer

http://www.laraberch.com/geltransfer.php

This is something I'm trying for my next project. I'm using computer printouts of my old house...And transferring them to fabric... I'm using Golden Soft Gel Gloss. I'll let you know how it goes! Until then...If you have any experience or insight-tell me! Xoxo

keo

Art by Lindsay Stockbridge

Im not up to date with my photos but here are some from the past, mainly last semester. Hope you like my stuff!

Copper Bird

6''

Animal Chairs

Slotted Sheet Metal

17''

Traveling Man Marionette

Mixed Media
Hollow Log

Bronze

10''
Tree Knee

Plaster

15''

Kelley O'Leary

3 of 13 in the series

pen and ink, watercolor, acrylic

Test #956, 2011

Here's a taste of my current project. I used found negatives and converted them to slides. Then I projected the slides onto these portions of my body from a slide projector...

Gut, 2011

Beeswax, twine, stones

Kate MacDowell, Cont'd

http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/arts/kate-macdowell

Read her interview...It may change your mind about the simplistic thinking we had assumed of her earlier...

Sadie says.....February is Put-Up-Your-Own-Artwork-Month!!!

Adrienne Skye Roberts

http://adrienneskyeroberts.wordpress.com/

This is a link to my professor's blog. She is a visiting artist (and critic) from San Francisco. The class is entitled Art 148: The Public Body/ The Intimate Body. I will post images soon of my work from the class!

-keo