Lee Bonetcou

I am not sure how or why I never learned about this incredible artist when I was in art school and the more art I seem to "discover" on my own makes me more and more angry about the canon of art excluding and without  mention absolutely incredible women artists. But before I launch any further into a rant about the gaping holes in the canon of western art let's meet Lee Bontecou.

Lee Bontecou was a very successful artist in the late 1950's and the 1960's. She was represented by New York Galleries and her shows consistently sold out. Much of her work is in permanent collections in places like New York, Washington, Chicago, and San Francisco. She disappeared from the gallery world after her daughter was born, teaching at Brooklyn College and working in solitude and isolation for nearly thirty years. A retrospective of her work both the early sculptural work and her later works on paper was exhibited at the Hammer Museum in LA in 2003. The show later travelled to MOCA in San Francisco and to MOMA in New York in 2004.


In the early part of her career she worked mainly in sculpture creating massive pieces which project off the gallery wall toward the viewer. She combines traditional materials of painting, canvas and her pieces hang on the wall like a traditional painting but they are anything BUT traditional. Her pieces include welded and stitched canvas and hide which feel industrial and mechanical yet organic in a terrible haunting sort of way. Each piece contains at its centre a vortex completely void of light – literally a black hole.

She was greatly influences by the trauma of World War 2 and later by space exploration and the world of astronomy but she refuses to label herself or her work. It is very clear that she doesn't care what you think of her work and struggles against anyone who may try to define it.

Lee Bontecou just celebrated her 83 birthday and is still working away in her studio doing whatever the hell she pleases, no doubt. I will leave you with a quote that struck me as vital to understanding the creative process:

"[Drawing] can get your imagination moving and you can work from your inner world rather than always from the external world"

Soot Drawing 1958

 You read more about this incredibe artist and her work here and to see more of her work do a google image search or type her name into Pinterest

Have a look at her work and share your thoughts and comments below.

 

Rebecca Haines

These days Pinterest is serving as the best place for me to discover new artists who inspire my work. I have a number of "new" artists I'll be featuring this year so make sure to join the blog to stay tuned.

Rebecca Haines is as interested in animals as I am. She has lived and worked in Wyoming, Colorado California and New Mexico. Her work is an exploration of that moment when humans and animals meet. At that moment when Animals and humans share a space there is the potential to learn something if you can put down your iPhone camera and stop talking.

Haines work invites you to look more closely, to stop and meditate on the moment of interaction with a wild animal so that you might be able to activate that memory of wild in your own DNA and connect with the natural world from which we have so neatly excised ourselves.

Take some time to really look at the shifting image and delicate subtleties of her work and you might come away with a moment of understanding.

You can see her work here or visit the Tom Ross Gallery.

Ronald Ceuppens

I have found many new artists to explore from perusing the amazing things posted on Pinterest. I never expected it would become such a source of inspiration for me and my work. I have discovered a handful of incredible print artists there in the last little while and I am excited to share them with you.

The first one is Ronald Ceuppens, a Belgian printmaker. Unfortunately for me, his site is in Belgian and I cannot quite grasp the exact impetus for his work but that hardly matters once you see it. I am particularly interested in the arrangement of print fragments and collage elements in his "collections". I am also fascinated by his mixed media work about children.

His work is excellently crafted and evokes a sense of memory or dream although the results are often unsettling. I am drawn to the Dreamchild object, what appears to be a doll body encased in leather with ceramic branches for arms. It is unclear if this "child" is a memory or manifestation of birth or death or a physical representation of an imagined spirit.

Many of the pieces below are available in Ronald's Etsy Shop Fleurografie. I highly recommend having a look at the work he has posted there. If you would like to see more of Ronald's work be sure to visit his blog.

 

I discovered this little description in English on his blog though I am unsure of the source:

He likes long walks, hiking in the mountains or simply exploring the city. The itineraries of his walks are found in his work, reduces to their abstract form. Using sketches, drawings and objects collected during his walks, Ronald makes the designs for his prints. Reproduced in a repetitive manner they give rise to serial work in which each work speaks individually. The reconstructions of images made up of such fragments is a way of preserving the memory of a place The artist manages to translate nostalgia for the past into a search for future pleasure. Ronald Ceuppens creates an abstract world, filled with the sensitive melody of silence and serenity.

Roxanne Goffin

Roxanne Goffin is an artist currently completing her MA at University of Western England. Her series Disembodied combines paper cutouts layered over experimental etchings using paint stripper on acrylic plates to create an effect similar to traditional acid etching techniques.

I am fascinated by the way the cut forms interact with the random patterns created by the chemical reaction on the plate. The patterns remind me simultaneously of landscape and decomposition. The way the cut paper creates such fine borders and edges around the space yet seem to hover over or create a surface above the chaos. I love the idea of internal chaos whcih suggests both the anxiety of society in dealing with topics of death and the chaos resulting from mans attempt to place rigid forms upon the natural.

I look forward to seeing more of her work in the future. Visit her website and have a look at some of her other work.

Rose Marie Scanlon

I can't even remember where I stumbled across the works of Yukon artist Rose Marie Scanlon but once I saw the first delicate watercolours about hunters I was hooked. When I think of watercolour I think of flowers and seascapes and delicate landscapes that play with light. Rose Marie's watercolours play more with darks both in tone and theme. I really really want to see these in person up close because there is no way these tiny digital images are doing these justice.

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time then you know I have a soft spot for dead things, hunting, taxidermy and fine Canadian craftsmanship. Rose Marie Scanlon has created a series of works that look as if they are the antithesis of typical watercolour. The paintings seem to depict scenes of night, the subjects appearing like transparent ghosts in the darkness. The landscape evokes a northern feel and reflects her home in Yukon Canada. The themes are definitely Canadian and specifically rural in content. These paintings evoke the age old struggle between man and wilderness and have layer upon layer of narrative familliar to almost any rural-living Canadian.

The masked figure appears in at least two paintings looking out directly at the viewer. I am intrigued by this figure. Who is this hunter? And what's with his sweater?! Presumably he is  the one who has shot and killed the deer in the back of the pickup. Why is his face covered when most photos of a hunter with his bounty are not generally taken in disguise.

Every time I look at these paintings I see something I didn't see before. Unfortunately the images just aren't large enough to really see the details and so I guess all I can do is go to Whitehorse and hope to see them up close.

What do you think of these? Is there anything that stands out for you or that leaves you with questions?

Await the Thunder

Axemas

Bang Bang

Big Hunt

Manhole

Shadows of the Alaska Highway

The Hunt

See a Banksy Exhibition for FREE

Work posted to @banksyny instagram account October 2, 2013

If you are a fan of Banksy, street art, graffiti or just clever digs at "the man" you are in luck this month because Banksy is hosting an entire exhibit in NYC: Better Out Than In. For his street residency, he will be creating a work a day for the month of October. The best part? He is using social media to document it and share it with those of us outside the art mecca.

Each piece is documented and posted on Instagram by user banksyny. Each artwork is also accompanied by a phone number which the "audience" can call to hear a description of the work. This exhibition is being presented in its entirety online at Banksy's official website where you can listen to the phone messages by clicking on the link under each piece. you can even follow him on Twitter @banksyny and if you happen to see an original work (before it gets painted over) you can tag post it and tag it #banksyny.

Although the first piece has already been painted over, it is unclear whether the clean up crew knew it was an original piece of work possibly worth millions of dollars. Original Banksy works chiseled from their original locations have sold for millions at auction despite the fact that taking a piece of public art and making it private (and bloody expensive) seems like a crime against the entire intent of the work.

In my opinion this is a brilliant idea for a "residency" and exhibition. Not only is the art "out" on the street but it is also out in the sense that it will not belong to any one person as it is shared and ahred across social media and the internet. Any person with access to a cell phone or a computer now has access to watch and participate in an exhibition by a contemporary artist.

I will be watching this exhibit unfold with excitement and anticipation and will be very interested to see how social media will contribute to the exhibition. The implications on the art world by making the art accessible and interactive may also be the beginnings of a shift away from the gallery world and essentially give art back to the people who need it most.

What do you think? Are you excited to watch this unfold? Does it give you any ideas for how you might next interact with your audience?