Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Inclusion in Review/Fort Wayne Museum of Art



Michelle Davies | The Journal Gazette
A series of realist paintings by Jaye Schlesinger, featuring the rear ends of various vehicles, wait to be hung for Saturday’s opening of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s contemporary show.
Published: August 10, 2012 3:00 a.m.
Shock & awe value
Realist exhibit might challenge, enthrall visitors
Steve Penhollow | The Journal Gazette

Robert Schefman’s “Science of Structure” is one of the works of art on display in the Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s contemporary art show, opening Saturday.

Visiting the Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s Contemporary Realism Biennial is a little like opening an album of vacation photos and seeing things you didn’t expect to find.
On one wall of the museum there is a vibrant painting of a dahlia and a sumptuous one of river stones, and then there is Frank Trankina’s “Dream Cabinet.”
The cabinet in “Dream Cabinet” contains a few broken toys and a few that might seem less ominous if they were broken.
The museum’s curator of American art, Sarah Aubrey, says Trankina could have made his painting a more comfortable viewing experience by presenting the toys in a “cutesy little arrangement.” But instead “Dream Cabinet” is like the vacation photo that argues with your memories, but may get closer to the truth.
Aubrey says such paintings and arrangements of paintings challenge some people’s notions about what realism is and what it’s for.
“There is this misconception that it’s all homogenous,” she says. “Pretty pictures of flowers. But there is not only a diverse range of media in this show, there’s a diverse range of subject matter.”
Aubrey says some of the work is challenging.
“It makes you think outside the box,” she says.
The 2012 Contemporary Realism Biennial opens Saturday.


Ernest Viveiros’ “Spiked Dahlia”

What makes realism so popular, Aubrey says, is that most viewers quickly find something relatable in it.
Aubrey says it is the artists’ intention to “(pull) something out of them, evoke a memory.”


David Eichenberg’s “Fiona”

She jokingly describes realism as the “gateway drug” of art appreciation. But realism can’t be summed up as an attempt to make a painting look like a photograph, even though some of the paintings do indeed look like photographs.

Denise Stewart-Sanabria’s “Gastronomical Attractions”

Several of the works in the Biennial, such as Sharon Moody’s paintings of rolled-up comic books, are so photo-real that it is hard to discern any brush strokes.
And others, like Denise Stewart-Sanabria’s painting of key limes, stop being identifiable as limes if you get too close, just as Claude Monet’s lilies stop being lilies under the same circumstances.
There is an elegant painting of wine and cheese in the show and a painting of a pomegranate and a doughnut that is about as reassuring as surgical images.
Bruno Surdo’s “Right to Bear Arms,” which depicts a scene of violence that is equal parts visceral and allegorical, is no more bucolic than Hieronymus Bosch’s hell.
Even some of the work that should make us feel cozy has the power to unsettle us for reasons we can’t quite define.
For example, James Viewegh’s painting of a man hugging his son in a toy-filled room, which is somehow as otherworldly in almost unspecifiable ways as a scene from a science fiction film.
The museum doesn’t set out to offend people, Aubrey says, but they need to be prepared for the possibility that they will be offended by something.
Aubrey says she arranges works on the wall to create conversations.
Case in point is a grouping of three unique approaches to painting faces: Andrew Ek’s sardonic “Self Portrait Scratching Face”; Joel Ottman’s intense “Lipstick and Libido”; and Carl Gombert’s raw yet tender, “Mom During Chemotherapy.”
They are dissimilar and yet their coming together on the same wall encourages a viewer to reflect on their similarities, to consider how one piece affects the others.
Aubrey suggests that each work should generate a trilateral conversation.
“(It’s) what the artists brings to the conversation,” she says, “what the viewers bring to the conversation and what the artwork around it brings to the conversation.”

If you go
What: Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s 2012 Contemporary Realism Biennial
Where: Fort Wayne Museum of Art, 311 E. Main St.
When: Saturday through Oct. 28
Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday
Admission: $5 adults, $3 children, $10 families; free admission every Thursday and Sunday

Sunday, August 12, 2012

"Epicurean Disturbance" at 16 Patton

"Epicurean Disturbance" at 16 Patton Gallery, Asheville, NC
August 10 through September 9



Complete list of work
Cake VS Marshmallow   oil on panel    7.5” x 13.5”        $600
Double Zinger            oil on panel           6” x 12”     $600
Produce Butcher     oil on canvas        40” x 40”           $3,200
Inquisition Vanita:   oil on panel   20” x 16”    $900
Mini Moons and Zinger     oil on panel      18” x 24”       $950
Popped Cherry Danish      oil on canvas      30” x 30”     $2,500
Ripe Ritual                 oil on panel              24” x 30”     $1,000
                 Pomegranate          oil on panel      12” x 12”     $750                     
Cosmetic Extermination    oil on canvas     48” x 48"   $3,800
Mini Moons   oil on canvas   30" x 40"
Cosmetically Enhanced       oil on canvas      40” x 40"    $3,200

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Laurel of Asheville coverage/August exhibit at 16 Patton

Sterling Edwards and Denise Stewart- Sanabria at 16 Patton Fine Art Gallery

An exhibit of impressionistic and abstracted paintings by Hendersonville artist Sterling Edwards will be on exhibit at 16 Patton Fine Art Gallery in Asheville from August 10 through  September 9. Works will include wooded scenes as well as architectural themes that are mostly on canvas and painted in his interpretive style with an emphasis on choreographed colors  and expressive shapes. Sterling is a world-renowned and award-winning artist, author, and teacher. His paintings are in corporate and private collections around the world, and have been featured in several magazines and books.
Also on display from August 10 through September 9 will be paintings by Denise Stewart-Sanabria, of Tennessee, in an exhibit titled Epicurean Disturbance. “In an age of advertising gone wild, certain foods have achieved both iconic and cult status,” says the artist. “Whether it is junk food, or gastronomic pleasures past cultures venerated, what we eat often has achieved a  personality and life of its own. She adds, the paintings in this exhibit “hint at the behaviors of our culture, and I hope most of them are ambiguous enough so that the viewer can interpret them  in any way they wish.”
Denise paints both hyper-realist “portraits” of everything from produce to donuts, in addition drawing full-size portraits in charcoal on plywood and then cutting them out, using them to create  conceptual installations. There will be a reception with the artists from 5–8 p.m. on Friday, August 3, coinciding with the Downtown Art Walk.
The gallery is located at 16 Patton Avenue in downtown Asheville. For more information, visit 16patton.com or call 828.236.2882