Confrontations and Observations will be at Yeiser Art Center in Paducah, Kentucky until Oct. 30, 2012.

The exhibit features the work of Knoxville, TN artist Denise Stewart-Sanabria  www.stewart-sanabria.com, and West Lafayette, IN artist Christine Wuenschel www.christinewuenschel.com 

The Yeiser's new Yak sculpture has been Yarn Bombed!

Yeiser Art Center www.theyeiser.org is the principle art non-profit in Paducah, Kentucky, a city that was put on the arts map by a major urban renewal experiment driven by an artist relocation plan. People whom I've exhibited with in the past, Travis Graves and Anne Bagby had shown there, so I liked that. Also, Wuenschel and I are in a book together, INDA 6, produced by Manifest Gallery in Cincinatti, so I  knew her work and loved it. Local professor Randy Simmons, ironically also in that same book, was on the Yeiser board at the proposal submission time and pushed to have us exhibit together. It's interesting when you find out how the process works.

http://www.paducahalliance.org/artist-relocation-program

My installation piece, Quantum Confusion, filled the center of the gallery, while Wuenschel's drawings on paper covered the walls. My favorite aspect of the blending of our work was how her massive panoramic piece looked from the back of my piece. My people became silent observers.

Wuenschel, (left) and myself hit our gallery talks.

Wuenschel talks with Randy Simmons, local professor at WKCTC http://www.randysimmonsdrawings.com/Home.html

We appreciated a really decent article in the Paducah Sun. (Note to artists who do nudes; PG crop your 300 dpi's before submitting to papers-that way the other artist doesn't get handed all the image space and ends up feeling like a hog.)

_______________________________________________

Walk Around Time

I had a whole day to wander around downtown. It is a really beautiful town with an interesting history. We ate in a bar that had these tiles on the floor. I like weird tiles.

The night before, we had been on the outside of town, which had a certain kultural authenticity that reminded me of Pigeon Forge, TN. So, we stuck to downtown.

Downtown has had tremendous renovation, with more to go. I think they are working on this beautiful old movie theater (above) and below, you can see one of the old brick streets and the side of the Yeiser, that connects to a small history museum.

There is a history of incredible floods in the city, as the marker on the side of a building on the 3rd block from the river attests. This portion of the Ohio River is just miles above where the Tennessee River joins it. The gallery is 2 blocks from the river.

The entire river side has lines of flood walls that now protect the city from disaster, painted with wonderful history murals.

The chair below is on the Kentucky side, the land on the other side is Illinois.

Farmer's Market: Stuff for sale above, extinct food supplies below.

Early settlers and Indians discover the National Quilt Museum.

~
The neighborhoods downtown where the artist relocation program occurred have gone from ruins to gorgeous. Many of the artists who live there don't exhibit locally, but many have galleries in their studios. 2nd Saturdays are when they open for receptions to the public together, but many are open Sat. afternoons. When I went to William F. Renzulli's studio (he relocated from PA), he showed me something really cool I'd never heard of-clay slip printing. He has this huge clay tablet he uses as a base. The basic concept is mono-printing, but is done on the tablet with clay slip mixed with pigment and other materials. He has just smeared on a couple pigments here, and is grinding chalk dust into part of it, plus using a plastic circle as a stencil. After, he sprays it with water a bit, and then sprays his print surface, which is not paper, but commercial garment interfacing. It is the stuff used to stiffen lapels, waistbands, ect. It is white, and partially translucent. He does a series of prints using a roller for transfer. Each print is pulled from a sub-surface of the first, where years of previous slip and pigment reside, ready to be reactivated. It is kind of like an archeological dig.

This below shows the transitions from 1st pull, upper left, to last, lower right.

I went next to Keyth Kahrs' studio. He is mainly a landscape painter who does pop art also, like the multilayer plywood cutout corn dog painting. He's working on a hotdog now. I think they'd be cool in a restaurant.

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More wandering around:
See all the locations for Finkel's? I was excited to see Metropolis. I went on a search for Superman.

I found him!

I spent some time just wandering around playing Photo Shoot, and found more cool stuff.

Paducah School of Art, below.

October Exhibit: "Confrontations and Observations: Drawings by Denise Stewart-Sanabria & Christine Wuenschel."

The Yeiser Art Center of Padukah, Kentucky hosts an exhibit titled "Confrontations and Observations: Drawings by Denise Stewart-Sanabria & Christine Wuenschel." The opening reception will be held Saturday, October 6, from 5PM to 7PM, and the show runs through Tuesday, October 30.

www.theyeiser.org

(the dates on their web site haven't been corrected)

Quantum Confusion    Denise Stewart-Sanabria  charcoal on plywood   8' x8' x 18'

Christine Wuenschel
In the Flesh (side-view)

http://www.christinewuenschel.com/ChristineWuenschel/Home.html

Upcoming Lecture at the Huntsville Museum of Art

The Huntsville Museum of Art

presents

The Artists' Point of View

Sunday, September 16, 2 p.m.

in conjunction with

The Red Clay Survey: 2012 Exhibition

of Contemporary Southern Art

Dori DeCamillis, Museum Purchase Award Winner, Thy Self, Thy Foe, 2011, oil on panel, 16x20 in.

Only 10 days remain to view 80 works by 61 artists

from 10 Southern states in the the popular Red Clay Survey!

On the final day, join Red Clay artists Denise Stewart-Sanabria

of Knoxville, Tenn., Kathleen Girdler Engler of Augusta, Ga.,

Dori DeCamillis of Birmingham, Ala., and John Powers also

of Birmingham, as they discuss their works in person.

The program is FREE to Museum members

and included in general admission for non-members.

Join us for a reception following the program.

Click HERE for more information

or call 256-535-4350.

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

 © Copyright 2012 The Journal Gazette. All rights reserved. Neither this material nor its presentation may be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

"Epicurean Disturbance" at 16 Patton

"Epicurean Disturbance" at 16 Patton Gallery, Asheville, NC

August 10 through September 9

www.16patton.com 

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

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

Recent review inclusion

Delicious art awaits at Customs House

National juried show reveals countrywide creativity

1:21 AM, May. 27, 2012

To lovely effect, 'The Scottish Lady' by Matthew Deric Gore pays tribute to the painters of 1600s-era Netherlands and to famed American artist John Singer Sargent. / Contributed

Written by inclusion

Karen Parr-Moody

Leaf-Chronicle/Clarksville TN

Customs House Museum’s National Juried Exhibition

WHEN: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday; 1 p.m. - 5 p.m. Sunday, through Aug. 5
WHERE: 200 S. Second St.
COST: $7 adults, $5 seniors, $5 teachers and college students with I.D., $3 children six to18 and free for museum members and children younger than 6. On the second Saturday of each month, museum admission is free for all.
CALL: 648-5780
ONLINE: customshousemuseum.org

CLARKSVILLE, TENN. — What diversity exists in a national juried art show — and what luck we have that the Customs House Museum’s biennial juried exhibition is once again open to the public.

Among the 44 works are those that received official awards, as chosen by juror and artist Alison Oakes. The Best in Show prize went to Alessandra Sulpy for her painting “Sunshine, Lollipop & Rainbow Come for a Visit.” Second place went to Leslie Shiels for her colorful “Provincial Hound, Right.”

Leslie Shiels, for her colorful 'Provincial Hound, Right,' won second place in the Customs House Museum's biennial juried exhibition. / Contributed

Local photographer Greg Sand received third place for “Remnants of Ella.” Matthew Deric Gore of Nashville and Elizabeth Porter of Knoxville won honorable mentions.

Clarksville artist Greg Sand received third place for his woven photo collage, 'Remnants of Ella,' in Customs House Museum's national juried show. / Contributed

As with any show, the winners are a matter of preference — in this case the judge’s — but of course, viewers will have their own personal favorites.

Gore, to my mind, will be a favorite of those visitors who appreciate a classical painting style. His technical prowess is stunning. He has three pieces in the show.

Gore’s award-winning oil painting, “The Scottish Lady,” is done in the vein of the great still life painters of the early 1600s who flourished in the Netherlands. There is a dark intensity to his work that is taken straight from the refined execution of Dutch painters, who thought nothing of pairing a pretty floral arrangement with a stark skull.

“The Scottish Lady” to whom Gore refers is actually Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, Gertrude Vernon, who was painted in 1892 and 1893 by the famous American artist John Singer Sargent. Sargent had a knack for making lovely ladies famous with his brushstrokes, as he did with his “Portrait of Madame X” of Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau. (That sitter’s bare shoulders caused such a scandal at the time that the painter removed the piece from public display and kept it in his studio for almost 30 years.)

In “The Scottish Lady,” Gore paints Lady Agnew on the page of an open book, its side planted on the table by a skull. Nearby is a selection of books; one is entitled “Sargent in Italy.” The painting is a clever nod in several ways. It reveals that Gore takes his own inspiration from centuries past. It also asserts that even for the fresh bloom that was Lady Agnew, death hovers nearby; riches can protect no one from the meaning of that ominous skull.

Another striking oil painting, which won no awards, is Denise Stewart Sanabria’s “Impaled Strawberries.” Her buttery strokes of oil capture the berries’ glossy juice as it drips down the canvas. In the way that painter Wayne Thiebaud elevated cakes and pastries during the 1950s and 1960s, Sanabria has lifted the lowly strawberry to lofty heights.  And the results are delicious.

Denise Stewart Sanabria's oil painting 'Impaled Strawberries' depicts the sensual gloss of strawberries in a style similar to Wayne Thiebaud's cakes of the 1950s and 1960s. / Contributed

The oil painting “Symbiosis” by California painter Mei-Ying Dell’Aquila is also memorable. From a series called “Liberty,” it plays with our notions about the Statue of Liberty. Gone is the carefully looped hair, replaced by flowing curls. This young lady’s mouth is not soberly set. Instead, she gives the hint of a sly smile. This is a modern version of our nation’s beloved statue, a woman flanked by colorful dragons in a moment of surety.

Such a show as the National Juried Exhibition is a rare treat that allows audiences to experience contemporary art from an array of sources. While a number of local artists were included, this show takes viewers on a trip across the U.S. while never leaving the Crouch Gallery.

And what a trip it is.