Charles Burwell: 'Continuum'/Susie Brandt: 'Dam'

White Clusters & Blue Figures, 2007, oil on canvas, 16" x 16"


White Clusters & Blue Figures (detail)




Zones, 2007, oil on canvas, 23 1/2" x 18"

Stopped by the gallery to drop off a commissioned painting this afternoon and took the chance to see the Charles Burwell show sans the First Friday crowd. The show and work looked great. I've followed Burwell's work for years as a student and now I find myself exhibiting in the same gallery as him. Life's funny that way.

Burwell's canvases are filled with multiple layers of dripped paint patterns interspersed with hard-edged, sripped graphic elements-some curved and others straight. As inconcruous as this combination sounds, Burwell makes it work well. Using imagery that he began experimenting with in the 80's, Burwell adds layer upon layer of controlled paint drips and at some point, starts integrating the patterns and hard-edged curves into the works.

Also on display are several digital prints featuring his signature patterns in addition to multitudes of organic shapes. Some look like seashells and primitive life forms while others resemble cells of some sort, suggesting the intermingling of biology and technology. While digital, the prints have the look of very well executed etchings.

In conversation during the opening, Burwell told me that he never feels that the works are finished, regardless of how done they might look to the viewer. I've had those feelings myself about some of my exhibitions, but looking at Charle's paintings, I'd be hard-pressed to imagine anything else being done to them. The exciting thing is knowing he's nowhere near done and there's more to come, hence the title of his show, Continuum

Charles Burwell: 'Continuum' at Bridgette Mayer Gallery through October 27th, 2007

Vault Room:
Susie Brandt: 'Dam'




In the vault room is a piece by Baltimore-based textile artist, Susie Brandt. With Dam, Brandt has stacked folds of multicolored and texured fabrics along the back wall of the vault room at Bridgette Mayer. The first thing I noticed even before stepping into the truncated space was the vibrant colors and layers that allude to geology and other types of layering (metaphorical and literal). Secondly, the change in sound, or rather, the dampening of sound in the room brought another dynamic into play.

The fabric absorbs much of the sound that would ordinarily echo in the space, much the same as the walls of music studios. Not only are your visual senses engaged, your aural senses relay a message of calm that is at odds with the vibrant hues of the fabric. Dam works very well in the vault room and makes good use of an unusual space to great effect.

close

The Kiss

The rounded ramps of a parking garage barely brushing the walls of it's neighbor.

16 Blanks

16 Blanks

Those are 16 new 6" x 6" panels I'm planning on using for a new series. I spent most of the afternoon and evening sawing and glueing. The panels I purchased in four packs and added the wood supports myself. I enjoy doing prep work like that, but towards the end of the night, I just wanted to be done. I almost stopped for the day, but decided that it would be better to push through and finish the last few. The more I finished, the faster I could move on and get to working on them. I've had it in my head for a while to do some smaller pieces after working on larger paintings for two back-to-back shows this summer. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of working on such an intimate scale.

Of course, there are more paintings swirling around in my head, as well. There are some ideas from the 'Stratum' series that I want to pursue in different ways so there are some potentially interesting artistic challenges to work out this winter.

I rarely read, much less buy, Artforum. There was one of the October issues on the shelf with a striking image of two casts of Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk on the cover. Next to the image was the title, The Art of Production. After wading through the first 150 pages of gallery exhibition ads, I found the articles, all of which explore the issue of the 'readymade' and artists who have to rely on fabricators to realize their works. That was worth it, so I wound up buying the mag. I'm looking forward to reading about how the artists they feature deal with the fabrication process and having teams of people essentially produce their work.

I often wonder where some of the artists get the money to have large projects done and I'm sure a lot of the money comes from grants and so forth. Then there are others, most notably the blue-chip names that probably get backing from the galleries and institutions they are associated with.

sheepage

I've linked up with Technorati. I was on the verge of doing it for a week or so when I saw a post by Kesha Bruce and thought, "Yeah, why not?". I'm already involved in a bunch of sites around the interwebs and only have time to update a couple of them on a regular basis. The others I might look at once a week or so. I'm checking out My ArtSpace.com, but haven't made up my mind if it's worth getting involved with it or not.

I've not been in the studio much over the past couple of weeks but my brain has been buzzing with new ideas. I even broke out the sketchbook the other day to do a couple of quick sketches, something I haven't done much because of the nature of my work over the past couple of years. I use the sketchbook more when I'm working on more 'structured' ideas. The looser my work has become, the less I work in the sketchbook. I work out everything directly on the canvas and don't feel the need to work anything up from a sketch. I turn to the sketchbook when I'm working with more graphic ideas involving linear elements.

into the wilds

Wetlands at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education(SCEE)

This past weekend turned out to be a really good one. Particularily Saturday, which began on a very gray and rainy note. I'd made plans for E and I to go up to the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education located on the northern edge of the Roxborough neighborhood here in Philadelphia. I woke up in a bad mood and seeing the rain and clouds only made things worse since I'd planned for us to spend some quality time outdoors.

My work schedule is such that I work every other Saturday, and on the ones I have off, I like to really take advantage of good weather by being outdoors as much as possible. I hadn't had the chance all summer to get out to the wooded areas around Philly and Saturday's temperatures were good for it. My wife and I spent the afternoon trying hard to not step on frogs crossing the paths we were on. It was a good time.




Installation of gourds by Katie Murken w/P'unk Avenue


The green speaker in the upper right is part of a project by Chris Vecchio for Green Machine.

Philadelphia Art Alliance installation shots

Left: Stratum I
Right: Plume
both: 2007, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 72"


Stratum V, 2007, acrylic on panel, 11" x 14"


Right: Stratum(blue)
Left: Stratum(light)
both: 2007, acrylc on panel, 9" x 12"

Delivered the work for my show at the Philadelphia Art Alliance last week and took a few shots after the paintings were installed. The Art Alliance's walls are very different from the more common gallery space I'm used to seeing my work hung in. The walls are covered in a tan-colored fabric that has a softer feel and look than the usual flat white walls of most galleries. The wall-covering is due to the Art Alliance being housed in a mansion on Rittenhouse Square that dates back to 1906. It's a great place to see comtemporary work just for the seemingly incongruous setting.

My exhibition, titled, Stratum, consists of 9 paintings, 8 of which were done specifically for this show. Stratum will be on view at the Art Alliance from Thursday, September 20-December 30, 2007. The opening reception is this Thursday, September 20th from 5:30-7:30pm.

image ≠ word

Favorite new quote:

"Art is a creation for the eye and can only be hinted at with words"
(text from a John Baldessari painting in a current MoMA exhibition titled, What Is Painting?)

That's how I feel about it most days.

work in progress

The beginning of a new, on-going work of art.

PAA art announcement

Eastern State Corridor

The Philadelphia Art Alliance has posted notices of their fall exhibitions on the website.

Glitchy glitch

Still here.

A couple of days ago, I purchased a domain name as the first step towards my own personal art website. I spent a few minutes getting all the information correct, including the domain forwarding. Unfortunately, I made a tiny mistake, an omission, actually, that led to a couple of days of teeth gnashing and furrowed brows. Thankfully, I figured the problem out this morning and everything seems to be working correctly now.

mystery solved!

Last night, I found out that my studio-mate, Carol, fixed the door leading out to the fire escape. "No hubby needed", as she said...

sooner than later

I'm pretty much done with the work for the Art Alliance exhibition. I spent the whole day in the studio running on not-quite- enough sleep and had to take a nap at one point. I got up after about 40 minutes and continued working on the smaller pieces on panel that I had going.

I noticed an interesting thing while working on this series, which is that because of the timeline I had, I started work on the largest paintings and worked down in size instead of the other way around. Now, those small paintings might wind up being the starting point for larger paintings I have in mind to do down the road into the fall and winter.

I really thought that I'd be taking it down to the wire, but that's not going to be the case, it seems. If I really need to change something, there's some time to do so without feeling too much of a time crunch.

Now appearing on Stellargirl...

My long-time friend and fellow blogger, Roz, aka Stellargirl has started a new feature on her blog called, 'Get To Know My Blogroll'. She sent me a great series of questions and asked if I'd want nto be a part of the project. Of course I did and sent the answers back to her last night after work. Check it out here. Thanks for the feature, Roz!

I picked up the cards for the upcoming show at the Art Alliance on Friday. Having promotional materials for a show always puts into perspective what I have left to finish. There's a couple of weeks to go and a few things to complete. I'm aiming to be done with everything at least a week before delivery...if not, then the night before will have to do...

Missed signs

On Monday, I had one of those mornings where I took a couple of wrong turns and landed in that magical land of 'where the hell am I?'. I swear, I was painting and things were going ok for a bit but, mysteriously, I wound up with Mess On Canvas. The funny thing is, I could feel things beginning to veer out of control about a half-hour into the session. The adventurer in me took over and urged, C'mon! Don't bother looking at it! Just keep going with it and see what happens!

Once in a while, I have to learn to ignore that voice, haha!

It's ok, I'm used to traversing this terrain. If I'm lucky, I'll go in today and will find some small thing to grab onto and turn the 'mess' into something I want to show.

leveling out

Blue Blur I

Been playing around with some out of focus photographs lately. Don't know where it might lead, but so far it's an interesting experiment.

I feel like I'm back on track in the studio. What helped, I think, was the pressure-release valve of a friend's house-warming party this weekend. I hadn't realized that it had been almost two months since I'd last spent any real time with some friends and acquaintances. Between seeing them and indulging in a nicely spiked punch, life seemed sudenly better all of a sudden *heh*

That's a long-winded way of saying that I'm over the hump. This morning's session went very well and with none of the 'what the fuck is happening?' of last week. These cycles come and go, but the work always gets done somehow.

My new art reading is Pictures Of Nothing, by the late Kirk Varnedoe. It's a collection of Varnedoe's last six lectures given at the National Gallery of Art, the last of which was delivered just three months before his death in 2003. From what I've read about the book so far, it's looking to be an interesting read and argument for abstract art. In we go...

The door fairy

Went to the studio the next day after the door fell off and it was fixed! I don't have a clue as to who did it. The guy I lease my space from didn't do it, since he was away and didn't return until Thursday. It's possible that my studio-mate's husband might have done it or one of the guys who works downstairs.

It's a mystery I don't mind having unsolved...

blockage

Quite honestly, it's been a bitch moving ahead with the new work. Seriously, nothing has felt like it's clicking. There's just too much going on right now that I have to concentrate on. I don't really have a choice except to see everything through. I thought the day trip to New York yesterday would loosen things up in my head, but that didn't really happen. The day itself was good and the time with E. was great, but as I went through the morning after a much-needed rest I found that I felt worse than before. I was feeling depressed, edgy and a bit deflated. I felt like my creative tap had been shut off and the excitement I usually feel was nowhere to be found.

I had to dig a little deeper and the only way to get to that point was to just paint. I had to get myself over the mental hump by throwing myself into the work. That's what I resolved to do while walking to the studio during the afternoon downpour this afternoon. I got there and painted for a few hours. I managed to get somewhere with a couple of larger paintings, though they still have a ways to go, which is fine. As I worked, I found myself moving into a much better place, mentally. It was still a struggle, but at least I have a path towards something now...

New sidebar-'music in the studio'

I've added a new sidebar called 'music in the studio', just below 'art and artists'. It's self-explanatory and new links will be added as I go along.

Serra, pt. II

Video walkthrough of Richard Serra's sculptures Torqued Torus Inversion (2006) and Sequence (2006), on display at MoMA as part of the exhibition Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years. The exhibition is on view through September 10, 2007.

E and I went to see the exhibition for the second time yesterday ((first time was here)) and are still buzzing about the work. One thing that came up in conversation about the work is the difference in effect it would have if the pieces on the 2nd floor (Band 2006, Torqued Torus Inversion 2006 and Sequence 2006) were located in an outdoor setting. One of the major effects of walking thorugh the works is that of directional disorientation.

The tops and bottoms of the steel panels curve inward and out, while you follow seemingly endless curves along the horizonal plane which can cause you to feel like you might lose balance when you look up. We figured that if there were open sky above instead of MoMa's ceiling, the sensation of being unbalanced would be enhanced, perhaps. That these large works are indoors and in a cavernous space, they feel even more imposing and threatening due to the enclosed space. If they were ourside, I think the sense of expansiveness and open space outside of the sculptues could make them a little less imposing if there is enough distance away from them. Maybe. It doesn't really matter since the power of Serra's large works seem to translate well outdoors and in.

art:21 new season

The new season of art21 on pbs is discussed on Tyler Green's blog (with Todd Gibson sitting in).

Art21 blog

ooops!

Engrossed

Nothing ends off a short, before-work studio session like a door falling off it's hinges. Not just any door, but the right side of a double door that opens out to the fire escape. Luckily, I was closing up shop and had a good grip on it. If I wasn't holding it, my day, and possibly some unfortunate pedestrian four floors below, just might have been a touch above shitty.

The funny thing is, the same thing happened last week but I was able to at least temporarily fix things by replacing some old screws with new ones. The problem as I saw it this morning, was that the wall side of the hinge is attached to metal, but beneath the metal is concrete, which is loose from the first screw holes that were in it.

So I have to leave the door propped up against the inside of the frame and left side door with rope tied around it and the other door's handle. At least I have a window to open right next to it that can be opened to let air in. Now, all I need is for it not to rain over the next few days until things are fixed. I'd best get some plastic handy just in case...

workable day

Big City Sky

Wow, what a difference a day makes. The cooler temperatures this afternoon made my time in the studio sweat-free for the first time in weeks. It made assembling and stretching two large canvases that much easier. I thought I was going to have some trouble keeping the corners square because the tongue and groove construction on almost all of the sets of stretchers weren't as tight as they could have been.

Seeing how much the actual stretchers skewed into trapezoidal shapes when I handled them made my heart sink because I knew the trouble I was going to have during the actual stretching process. However, the addition of cross braces seemed to keep everything in it's place, which made my day after spending four hours cutting wood, drilling, screwing, stretching and stapling.
......
I was in center city this afternoon and took a little time to stop by the Works on Paper Gallery to see the Amze Emmons show. Emmon's works depict desolate looking, spare cityscapes with more than a hint of human inhabitants, but with no trace of a figure anywhere. Instead, there are bits of a broken society strewn with debris and make shift living quarters throughout Emmon's image.

Bits of trash blowing the wind right next to near-empty grocery store shelves half-encircled by concrete traffic barriers as seen in Eating Position Papers in an unidentifiable, seemingly outdoor space was one piece that especially pulled my in. The sense of isolation and desolation is palpable in these pieces, but that's off-set by the opposing cheerful and almost garish candy-colored pinks, greens and oranges sprinkled throughout Emmons works.

This seems suggestive of the isolation of individuals living desperately day-to-day and immersed in the technicolor dreamland of television and the internet as an escape. That's my semi-academic take, anyway. On a more aesthetic level, Emmons makes great use of space and strategically spare use of color, making the bleak cityscapes in his worlds burst with life where there seems to not be any.

photo published online

One of my photos was published on the Schmaps Philadelphia Guide. Scroll down to 'Washington Square' to see my photo of the park that was taken this past winter. Clicking the photo takes you to it's Flickr page.

the hot art days of August

Oh, yeah, the dog days are amongst us and it's gonna get worse. So find a pool, jump in the ocean, or park yourself under the nearest air-conditioner 'cause it's not going anywhere any time soon...


South 17th, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 50"

In other news, busy is the word of the...well, my life, it seems. The photo above shows the commissioned painting mentioned here installed in the lobby of the Lofts at Logan View, located at 17th and Callowhill Sts.
The project includes works by myself and four other artists from the Bridgette Mayer Gallery: Allen Bently, Clark Gibson, Rebecca Rutstein, and Dierdre Murphy.

Click here to see images of the works installed.


Work continues on new paintings for the show at the Art Alliance this fall. I've completed a couple of smaller pieces and one large painting, but there's still a lot of work to be done. The next few weeks will be reserved for the other large works I have planned.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm getting married during all of this, too? Yep, first week of September. I'm working to get most of the work completed by then, but realistically, I'll be painting until a couple of days before I have to deliver the works. It just works out that way.

No worries, life is good...

gone fishin'...sort of...

Playing hooky from the studio today. It's just too damed hot...

Jeremy Blake missing

Artist Jeremy Blake missing

EDIT:
Jeremy Blake's death confirmed

Logan View project complete

Two views of south 17th Street from Callowhill. These were a couple of the photographic studies I did for the painting which is seen in the bottom photo. The painting is titled South 17th and measures 60" x 50". My part of the overall project was the 'cityscape' aspect. The other artists involved each had a general theme to work with that had something to do with the building itself or some aspect of the city.

The challenge of this project was ending up with something of a recognizable image of the view outside the front doors of the building. As seen in the photos above, I took a lot of liberties with the original scene while leaving in some of the forms that hint at the real buildings. I left out much of the detail to focus more on a general sense of the view. The view is above the horizon as if someone looking south on 17th Street was in the midst of looking up or returning their gaze to a lower perspective.

Even though this piece is tighter-looking than most of my work these days, I liked that I had the freedom to interpret the scene as I saw fit; if there was any hint that what was wanted was a more 'realistic' depiction, I wouldn't have taken this on. Not that I couldn 't do it, but anyone who is familiar with my work knows that I have no interest in depicting what is already there.

The painting was delivered and installed yesterday and I've been told that it's gotten good responses from the building's owner and others there. That's good to know. My own response has been that it's ok. I'll have to see it installed, which will happen next week sometime.

fall ahead

Recently completed a commissioned painting for a project at the Lofts at Logan View condominiums, a project facilitated by Bridgette and featuring not only my work, but that of Rebecca Rutstein, Clark Gibson, Allen Bently, and Deirdre Murphy. I'm quite happy to have it out of the way so I can concentrate on the works I'll be showing at the Art Alliance in the fall.

The title of that show will be called Stratum and will continue some of the ideas I was working with in some of the paintings I showed in June at Bridgette Mayer. I'm looking forward to having the large walls of the first floor gallery to hang work on. I think I'll have some works on paper for the smaller space. I have several ideas I'm working on, so anything is possible.

done for now

The show is over and there's no time to dwell on the 'post exhibition blues' that usually accompanies these times. There are a couple of projects to jump into that will keep me busy from summer through fall.

By all accounts, 'When is Now' was a very successful show and I'm proud of the work I produced. I spent a lot of time visiting the gallery during the past three weeks just to look at and think about the paintings. Between that and talking about them, I've gained some good insight and general ideas about what I want to do next. What comes next is never clear, but it's nice to have a general direction to focus on...

Richard Serra at MoMA

I've been waiting for a long time to see some of Ricahrd Serra's larger works in person and I finally got the chance a couple of weeks ago. I was in New York with my fianceé to meet up with a friend of hers, along with visiting a couple of jewelry supply places for her and to see the Serra retrospective at MoMA.

We hit the sixth floor first, where the earlier works are shown. Some of the works up there hadn't been shown in years and most I hadn't seen in person. It's always kind of surreal to view artworks by iconic artists whose only contact I'd had was as reproductions in books and magazines. Incidentally, the first time I even found out about Richard Serra's work was toatlly by mistake. It was back in '90 and I was in New York for the first time with a former girlfriend. MoMA was on the agenda and I don't even know if it was a special exhibition, but I remember turning a corner, walking into a room and finding myself in the center of a piece I later came to know as Circuit, four steel plates situated in the corners of the space, bisecting the room diagonally with an open space in the center.

There were other works of his there that time, but Circuit II really made a lasting impression with it's sense of danger (collapse) and reassertion of how the space was navigated by the viewer(s), something that has been integral to Serra's work for years.

The earlier work took up the entire sixth floor and includes a good representation of the early 'prop' pieces, like Prop(1968) and One Ton Prop(House of Cards)(1969) in lead as well as works in rubber such as Belts(1966-67) and To Lift(1967).

The newer pieces in the cavernous space on the second floor, Sequend, Band, and Torqued Torus Inversion, all made in 2006 are amazing to behold. Band, is particualirly beautiful with it's 70-something feet of twisting curves with no interior space. It's like walking along a piece of ribbon standing on edge, except Band, like most of Serra's works, weighs tons. That these three huge works were even able to be put in the space together and not feel crowded seems like a miracle. It still messes with my mind to know how much tonnage is sitting there, looking much lighter than it is. Some of that also has to do with the oxidation that takes place. These works have a beautiful orange patina that can make you forget that you're standing next to and touching a material that is used in much more utilitarian ways, as in steel girders and other architectural substructures.

Photography isn't allowed inside, but if you're unfamiliar with Serra's work, the exhibition pages on MoMA's site will give a good overview (Flash 8 required). The two pieces in the sculpture garden, Intersection IV and Torqued Ellipse II were fair game and I tried to take as much advantage as I could (click images for larger views):

Intersection II







Torqued Ellipse IV

Exhibition review

Review of my exhibition at Bridgette Mayer by Edith Newhall.
Philadelphia Inquirer Weekend section
Friday, June 15, 2007
p. W29

Loosening up

Since his last solo show at Bridgette Mayer Gallery two years ago, Tim McFarlane has abandoned the open, three-dimensional grid forms that inhabited that last body of work for a looser, all-over lyrical abstraction that looks vaguely like strands of chains or fishing nets over a gestural abstract painting. He has also jettisoned the square canvas for the rectangular one, which suits his style of painting better. The action seemed to stop short on the square.

A few of these paintings are just perfect, in particular Plume, with its exposed lower corner of a muscular, vividly colorful underpainting, drips and all, which made me think of the painter Melissa Meyer. His small paintings, Mute and Green Whispers, which have thicker, lusher surfaces than some of the large ones, hint at a depth and mystery that are too obscured in other works.

But I'd also like to see an enormous McFarlane. He seems to be stretching out.

Ice, Ice, Baby!!

British "bad boy artist", Damien Hirst, is at it again...

From the New York Times:
Alas, Poor Art Market: A Multimillion-Dollar Head Case
By ALAN RIDING
Published: June 13, 2007
It is no secret that the art market has become drunk with money lately, but $100 million for a diamond skull by the artist Damien Hirst? Even Russian oligarchs and hedge-fund billionaires might think twice.

Related story here

More photos here

There was a time when I would toss all sorts of f-bombs around when I read a story about Damien Hirst and others like him getting whatever astronomical amount of money/attention for their work. Not anymore. I'm more likely to just get a laugh out of it and just keep doing what I'm doing. He's into spectacle and shock, people literally buy into it and he laughs all the way to the bank. End of story.

I have liked some of his work, most notably "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" (1991), better known as the 'dead shark in a tank' piece. I like that piece mainly because it's conceptual idea holds some weight. There might be other works by Hirst that have some idealogical weight to them, but I've not paid much attention to his stuff because of all the mountains of hype and excess that accompanies everything he does...

A Reluctant Fraternity

Here's an interesting article about a goup of African-American artists in L.A. from the New York Times.

When is where?

The paintings were hung last Tuesday night and I saw them up for the first time on Wednesday. I hadn't seen some of them for a couple of weeks and was happy with the final installation. Originally, I wanted to be there to at least place the works, but scheduling prevented that. I trusted Bridgette to do a good job and she did great. I was mostly concerned with the paintings having a certain amount of space around them since there is a lot going on in them visually. I'd mentioned to Bridgette early on that I didn't want to have too many paintings hanging, like the last show I had there.

So, yeah, I'm happy with how things went.





Finally, Friday rolled around and the opening went on without a hitch, with the exception of the heat that accompanied lots of bodies in the small space that is the Bridgette Mayer Gallery. I love working with Bridgette, but the gallery gets hot easily with little help in the warmer months of the year. Nonetheless, the opening reception was very well attended and there was a lot of good feedback about the work. It was also to see and talk, albeit briefly, with a bunch of my friends and acquaintences that I hadn't seen in a good while.

There's a mention of the show by Libby Rosof on artblog and over on Rob Matthews' blog

*Don't worry, Rob, my shots aren't the best, either, lol...


photo originally uploaded by Libby Rosof

In the vault room, Bridgette is showing the work of sculptor, Paul Oberst. I met Paul last year through a mutual friend of mine and Bridgette's, so it was interesting to learn that he was going to have work there at the same time. Bridgette usually has special projects, like the works of artists that are not affiliated with the gallery, shown in the smallish but interesting vault room in the rear of the gallery.

With the opening now over, I've begun the process of switching my attention to the paintings I want to do for the Art Alliance show. So far, I'm planning on working on three larger paintings for one room and works on paper for the smaller one. I'm not absolutely sure about the works on paper, but I'll have to see what I come up with. I could put three or four small paintings in there, also...we'll see how things go.

In the meantime, it's back to the studio for another round...

Ready for more

Delivered the last of the paintings for my exhibition to the gallery today with the help of Bridgette and Lance. Their help made it a much easier task. It's interesting to see the looks on people's faces when you're rolling a large canvas along the sidewalk.

Taking a couple of breaths before diving into new work for the Art Alliance show in the fall...

Next week!!

The postcards for my upcoming solo exhibition arrived today. I was delivering a couple of small paintings of mine to Bridgette that were being picked up and sent to the Marcia Wood Gallery for a group exhibition in Atlanta.

It was cool to walk in to a nice stack of postcards on the desk just waiting for me :)

This is my third solo exhibition at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery and will consist of works done in the past few months and a couple from last year that have never been shown.

The exhibition, titled, When is Now, runs from May 29th-June 23rd at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery.

Opening Reception
First Friday, June 1, 2007
6-8:30pm

Vault Room
Paul Oberst |Temples for Philadelphia

Bridgette Mayer Gallery
709 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA, 19106
215.413.8893
www.mayerartconsultants.com

catalogue essay by Philadelphia artist and writer, Roberta Fallon

Almost there

Detail of new painting

I'm in the home-stretch with preparations for my next exhibition. Most of the work is done. I'm just trying to finish up a couple of final pieces before next weekend. As usual, I'm seeing the light at the end of a long tunnel of wrestling with paint, ideas and deadlines. Just a few weeks ago, I was seriously wondering if I'd be able to pull it all together and have enough work to show that I was happy with.

So far, so good. I'm still scrutinizing what I've been working on but for the most part, I'm satisfied with what I'm seeing. I still need some time to take in what I've done; I'm way too close to it all. I think that once I see the work outside of the studio and have a chance to reflect, I'll start having a clearer view of what I've been doing.

One of the things about having shows is being able to look at the paintings out of the studio context. Putting them in a new context that's outside of my own internal world, where they sprange from, gives me the chance to look at them with new eyes. Most of the paintings have already been out of the studio for the past week and-a-half. They had to be photographed and were then delivered to the gallery so my only contact with them have been through photos and memory.

It'll be interesting to see what I think in a couple of weeks...

Richard Serra at MoMA

A short time-lapse video showing the installation of two of Ricard Serra'ssculptures in MoMA's sculpture garden.

MoMA will be mounting a 40 year retrospective of his work beginning in June. I'm really looking forward to seeing this show. I've been a fan of Serra's work for a long time, but I've never seen much of his work in person. Back in the early 90's, I actually discovered his work accidentally during my first trip to New York. The show was at MoMA. I only remember walking into this one room and being surrounded with these huge steel plates (I think the piece was Circuit) that were coming from each corner of the room. I didn't know who Serra was at the time, but I liked his work.

A year or so later, I returned to Temple University after a five year hiatus. I discovered the third floor section of art books in Paley Library on the main campus and found a number of books about Serra that were published in Germany. I made the connection with the work I saw in New York previously and was hooked. I mainly responded to his use of a basic construction material in the making of his works. I also admired his thought processes and dedication to continually experimenting with perceptions of space, weight, and balance. I also like that he has continued to push his work and ideas to new places over the years while maintaining a sense of freshness while using the same materials he has for years, as well as continuing to work on a scale that not many would attempt...or who have the means to do so...