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       Claude Vénard, Port avec ciel rouge , ca. 1960, oil on canvas

 
 
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       Timothy Flach, Flying Mop, 2010, Digital C-type

 
 
 
 
     First up’s the Vénard. This piece caught my eye right away with its big bands of vermilion and geological strata-shards of boat color wedged among the greens and pale sea blues and cloud whites. There’s something sleepy in this sunset piece, but also something a little foreboding and jagged about the bony edifices and the looming circling black birds or fighter jets far up in the sky.
      Next is Flach’s “Flying Mop”. Isn’t this a great piece? Kind of cuddly and Cujo all at once. I want to open my arms wide to hug the bounding shaggy pooch — or get my hand axe. From one moment to the next I either get pure joyful dogginess or medusa hound blinding me with doggy-fur dreads & biting away. Either way, terrific glow & energy from this semi-supernatural critter floating in the void.
 
 
 
 More of Flach’s work can be found here at timflach.com.

 Check out more of Claude Vénard’s work over at Alon Zakaim Fine Art.

 
 
All writing © copyright C. Way / Snailcrow.com 2011

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       Floris Gerritsz van Schooten, Still life with smoking Paraphernalia, Plates of oysters, bread, a Rummer of white Wine and two red herrings, ca. 1625, oil on panel

 
 
 
 
      I tend to post still lives quite a bit on this site. There’s something about the matter-of-fact is-ness of carefully selected, arranged and represented objects that’s just grounding and comforting for me to look at & meditate upon. Like many of us I’m sure, I’m a bit bored of the standard still life subject matter — bouquets, fruit, rumpled tablecloths — but that said, the right artist can enliven even the most over-exposed subject matter through mood, technique, lighting, color, and infinite combinations of tools at his or her disposal.
      Here we have a still life that’s standard in some ways — straightforward angle, perspective, lighting, mimetic coloration & rendering — but to me unusual in its details. First, I’m not a still life expert, but I’m not used to seeing smoking accessories, fishies and oysters dominating a still life — there’s a preponderant sharp & pungent element in all these consumables that strikes me as delightfully odd. But what really catches my eye here is the lovely buttery-bronze coloration picked up by nearly every element of the painting, from the herring to the oysters to the clay-like tobacco (?) urnlet to the snuff-box (?)’s nubby gold detail to that absolutely perfect cleft dinner roll. The table and walls too add color depth while remaining kin to the soft butter glow.
      I could linger over this painting for ages just taking in details and relaxing bit by bit while doing so: the liquid reflection of the oysters on the silver plate in the foreground, the oyster shell’s knobbiness, the way the pipe’s angle meets the shadow’s line, carving out this triangle of light that’s mirrored by the bright bottom left wedge-area formed by the bread and the sardines. Everything feels in harmony and repose, true savor for the gaze before the meal begins.
 
 
 
 
 For more information about Floris van Schooten, and examples of his work, check out his wiki page and also his friendsofart.net page.

 
 
All writing © copyright C. Way / Snailcrow.com 2011

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       Jon Pylypchuk, Older CLoud, 2009, mixed media

 
 
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       Arthur Lismer, Canadian Jungle, 1946, oil on canvas

 
 
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       Jon Pylypchuk, I miss you, danger, and all it’s elements , 2006, mixed media

 
 
 
 
     Alas alas, this weekend was too jampacked for me to fit in any Art of the Day posts, so today you’re gettin 3 for 1. (Maybe I’ll make this a regular feature, Monday triples? We’ll see). Probably going to shift to an every other day thing at any rate, as a number of personal projects are way behind, and I need to scoop me out some more time however I can.
     On to the subject today: Canadian artists. Didn’t plan on the theme, just happened that the first three works I stumbled upon and loved this morning belonged to artists hailing from the land up yonder. In order of appearance then: “Older Cloud” by Jon Pylypchuk. This piece is from an exhibit of his called “The War” from 2009-2010 held at Friedrich Petzel Gallery. I love this weird rotty dogmask with its cottage-cheese face-lumps and scary bulb-eyes. Something about those burnt-marshmallow sock-ears adds this comical, cutesy edge that just amplifies the chem-warfare hamburger-lady atrocity of this mutilatoid.
      Next up’s Arthur Lismer’s “Canadian Jungle”. What a find, I love this guy. I’d never heard of him. He totally captures the threatening sinewy tangle of jungly undergrowth. So many gorgeous inter-braided shades of green here too. There’s a soft faint smudginess to his brushwork that takes the edge off the vegetal claustrophobia and allows me to sink in to some of the plusher textures. I especially like the tiny hints of sun-glinted water way up above, this tiny bit of breathing space that suddenly opens up the perspective of the painting and makes you feel like a crouching critter peering through bushes at approaching boats.
      Finally we’ve got another Pylypchuk piece: “I miss you, danger, and all it’s elements”. The title frames the sculpture very well, amplifying the unfulfilled, sedate middle age of the rumpled elephant (dog?) man in his ill-fitting suit. He looks back annoyed at you interrupting his nap (or possible masturbatory reverie). The browns, moss greens and blacks sort of trap you in his private little resentful & frustrated mind state, and you’re grateful for the relief the white of the wall affords. Like a lot of this artist’s work, this piece bridges the puppety-cute & the unsettling to great effect. 
 
 
 
 More of Jon Pylypchuk’s work can be found here at www.petzel.com.

 Check out more of Lismer’s work over at Bert Christensen’s Cyberspace Gallery.

 
 
All writing © copyright C. Way / Snailcrow.com 2011

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       Olly and Suzi, Caracal, 2007, Lithograph on Somerset Velvet

 
 
 
 
      The Caracal is a Western Asian and African mid-sized cat, often called the Desert Lynx or Persian Lynx, related to servals and the African golden cat. This piece by Olly and Suzi wonderfully renders the beauty of these creatures: their powerful haunches, the line of their lean bodies, their elongated (almost horn-like), pointy tufted ears. The technique and color lend other aspects to the subject: crouching stalk, pained huddle, pre-pounce tension, sentinel’s protection, post-meal sleep. And the blood against snow of the palette gives it the additional resonance of violence: that which the Caracal delivers to its prey, that which humans inflict upon it.
 
 
 
 
 More Olly & Suzi paintings can be found here at ollysuzi.com.

 
 
All writing © copyright C. Way / Snailcrow.com 2011

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       Mitch Epstein, Lotus Pond, Ha Son Bihn Provence, Vietnam, 1993, C print

 
 
 
 
      I just love this. I knew right away when I saw it that I wanted to post it and write about it, but I didn’t know why — all I knew was that it confused and gripped me. The wilting decay, spent but proud. The canopy’s reflection, how the dark blotches of it frame the lotus leaves. The top-left blue of the reflected sky along the mocha waters echoing that of the tired, trumpeting leaves; the conch-lip flare of the central leaf. The oxidized copper quality of the leaves’ blue making them seem like strange statues in a neglected sculpture garden. Epstein perfectly captures an atmosphere of rotted out elegance waiting in soggy silence for new bloom.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 More Mitch Epstein photography at www.mitchepstein.net.

 
 
All writing © copyright C. Way / Snailcrow.com 2011

       Wayne Thiebaud, Candy Apples, 1987, Color woodcut

 

       Nel Jansen, copy of Wayne Thiebaud’s Candy Apples, 2009, oil on stretched canvas

 
 
 
 
      For me, shadow’s everything with Thiebaud. His studies of cakes, candies, italian desserts & other foodstuffs gain this moody, mysterious haunt from the shadows often cast behind them; from the way the light does and doesn’t hit them. In “Candy Apples”, the apple-sticks add to the moodiness, stiff & stabbed into the caramelled fruits like witches’ ladles stuck in the thick sludge of nine pots. Or, more menacingly, like weapons left in organs arrayed for some mysterious ritualistic purpose. The artist’s blueing of shadow adds touches of melancholy to the night-time sweet arrangement, the narrative of which baffles: Who set out the treats? Who’s watching them fasten to the counter? Who cares when the mood’s this deliciously dark?
      Jansen’s superb copy maintains the mood of Thiebaud’s original and adds a fascinating dimension of cramped bleakness by eliminating some of the perspective and thickening up blacks & shadows. The lightsource is positioned a little higher and more centrally, focusing a sort of interrogator’s heat-lamp on the objects, imparting a sense of isolation. Her apples are stripped of the blue accents & other color touches of the original; what’s left behind is a set of raw red, elemental, smoldering orbs, incredibly effective against that ultra-inky abyss within which they glow.
     Note — I’m not 100% sure as to whether Jansen used the ‘87 “Candy Apples” for her copy (perhaps there’s another “Candy Apples” Thiebaud work out there that was used?) — if I’m incorrect, my apologies!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Learn more about Thiebaud and check out more of his art at artchive.com.

 Check out more of Jansen’s art here, and check out the source for her copy here.

 
 
All writing © copyright C. Way / Snailcrow.com 2011

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       Eirik from TheBigVoyage.com, Untitled, 2010

 
 
 
 
Lichen/lesion-looking
trilobyte of worms.

They clump on the bark,
discussing their terms.

They move real slow.
Adding more friends.

Approaching the crops
& the cows & the hens.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Photo source: www.thebigvoyage.com, a terrific travel site run by a family from Oslo, dedicated to their continent-hopping adventures. (Photo is specifically sourced from an entry devoted to their trip to the Amazon — click here for that entry.)

 
 
All writing © copyright C. Way / Snailcrow.com 2011