The Old Sugar Factory

The Old Sugar Factory oil on linen 16" x 20"


The Old Sugar Factory was painted "plein air" before it, and so many other falling-down relics of an earlier industrial age, was totally demolished. It stood on a pier in Red Hook next to the Van Brunt pier, from which it was painted.

The painting will be in an exhibit, 2nd annual REPRESENT BROOKLYN, at the TRA Gallery, in which 40 artists who live and work in Brooklyn will show paintings of Brooklyn.

The Opening Reception will be Saturday, April 11, 3-8. The Closing Reception will be Saturday May 9, 4-8. For directions and hours visit http://www.tragallery.net or call 718-498-6082.

Do We Care?

Do We Care? oil on canvas 28" x 32" 2007

This painting is now in an exhibition, opening tomorrow, at the Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven. Please click on URL address to see more about the exhibit: http://www.creativeartsworkshop.org/html/exhibitions/juried.html

A statement relating to the painting Do We Care?

In this most recent series of paintings, I am working with images that I see as I pass by bars and cafes at night, with glass windows that reflect the images of the street and intermix them with the images of the people inside and the interior spaces of the bars and cafes. At Times Square, there is the added dimension of media images mixing with and cutting into the people who are having drinks on the other side of the glass. Media images have become part of our immediate reality, forever cutting into our collective sense of self.

Also, as we sip our wine and experience a certain self-satisfaction with our lives, troubles out there in the larger world haunt us. Intrusive thoughts, of terrorist acts, bombed-out buildings, random violence, the after-effects of war, come into our minds and become part of our reality.

I have attempted here to make visible the intertwining of our inner thoughts and immediate pleasures; a segment of our collective urban experience.

Five Women Artists in New York

I am one of the five artists participating in the following exhibition:

Other artists: Ellen Bradshaw, Lisbeth Firmin, Lynn Jadamec & Sonya Sklaroff

Ken Ratner, guest curator
Opening Reception: Tuesday, May 6, 2008 from 6 - 8 pm
Exhibition Dates: May 7 - June 29, 2008

Flushing Council on Culture & the Arts
Flushing Town Hall
137-35 Northern Blvd
Flushing, NY 11354
http://www.flushingtownhall.org for directions

Pastis A.M. oil on canvas 24" x 36" 2001

"Inspired by the painters of the Ashcan School, these five women artists boldly take to the streete to formulate their own unique visions of the metropolis." Ken Ratner

Since many of you will not be able to see the exhibit because you do not live in or near New York City or for sundry other reasons, I have input below the paintings of mine that are in the exhibit. I do not have access to the other artists' work, but I'm sure googling their names would bring their art to you. They are wonderful artists and I'm pleased to be exhibiting with them.


Blue Nocturne oil on canvas 18" x 24" 2006


Blue Fin XXX oil on canvas 30" x 32" 2007

This group of paintings is one that spans three different approaches to painting scenes of New York City.

The most recent paintings were influenced by the distancing effect of reflections; the interaction of the interior world of comfort with a glass of wine and the outside, reflected world of media and disjuncture.


Blue Fin IV oil on board 11" x 13" 2004


Times Square ATM oil on canvas 24" x 18" 2003

The Times Square painting was painted right there on the sidewalk, plein air. The noise, the shifting lights, the comments, contributed their panache to the visual image.


Caffe Rafaella oil on canvas 26" x 32" 2002

And then again, the interior spaces with people enclosed in spaces that are created by others to take them into quiet places, or social encounters; always near strangers, held together by common purpose, that of a certain communality.


Caffe Reggio oil on canvas 28" x 36" 2001


McSorley's Back Room oil on canvas 36" x 50" 1992-97

Painting in Museum Installation

I was recently notified that my painting, Men in the Shadow, is in the new installation in the galleries of the permanent collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida.  It was purchased by the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City through its Childe Hassam Purchase Award and gifted to the museum in November 1976.  The museum has recently added a new wing, allowing additional space to exhibit works that had previously been in storage.

 Men in the Shadow   oil on canvas   22" x 17"   1976

Collection:  Museum of Fine Arts   St. Petersburg, Florida

   

 Galleries at the Museum of Fine Arts   St. Petersburg, Florida                                  

A New Painting: STILL LIFE

"Still Life" focusses on the glasses of wine:  a metaphor for the comforts of urban existence; a comment on the communality of sharing with others, who must certainly be nearby, perhaps across the table, not visible to us.

"Still Life"   oil on canvas    32" x 28"

Our observation is fractured by the shards of street life that invade the drinker's calm and composed demeanor.

Passing moments are captured and composed into large and small rhythms and passages of color that resonate on the canvas long after the original inspiration has ceased to be.

"Still Life" is a painting that was recently finished and is part of an ongoing series that I refer to as REFLECTIONS.

Small Works at SOHO20Chelsea

I was invited by my artist friend, Elizabeth Bisbing, [ http://ebisbing.com ] to enter a painting into the "Small Works" show at the SOHO20Chelsea gallery, of which she is a member.


Blue Fin XVIII
Oil on board 11" x 12"

The above is a painting of a bar at Times Square, outside looking in.


The following is a quote, which I recently came across in the New York Times in an article by Michael Kimmelman, that had resonance:

"Art is also about what's inexplicable and out of the ordinary. Painting is the world's oldest conjuring act, colored dirt smeared on a flat surface to create an illusion. We may know it's not real, but we still enjoy seeing how the magic is done."

The EXHIBIT:

You are, of course, welcome to stop by if you are in New York.

My visit to the Hudson Gallery in Sylvania, Ohio

Recently I made a trip to Ohio (where my roots are) and delivered the following art works to a gallery in Sylvania (a suburb of Toledo near the Michigan border). It is a beautiful gallery on Main Street owned and directed by Scott and Barbara Hudson. Please visit the Hudson Gallery  http://www.hudsongallery.net.



Bar Cafe/Astoria
oil on board 9" x 12"



Pastis
oil on board 9" x 12"



Italy/A Cafe in Lucca
oil on board 9" x 12"


The above paintings were made plein air, with the aid of a pochade box and a cup of coffee. A pochade box is a portable wooden box, about the size and configuration of a laptop computer, into which oil paint tubes, brushes, palette and a 9" x 12" gessoed board fit. I can sit anywhere, open up the box, and paint.



Vodka Bar
oil on board 13" x 18"



Blue Fin XIX
oil on board 16" x 20"



Blue Fin IX
oil on board 13" x 11"


The above paintings were painted in my studio, more deliberately than a plein air painting would have been; a combination of source material enter into their creation. They are inspired by bars in New York City, which are extravagant and faux.



Dancing at the Office Party
6-color hand-drawn lithograph 22" x 30"


Every year I capture the dancers at a fancy office Xmas party midtown Manhattan with a digital camera. The strobes are flashing and the dancers clumsy, but the shapes and spaces created by the movement and lights exhilarating. The above lithograph was printed by a fine press in Chelsea by master printer Rodney Doyle. I suggest a visit. http://www.soloimpression.com