accidental mysteries: Jonathan Levine Gallery

Showing posts with label Jonathan Levine Gallery. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Artist James Jean: A Look Inside

(Above) Paintings by James Jean. Click for larger view.

(Above) Sketchbook of James Jean, and inside of sketchbook pages to follow.
Click any image for larger view.

Sketchbook pages by James Jean. Click for larger view.

I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED LOOKING AT WELL-DONE ARTIST SKETCHBOOKS. This one is one of several posted by 2001 NY School of Visual Arts graduate James Jean on his website. They are definitely worth taking a look. Jean is an accomplished and very talented painter who shows at the Jonathan Levine Gallery. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

Peer into an artist’s sketchbook and you gain an inside look at his/her soul. You’ll see their thinking, their process and their range of visual vocabulary.

See more on his web site here.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Introducing Elbow-Toe

(Click any image for larger view)

ELBOW-TOE IS A BROOKLYN, NY BASED ARTIST THAT HAS BEEN CREATING introspective urban art for several years. His artwork for the streets is grounded in myth, symbolism and poetry and is primarily executed in woodcut, stencil or large-scale charcoal drawings. His oeuvre is a study of human gesture as communication and he utilizes public spaces as stages for private moments. He is particularly interested in the ability of environmental forces outside his control to create a timeless quality to the work thereby allowing it to feel as if it has been memory and is part of the collective unconscious.

ELBOW-TOE’s gallery work focuses on portraiture and abstract narrative and is primarily executed in collage. These intricate collages at first glance might be mistaken for paintings given that they have a fluidity rarely seen in collages. Whilst his work has a very unique style it draws on a rich history of figurative painting and has qualities reminiscent of Freud, Bacon and Soutine.

Via Elbow-Toe.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The Otherworldy Images of Ray Caesar

RAY CAESAR CREATES FANTASTIC, GRIMLY HOPEFUL, AND GRAVELY whimsical images of wizened children who radiate an enigmatic serenity. Sprouting bio-mechanical limbs and appendages, the figures are otherworldly, a melding of sci-fi fantasy, lush landscapes, and Victorian sensibilities. Working for 17 years in the Art and Photography Department of The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto, Ray documented things such as child abuse, surgical reconstruction, psychology and animal research. The artist explains, “I often awake in the middle of the night and realize I have been wandering the hallways and corridors of the giant hospital. It is clear to me that this is the birthplace of all my imagery.” These experiences continually haunt and present themselves in his dreamy images, which draw inspiration from the works of Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali, and Paul Cadmus.

Ray’s work is most astonishing in the fact it is all digitally created; most people assume they are looking at paintings due to the seamless blending and “painterly quality” of the work as well as its unique emotional impact. Creating models in a 3D modeling software called Maya, he then wraps them in painted and manipulated texture maps. Each model is set up with an invisible skeleton that allows him to pose each figure in its 3D enviroment. Digital lights and cameras are added with shadows and reflections simulating that of a mysterious and strange “real” world.

accidental mysteries