About Me

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Massachusetts, United States
I am a painter in search of an audience! Here are words to catch search engine hits: painting artist RISD New England Longmeadow Amherst Boston...more as I think of them. Check out my portfolio on a seperate website. The link is on the top of the righthand column

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Overrated and Underrated

Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock




There is no doubt that one was more influential and groundbreaking then the other but given an entire museum retrospective one of them would quickly tire and bore me while the other would astonish at every turn. It seems to come down to aesthetic experience versus "History".


From The Smithsonian

Marsden Hartley in costume at the Society Arts Ball in Paris, June 1913. 


Everyone is an Artist

Vladimir Putin the painter


Vladimir Putin’s first painting,'Pattern', fetched 37 million rubles ($1.14 million) at a charity auction in his native St. Petersburg in 2009




Watercolor by 18 year old Adolf Hitler.




"The diligent little architectural studies, those insipid landscapes and amateurish sketches are the (apparently authenticated) works of Adolf Hitler. The Chapmans have adorned them with their own additions: butterflies and shooting stars and jolly rainbows." The show is entitled If Hitler Had Been a Hippy How Happy Would We Be. More here.


Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Monday, December 27, 2010

Helping the Proletariat

Uncle Joe parking cars at a People's Congress.

The Crimes of Andy Warhol #6





“Whoever produces kitsch ... is not to be evaluated by esthetic measures but is ethically depraved; he is a criminal.”
Herman Broch, 1933







Friday, December 24, 2010

Recap





Just reviewing the year as I prepare  to photograph and post some new work.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

From 2005 or 2006?

Mark Warren "I Am The Weather" 48" X 58" oil on linen

Science is Beautiful #9

Crimes of Andy Warhol #5

Sean Scully on Warhol:

"It might be argued, however, that he was profound in his emptiness and he was profoundly attached to something in the culture that drives out all the content and all hope. He was profoundly attached to the dehumanization of the culture and embraced it and really became a part of it. He is like a blinking sign that says nothing except "I want to be famous."  The emptiness of it is stunning. It is that emptiness and the slickness of it that have appealed to so many other artists who follow him. In that sense he is like Duchamp. Duchamp made it possible for people who couldn't compete with the Van Goghs of this world, and the Matisses, and the Brancusis and the other great masters, he made it possible for them to be in the game as spoilers. Andy Warhol paraphrased this possibility in the 1960's and made it possible for people who understand the mechanisms of the media and the advertising world, and whose only ambition is to be famous, to do that. He offered a model upon which they can base their actions. He made it possible for a whole generation, and many generation of artists who follow him, to be understood. To my mind, it is the burden of art making that is so interesting. So I am absolutely the polar opposite of Warhol." - from an interview in 1999

Walt Whitman "O Captain! My Captain!" Poem Animation Movie

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The Work Of Tanya Marcuse





All of these photos are from the series "Wax Bodies" produced between 2006 and 2008. See more on her website here.

Great Photography #3

Justin Kimball



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Justin Kimball is an Amherst College Associate Professor of Art. His photographs remind me of 19th century french painting like Courbet or any of the other realist painters. His website is here