Thursday, December 29, 2011

Basil Beattie: Installation Photographs @ James Hyman Fine Art in London

Pathfinder, 1989

Installation photo with Corridors of Uncertainty, 2005

Corridors of Uncertainty, 2005 and Five Steps to Nowhere, 2002

House of Ambition, 2010, and Pathfinder, 1989

House of Ambition, 2010

Corridors of Uncertainty, 2005

Five Steps to Nowhere, 2003

All Ends Up, 2004

When the First Is Last and the Last Is First, 1999

*All photographs courtesy of James Hyman Fine Art

From the exhibition:

Basil Beattie
Onward and Upward 25 Years of Work (1986-2011)
11-16-2011 to 1-21-2012





Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Helen Frankenthaler: 1928 - 2011

"I wanted things that I couldn't at times articulate."

Interior Landscape, 1964

Helen Frankenthaler, the lyrically abstract painter whose technique of staining pigment into raw canvas helped shape an influential art movement in the mid-20th century, and who became one of the most admired artists of her generation, died on Tuesday at her home in Darien, Conn. She was 83.
- Grace Glueck, from the New York Times obituary 

In the studio, 1957

In the studio, 1957

Installation shot: Small's Paradise, 1964.




*Photographs above of Helen Frankenthaler in her studio by Burt Glinn (c).


Monday, December 26, 2011

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Studio Visit with Karl Bielik


On a recent trip to London I had the opportunity to take a look inside the studio of Karl Bielik. I first became aware of Bielik's work in 2010 and quickly came to admire the paintings' straight forward painterliness and unique vocabulary of mark and form.








From Bielik's website, Statement:

Working on a multitude of paintings at a time, Karl Bielik's brew of abstractions are developed in batches. Irregular canvases cover his studio walls and floors, where he shifts from one painting to another, experimenting playfully with mark making. 
Formal lines taken from photographs and diagrams contrast loose oily wounds, thick emulsions offset light glazes and dribbles. Bielik fluctuates between techniques, pushing and challenging the paint until a kind of harmony is met. 
In contrast to this emotive imagery, banal solitary words form Bielik's titles, tempering and balancing the melancholy character of his paintings; the result, a prolific collection of finely tuned sophisticated studies.








Bielik is also the Director of Terrace Gallery and Studios in East London. In addition the artist also writes and performs in the musical group Lark who's new release I Don't Got is available on iTunes. More information on Bielik's music can be found on the band's Facebook page here.















Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Robert Frank: For Andrea Who Died




Images above: details from Andrea by Robert Frank

For my daughter Andrea
who died in an Airplane crash
at TICAL in Guatemala on Dec 23
last year. She was 21 years
and she lived in this house
and I think of Andrea every 
Day


Sunday, December 11, 2011

Frank Auerbach: Faint Malodorous Light


"I'm hoping to make a new thing for the world that remains in the mind like a new species of living thing."

Head of J.Y.M., 1969

J.Y.M. Seated, 1986-87

To The Studio, 1982-83

Frank Auerbach, London 1962,photograph by Lord Snowdon (c)

"To put down an ideogram of a table so that people will recognize it as a table is not the work of a painter, but to sense it for a moment as a magic carpet with a leg hanging down at each corner is the beginning of a painter's imagination."

Figure on a Bed, 1969

E.O.W. Half-Length Nude, 1958

Railway Arches, Bethnal Green II 1958-59

Frank Auerbach in his studio holding his picture of the building site on Earl's Court Road in 1953

Maples Demolition, 1960

Frank Auerbach Portrait of Catherine Lampert (1981-2)

Head of E.O.W. 1955

(c) Photograph by Bob Collins


"It seems to me madness to wake up in the morning and do something other than paint, considering that one may not wake up the following morning."
Head of Gerda Boehm, 1965

Looking Towards Mornington Crescent Station - Night 1972/73 

"Real style is not having a program - it's how one behaves in a crisis."

Primrose Hill 1954/55

Summer Building Site 1952


The Little Bedroom painted red
The gas's faint malodorous light,
And one beside me in the bed
Who chatters, chatters half the night.
-John Addington Symonds


*All images are the property of the (c) holders. Where possible and attempt has been made to give the artists or their estates credit.