Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2019 i American Art Collector

As a magazine dedicated to helping art collectors find new works to purchase for their collections, we are always in awe of the passion and dedication they show when it comes to pursuing art and serving as patrons for artists. Attending events as we do across the country, collectors show us charts, graphs, spreadsheets, wish lists, mission statements and many other techniques they use to acquire and manage their collections. One of our favorite things to see is a collector holding a frayed and worn copy of the magazine with little yellow post-it notes extending from the pages. It is in these moments when our mission and purpose is displayed to us in full effect. I’ve been thinking of these things while I work on this issue, which features an…

To inaugurate their new location in Thousand Oaks, California, the California Museum of Art presents a solo exhibition of work by Kevin Sloan that is rooted in the history and heritage of the city. In the 1920s, the area was home to Jungleland USA, where animals were kept for the nearby and growing movie industry. Soon, though, the facility became a tourist attraction, a place for families to visit and interact with the exotic animals. It has been nearly 50 years since the park closed, and Sloan’s exhibition brings wildlife back to the community. Tortoise rides were a popular draw at Jungleland USA, and provided the inspiration for Sloan’s 96 Springs. In the painting, a giant Galapagos tortoise ambles through the foreground, lit candles melting atop its shell. “We really…

ABEND GALLERY 1412 Wazee Street #1, Denver, CO 80202 (303) 355-0950, www.abendgallery.com ANTONIOS ASPROMOURGOS (619) 770-7113, aadonios@yahoo.com www.aspromourgosart.com CLAGGETT/REY GALLERY 100 E. Meadow Drive, Suite 7, Vail, CO 81657, (970) 476-9350 www.claggettrey.com DEREK PENIX derekpenix@gmail.com www.derekpenix.com F. LISA HANNICK lisa@hannickfineart.com www.hannickfineart.com GAIL FAULKNER Ventura, CA, (805) 652-0065 www.gailfaulknerstudio.com JOHN C. DOYLE ART GALLERY 125 Church Street, Charleston, SC 29401 (843) 577-7344, gallery@johncdoyle.com www.johncdoyle.com LAURIE HENDRICKS (626) 833-0106 lauriehendricksart@gmail.com www.lauriehendricksart.com LORRAINE BUSHEK lorbushek@gmail.com www.lorrainebushek.com LOTTON GALLERY 900 N. Michigan Avenue, Level 6 Chicago, IL 60611, (312) 664-6203 www.lottongallery.com MATTHEW BIRD (410) 581-9988 matthew@matthewbird.com www.matthewbird.com MIA BERGERON www.miabergeron.com NANCY BALMERT www.nancybalmert.com PAMELA BERKELEY P.O. Box 93, Sheffield, MA 01257 (413) 717-8264 therealpamelaberkeley@gmail.com www.pberkeley.com PATRICK NEVINS patrick@patricknevinsart.com patricknevs77@gmail.com www.patricknevinsart.com REHS CONTEMPORARY GALLERIES 5 E. 57th Street, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10022, (212) 355-5710…

Italian artist Francesca Strino focuses her newest figurative paintings on images of women who are finding their strength in fragility. The human form, both male and female, is inspiring to Strino because she finds it to be understood universally and a representation of life itself. Her pieces are often derived from photographs she takes of friends, relatives and students. The photos allow her to study the forms in detail. From January 3 to 31 Strino’s latest paintings will be on view at Lotton Gallery in Chicago. Gallery director Christina Franzoso says, “The Italians use the word incantevole to describe something lovely, delightful and enchanting. Incantevole is the perfect word to describe Francesca Strino and her new series of paintings.” The compositions are highlighted by distinctive colors, as well as unique…

From January 23 to 27, the annual LA Art Show will take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center. On view will be thousands of works of art in gallery booths, ranging from contemporary to modern artwork among others. One of the mainstays of the show is Arcadia Contemporary, located in Pasadena, California, which for 2019 will feature a curated exhibition of artwork from new artists as well as recognized favorites. On view in the gallery booth will be work by brand-new gallery artist Loribelle Spirovski of Australia, who will be making her premiere with approximately 25 paintings from her Homme series. According to Steve Diamant, owner of the gallery, “[S]he has developed this incredible technique of depicting what appear to be timeless ‘portraits’ that could have been of classic…

Lorraine Watry has been a watercolorist for the past 25 years, specializing in contemporary realism through keen details, light and color. This focus on technical elements has evolved over the years but has remained a key component to her compositions. She says, “I still paint in a realistic manner as I did in the beginning, but my color sense and values are more refined and stronger. I now have a technical understanding of the medium that allows me to paint images that exploit the beauty of soft watercolor passages with defined realistic subjects.” Watry often works from photographs and says she does “a lot of the composing in the camera and it is usually the color or light in the scene that will capture my attention.” Sometimes she combines multiple…

Artist Joseph Pfeiffer-Herbert enjoys meeting new people, learning their stories and getting to know their personalities, which is why he primarily paints portraits and figures. “When painting figures I look for an aesthetically pleasing abstract combination of shadow and light that complements the strength and beauty in the person that I am trying to represent,” says the artist, who works in both oil and watercolor. In his oil paintings, Pfeiffer-Herbert creates dark backgrounds with the figures “glowing brightly as the center of interest, composing the whole piece with abstract shapes and color that form a cohesive image,” he says. “I treat watercolors a little differently. With watercolor I aim for lighter, more high-key images with white or light backgrounds and a strong focus on a technically accurate drawing.” Pfeiffer-Herbert finds…

In the paintings by Spanish artist Javier Mulió—who is known in the art world as Javier—he upholds the adage that art mirrors life since he looks to the everyday for inspiration while reviving art historical precedents. Through a combination of color, light and details, Javier uplifts overlooked objects and encourages viewers to celebrate life’s pleasures. Art critic Vincente Martí Vaño observes, “Using the rich variety of hues present in nature, Javier enlarges and makes significant through the mystifying power of art those objects of daily life that because of their proximity and their ordinariness normally go unnoticed.” Appearing in his paintings are recognizable items such as flowers, wine, fruit, seashells, books, candles, golf balls and board games that are placed against unadorned, neutral backgrounds. Transcending any specific culture, location, or…

Artist C.M. Cooper calls herself a “contemporary traditionalist” because her subjects are current-day traditional done in the impressionistic style. Her themes are of women day-dreaming, sleeping children, cats and ballerinas. She has also painted chickens and roosters, working women and still lifes. “I consider myself more of a colorist because I push color identity in the shadow, although I sometimes I do tonal paintings. My goal is to capture the effect of light on my subjects, creating a mood that tells an emotional story. I imagine that my women have unspoken dreams and thoughts of love or nostalgia,” Cooper says. “[My works of] children are about the beauty and innocence of youth. I try to compose a romantic mood by the use of the design elements with an emphasis on…

Instead of Just Crying on a Park Bench Coming from a background in the punk, DIY, self-publishing scene, artist Heather Benjamin creates works that still play upon and pull at that aesthetic. Granted, her work has matured indefinitely but when looking at her illustrations one gets the sense that this girl makes her own rules. Her unabashed drawings of the female figure hold a certain shock value charisma to them. The best way I can describe her work would be something along the lines of Kafkaesque with a touch of raw emotion and a dash of sex. Her images, while at times rather nightmarish, somehow still emote this nostalgic, comforting feeling as well as possessing an air of mystery and intrigue. Benjamin was kind enough to sit down with me…

In 1998 I saw Jeffrey Ripple’s paintings for the first time at the former Hackett-Freedman Gallery in San Francisco. I perused each piece, attracted by the impeccable still lifes in nebulous space. Later, after visiting several other galleries, I returned for another look and ran into the artist himself. We chatted, and have kept up over the years. His early oils were on paper—flowers, fruits and vegetables often isolated in their setting, with a strong side light. He brought to our attention that “these things are worthy of our notice. Their texture and their color are somehow more than just pretty. They’re magical,” he says. “It’s a process of pulling these things out from everyday life and giving them a place where they can be beautifully balanced and contained in…

Scottsdale, Arizona, is home to numerous landmark properties developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and continues today to be a beacon for culture, history and the arts. The city itself is located in the Salt River Valley in the northern reaches of the Sonoran Desert, sharing borders with Tempe, Phoenix, Paradise Valley, Carefree and Tonto National Forest. Much of the city, including historic Old Town Scottsdale, is a popular tourist destination, particularly in the winter months. And part of the allure of Scottsdale and the surrounding areas is the wide range of fine art, historical and performing arts organizations that call this city home. Public art installations, both permanent and temporary, play a significant role in shaping the city of Scottsdale. There’s a precedent of appreciation for the…

As shapes collide and coil, twisting together in a spasm of color and form, you can almost start to see identifiable objects come together from behind the paint in Toni Doilney’s abstract paintings. And then, just as everything starts to come together, it shifts away, like a cloud tugged apart by a high-altitude gust. “People tend to see a lot of things in my work, whether it’s trees or people or houses. Finding things that aren’t in my paintings seems to be part of the appeal of my work,” Doilney says from her Arizona studio. “Of course I do paint some things, like plants, houses, gardens or mountains, but I like to leave it all just a little ambiguous. It’s part of a natural process for me. I don’t want…

This January, RJD Gallery in Bridgehampton, New York, will host the exhibition Artful Companions, which explores the spheres of influences on a work of art. Featured will be pieces by gallery mainstays such as Mary Jane Ansell, Matt R. Martin and Drew Ernst, as well as works by brand-new artists on the roster, Aneka Ingold and Agnetha Sjögren. “Works of art are seldom comprised of a solitary subject on its own. Very often there is the influence of another person or object within the mix of ultimate composition,” says Joi Jackson Perle, the gallery’s director of operations. “What is the energy between the subject and the people and things that surround him? A companion takes many forms and could include another person, an animal, book or even the trees in…

As a painter, Derek Harrison happens to be inspired by everything, and his biggest challenge is narrowing down what he has time to paint. “I love nature, being outside and enjoying the mountains of Colorado to the oceans of California. The two places where I have lived the majority of my life,” he says. “When I go out to paint, it’s all about capturing the effects of light. This creates some of the most beautiful designs nature has to offer. I believe working from life is one of the most effective ways to reinterpret the beauty of this world. Combining the figure with a landscape, interior, etc. can create an open narrative that allows the viewer to relate to the scene and/or subject matter in a way that inspires.” When…

Artist Lyubena Fox says her artwork “opposes the fast-paced consumerism and stressed ways of the society nowadays. It pays its respect to art history, and it shows how much we can learn from our past in order to live and create to our fullest now. My work suggests, in the way it’s painted, that you can also choose how you paint/live your life accordingly to what you truly crave, despite what the current fashion is.” Fox’s works are painted in several layers, using both transparent and opaque qualities of oil paint. Each layer is applied after the previous has dried, which makes the painting withstand time. It also creates a glowing, three-dimensional effect, which is due to the different layers showing though each other. These pieces are painted following the…

The March 2017 issue of American Art Collector featured an extensive, multipage article on the Texas home of collectors Steven Bennett and Elaine Melotti Schmidt. The collection—which included many paintings that had appeared on the pages of this magazine—focused on paintings of women by women figurative artists such as Andrea Kowch, Katie O’Hagan, Zoey Frank, Anna Wypych, Suzanne Anan, Candice Bohannon and Pamela Wilson. This past April, Bennett and Schmidt announced The Bennett Prize for women figurative realist painters. The two decided that the prize would be $50,000 to fund an exhibition that would then tour the country. The amount stems from the idea that the two wanted to fund an artist in a way that would allow the winner to spend one year entirely focused on creating artwork. “In…