Visiting Kim MacConnel’s artist studio and private residence was always going to be a colorful affair. How hands-on it turned out to be made a few guests step out of their comfort zone: indeed, when confronted with Kim’s painted furniture – in his very own functional living room – you literally want to take a seat and ponder (in the picture below, all chairs, sofas and tables have been painted by Kim MacConnel). Yet we’ve all wanted to get a little too close to touch the art in museums but there was always that little voice (or the museum guard’s voice!) telling you to step back. At Kim’s house, touching the art is allowed and encouraged, making us feel right at home. This house was turned total work of art thanks to the equally touchable art created by his wife Jean Lowe (a blog dedicated to Jean will follow). More than a house, it is a decorative duet and an ode to Color, an entire art history conversation, right there. Two artists putting their artistic visions towards creating their very own make-belief vie de château, in which doors are as tall as in Versailles itself, furniture is adorned with chinoiserie […]
If you could turn back time, if you could find a way…OK, before you hold me responsible for conjuring an image of Cher singing (mea culpa), tell me one thing…Do you think you could live with a beautiful sunrise permanently happening inside your own house ? How about if YOU could make the geology of a landscape appear just by moving in front of it? Could your mind comprehend the multiple strata built by 4.6 billion years of Earth works, if they were shown to you as a small compressed sculpture? And just before you go, what about crystallizing altar wine, ie: the blood of Christ? All these questions are dealt with by Adam Belt and his new body of work exhibited at Quint Gallery in San Diego until July 6th. All these questions deal with Light, Space, Time and the Divine. Quite an ambitious mix if you think of it yet Adam Belt keeps on pushing the boundaries of the Light and Space art movement started in the 1960’s by Robert Irwin, James Turrell and Larry Bell – a holy trinity of artists, if there was only one. To Light and Space, Adam Belt adds Time as if it […]
One quarter mile was the exact distance between Robert Rauschenberg’s house on Captiva Island and his artist studio. As a distance, it is neither long nor short; more like a healthy buffer or decompression zone to move between personal and professional spaces without bringing the frustrations of one into the other. But I have to wonder, does this concept really work for Rauschenberg, an artist who famously declared acting in the “gap” between art and life?
Kelsey Brookes is a San Diego artist who has beautified my common errands and end of yoga practices for some time: how can you resist his striking mural in La Jolla? A monumental mandala of gorgeous colors soaring to my almost permanent blue sky, I always find comfort in its all-over unstoppable growth pattern. It spells “life” in concentric circles and ripples but the art of Kelsey Brookes is definitely not as happy hippie as you might think. A spectacular new show at Quint Gallery will be showing just that, starting this Saturday September 29, 2018. With mandala-like patterns reminiscent of the world system symbolically represented in Hindu and Buddhist artistic practices, radial motifs simulate the invisible force we all depend upon: life. Color patterns and symmetry make for a meditative experience; when made of sand, mandalas remind us all of our impermanence. Personally I am in awe of the time and patience such beauties require. No wonder mandalas are often associated with cosmic experiences and transcendence. And that is definitely something Kelsey Brookes channels with his art. Yet with the concept of transcendence come two directions: will you seek to elevate yourself to an out of body experience and aerial […]
Visiting Christopher Puzio’s Studio was a real treat: his work plays a lot on the “frame the view” concept, a key sub-line from the beginning of Reinventingrid, back in January 2017. That is how my eye travels: I simply love capturing in pictures how some art installations encapsulate what lies around them. Bringing the world to attention… San Diego is incredibly fortunate to have many Christopher Puzio works around. All have this uncanny versatility of framing a view while opening up space. He is literally, and figuratively, drilling on what an open work can be.
We all recognize the flags, targets, numbers or colors, these motives Jasper Johns has used in his art since the mid 1950s. They are omnipresent signs in our everyday life. We are drawn to them instinctively as they are instantly recognizable and neatly sum up abstract concepts we may find hard to describe with words. We see the signs but are we fully awake to the concepts? Try this with the American flag, for instance. If you think about it long enough, one ideal and many ideas are encapsulated in this flag…
Not only are Mark Bradford’s typical works monumental in vertical and horizontal scale, they are also layered, built-up thick, oozing a palpable density. These layers can be pages from old comic books, newspaper prints, all glued down and up with shellac. Mark Bradford then works on taking his paper strata from collage to decollage.
I have never really been a fan of Damien Hirst. Or rather I have always felt attraction and repulsion in equal part, without understanding what the hype was about. Yet I am one prepared to give the benefit of the doubt, do some research to form an educated opinion. Since I have done it for Jeff Koons here, I went to look at Damien Hirst’s Veil paintings. Oops, he did it again! 24 monumental canvases, visual eye candies for sure and which sold out almost immediately. Easy work, easy sell, what’s not to like, right?? Well, for a start Damien Hirst cites Seurat’s pointillism and Pierre Bonnard’s approach to colors as main inspirations for his Veil Paintings at Gagosian Beverly Hills.