Studio Drift

Meow No! 7 Paintings by Artists Who Have Probably Never Seen a Cat

December 27, 2023 (updated December 27, 2023) Published by artistvenu

Our feline friends may now be the toast of the internet and social media, but they have also long served as subjects and inspirations to artists all the way back to the Middle Ages. Renoir has captured the blissful languor of the cat, just as Picasso depicted its playful savagery and Chagall its kineticism. And that’s not mentioning Louis Wain, who enriched the genre with the sheer volume of his anthropomorphized cat paintings.

But sadly, not all artists get cats. In fact, some have turned out artworks that portray them less like our furry housemates and more inexplicably strange, even grotesque creatures. Cats are weird, but surely not this weird. Below, we bring you seven times artists got these purrballs wrong—so wrong.

Featured image: Fernando Botero, Still Life With Green Soup (1972). Courtesy of Christie’s

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Vincent Leroy’s Floating Lenses Hover Above Canada’s Lake Louise Like An Enigmatic Cloud

December 23, 2023 (updated December 23, 2023) Published by artistvenu

FLOATING LENSES BY VINCENT LEROY LANDS IN LAKE LOUISE, CANADA

For Vincent Leroy, the great outdoors are immense playgrounds in which he likes to test out his most recent creations. Following his explorative installation in the desert of Joshua Tree (see more on designboom here), the French artist now imagines his Floating Lenses optical mobile in an XL version on the turquoise waters of Lake Louise, in the Canadian Rockies. Made up of 128 fresnel lenses mounted on carbon rods, the mobile reacts and takes flight at the slightest breeze. Defying the laws of weightlessness, it swirls above the lake and begins a silent and harmonious dialogue with nature and the elements that surround it: air, light, and the mirroring surface of the water in which it reflects itself.

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Religion’s Understated Influence on Modern Art

December 20, 2023 (updated December 20, 2023) Published by artistvenu

Religion influenced modern art’s development far more than most accounts let on, and some of today’s most iconic artists mined their spiritual practices as sources, including Andy Warhol and Joseph Cornell. Contrary to popular belief, God is not dead. Alas, art historians and art critics have buried the lead, glossed it over, or outright ignored this influence. Erika Doss’s new book Spiritual Moderns bravely retells the story of modern art, fraught as it may be, with a more honest look at how religion shaped it.

The book takes place amid a tectonic shift: The mainstream art world is becoming more open to spirituality and religion. In 2019, before the pandemic, Swedish mystic artist Hilma af Klint shattered the Guggenheim’s all-time attendance record, bringing in around 600,000 visitors. In 2018, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute presented a show on the Catholic imagination in fashion. In 2019 and 2021, the Brooklyn Museum and the Andy Warhol Museum jointly put on the first institutional show on Andy Warhol’s religious beliefs. The late modern art critic Clement Greenberg must be rolling in his grave. A certain anti-religious bias — once de rigeur in the art world — is fading but not yet entirely gone. It still distorts how we retell many important stories in modern art history. Erika Doss now attempts to correct the record.

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‘The Echo of Picasso’ Charts the Epic Impact of the Spanish Artist

December 18, 2023 (updated December 18, 2023) Published by artistvenu

Featured image: Installation view of “The Echo of Picasso” (2023), Almine Rech New York, Tribeca. Photo: Thomas Barratt. Courtesy of the artists, the estates, and Almine Rech.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), the renowned Spanish painter who is considered one of—if not the—most influential artists of the 20th century. To mark the occasion, Almine Rech gallery is presenting a diverse, two-part group exhibition across both its locations on the Upper East Side in New York, and as one of the inaugural shows at its new Tribeca space. Curated by French art critic Eric Troncy, and on view through December 16, 2023, “The Echo of Picasso” examines dual perspectives on Picasso’s legacy: the first revisits the art historical period wherein the artist’s contemporaries challenged his work, and the second from the point of view of today’s living artists whose work “echoes” Picasso’s oeuvre. The exhibition includes examples of rare works by Picasso, such as Glass of Absinthe (1914), which is one of only six extant sculptures and on loan from Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, and contemporary masters, including works by Willem de Kooning, Jeff Koons, David Hockney, Urs Fischer, and more.

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Poetry of the Everyday

December 18, 2023 (updated December 18, 2023) Published by artistvenu

Chinese artist Li Feng works in his studios in Shanghai and Los Angeles, where he is inspired by the everyday: people, language and the poetic ironies of life. A painter and poet best known for his striking works on canvas, he works in acrylic, oil, coloured powder and mixed media techniques, often implementing collage in his painterly practice.

A: In Issue 115 of Aesthetica, we featured The Adventure Journey. Who are the subjects – are they real people, a composite of various people or are they purely from your imagination?
LF: Human society is another jungle. For individuals, they are a mixed image of the known and the unknown, as well as the interwoven inner self. Sometimes wandering among them, the identity of each other will unconsciously be weakened or blurred, becoming indistinct. Only when one is alone, the concepts of “self” and “other” will emerge and gradually become clear.

A: You are inspired by the everyday: people, language and the poetic ironies of life. What has led you to this?
LF: Indeed, there was a time when I felt emotionally down, silently painting, and due to years of writing, I began to organize the rather scattered poetry manuscripts I had accumulated over the years. In my daily life, I discovered early on my sharp sense of words. They combine and record the spiritual history of my life.

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In Surreal Portraits, Rafael Silveira Plunges Into the Mysteries of the Human Psyche

December 18, 2023 (updated December 18, 2023) Published by artistvenu

Brazilian artist Rafael Silveira supplants heads with bunches of flowers, flocks of birds, and plumes of smoke in fantastical portraits that delve into the inner workings of the human psyche. Lively hues of pink, yellow, and blue come together as he continues to convey the permeation of emotions through surreal phenomena.

Since childhood, Silveira has harbored a profound interest in the complexities of the mental universe. “I believe that my art is a profound dive into the human mind,” the artist tells Colossal. “I find inspiration in the mysteries of the human psyche and in the energies, both tangible and intangible, that permeate our lives and the nature surrounding us.”

Featured image: “Polyphonic Nature of Existence” Image © Rafael Silveira

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What Makes a Drawing a Drawing?

December 14, 2023 (updated December 14, 2023) Published by artistvenu

“You shouldn’t major in drawing.”

It was my sophomore year of college and I was perched on a rolling chair in my advisor’s office. “Why not?” I asked.

“Because art schools won’t take you seriously.”

I’m sad to say she was right. Since the prominence of the craftsperson gave way to the elevated role of the professional artist around the 1300s, much of the Western art world has considered drawing to be a lower and (literally) cheaper art form than the ostensibly more refined world of painting.

I chose to major in drawing anyway, fascinated by the questions it raises that the art world generally ignores: What can drawing do that other mediums cannot? When is a drawing a preliminary sketch, only created so it can disappear behind coats of glossy paint, and when is it a final product? Or can it be both? And how do we even define “drawing”?

Featured image: Installation view of Drawing as Practice at the National Academy of Design (photo Isabella Segalovich/Hyperallergic)

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7 Questions for Photorealist Painter Robert Gniewek on Finding Inspiration in the Urban Landscape at Night

December 5, 2023 (updated December 5, 2023) Published by artistvenu

American artist Robert Gniewek (b. 1951) is a master of contemporary photorealism and is best known for his atmospheric portrayals of urban landscapes. Originally from Detroit, Michigan, Gniewek has turned his artistic vision to cities across both the United States and Europe, maintaining a special focus on various qualities of artificial light, from the fluorescent glow of theater marquees to neon signs hanging in the windows of diners. Far from being simply a documentary, however, Gniewek aggregates elements of various vignettes to create compositions that are purely of his own artistic vision.

This month, Louis K. Meisel Gallery will present a selection of Gniewek’s latest paintings at Art Miami in booth AM408. Ahead of the exhibition, we reached out to Gniewek to learn more about the development of his singular practice, and what goes into his technically meticulous paintings.

Featured image: Robert Gniewek, Scotten Inn (2014). Courtesy of Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York.

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‘Making Her Mark’ Explores Four Centuries of Groundbreaking Women Artists in Europe

December 2, 2023 (updated December 2, 2023) Published by artistvenu

The Baltimore Museum Presents a Show to Correct the Canon

While some institutions have been slow to adapt to the tsunami of evidence that women have been the makers of many of the most brilliantly executed works throughout history, the Baltimore Museum of Art (“BMA”) has been a trailblazer. In its “2020 Vision” initiative, the museum dedicated its entire 2020 calendar year of exhibitions, programs, and acquisitions to artwork by women-identifying artists to coincide with the centennial of women’s suffrage in the United States. That year, the BMA spent close to $3 million to acquire work by 49 women artists, including works by Betye Saar, Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, Cherokee artist Kay WalkingStick, and a monumental map painting by Salish artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, who had her first New York retrospective at the Whitney Museum this past summer. In January 2023 the BMA appointed Asma Naeem as its new director. She is the first woman of color to lead the institution.

Featured image: Clara Peeters “A Still life of Lilies”, Roses, Iris, Pansies, Columbine, Love-in-a-Mist, Larkspur, and Other Flowers in a Glass Vase on a Table Top, Flanked by a Rose and Carnation, 1610

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Phill Hopkins’s Impressionistic Landscapes Transform Painting Into a Form of Poetry

November 29, 2023 (updated November 29, 2023) Published by artistvenu

Originally from Bristol and currently based in Leeds, England, British artist Phill Hopkins (b. 1961) works across drawing, photography, and sculpture, but maintains a practice primarily focused on painting. As a child, Hopkins struggled in many classes in school but excelled in art—possibly attributable to his diagnosis of dyslexia. The artist has stated that, “The marks in my work are perhaps a kind of poetry or prose. My marks need to be precise, my best ‘handwriting’ and not slapdash. As I am dyslexic, these marks, more than English, feel like my first language. I’m literate in this tongue.”

Hailing from a working-class family, Hopkins initially took up work at a warehouse and subsequently a bakery. He was eventually accepted by Goldsmiths College of Art in London, where he received his B.F.A in 1985. Since then, he has had more than two dozen solo exhibitions across the United Kingdom and has been included in group exhibitions internationally. His work is in private collections around the world and may be found in the collections of the Royal Academy of Arts, London; Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art; and Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery, among others.

Featured image: Phill Hopkins, Bardsey Island I (2022). Courtesy of Kadip Gallery, London.

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