Monday, June 27, 2011

Pretty Can Be Serious


I just saw the film Hockney at the Tate. It was very good, mostly an interview on how he was thinking about his work during its creation and when looking at it in the show. I pulled two quotes from it into my sketchbook:

I started painting pictures about things I know, not just what I'd seen.


[critics] think that pretty can't be serious and frankly I've never understood that.


Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Virva Hinnemo






I just recently found the work of this Finnish artist online. I really enjoy it, seems a bit like Nozkowski's abstractions of specific objects found in his reality. And she comments on this on her blog here. They are just delightfully enjoyable to me.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Happy Friday!



Christopher Knowles Untitled (Three Kids) 1991




I hope your weekend is wonderful and you find yourself in the middle of a kid sandwich. Minus the gun. Although-they don't look too concerned.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Woodmere Shows


Still Life, Elizabeth Godshalk Burger 1940



Dancing Waters 2, Jan Baltzell (a great PAFA professor) 1991-92



Mountain, Beach in Maine, Rose Naftulin, date unknown



Still Life, Catherine Mulligan (PAFA graduate), 2008



I went out to the Woodmere Museum a few days ago with a few PAFA people for my second time. This, like my first visit, really exceeded my expectations. There are a bunch of different shows going on until June 26th that flow so nicely through the space and the works themselves. Kudos to the curator for bringing together different time periods and ways of working. It really got me thinking about what things stay the same for all artists.


It was especially enjoyable to see so much good work made by Philadelphia women artists (note all images above). The Woodmere apparently specializes in Philadelphia region artists and so many of the artists I was familiar with but rarely see the work in person or can find online. (note poor image quality above! I had to take photos of the catalog) Check it out in person! Chestnut Hill's main drag is right down the street and so perfect for a summer stroll post-Woodmere.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Kyle Staver


In the last few months I was introduced to the work of Kyle Staver by a friend at school. I am dying to see her work in person...pattern, line, color all wrapped up in imagery which seems personal and derived from her own life. Check out more on her website...

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Capucci at the PMA

The dress above was in the show, along with some great old footage like this of his work as it initially appeared on the runway and in commercial ads.


I went to the Capucci show yesterday at the Phila Museum of Art. It was a fun thing to see, a little less brain power, a little more uninhibited delight than I usually experience while at the PMA. The show is a great visual thing though: careful, idiosyncratic color relations, outrageous forms and decadent materials, all masquerading as dresses- it was quite amusing.


But in all seriousness, I could relate to Capucci, and really enjoyed seeing his work evolve from wacky experiments that seemed unrelated in his early work, to a sustained body of work that showed his eccentricity in taste but felt tied together by his particular interests. I could see he worked through questions he posed to himself, allowing his instincts and talents to guide his practice. My mom pointed out a quote that we really liked which said something like, Capucci worked from nature through memory and emotion. I think this could be said about all great art probably.