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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Though gorgeously rendered, Chester Arnold’s paintings don’t idealize the state of nature. It depicts how, despite humanity’s best efforts, the Earth endures the accumulation of humanity’s waste and development. Cascading piles of tires and trash becomes their own mountainous formations.
Katie Metz paints the city that is around her. Working and living out of Seattle, a city bustling with activity and nightlife, her landscapes express the immediacy of her experiences there. Though realistic depictions, Metz applies impressionistic brush strokes where scratched layers of paint make the picture quiver with life. Her individualistic style brings the viewer into a luminous, almost other worldly realm as it takes us past skyscrapers, through streets and overpasses.
In painting nature, artist David Kroll evokes a classical sense of beauty and fragility. He combines elements of naturalist painting and still life in his portrayal of animals like elegant egrets and koi which perch and swim around delicate objects. Though remarkably detailed and inspired by early landscape painting, Kroll has said that he wants to paint a version of the wild that is romantic, and not necessarily realistic. "I paint refuges, places to go to for solace. I want my paintings to be destinations of quiet and calm," he says. "However, this world is fragile."
Italian artist Cristiano Menchini relies on a combination of his memory and imagination and observation to recreate nature in his work. Working in acrylic and watercolor or pen on paper, the artist creates highly stylistic interpretations of overgrown vegetation where small animals like birds and beetles make their home. Elements like blades of grass criss-cross into natural, messy patterns appearing almost abstract, set against dark shadows that lift them from the page. They are not quite reality. "I see my work as immersed in a timeless dimension, unreal state, crystallized. There is a detachment from reality in what I represent," he says.
San Francisco based artist Jeremy Mann captures the exciting air of his hometown in his dynamic oil landscapes. His "Cityscapes" series portrays the city from bustling, bird's-eye views to its more mundane and quiet street corners at night, all flickering with glitchy dabs of paint that makes his art appear digital, though it is a description he rejects. It's a common misconception that perhaps stems from his process, where he references "jumbled up" digital manipulations of his own photographs.
Nicole Gordon paints landscapes that lean on the whimsical and somewhat grim, an expression of beauty met with the horrors of real world change and transformation. The Chicago based artist cites namely 16th century painters Pieter Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch as her inspiration, whose works while dramatic and highly stylized, also offered expressions of the every day of their time. Similarly, Gordon describes her work as a combination of fantasy with darker truths: her use of bright colors and out of place objects create an imaginative view of reality.
Bonsai, the art of growing miniature trees, has a magic power to transport us to another world, a quality shared by Patrick Bergsma's "Landscape-Sculptures". Inspired by these miniature landscapes that have existed in Japanese culture for over a thousand years, the Dutch artist sought to create his own versions of the tiny lands. Many Japanese cultural characteristics, in particular the influence of Zen Buddhism, inform the bonsai tradition in Japan. However, this harmony is disturbed by Bergsma who incorporates mini "marooned people" into post-apocalyptic scenes.
There is a magical simplicity about Brookyn based painter Alyssa Monk's oil portraits, where looking at her work is like looking into the reflection of a forest pool. Her images portray ghostly figures that take form at the surface, inbetween the reflection of other natural elements like tree branches and the sun shining peeking through their foliage. Her lush depictions are often described as a blend of the figurative and landscape.
Oakland, California based painter Warner Williams has earned his fair share of success since beginning his career in the 1970s, but you won't find him on any lists of major Pop art players. Williams considers himself as an outsider of the contemporary movement: "I chose a 35,000 year-old tradition of painting as an alternative. I believe in sacred geometry, significant form, and the spirit resonance of color," he says, applying this philosophy to create brilliantly colored oil paintings that remix California's landscape.
In his clever photographs of landscapes, Paris based photographer Guillaume Amat visually explores the meaning of continuity. His recent and ongoing series titled “Open Fields” features images of empty scenes occupied by a fixed, centered mirror to give a window into all that is missing or, perhaps, all that is present. Amat's images are striking and profound, sincere in their depictions of reality yet simultaneously contrived. One gets a sense of seeing more deeply into the moment than a typical photograph can provide.
A master of contrast, Filippo Minelli sets off vibrant, billowing clouds of colored smoke in empty, enigmatic spaces. Initially inspired by the silencing effect of smokebombs on urban protests, Minelli “got the impression that the smoke itself was the silence arriving to the scene.” To convey the impression of silence, he re-contextualized them in landscapes—in a sense, Minelli solidifies silence in smoke.
The intricate abstract works of Miertje Skidmore internalize and transform the environmental extremes of the Australian landscape. Her paintings suggest the otherworldly- each abstraction could be a birds-eye-view of a multicolored planet. Her palette makes use of mineral and elemental colors that wouldn’t be out of place in some of the most rare enclaves of nature.
Although Milan, Italy based artist Paolo Pibi paints from the natural world, he describes his surrealist landscapes as images of the inside of his mind. Like Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dali, and other Surrealists before him, Pibi's acrylic paintings break free from the straight representational landscapes that are familiar and take us into other worldly territory.
Carlo Cane's misty landscapes appear as if in a beautiful dream, but through the thick fog exists something sinister and unappealing. The Italian artist, featured here on our blog, is distraught about how we are treating our environment and the implications of our growing disconnection to nature. But rather than focus on images of loss, he expresses his concern by presenting us with bewildering and surreal portrayals of nature in its most vigorous and alluring state. Cane recently shared his new paintings in an email to Hi-Fructose, in which he explores the possibilities of our future, while taking a note from our past.
Atlanta, Georgia based artist Sarah Emerson's paintings and murals portray a world where sweetness and craziness collide in energetic displays. These colorful landscapes present a bizarre version of actual places or things, inspired by the ways that time and human intervention affects them. Words like loopy, cartoony, even psychedelic are often used to describe her imagery, populated by Disney-cute animals like baby deer and googley-eyed creatures, who peek through a thick foliage of wavy shapes and lines. Emerson once said that if there is any message that runs through all of her paintings, it's that life is delicate and temporary, and she urges us to be present in it. This philosophy is at the heart of her solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, "The Unbearable Flatness of Being".
Oil painter Vasilis Avramidis, first featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 26, produces modern portraits of isolated landscapes, often depicting architecture in states of overgrowth. At the time of this interview, Avramidis confessed that he has settled in to his third studio location this year, a small studio in northern Greece. It is here that he has been putting the finishing touches on a new group of dramatically lit scenes based on memory and the overlooked. According to Avramidis, these paintings are as much about creating a familiar sense of place within a moment as they are about the absence of humans within the architecture. His latest works will be on view at The Contemporary London, located at Space W10 which opens on November 13th.
California based artist Brett Amory, first featured in HF Vol. 20 and our blog, paints haunting images out of a natural voyeurism for urban spaces. Amory describes his latest series of works as a sort of protest against the transformation of New York's Lower East Side into a "gentrified wasteland", which is changing the social character of the neighborhood. This series is a progression of his previous "Waiting" series that portrays the landscapes of cities like London and San Francisco, now losing their spirit and personality to urban renewal.
Los Angeles based artist Dave Kinsey (HF Vol. 13) will debut geometric landscapes in his upcoming solo exhibition with FFDG Gallery in San Francisco on Friday. In "The Modern Condition", Kinsey continues to walk the line between the natural world and his abstract perceptions of it. His exhibit features 9 acrylic and collage works on canvas that portray boldly colored giant figures and structures erupting from a barren environment.
Paris-based Korean artist Jung-yeon Min (first covered here) draws fantastic and organic landscapes from her imagination. Jung-yeon self-describes her personality as "eccentric", relying heavily on her bizarre visions, a combination of science and dreams. Working primarily in hand-drawn pen and ink, her images play on concepts of scale and juxtaposition between peace and turbulence, fantasy and reality.
San Francisco based artist Joe Hengst presents his idea of the future world in imaginative, acrylic landscape paintings. At the core of his work is his belief in man's increasing separation from the natural world. Since the beginning of our time, nature has supplied us with the things we need most for survival, such as food, water, clothing, and shelter. With the introduction of modern day society came a change in how we supply our every day needs. Hengst represents our withdrawal from nature by painting ethereal pieces that experiment with abstraction.
Greg 'Craola' Simkin's childhood memories have long played an important role and inspiration for his artwork. The playfulness of being a child comes together with creatures of the natural world in his mythical landscapes. He calls this world "the Outside", a place where the impossible becomes possible, and a cast of anthropomorphized animals set out on bizarre adventures. Simkins expands on this world in his upcoming solo exhibition, "Where Am I?" at KP Project/MKG, opening Saturday.
Mikko Lagerstedt is a self-taught landscape photographer passionate about capturing the natural wonders of his home country, Finland. He first became interested in shooting these incredible vistas when driving to a relative's cabin in the countryside one summer. "After a rainy day, the sun started shining, and the fog was rising in the fields," writes the artist in his statement. "I just had to stop and watch this beautiful moment and then I realized that I want to start capturing these kinds of moments." Ever since then, Lagerstedt has spent his time capturing Finland's glittering night skies and pristine forests, using his expert editing skills to bring out the otherworldly qualities of these real-life settings. His work makes us want to book plane tickets to Finland already.
Chicago based Jennifer Presant merges familiar, everyday places into mysterious landscapes. Her subjects vary from displaced household items and exposed figures in non-sensical, dramatically lit spaces. Looking at her work, we find ourselves staring into overwhemingly quiet scenes, such as an empty bedroom in the wilderness or middle of the ocean. Presant calls this mixture of environments a "visual metaphor" which symbolizes our ongoing experiences of time, memory, and relationship with physical space.
Emerging photographer Elizabeth Gadd travels the world with her friends and captures them amid awe-inspiring scenery in locales such as Iceland, Oregon, and Hawaii. The Vancouver-based artist is drawn to grandiose vistas from mountain tops, icy terrains, and unexpected patterns in geological formations and plant life. While she calls herself a landscape photographer, Gadd inserts characters in brightly-colored clothing in the distance of her compositions. They act as guides for the viewer to navigate the unfamiliar.
Swiss photographer Robert Bösch captures his mountain climbing adventures in picturesque destinations across the world. While much of his work consists of conventional landscape photography and documentation of extreme sports, his fine art and advertising photography puts a playful spin on the aforementioned genres.
Working from her Brooklyn, NY studio, artist Zaria Forman creates pastel landscapes inspired by the beauty and vastness of the sky and the sea. Hers is an art created for facilitating a deeper understanding of a world in crisis. She is fascinated by the constantly-changing nature of water and inspired by the challenges of her medium.
American artists — from the painters of the Hudson River School to the influential Andrew Wyeth — have long depicted this country’s vast landscape as simultaneously a place of lonely desolation and of awe-inspiring grandeur. Following in this tradition, Andrea Kowch creates gorgeous and eerie acrylic paintings of open-skied pastoral landscapes. Inspired by a deep fascination with the natural world, Kowch’s works also tap into a common feeling of uneasiness many of us have toward the American rural – a place that is iconic for its beauty but that is also often associated with tedium, isolation and a clinging to negative aspects of the country's past.
On Saturday, Thinkspace Gallery celebrated the opening of "After", a collaborative exhibition by Mary Iverson and Stephanie Buer. As a singular statement, their new work explores a certain "afterlife" of desolate urban and rural landscapes. Where Stephanie Buer (previously covered here) suggests the passing of time through colorful graffiti on crumbling walls, Mary Iverson interjects peaceful mountainscapes with exciting abstract shapes.