Living with Art: Dazzling Color in Paint
Hey art lovers!
Get ready for a colorful journey right from your home. In this "Living with Art" edition, we're showcasing artists who love to splash their canvases with eye-popping colors. Imagine turning a corner in your home and being greeted by a masterpiece that stops you in your tracks. That's the power of color, and these artists know how to harness it.
From Andrew Zimmerman's fusion of art and design to Kristin Moore's atmospheric landscapes, we're spotlighting artists who aren't afraid to play with the palette. Their stories, from globe-trotting adventures to cinematic inspirations, are as vibrant as their art.
Meet the Artists:
01. Andrew Zimmerman
”In my work I am interested exploring the intersection between painting and sculpture, art and design, the hand-made and the mass-produced. I am excited by the tension that arises from situating my work in between these categories. I would like my paintings to create moments of unexpected discovery within a language of reconstructable forms.
I fondly remember working with my dad in his wood shop as a young child. Cutting the parts and assembling the pieces into a bench or a table revealed to me a magical journey from a slab of wood to a finished product. More importantly, I experienced the joy and endless possibilities of making things by hand.
For much of my career, I have been exploring materials that stand outside traditional art making and address ideas of interchangeability and mass production. Early on, I created a series of sculptural paintings using common plastic drinking straws and a blowtorch. More recently, I have been utilizing automotive paint and wood, often adopting the manufacturers’ color names as the titles of my works. Yet by cutting the boards by hand, I create subtle variations in line that highlight the unique hand of the artist. In this way, I am repurposing commercial systems for singular modes of expression.”
— Andrew Zimmerman
02. Fran O’Neill
Brooklyn-based artist Fran O’Neill creates vibrant, swirling paintings in myriad, intensely hued colors. While O’Neill pays homage to the great abstract painters of the 20th century, her aesthetic is also based on personal experience. She utilizes unexpected moments from her past as the jumping off point for artistic explorations that look to recreate her perceptions rather than actual events. Movement—of the hand, brush, and paint—is integral to O’Neill’s work, as evidenced by her gestural style and the kinetic energy she captures on the canvas.
Her process, which involves using her whole body, has always yielded energetic work. "soft magic", the grandest scale in the exhibition at 72 x 72 inches, presents the viewer with the quietest palette. While echoing the soft ripples of a waterfall or stream, "soft magic" also provides a space for reflection. Like the new chapter in O'Neill's life, the painting's subtle chartreuse, lavender, and stone hues reflect a stillness, a slowing down, and an appreciation for the power of restraint. In contrast, a smaller canvas entitled "wild card" evokes a richness and density only achieved through the time and space spent with each layer, a necessary patience, and belief in the final expression of the work.
03. Jen Wink Hays
Jen Wink Hays is a painter and sculptor based in Philadelphia, PA. Her oil paintings are characterized by her use of a bold, dissonant color palette that blends subdued earthy tones with aggressive, synthetic neons. Incomplete visual layers also convey struggle and resolution in Hays' work. There is a push/pull between what is shown and what is concealed as if something is at once being covered over and peeled away.
04. Gregg Renfrow
In his luminous, abstract compositions, Gregg Renfrow conveys the ever-changing quality of the Californian light he has been minutely observing over the course of his 40-plus year career. Working in layers, he pours mixtures of polymer and pigment over rectangular or square sheets of cast acrylic, creating brushless paintings full of depth and subtle tonal gradations.
05. NATALIA ROMAN
Natalia Roman is an artist based in Barcelona. She graduated in Fine Arts Studies at the University of Barcelona in 2007. Since that year her work has been regularly shown in solo and group exhibitions. Natalia’s works are part of important private collections such as Fundació Privada Vila Casas and Esencias-Ventos Foundation. This series of paintings by Natalia Roman gathers its inspiration from geometric, minimalist shapes and paintings from the beginning of Modernism, with a special emphasis on Art Deco shapes of the 30's, 40's and 50's. The subtle but chic color combinations will combine beautifully with both vintage and modern furniture without overtaking spaces that are carefully crafted by designers.
06. Kristin Moore
Her work explores architectural landscapes through an atmospheric and cinematic lens. Through painting, I create interpretive renderings of recognizable locations that reflect on the human experience. My work oscillates between representing a physical setting and the idealized memory of a place.
I look to film as an inspiration for my work, admiring the framing, color, and atmosphere which all convey a visceral experience for the viewer. I find inspiration in the cinematography of John Alcott, Sofia Coppola, Hoyte Van Hoytema, and Wes Anderson. Travel is also a resource for my work. I source the images that influence my paintings from my many plane rides, road trips, and hikes up to overlooks. My continued collection of archived photographs is used as the blueprint for my creative process. As I work, I refer back to the photographs as a guideline but also allow the painting to go on its journey. Throughout the painting process, I’m omitting, editing, and rendering, resulting in the work becoming a veiled version of the original inspiration source.
The expansive skies in my work invite viewers to mentally place themselves within the setting of the painting. The familiar symbols that I reference, such as signage commonly seen along a highway, often spark memories for the viewer’s familiarity with a location. Devoid of human activity within their compositions, my paintings allow space for the viewer to engage in a moment of personal reflection and solitude.
07. Mark Khaisman
Mark Khaisman recreates images of historical figures, scenes from old movies, and 20th-century art using only layers of brown parcel tape on Plexiglas panels, which he then installs into light boxes so that they resemble pixelated computer images. His subjects have included iconic Hollywood movies such as Hitchcock’s Spellbound and James Bond, as well as Albert Einstein and Julius Caesar. Transforming a mundane material into noir-ish images rich in shadow and texture, Khaisman has said, “When installed in a light box, the tape images evoke both the seduction of the cinema screen and the physical presence of minimalist sculptures.”
08. Geoff McFetridge
McFetridge focuses on our human connection to the natural world and prompts viewers to question its role in our lives. Do we merely exploit nature for nourishment, wealth, and entertainment, or are we part of a larger, interdependent system? In this body of work, McFetridge aims to explore and expand on his conceptual thought processes related to ideas of understanding and evolution. These paintings are meant to question modes of consciousness, intelligence, empathy, ethics, freedom, and responsibility, while encouraging a contemplation of our place within the natural world and the larger ecosystem.
