Hindsight : New Art from KLAUDIA MARR GALLERY in Santa Fe

13th Annual Realism Invitational at Klaudia Marr Gallery. http://www.klaudiamarrgallery.com/

Recent purchases include:

Kenney Mencher

"Two Schools"

David Malan

"Caught Unaware"

Robert Batterton

"Basil"

12th Annual Realism Invitational at Klaudia Marr Gallery. http://www.klaudiamarrgallery.com/

Recent purchases from this gallery include:

Dan Griggs

http://www.thescreamonline.com/art/art2-4/griggs/

"Dream Scape with Red Poppy"

ARTIST'S STATEMENT:

I was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico. For as long as I can remember I have always been fascinated by the process of drawing and painting. In 1974 I met two well respected artists: Siegfried Hahn and Howard Wexler, with whom I trained and studied over the next few years. Mr. Hahn studied at the Royal Academy in London and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in the 1930’s, and Mr. Wexler at the Pratt Institute. Through them, I was exposed to the drawing precepts of Lecoq de Boisbaudan, whose disciples included Rodin, Monet, Whistler, and Degas as well as the oil painting mediums of the late Jacques Maroger. I was trained both in oil and watercolor. The watercolor approach I employ arose from the 18th century Norwich School in England, and produced such great watercolorists as Cotman, Turner, and Girtin. I was also trained to use the Maroger mediums with my oils. The mediums were developed by Jacques Maroger who spent most of his life dedicated to reconstituting the lost painting mediums of the Renaissance and Baroque painters.

I have always drawn and painted exclusively from life whether it be a model, still life, or landscape. I do not work from photographs. My procedure is to establish the composition in the first one or two sittings with the model. This will involve several small pencil sketches to establish the flow of the composition—the major lines and shapes, both positive and negative. After the composition is established I execute a drawing in pencil on butcher paper. This is done quickly, with no thought to detail, to basically establish the size of the canvas. After the canvas is prepared with a tinted lead ground, I begin drawing again on the prepared canvas with charcoal. After the charcoal drawing is finished, I go over the drawing again with pencil trying to improve the charcoal. Once this is done, I begin laying in the paint again trying to improve upon what has gone before. I try to impart the illusion of detail with as few brushstrokes as possible. I think that “less is more.”

I believe that working from life imparts a greater vitality to one’s work. I admire greatly the old Masters and their love of painting and dedication to the job—painters such as Velasquez, Titian, and Mantegna. I feel that many of the sound principles of draughtsmanship and painting from that era have been lost or forgotten. I also believe that they could extract, paradoxically, the widest range of expression from the simplest of means. They were masters of color, form, tonality, and draughtsmanship. I, in my own working habits and in my own very small way, am trying to emulate their example.

I’m interested in exploring the human form in different manifestations using veils, masks, and other props combined with dramatic lighting to slightly skew the visual experience. I suppose I’m trying to paint what’s inside the model, i.e., the emotional and psychological underpinnings. I also hope my work evokes emotions within the viewer, a visceral and/or intellectual response which at times might even be disturbing.

I feel myself to be in a long line of painters, beginning around the 15th century, who have employed the same materials and techniques. I relate to the “Old Masters” and Renaissance painters. Perhaps one could say that I am trying to explore the psychology of the modern day via the Old Masters’ approach and palette.

Tony Chimento
http://www.chimentostudio.com

"Bowl of Simpsons"

ARTIST'S STATEMENT:

As a young man in college I was encouraged to accept the notion that art could only be valid if it somehow "pushed the envelope". To be avant-garde and new seemed by far the most important criterion to my professors. However, it seemed to me that once that art-historical- time line ended in the late 60's with the minimal artists and the final blank white canvas, then the whole idea of artists making marks on canvas should have ended along with it. As we all know it didn't. For me, that began to erode the power that the so called "Avant-Garde" held in my thinking about my validity as a realist painter and opened the door for new ways of thinking about art along with my own self- respect as an artist.

The question for me then became: Why was it so important to be an artist? If not the new, what was my work to be about?

Initially, I was insecure about the answers that I slowly felt forming inside me with each new painting I completed. Allowing the work to talk to me, I began to be aware on a conscious level of something which was always there intuitively: that my work is mostly about the exploration if beauty and the space we make for its contemplation. In a world where the ugly and violent seem increasingly more intense, the exploration of beauty and serenity, not as escape, but as antidote certainly must be as valid a reason for making art as there could be.

Earlier on, when I felt that if the finished painting was beautiful and special to me, then I succeeded no matter how difficult the journey might have been. As I learn more about the process of painting, I'm finding the process has its own beauty, that of becoming,so that painting itself can be seen as a metaphor for what is best about life. that of becoming, so that painting itself can be seen as a metaphor for what is best about life.

Jennifer Nehrbass

http://www.jennifernehrbass.com

"The Golden Mean"