O&S MARCH/APRIL 2010

VOLUME 3 ISSUE 3

Brian Martin Pedro Campos Brad Kunkle Mario A. Robinson Alexandra Tyng Andrea Potos Millicent Borges Accardi Linda Olafsdottir Neil MacCormick Nadine Robbins more

Eric Zener

www.poetsandartists.com
publishing as an art form

poets and artists

Publisher / E.I.C. DIDI MENENDEZ Creative Director I. M. BESS Poetry Editors DAVID KRUMP MELISSA McEWEN Art Reviewer GRADY HARP

5 14 21 22 32 45 54 68 76 77 86 94 95

Brian Martin Pedro Campos Mia Brad Kunkle Andres Castellanos Paul Beel Anna-Lynne Williams Mario A. Robinson Linda Benninghoff Alexandra Tyng Eric Armusik Andrea Potos Billy Roy kland

reviews
Copyright reverts back to contributors upon publication. O&S: PoetsandArtists.com requests first publisher rights of poems published in future reprints of books, anthologies, website publications, podcasts, radio, etc. The full issue is available for viewing online from the Poets and Artists website. Print copies available at www.amazon.com. For submission guidelines and further information, please stop by www.poetsandartists.com

41 Mitchell Johnson 127 Noah Davis

102 108 109 110 118 126 131 132 142 144 146 148

Cesar Santander Roger Aplon Millicent Borges Accardi Otto Lange Linda Olafsdottir Edward Nudelman Walter Bjorkman Neil MacCormick William Lazos Jonny Andvik Duma Nadine Robbins
on the cover

Eric Zener
Sleeping Beauty oil on canvas 48 x 60

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Brian Martin
www.thebroadstreetstudio.com/brian.html
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oil on canvas 28 x 40

Brian Martin earned his BFA in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design and his MFA in
Painting/Drawing from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (I.U.P.). Aside from his personal artwork, he has been employed as an illustrator, graphic/web designer, muralist, and a decorative artist for a cabinet maker. He has taught drawing, painting and color/2D-design at I.U.P., but currently is teaching drawing and painting at a community college north of Boston. Brian has exhibited his art nationally form Texas to New England. In 2008 he was an artist in residence at the Johnstown Bottleworks in Johnstown, PA where he co-curated Calm Americans, an exhibition of work by national and international painters. During winter of 2008-09, he participated in the select four-person exhibition, Framed Reality, at the Maryland Art Place in Baltimore, MD. He is a founding member of the artist group, The Brodstreetstudio (www.thebroadstreetstudio.com), which recently curated a 25 person exhibition at Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA that was featured in January 2010 s issue of American Artist Magazine. Brian continues to paint, search for venues in which to exhibit, and enjoy life with his wife, Amy, in Seekonk, MA.

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Right

Portage

oil on canvas 17 x 30

Arrival 8
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oil on canvas 24 x 30 BRIAN MARTIN

Water Street oil on canvas 32 x 34 BRIAN MARTIN

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Back and to the Left

oil on canvas 37.5 x 54

Q&ABRAIN MARTIN

Do you have a ritual you follow before each new work is started? I go for lots of a walks, usually pretty long, wherever Im living and look at everything. I also spend a lot of time driving. That is when I find most of the imagery that ends up in my paintings. Sometimes Ill see a particular color of light coming out of a window or something strange in a yard and I start generating stories about them. From there Ill start piecing together what will eventually become a new painting. What is your hidden talent? I can pack a car (or moving truck) like nobodys business.

How does your family life come into play with your artistic life? Not my family specifically, but growing up we moved all over the place. I was in either a new house or school every 18 months or so. As a result, I spent a lot of my formative years wandering through my new neighborhoods, looking at/in windows, watching lights turn off and on, seeing things appear and then disappear from yards or driveways, and wondering about the inhabitants lives. I found myself constantly looking back, remembering my last home and trying to define what home means. The ideas and views expressed in the work I do now is directly inspired by all of that.

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Party of None oil on canvas 25.5 x 36

How has your environment come into play with your work? My work is totally dependent upon my environment. I am always concerned with capturing the feel of a place and then conveying that to the viewer. Everything I make is based on the memory of something I have either seen, experienced, or felt. Even if I have what I think may be the best idea, I wont paint it until I have actually seen/experienced it. Im always looking around for elements in my environment that not only hold meaning for and affect me, but that the viewer can relate to as well. What medium have you not used in the

past that you may wish to try out? Printmaking. I worked in different types very briefly as a student and would love to work with them again. Lithography, in particular, holds a lot of interest for me, but not in any conceptual way. I think I just like the way it looks and Id have fun working with it. Finish this sentence: In an ideal situation I would be in the same publication with the following artists George Inness, Edward Hopper, Gregory Crewdson, Winslow Homer, Eric Fischl, Chris Van Allsburg, Stephen Spielberg. The list could go on, but all those guys have inspired me at some point and it would be an honor to share a page with any of them.

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My work is based upon personal memories and experiences of moving to, and living in, countless typical American neighborhoods. In popular media and culture, suburbia is portrayed as the icon of the American dream, an icon in which the promise of a safe and supportive community where an individual can own land, purchase a house, and raise a family is normal and automatic. However, through a closer examination beyond the monotony of white picket fences and trimmed hedges, a world of dramatic and ever-changing imagery and narratives is revealed. The disparity between this ideal and the actual experience of life in these communities is BRIAN MARTIN the focus of my art.

Introspective: Phase 1
Phase 1, I think, has been an important painting for me personally. The image is based on a sketch I made quite a while ago but never got around to developing it. I think I avoided it because it contains a figure and I was unsure how it would fit in with the rest of my work. Not that Im uncomfortable drawing or painting figures, but that I purposefully omit them to allow the viewer to put themselves into the scene. I was nervous going into it because I was concerned that it would not maintain the emotive qualities and sense of personal narrative that I try so hard to capture. The response I get most from viewers of my work is that they really feel like a participant in the scene, psychologically and emotionally. Throwing a figure in changes everything because now the viewer has to relate to it and, if its not someone they recognize, they might not connect with the piece. In order to combat losing that connection, I decided to fill the scene with very familiar and ordinary objects with which most any viewer could relate, and used minimal detail on the figures face so as not to have the figure be identifiable. Since finishing this painting and putting it out there Ive received some pretty positive reactions to it, which encourages me to try more like it and be more willing to take chances. Im excited for what may come next.

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Phase 1

oil on panel 9 x 12

Pedro Campos
www.pedrocampos.net
Pedro Campos graduated from La Escuela de Conservacion y Restauracion de Obras de Arte de Madrid. Since 1998 he has worked restoring paintings and frescos throughout all of Spain and has worked as an illustrator for various advertising agencies. He is presently dedicating himself exclusively to painting, exposing his work in various art galleries. He lives and works in Madrid and is represented by Plus One Gallery, London.

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Jellybean Delight

oil on canvas

150cm x 150cm

Apples and Cherries

oil on canvas

100cm x 100cm

There is no reason why an artist should express himself in a specific way. Each ones art is a projection of ones self. I paint in this style because it is what I crave and enjoy. I am seduced by the perfection of the forms and the application of the exact color, the order and cleanliness of the composition. For some, hyper-realism is simply a technique. For me, creativity is always present in any artwork, its only a matter of knowing how to appreciate it. PEDRO CAMPOS
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Rhapsody in Red

oil on canvas

150cm x 150cm

PEDRO CAMPOS

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London Gin 18

oil on canvas

162cm x 114cm PEDRO CAMPOS

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Q&APEDRO CAMPOS
What do you hope art historians will say about your work 300 years from now? I cant imagine what my art will look like in 300 years. I only hope that they do not say his art is auctioned at millions of dollars, yet the artist died penniless. Have any of your mistakes become a success? I recently painted a composition which had a book placed horizontally with the title classic romantic. In front of the book were some marbles, and when I started painting the letters I realized that the only visible text was assroma..! The solution was to delete an s. Obviously, the end result was much better than the original although the significance of the letters was unknown. What medium have you not used in the past that you may wish to try out? I would like to try sculpture. I love the work of such artists as Mueck o De Andrea . Explain your process. Creatively speaking, choosing the subject matter is the most important phase. It can take from two to three days in which I could take up to 200 photographs. For example, the placement of a plastic for a painting which is 100x200 cm is not by chance. It is the outcome of many tests including combining various images in the computer until I find what is the best composition. I enlarge the photograph and start to sketch upon the canvas. Although it is not academically correct, I apply the oil in phases, leaving a section finished each day. Once it is finished, I apply a matte varnish on the whole painting. What are you working on next? I am working on a very large painting which has a horizontal bottle of London Gin on top of a book by Norman Rockwell. I like the typography and design of liquor bottles, their transparencies and the reflections that are emphasized when they are enlarged to scale. But I have no idea what will be my next project. I never know until I reach for my camera. What is your hidden talent? Without a doubt, dancing. I conceal it so well, that no one has ever seen me do it.

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Silver Marble

oil on canvas

116cm x 81cm

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Teatime

oil on canvas

195cm x 97cm

PEDRO CAMPOS

Mia

is the editor of Tryst. Recent / forthcoming work in Ocho 29, Slant Poetry, Quiet Mountain Essays.

Bryn Mawr
I would love to have been named Bryn Mawr which is a town / a college / a big hill / a street in a neighborhood where his-and-her cars of non-descript colors range from blue to blue and shoes and houses, the same in a row where furnished souls,* bless their hearts, laden their tables with damask, civilware, sparkling fluted glasses and the finest runners made of eastern silk, while the best behinds of this century are seated next to name cards discussing politicsI mean, poetics when reciting Longfellow in accent aigu, rising again to the occasion as the evening wears on, now come the earnest speeches about progressive programs and inequality of the less fortunate of our African-American / Hispanic/ Asian friends while the affluent, not including themselves, are plotting to take over the unclaimed 65 per cent of the worlds resources held hostage by the wealthy 1% quick! the math, the candle stick and the match! But no, these are like-minded bleeding heart talking points and I ask, who is the minority among you who has not cast out a loaf of bread?
*e.e. cummings - the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls

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Brad Kunkle
Born in rural Pennsylvania, Brad Kunkle spent his younger years exploring and romanticizing the beauty of the sparse countryside and the deep forests around him. From an early age he was drawn to the worlds of Maxfield Parrish and the Pre-Raphaelites worlds, he says, where a subtle, supernatural beauty seems to be hiding under the breath of women worlds where something beyond our natural perception is waiting to be found. Brad graduated with a degree in fine arts from Kutztown University, studying mostly under George Sorrels, who was taught by a pupil of the 19th century Academic painter, William Adolphe Bougereau. In an effort to discover his own artistic sensibilities, he worked as a commission-based portraitist, and began an almost decade-long journey of continued self-instruction and independent study. As a decorative painter in his mid twenties, he leafed entire walls in copper. He was beguiled by the shifting, life-like nature of the surfaces, and began to incorporate gilding in his work. This proved to fulfill the unreal quality he had been looking for to convey his moody, romantic ideas of human nature and ritual. In an old wooden box that holds his paints, he keeps a slip of paper with a quote from Pablo Picasso. You must always work not just within but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, handle only five. In that way, the ones you do handle, you handle with such ease, more mastery and you create a feeling of strength in reserve. Brads work has appeared in American Art Collector magazine as well as Fine Art Connoisseur. He is represented by Arcadia Fine Arts in NYC and will have his first one man exhibition in April of 2010.

www.bradkunkle.com

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Right

The Gold Choker oil, silver and gold on linen 64 x 21

Girl with Serpents and Pearls

oil, silver and gold on linen

25 x 30

I paint to connect with the part of being human that is beautiful and slightly dark, stripped to its truth and always changing The part of being human that appears to be romantic, but feels very real. BRAD REUBEN KUNKLE
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Revelen oil and gold on linen 11 x 8

00

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October oil and silver on linen 14 x 13

Feathers & Mirror oil and silver on linen 31 x 15 BRAD KUNKLE

Two Suns oil and gold on linen 21 x 12

Q&A BRAD KUNKLE

Where do you find your inspiration? Dreams, nightmares, the amazing people who model for me, nature mostly the forests of Pennsylvania where I grew up. The light on overcast days, fashion, daguerreotypes and early photographic processes. Lately the paintings of Arthur Hacker and Gustave Corbet, the crazy things I read in the newspaper, the constant and ever present quest for humans to find something supernatural or spiritual or extraordinary within our material and apparent existence. The possibility of all things supernatural. Lately the author Tom Robbins. All of the images of the Preraphaelites and Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema that have been imprinted in my mind. William Morris. Myths And Legends. Joseph Campbell. Klimt. Other people creating things around me. The femme fatale. Strange senses of space. Truth and honesty. Silence. Ingres Grand Odelesque in Grisaille always. Patterns. The power of composition and form alone in a really good abstract painting. A lot of things Im forgetting.

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Eidolon oil, gold and silver on linen 64 x 36

Do you have a ritual you follow before each new work is started? I suppose my preparation of each canvas is a bit of a ritual. I apply several layers of oil primer with a knife and sand in between coats. I realize this is not unusual but the ritualistic part of it for me comes from the difference I feel when working on a surface that I havent put my own sweat and tears in preparing. Ive done some paintings on preprimed linens and it never feels the same to me. Its like Im building a cabin on someone elses land. What do you hope art historians will say about your work 300 years from now? Hmmm....2310? With all of the amazing art out there already, and all of the beautiful things that will be made in the next 300 years, if art historians care enough to be talking about my stuff in 2310, thats good enough for me. They can say whatever they want. What is your hidden talent? I moonlight as a bass player in an Indie rock band called Aderbat and now a new project called Mammal of Paradise.

BRAD KUNKLE

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What medium have you not used in the past that you may wish to try out? Im really looking forward to experimenting with water gilding. Im a self taught gilder and I use all oil gilding processes. Water gilding is very different from what I understand and I think it will open new doors for me. How did 2009 treat you? 2009 was just so surreal. At the beginning of the year I was penniless and staying with a friend of mine in Pennsylvania, but I have to rewind to the end of 2008 for context. Back then I was doing mostly commissioned paintings and all that work was suddenly gone with the economy tanking. I decided to take a chance and just focus on my personal work instead of looking for jobs to keep paying the rent. I was aware of all the galleries closing doors at the

time, but I decided to go for it anyway. I felt that I had no choice. The inspiration was there and I felt committed. So anyway, a friend of mine offered me a place to live and work for next to nothing. I decided to become a recluse until I had enough paintings finished to start knocking on gallery doors. I painted and scraped by for a good 6 months and in the Spring of 2009 I had a collection of work that I was really proud of. In April I started showing a few pieces with Arcadia Gallery in NYC and things went so well that they offered me my first one man exhibition, which is opening this year on April 22nd. My lucky number. And I do feel very lucky. In 2009 I had the support of a lot of amazing friends that inspired and modeled for me, made sure I had a roof over my head and believed in me, including all those guys at Arcadia. I moved to Brooklyn in December and so now im living in NYC. I love it. Ill never forget 2009.

Introspective: The Proposition

One of the paintings Im most proud of is The Proposition. It was inspired by the debate over the success of Proposition 8 in California and it was the first piece of art I had made that was addressing current events. I consciously chose to heavily reference Albrecht Durers The Fall of Man etching. It was challenging because I was tackling a very controversial topic and I wanted to make sure it was a beautiful painting first and foremost. It has the exact feeling I intended to convey and thats the most rewarding. The piece itself was the largest painting I had ever done at that point. I was really happy with the way the gold and silver were pushing and pulling in space against the figures. The underpainting was a little warmer than I had previously worked with and that made for some really great shadows. This was also the first painting I did that I used rags and Q-tips to wipe out the leaves of the trees, instead of painting them in an additive method with a brush. It was something that just made sense to me and now I use rags and Q-tips a lot in this sort of a negative finger painting fashion, mostly for leaves and vegetation. Its a way for me to make these loose abstract marks around my refined figures. It has become an important part of the way I paint and it all started with this particular painting.

Right

The Proposition oil, silver and gold on linen 31 x 52

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BRAD KUNKLE

Andres Castellanos
www.andrescastellanos.com

The studio is the place where I feel better. When I am there, I am really happy. Then, I am not interested in what happens outside. And it is in that solitude where I give shape to my paintings until, once they are finished, they give up being interesting to me and when I go out, I start to think about the next ones.
ANDRES CASTELLANOS

Andrs was born in Madrid in 1956. From the beginning he showed a strong artistic

inclination. He studied fine arts in Madrid being graduated in 1988 with the degree of Doctor, with the thesis AnatomicalArtistic Study In The Works Of Velazquez. He has been a professor of anatomy at the university and nowadays, he is a teacher of drawing and painting at Gabriel Garca Mrquez High School. He has been an official copist at the Prado Museum, where he has copied works created by Velazquez, Goya, Van Dick, Rubens, El Greco...

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34

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Empire State acrylic on wood

40 x 24

ANDRES CASTELLANOS

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Woman Walking acrylic on wood 23.6x15.7 ANDRES CASTELLANOS

Walking N.Y. acrylic on wood 23.6x15.7 ANDRES CASTELLANOS

Black Woman

acrylic on wood

23.6 x 15.7

Q&A ANDRES CASTELLANOS

Do you have a ritual you follow before each new work is started? Well, the paintings do not usually come into my head suddenly, I need to see the picture several times until the painting is formed in my mind. Then, the funniest thing begins, I prepare the work by taking a lot of photos, which play the role of the old sketches used by the great masters. Later, I start the painting, without stopping until i have finished it, and without thinking about the time it will take me. Here, I like a sentence employed by Van Eyck: I finished it as I could, not as I wanted it.

place I had never painted before, I made a series of paintings which were born there, such as the one of the black girl on the underground or Bryant Square. If I had to define a line on which I think I am going to work frequently, it could be a series of figures on a town background, such as it can be observed on any of our streets. What medium have you not used in the past that you may wish to try out? I am starting to make sculptures of each painting. If I had enough time, I would make a sculpture before, especially of the nudes on the beach. I am also very interested in the world of 3D images, but I think I arrived too late. However, I would love to prepare some things on the computer and work with computer graphics images. What do you hope art historians will say about your work 300 years from now? They might say nothing about me or most of the painters of this century. Possibly both this century

What are you working on next? I usually work on several topics. It is difficult for me to work only on a subject. Everything that happens around me is interesting to me; afterall, a nude is a landscape in human flesh. That is why I can paint a nude on the beach, a woman in the town, a tree, a landscape or any subject belonging to my world. For example, in my two latest trips to New York, a

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Nude

acrylic on wood

23.6 x 15.7

My nudes are trees in a womans skin ANDRES CASTELLANOS

and the previous one will go down in history as two sick centuries in which the art world went mad. The great modern art of great galleries and museums has resulted in ways which lead nowhere. It has turned into an industry to earn money. It has deceived a lot of people and too much rubbish has been made as far as I am concerned. I would like to quote a poem written by my father, Andrs Castellanos Muoz. It says: I am from that land which produces wheat, although it is not sown. I force myself with such eagerness that, instead of having ears, it flowers. I am the humblest portion of life given by the planet; I wanted to be the renowned poet I was not But today a different dawn becomes light in the verse; Today the universe explodes: Today I am something for you. How does your family life come into play with your artistic life? My family is really important in the development of my artistic life. I suppose you know the set phrase: Behind every great man, there is a great woman. Both my wife and my children appear as occasional models in many of my paintings. Have any of your mistakes become a success? It is normal that some of my eagerly awaited successes have become failures, and that the paintings end up thrown in the garbage or in the studio serving as boards to cut stencils. Anyway, sometimes, it has happened to me that some paintings I have made without stopping and without making mistakes, have turned out to be the worst ones in my work in the end. Although I do not agree either with the legend of the artist and I do not think, as some pseudo-modern authors, that their paintings are well done, just because of the fact that of working on them, the only thing they have done is make mistakes.

ANDRES CASTELLANOS

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Liberty acrylic on wood 23.6x 15.7 Andres Castellanos

MITCHELL JOHNSON
Interweaving color blocks to form both abstraction and representation
By Grady Harp
Mitchell Johnson in his Studio

TRACING THE HISTORY of painting reveals a battleground of sorts. The degree of emotional overindulgence from the Romantic school began to dilute with the Impressionists who were more interested in painting what the eye sees in relation to how light transforms things than they were in providing exact details of images for the viewer. And once the personal rights of the painters eyes were documented and made acceptable,the field of abstraction began to open: if it is acceptable to distort images in the name of light changes, why, then cannot the images be broken into component parts? This dismembering of observed objects

took a step forward with the pure abstractionists who viscerally painted shapes and forms and distortions that would in and of themselves gain credibility as paintings. The resulting race toward chaos eventually turned back to representation, albeit representation that would embellish traces of reality with welcome variations in content and construct that would usher in the expanded acceptance of all forms of brush to canvas as viable art. Mitchell Johnson is an important artist and visual voice in this ongoing discussion of representation versus abstraction: he simply paints in both

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Turtle 34x48 manners, feeling strongly that the elements of making a painting lie less in the recreation of an observed object than in those building blocks common to both realism and abstraction. Color is the creative driving force that results in the incredible spectrum of work that represents not only his past but also his current output. Studying his impossibly beautiful painting Turtle is a case in point. Though the title of the painting suggests representation, the painting itself is a completely abstract work. Fascinating blocks of color - some complementary solid geometric shapes, others near transparent veils of mysterious blends are stacked in seemingly architectural snugness. Yet there is a suggestion of mysticism that invites viewer participation to find other meaning to the work. Then the artist asks us to study a landscape with a different, more informed eye. In Alta Plaza (Red) the blocks of color of his abstract works remain, but in the artists words, Some areas of this painting are quite literal, while others have been reduced to simple squares or rectangles. Windows were included or mentioned when they helped to achieve the color interaction and a musicality that felt right. I think thats why this view has Alta Plaza (Red) 18x24

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MITCHELL JOHNSON

TOP

Truro (Bands) 18x24

CENTER

Tyrol 16x20
BOTTOM

Poppies 14x18

always and continues to attract me - because of its formal possibilities for discussing color and shape. The cropped building in the front was made larger to fill the lower part of the painting and provide a diagonal. These are edits that I make instinctively when the painting still doesnt feel resolved. Mitchell Johnson, a Palo Alto, California based painter, travels to France, Italy, Sweden, Denmark and other corners of Europe as well as across the country, observing, experiencing, and making art out of the myriad atmospheres he encounters. His fascination with blocks of color as they emerge (or are imposed upon) the landscapes result in such quietly elegant views of buildings such as Truro (Bands) in Cape Cod or in the Alpine Tyrol. And Johnsons love of color blocks as his artistic guides is as obvious in the technically duplicitous Poppies as it is in the more

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Painting is only a bridge linking the painters mind with that of the viewer.
DELACROIX

Chairs 40x60

formal Untitled (Chatham). He searches for a direct experience with color, being more candid about his concern for color relationships. Painting a landscape is far more dangerous than being blatantly avantgarde or anti-painting, though Johnson admits that the two paths have come closer together in the recent years as his current work attests. But one of the reasons Mitchell Johnson is so widely collected and successfully present in both museums and homes is his quiet content to paint whatever a canvas challenges him to create. He is equally at home building his at times monumental abstract paintings as he is recreating such simple scenes as Chairs. The constant connection with dazzling color and obsession with shapes continues to produce some of the most pure art works before the public today. Light, color, and responses to visual find the bridge between representation and abstraction.

Untitled (Chatham) 48x42

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MITCHELL JOHNSON

Paul Beel

www.paulbeel.com

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Born in Cleveland, OH in 1970, Paul Beel has spent most his of life involved in the process of art-making. He realised his first oil paintings at the age of ten and followed with the study of portraiture in his teens. Highly active as an exhibiting visual artist during his university years, Beel displayed great promise by winning many first place and best of show awards in regional exhibitions. After recieving his BFA from Bowling Green State University in 1993, he was granted a full scholarship for a years study at Studio Art Centers International (SACI) in Florence Italy. After the year abroad he then returned to BGSU to earn an MFA in 1996. The painter moved back to Florence in 97, where he taught drawing and painting for nine years at SACI, began collaborating with Bonelli Arte Contemporanea (Mantova), and met his wife. Exclusively represented by Bonelli for the past 11 years, Pauls work has hung in more than a dozen solo shows and scores of group exhibitions in Italy and Europe, where it has attracted critical praise and enthusiastic collectors. He has been called the best realist painter in Italy, and possibly elsewhere by critic, curator, and art historian Alberto Agazzani. Noteworthy group shows include Beauty Farm, the Cairo

Contemplazione,

Award Exhibition, Male (curated by prominent critic Vittorio Sgarbi) and Sui Generis. His work has been featured and reviewed in numerous publications, most notably as the cover story for

Arte

Mondadori

(Italys

largest

art

periodical) in April of 2001.

In addition to

attention from the press, four color catalogs have been published on his work in conjuction with solo shows. In 2009 Paul won the Premio Celeste Painting Award. in the late spring. He is currently working towards a projected solo show in Milan

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PAUL BEEL

Expulsion Twister

oil on linen

150cm x 200cm

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I see the beauty of the person in front of me as a counter-balance to the dangerous and bleak eventuality that life sets before us. My figures inhabit a foreboding world, but their existence in it allows the possiblity of both hope and beauty. PAUL BEEL

Q&A PAUL BEEL

Where do you find your inspiration? I find mundane inspiration in the way light falls on the form of the figure. That is to say that looking at a person is enough to inspire me to sit for long and often frustrating hours in the hope that something really good will come out of it. But appreciation of light and form only take me halfway, and at some point I enter into a more furious state of inspiration during which real creativity occurs. That sort of inspiration springs from the process of work, my own emotional states, and events in the outside world. Explain your process: Technically, I vary my process a great deal, sometimes starting with a pencil drawing, and at others beginning straight away with oil paint. I will sometimes use a toned ground and others not. I dont like to feel Im repeating myself tecnically so I allow myself leeway in how I start. I feel most comfortable painting with opaque color, but have many times completed paintings using layers and layers of transparent glaze. (on YouTube theres several timelapse films of my process start-to-finish) The one constant is that I start drawing the figure without much thought to composition and what I want the work to say or bein the end. The beginning of the work is always purely objective, a laborous and even sometimes dull and grinding process during which I allow my internal monolog to run and organize itself as it will until the moment comes where the observed exterior forms and my internal voice find a way to click together. For me that moment is the key to the state that ancient writers refer to as inspired creativity, but which I

prefer the modern term of being in the zone. Its at that moment that I often make radical and rapid changes to the composition, and where my pictures change from being mundane renderings to surprizing, sometimes even shocking images that are able to stick in ones head.
Have any of your mistakes become a success?

Have any of my mistakes become successes? No. If it was successful then it wasnt a mistake, it was a causual occurrence which gave the work an unexpected force. This is different than saying I meant to do thatabout something that you didnt intend. Thats allowing that something unintentional can be good, and having the presence of mind to recognize the few times when it is. How did 2009 treat you? 2009 treated me about as well as it treated the rest of the world, and particularly artists: fairly poorly. But despite a rough economic environment, I feel I produced at least one of my best works. In no way was it a fun year, but it wasnt without artistic fruit.
What do you hope art historians will say about your work 300 years from now?

In three hundred years Id like art historians to flock to my work, sit silently in front of it and feel they have nothing whatsoever to add to whats already there on the wall.

What medium have you not used in the past that you may wish to try out?

Fresco. Ive never done fresco and I think it would make for some very long, physically exhausting but highly rewarding days. Now if I could just find a really, really progressive Pope for the comission.

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PAUL BEEL

Iron Sissi

oil on linen

100cm x 90cm

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Self Portrait with Weights

oil on linen

24cm x 18cm

PAUL BEEL

PAUL BEEL

David in Red

oil on linen

18cm x 24cm

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For a Fist Full of Euros oil on linen 60cm x 60cm

Introspective: Self Portrait: For a Fist Full of Euros

This painting was a challenge because I was working with an impatient and fidgety model with too much on his mind, namely myself. A self portrait from life is always a challenge because its hard to consider yourself objectively, and the constant movement of the head changes the perception of proportions, but in this particular instance it seemed I had enough worries to make objective seeing impossible. In the fall of 2008 I made the unwise decision to purchase a muchneeded new car and rent a new studio - a month before the stock crisis confirmed the global recession. So there I was in my new studio, in January, in the cold, without the spare cash to pay a model. So a self-portrait it had to be. I should say now that my intention wasnt to paint about my current state, but instead my current state surrounded me (as it does) and muscled its way into the painting anyhow. At the start I was only wearing the orange hoodie, the backround was a sort of verticle orange and black Francis Bacon smear, and the proportions of the face kept sloughing from side to side. But I stuck with it. The layers of clothes thickened as the cold wore on, as did my wool hat, and the light kept creeping closer to shed just a little more warmth. I chose to nix the orange ground because I wanted something colder and greyer, but also because I wanted a movement across the canvas from right to left instead of the earlier verticle. It was a painting with alot working against it, and a lot of technical stuggles as well (the shadows on the wall, the vapor emerging from my mouth, my beard, and a load of what at times seemed unneccessary texture work on my coat) but I kept going despite the cold, worried loneliness and am very glad I did. Because thats what we do, we keep going till the end.

PAUL BEEL

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Anna-Lynne Williams
lives in Seattle, WA and sings in the band Trespassers William. She has
published a book of poems (Split Infinitive) and acts as the music editor for the website Identity Theory.

http://parrotwood.blogspot.com

gold sleep.
emptying your shoes one by one after walking on the sand; at the doorstep, before you touch carpet. we say nothing where the pauses are not even pauses anymore yet this morning i was doing a study of your hair against your forehead but i was not speaking. in the morning your eyes have collected gold sleep; in the evening we have the same pink eyes from the same pollen. then you were a boy in blankets, then you were two small ears on either side of your thoughts and two eyes that promised openness this white wet open in your face then you were all muscles of the same color moving in the dark. now you are a vulture.

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splinters.
for all of the splinters i have collector for the way they all look in the light like something quiet living under a membrane for the way you forget them in taking my hand or the way that you play with them when later you find them for all of the uneven moments of skin like visible freckles and invisible bites that you or i pretend later to notice for the first time because there is a point when there is nothing more to notice and if you wrong me it will be in the way that i knew you would and i forgive you for the same reason, that i know you and where this comes from these drawn blinds are for the darkness which would veil one you do not know there is something sweet in you turning from me like that when you undress and something sad like you thought i wasnt looking before

Introspective: splinters
I wrote Splinters right after moving to Seattle. It was still winter, and dark, and I lived in this big studio apartment with wood floors. I spent too much time thinking in the dark. This one came out of me rather stream of consciousness, as I was thinking about the person I was seeing and the anomaly that human beings are so shy in moments, and so confident in others. I dont edit my poems, this one is no exception.

ANNA-LYNNE WILLIAMS

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Eric Zener
Eric Zeners work has been exhibited in the United States, and internationally, for over 20 years. His solo exhibition history has largely been of bi-coastal representation with Hespe Gallery in San Francisco and Gallery Henoch in New York. Numerous shows in Asia, Australia, Europe and other galleries in the US have been part of this artists curriculum. Mr. Zeners work has been featured and reviewed extensively in art magazines and other publications. Apart from gallery representation his work has also been included in museum shows and international residency programs. Currently he is showing in NY, CA, MO, MA, Italy and Switzerland.

www.ericzener.com

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Right:

Caressing oil on canvas 72 x 42

Splash Portrait of Alexa

oil on canvas

00 x 00

Orphaned from the sanctuary of youth we are faced with lifes challenges and the consequences of our choices. I use our relationship with water, nature and each other as a metaphor for transformation, refuge and renewal. ERIC ZENER
Left:

Air

oil on canvas

48 x 38

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Love oil on canvas

11 x 14
What medium have you not used in the past that you may wish to try out? Traditional sculpture. How does your family life come into play with your artistic life? I am married with three kids. While I have great flexibility in how I can plan my studio time, I tend to paint 9-5 because I want to be part of the traditional family structure too. The kids love coming to the studioso I can sneak in weekend painting that way too. What supplies must you have in your studio before you start any new piece? a.m. Coffee p.m. Wine. Plus a lot of music. Finish this sentence: In an ideal situation I would be in the same publication with the following artists Lucien Freud, Mark Stock, Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, Gottfried Helnwein, Cy Twomby, Alex Katz

Q&AERIC ZENER

Do you have a ritual you follow before each new work is started? Coffee and a good dose of Radiohead. Throughout time artists have been recognized by one signature painting. Davinci had Mona Lisas smile. Monet had water lilies. Gauguin had Tahiti. Fischel had the boy by the pool. What will yours be/is and why? More than likely my water paintings would be it. I enjoy painting many other subjects, but the water has always drawn me in. I feel a strong connection to the imagery for both its metaphorical reference to renewal and reprise, and its physical sensation and mass. What is your hidden talent? I can balance just about anything on my chin and nose.

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ERIC ZENER

Comfort

oil on canvas

48 x 42

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ERIC ZENER

The Passage oil on canvas

40 x 70

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ERIC ZENER

At Ease on the Edige

oil on canvas

18 x 36

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The Path oil on canvas 54 x 60

Introspective: The Path

The black and white palette, blurry foreground, distorted foreshortening and anatomy reflects the ageless struggle of man. Like Sisyphus before us, the march forward is not without futility. ambitious and curious. It is both the burden and blessing of man to be I feel this images strength is in the desperation and quest to the top, which of course seems just in reach, but continues on and on.

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ERIC ZENER

Mario A. Robinson
www.marioarobinson.com

Right

The Debutante pastel 40 x 28

Tougaloo Relic

watercolor

12 x 16

Mario Andres Robinson studied at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. His work fits squarely within the tradition of American painting. Containing few references to modern life, Robinsons work has a timeless and universal quality, and exhibits a distinct turn-of-the century stylistic aesthetic. Beginning in 1994, the artists work began to incorporate rural subjects primarily located in the state of Alabama. Each subject is highly personal for Robinson in both selection and execution.
Robinson is an Exhibiting Artist Member (EAM) of The National Arts Club and a Signature Member of The Pastel Society of America. In 2009, he was chosen to represent Winsor & Newton products as a featured artist. His work has been featured several times in The Artists Magazine, The Pastel Journal, Watercolor Magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur and on the cover of American Artist magazine. In the February, 2006 issue of The Artists Magazine, Mario was selected as one of the top realist artists under the age of 40.

Right

Market Street watercolor 20 x 14

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MARIO A. ROBINSON

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Oklahoma Native

watercolor

14 x 20

Q&AMARIO A. ROBINSON

Do you have a ritual you follow before each new work is started? Yes. Before I begin a new painting or drawing, I have to methodically clean my drafting table. It must be clean enough to eat off of before I can work on it.

largely due to the fact that several of my paintings include members of my family. What supplies must you have in your studio before you start any new piece? My IPod, noise reduction headphones and ox gall. Throughout time artists have been recognized by one signature painting. Davinci had Mona Lisas smile. Monet had water lilies. Gauguin had Tahiti. Fischel had the boy by the pool. What will yours be/is and why? I dont know what the future holds for me as far as imagery, however for now I believe my signature work is a series

Left

The Veteran pastel 20 x 17

What medium have you not used in the past that you may wish to try out? I would like to try Egg Tempera. The first time I saw Andrew Wyeths Tempera entitled Braids, I was fascinated with the amount of detail you could achieve with the medium. How does your family life come into play with your artistic life? My family is a vital aspect of my work,

MARIO A. ROBINSON

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of paintings, rather than just one. I have a series entitled The Plum Series. They began with a few paintings and drawings of my first model Kenyatta Johnson in 1995. Her nickname is Plum and I thought it would be interesting to play off the nickname and pose her in purple dresses. She was a great model and before I knew it, I had executed over a hundred paintings and drawings of her spanning a 12-year period. I never imagined they would reside in

museums, corporate and private collections throughout the United States. Finish this sentence: In an ideal situation I would be in the same publication with the following artists Andrew Wyeth, Thomas Eakins, William Merritt Chase, John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, Hernan Cortes Moreno, Rembrandt van Rijn, William Bouguereau

The subjects in my paintings dwell largely in the shadows of society. In a fast paced, youth obsessed culture; my aim is to offer an alternative to the status quo. I find beauty in everyday people. MARIO A. ROBINSON

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Grandmothers Room

watercolor

14 x 20

MARIO A. ROBINSON

Oscar

pastel

22 x 30

Introspective: Oscar
This painting presented challenges, due to the fact that the model (Oscar Wesley) was dealing with the lingering effects of his chemotherapy session. I could see the toll it was taking on his body and offered to reschedule several times. It was inspiring to see such inner strength in the face of such discomfort. I chose the red, white, & blue shirt to emphasize his patriotism, based on his service to the Country. My initial composition was to paint him head on and crop it at the waist. However, Oscar mentioned he made the chair he was sitting on, so I decided to include it in the composition. The only way to show the chair was to paint him in profile. The fact that he lived on the highest point of a mountain was interesting, so I offered a glimpse of the foliage, which surrounded his small home.

MARIO A. ROBINSON

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Linda Benninghoff
has published most recently in O&S, self-portrait issue and Ocho. She has published four chapbooks of poetry. She is at work on a fulllength book and is assistant poetry editor at Womenwriters.net.

http://lindabenninghoff.blogspot.com

The Life of the Mother

-after Alan Grossman How she curled up under a cadmium beach umbrella in the hot sand and watched me swim. I could hold onto the sandy waves for hours, and when I returned, she was asleep. Both still young, I could not imagine how thirty years later she would break bone after bone in her backonce from falling, once from changing positions in bed. Her garden, of purple phlox and yellow roses wilted and turned to weed. Bent over, she drove to the supermarket, lifted orange juice, bread from the shelves, came home, cooked beans with orange juice and salt, tofu and rice in a frying pan and pots as old as I was. It was as though the light was cut in half red light of autumn, and I saw the flat white bellies of fish upturned on the water, silent in their decay, and the mud we walked over pushed up caked and hard.

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http://alexandratyng.com

Alexandra Tyng
corporate and private collections in the U.S. and abroad. Her figurative paintings and portraits have garnered awards from the Portrait Society of America, the Allied Artists of America, the Woodmere Art Museum, The Artists Magazine, and American Artist. In 2008 Alex was selected as one of Maines outstanding artists by Maine Home +Design. Her Maine landscapes have been featured in The Art of Monhegan by Carl Little, and in art magazines including Fine Art Connoisseur, The Artists Magazine and International Artist. She leads workshops in Maine and Philadelphia, and teaches portraiture in the Philadelphia area. Alex is also the founder of Portraits For the Arts, an ongoing philanthropic project that uses the power of portraiture to raise money for the arts in the Philadelphia area. Gallery Representation: The Fischbach Gallery, New York Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME gWatson Gallery, Stonington, ME Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Alexandra Tyng was born in Rome, Italy, and has lived in Philadelphia most of her life. Primarily self-taught, Alex chose an academic education over art school, receiving a B.A. from Harvard College and an M.S. from the University of Pennsylvania. She learned traditional oil painting techniques by examining the work of the old masters, reading about the methods and materials of other artists, and watching artists paint. Alexs portraits incorporate descriptive backgrounds and a uniquely figurative sensibility. Her non-commissioned figurative work focuses on people in the process of living and interacting in their own environments, rather than in formal poses. In other paintings the figures become distant focal points while the setting predominates. Alexs landscapes range from intimate views of particular places to mountaintop panoramas to largescale aerial views of the glacially carved land formations of coastal Maine. Alex has had solo shows in New York, Maine, and Philadelphia. Her work is included in many public,

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With each painting I feel that I am creating a world that is at once very real and is also infused with something intangible that makes it seem more real and true to me than ordinary life. As a body of work my paintings are like a series of worlds within worldsa hierarchy of scales from intimate to vast. I find it particularly fascinating when the worlds connect and overlap, as people interact and places are revealed within a larger context. ALEXANDRA TYNG

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Q&AALEXANDRA TYNG
Do you have a ritual you follow before each new work is started? Ideas usually come to me in a flash, but then they germinate for a long time in my head before I am ready to begin. I dont like to overthink my ideas intellectuallyits more of an intuitive processbut I do make sure everything works together visually. I use a combination of oil sketches from life, photos, and sketches to build a composition. While Im contemplating, all the pieces are lying around on the floor of my studio, but in my mind Im fitting all these fragments together until they are ready to be made into a painting. For some reason, though, when Im under pressure (as with a commission) I can put things together pretty quickly. Throughout time artists have been recognized by one signature painting. What will yours be and why? Over the years there have been several paintings like that. I guess if I had to pick one right now it would be Outside/Inside. Ive always been a landscape and portrait painter, but more recently Ive been working on bringing the two genres together in my work, in different ways. Outside/Inside does that successfully, I think. Its a double portrait of my brother that is also a figurative work set in an architectural structure, a lighthouse with interesting perspective angles, and in a landscape. And it explores the psychology of the subject in greater depth, which is something I enjoy doing. What is your hidden talent? The interest Ive developed most next to art is writing. When I was 26 I actually published a nonfiction book called Beginnings: Louis I. Kahns Philosophy of Architecture (John Wiley and Sons). One day Id like to write a fictional chapter book for children, set in Maine. I have several plot outlines and substantial starts, but I have trouble deciding which one to pursue, plus I hardly have time for anything besides art. What medium have you not used in the past that you may wish to try out? Pastels, maybe, or different kinds of graphite and charcoal. I used to do a lot of drawing before oil painting took over my life.

Island Inn Crescendo

oil on linen 26 x 44

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What supplies must you have in your studio before you start any new piece? You might say my studio travels with me. All I need is a portable easel, a tray for my paints, and maybe six colorstwo reds, two blues, two yellows, plus white. I need solvent, palette, canvas, and some paper towels. Since I paint outside a lot, Ive figured out how to whittle my supplies down to a minimum so they all fit into a backpack. But when Im in my studio at home I use a glass palette and lots more colors. Belgian linen is my favorite surface.

Finish this sentence. In an ideal situation I would be in the same publication with the following artists: The artists of the past whom I most admire include Cecilia Beaux, John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper, Judith Leyster, and Andrew Wyeth. Living artists present a different problem because there are so many I admire. Being in the same publication implies to me a similarity or overlapping of vision or subject matter, but not necessarily style. Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco, Marina Dieul, Catherine Prescott, Pam Powell, David Shevlino, Allan Rahbek, Michael Klein, Alex Kanevsky. . . Im exceeding the limit but the list could go on indefinitely.

Right

Teamwork

oil on linen 30 x 40

Right Here oil on linen 36 x 28

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ALEXANDRA TYNG

ALEXANDRA TYNG

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Bowl and Beehive

oil on linen 34 x 64

ALEXANDRA TYNG

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Left

Outside/Inside oil on linen 42 x 50

Introspective: Outside/Inside
An old photo of my brother at age 20 gave me the idea for this double portrait of him. The setting is his island in Maine on which there is a decommissioned lighthouse; in the portrait he is standing in the top of the lighthouse tower, looking towards the mainland. The idea of youth vs. middle age is the main underlying theme of the painting. The lighthouse as a symbol of enlightenment did not consciously occur to me, but it was probably in the back of my mind somewhere. I was thinking more of elevated perspectives and the tower as a masculine symbol. As I painted it, I realized there were many dualities in it: young/ old. extraversion/introversion, action/contemplation, striving/ achievement, and desire/regret. I used the layers of glass both physically and metaphorically in several ways: separating layers of space and time, linking layers by allowing one to see through them, and reflecting things inside and outside. For me the concept is also expressed in a very spontaneous, direct and personal way through the brush marks, the tactile surface, and the colors. Ive always been prone to synesthesia, so I see emotions as certain colors. The blue, white and gold color scheme evokes the feelings and ideas Im expressing in this painting. It strikes me that this is a bit overexplained. I would hope I dont have to explain my paintings for people to get something out of them. Ideally, I would want the ideas to come across more clearly in the painting itself than in a verbal description.

ALEXANDRA TYNG

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Eric Armusik
www.ericarmusik.com
Right

Eric Armusik is a romantic figurative painter. His skills are appreciated by critics and patrons because of his ability to combine technical brilliance with elaborate drama and emotion in both his figures and their settings. Erics early experiences with art were staring at the ceilings during church at the local Roman Catholic cathedral each Sunday as a child. Seeking out formal training after school, Eric attended Pennsylvania State University, where he earned a B. F. A. in painting, and a minor in an art history focusing on Baroque art. He spent one semester studying painting and art history in Italy. The rare opportunity to view masterworks by Baroque painters Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi had a profound effect on the direction and quality of his work. Today Erics paintings have established him as one of todays strongest purveyors of traditional figurative painting. Eric Armusik is a skilled portrait and figure painter. His paintings have been displayed in galleries and museums in Philadelphia, New York, and Florence, Italy. His paintings are in the permanent collections of The Trenton City Museum, Lehigh Valley Hospital and numerous private collections. His work has also been prominently featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ARTFORUM, American Artist Magazine, American Art Collector, Victorian Homes Magazine, Old House Journal, and ArtMATTERS. Eric is represented by Progressive Galleries in Lancaster, PA.

Self Portrait as St. Sebastian oil on linen on panel 40 x 60

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Q&AERIC ARMUSIK
Where do you find your inspiration? The place where all real artists find their inspiration my muse and soulmate Rebekah. We share a rare connection few find in a lifetime and our love has inspired great work. Our life is a romantic one and my art intimately deals with profound emotions, both good and bad, that we experience. Like an author developing a character, I seek to act out those experiences through the figures in my paintings giving these mythological, historical or religious characters life and personality far beyond the constraints of their art historical depictions. They are real, they are all of us. What do you hope art historians will say about your work 300 years from now? That he was an honest and true traditionalist. He didnt follow trends, he believed in himself and what he was doing no matter what the popular movements were. Most of all he believed in love and beauty while the world around him celebrated ugliness and obscenity. Have any of your mistakes become a success? There are so many mistakes one can make in this profession it would be hard to record them for this article. What I can say, however, is that my biggest mistake early on was not trusting in myself. I went to a university where, like many institutions in the early 90s, traditional art was frowned upon. Some professors even went as far as to tell me, if you paint this way youll never have a successful career. I guess if I made a bowl of cheerios in my underwear like some artists I would have found the favor I needed to survive back then. As much as I despised it, that background noise of doubt left me guessing what direction I should take my art for several years after school. The break for me was when I reconnected with a grad student, Dahn Huni, years later, who wasnt even a traditional artist himself. He gave me some of the best advice I ever got be yourself. From that day forward I vowed never to be anything but honest in my work and success has followed vigorously. What is your hidden talent? I am a carpenter. I learned the trade when I was nine with my father. I worked in the profession until after college, and then I bought a 1865 Victorian home, in 2000 - Ive spent 10 years restoring and adding onto it with a 19th C., period addition. It has been featured in

numerous publications regionally and nationally in magazines like Victorian Homes of 6 issues in 2009 and Old House Journal in 2007. Our greatest joy together is going to antique shops and flea markets looking for old salvage, architectural parts and furniture pieces. I refinish those materials and incorporate them with new wood and moldings to create fireplaces and furniture for our home. Ive created eight two-tier fireplaces in our home this way. Old styles with new in perfect harmony. Ive used this talent to build every canvas and panel since I learned to paint. Has your art inspired a poem? Many by my darling Rebekah. She has written about my work since we met after college. Also, a few years ago, a local high school also published a book of poems inspired by artists where one of my paintings Witness inspired a few different, and interesting, perspectives. Im always intrigued what people bring to and take from my work. It just proves how accessible my paintings are to people and that everyone should bring something as personal to the art as I do. How did 2009 treat you? 2009 was my best year yet. My work has continued to climb in value even with this economy. I sold the most expensive painting of my career and I signed the contract on the biggest commission of my career last year. The successes of 2009 have already set me up for a good year in 2010. Explain your process. When I have an idea and a model in mind I have them over to my home to shoot test shots. I want to see my idea acted out on a virtual stage in front of me. There might be props, costumes or just the model. I find that if I come into the painting with only 75% of the idea the rest of it falls into place when I see the model in the space - how they move, slouch, how their posture is, or how they experience emotion. From there I keep shooting and observing until I find they are acting naturally. When I review the shots Ill pick a few I like and Rebekah will give me feedback on the idea vs. the shots. A selection is made and I sketch it up using the reference photo. Later the model is brought back for live reference for skin tones. I dont really care what artists say about the camera it is a tool for me. I find my figure poses are comfortable and natural. Most times the poses I select are far better than the ones I imagined in the first place.

Left

The Madness Of Nero

oil on birch

36 x 48

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Jupiter and Lo

oil on birch 36 x 60

I am far too romantic of an artist to merely paint what I see. The figures in my paintings burst with emotion, challenging the aesthetics of contemporary realist art. My dramatic paintings are a reinvigoration of truth and beauty through the storytelling imagery of the past and the experiences Ive had as an artist, a husband, and a dad in the present.
ERIC ARMUSIK

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Death of Cleopatra

oil on birch 36 x 48

ERIC ARMUSIK

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St. Jerome

oil on linen on panel 36 x 48

Introspective: Odysseus and the Sirens

Odysseus and the Sirens provided the most difficult challenge in terms of schedule, complexity of composition and Scale - but it was, by far, the most rewarding. The painting sold shortly after it was completed and today continues to be one of my most popular creations. This painting came about once I had finished modeling sessions for St. Sebastian. There was one pose that was just too good to pass up but I certainly didnt want to repeat the same painting. Then it hit me, I was drawn to the fact of the male character being bound to the timber behind and immediately began to think of the depictions of Odysseus and the Sirens by artists like Waterhouse. My take on the subject was more on a personal level more focused on the mental struggle. I employ the same honesty seen in the figures of Caravaggios work. It is the antithesis of the grand Ruben-inspired grandeur. By heightening this focus, you get a sense of the mental torture, the seduction, the panic and resolve associated with such a cacophony of vocal insanity heard from the sirens through the mind of Odysseus. The real struggle was figuring out how to paint it. Luckily I found a model rather quickly that worked out great for the role, Nori Zelenz who has posed for artists like Boris Vallejo (a fact I came to realize later.) I posed her as all the characters and intentionally decided on a more human depiction for them in order to reinforce the beauty vs. danger part of their personality. In order to get all of the shadows correct I made clay models of the characters and lit them accordingly. This painting, though it is 40 x 72 in size, took me 5 weeks to paint, relying on 3 hours of sleep a night during that period. Like in most of my work, especially self portraiture, I identify with the sense of torture and exhaustion that is echoed in my characters. When I look into the mirror I reflect my lack of energy onto those characters and at the same time I grant them the same empowerment I am drawing on to finish my work. The painting was completed just one day before the deadline and has quickly become a benchmark for my future work.

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ERIC ARMUSIK

Odysseus and the Sirens oil on oak 40 x 72

is the author of two poetry collections: Yayas Cloth (Iris Press) and The Perfect Day (Parallel Press). Another collection Abundance to Share With the Birds is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Her poems appear widely in journals and anthologies, including Womens Review of Books, Poetry East, Southern Poetry Review, Pirenes Fountain, Loch Raven Review, Beloved on the Earth (Holy Cow! Press) and many others. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband and daughter.

Andrea Potos
White Shoulders
My mothers prismed blue bottle weighs heavy in my hand as I stare into tiny balloons of air stalled in this azure space. When I lift the top off, a fragrance is released from the hardened gold pool at the bottom of the bottle and it is then she brushes past me again, her bare shoulders scented like powder and dusk. She has stripped off her brown housedress, the one she wears like a sigh, and tonight she is somebody else, she is a mother in love, and the scent leads me like a pup trailing her around the house while she hums some song and sips iced tea to keep herself cool in the heat, while she waits for him to come home, any time now, love gathering again, like the best chance for a brief summer rain.

Introspective: White Shoulders

White Shoulders was written after my mother gave me her blue perfume bottle. Though all the liquid was long gone, when I opened the stopper, I was still overcome by the scent. It brought back to me an almost tangible evocation of my childhood, her presence in the house, and my fathers presence as well. And I remembered it being a beautiful fixture on her dressing table.

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Billy Roy kland

www.billyokland.com
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Knowledge Gives Growth oil on canvas 315cm x 205 cm

Billy Roy kland (1969) Hordaland, Norway. kland grew up in the village Auklandshamn in Sveio, and showed early good drawing skills. From elementary school and onwards, every schoolbook was filled with sketches and drawings. Being the son of a sailor, the choice of motif was easy; it all started out with boats and harbours. Since then the choice of motif and message has changed, yet the ocean has not been completely forgotten. When Billy was 8 years old, he tried oil painting fo the first time. Since then he has eagerly worked with both pencil and brush, in some periods more intensely so than in others. kland is mainly self-taught, and is a classic figurative painter, preoccupied with the perceptible and living. He works according to the old masterly/old school traditions, and strives to infuse as much life and sincerity as possible into every single painting be it historic or present reality. Much of his training has been spending hours of intense study in galleries and art museums holding the work of the great, old masters, coupled with hard work. He has also an established contact with various figurative painters. His sources of inspiration are painters like: Rembrandt, Titian, Goya, Odd Nerdrum, L. Hertervig, and many others. kland has been the summer student of Odd Nerdrum. Billy works with figure/man, portraits, landscapes and still life (studies of various objects.) It is important to him that every single painting has its own unique story. His goal for his paintings is for the situation/moment depicted to grasp you, and give you a great feeling of presence. Painting has always been a part of his life, but it wasnt until 2003 that painting became a fulltime commitment. In addition to exhibitions in both home and abroad, kland also does a lot of commissioned work of art for both the business sector and privae collectors.
Left

Sky And Sea oil on canvas

92cm x 150cm

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Violin on Table oil on canvas 42cm x 50cm

Making a nice painting is much like playing music by note. But creating a powerful and heartfelt work of art is like writing a great symphony that stirs up strong emotions in your soul.
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BILLY ROY KLAND

BILLY ROY KLAND

Dora with Iron Grate oil on canvas 90cm x 116cm

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Q&ABILLY ROY KLAND

Self Portrait with Open Shirt oil on canvas 64cm x 76cm The painter took the old master tradition with them further. He managed to convey life in an incredible way, recreate moods of strange ways. Timeless images that are always present.That the stories, moments was to palpable. Yes the skin to breathe and you could sense blood in my veins. That he was pleased many people with something beautiful. The painter was a skilled craftsman and had a God-appointed talent that must

Where do you find your inspiration? To study the paintings by: Rembrandt, Titian, Goya, Odd Nerdrum, L. Hertervig, and many others. I will also be inspired by being out in nature and enjoy the different moods, or just relax with a Kitsch book while I listen to classical music What do you hope art historians will say about your work 300 years from now?

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Vintage 2003 oil on canvas 60cm x 60cm not be undermined. What are you working on next? I am working on a portrait of a little girl Dreamy girl and then I will start on a larger figure compositions What is your hidden talent? Well, I play harmonica and a little guitar, enjoi singing. I also like to imitate people! What medium have you not used in the past that you may wish to try out? Lithography and sculpture. Could be fun to mode counters with clay How did 2009 treat you? 2009 was a good year where I had produced much, and could therefore take part in various collective exhibitions in which I also sold well. I also participated with a selfportrait of Odd Nerdrums show Kitsch more than art in Notodden, Norway. In the summer of 2009 I was a student at the school Nerdrum in Norway

BILLY ROY KLAND

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Cesar Santander
his career, including awards from Pratt Institute and The Ontario Arts Council. Gallery in Pasadena, California.

www.cesarsantander.com

Cesar Santander attended Pratt Institute, NY from 1965 to 1972 while earning his BFA and MFA degrees. He taught from 1971 to 1980 in New York City and Miami, Florida. In 1980 he moved to Canada and began his professional painting career. He has had solo exhibits in Toronto, Canada, New York, NY, San Francisco, California and London, England. He has won several awards and grants during His work has appeared in American Artist, Artist Magazine, Art News, American Art Collector and many other magazines and newspapers in North America and Europe. He was recently in a group show at Scott Richards Fine Art in San Francisco and a photorealism show at the Art Gallery of Kitchener in Kitchener, Ontario. He has a show planned for the San Marino

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CESAR SANTANDER

Betty with Boa

acrylic on canvas

36 x 48

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My work is based on photography because I am interested in the authenticity, detail and supernatural intimacy that a photograph gives. Superficially, I appear to copy the photo, but I make many adjustments to the photographic image as I complete the painting. I try to impose my own vision by subtle adjustment of colors, edges and details so that the finished painting is the strongest representation of the CESAR SANTANDER original idea.
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Above

Union Leader acrylic on canvas 36 x 48

Right

Last Dance at Luna Park acrylic on canvas 48 x 60

Q&ACESAR SANTANDER
What is your process? After choosing a photographic image, I make any necessary adjustments to my sketch and then project it onto my painting surface. Then a pencil drawing is made and corrected. Next, the large areas of color are painted on the entire painting. I then brush in smaller details using a fine paintbrush. Afterwards, shadows and glazes are put in throughout the painting. Next come the highlights and finally the corrections. Do you have a ritual before each new work is started? I spend a very long time agonizing over what image I will paint next. Many photographic studies are done before an image is chosen. Most of my good images never become paintings. There is just not enough time. What do you hope art historians will say about your work in 300 years? I have had a lot of success as an artist, but I hope what I have done becomes widely known and better appreciated in the future. I think that art historians will talk about the originality of my images, my craft and the emotion that I 106
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Flash Gordon acrylic on canvas bring to my paintings.

48 x 72

What are you doing next? I am working on a very large painting of lithographed toy cars. I am fascinated by the color, printed details and the implied presence of people riding in the cars. I think it is a very original and exciting composition. What medium do you wish to try out? I have an idea for a large sculpture of Howdy Doody. It would be 15 -20 feet high and would be sitting on the grass in a park setting. The figure would be composed of painted cut out sections that would be attached giving it depth and presence. What mistakes became a success? I once left a painted panel on an easel without securing it. When I came back an hour later, it had fallen and had a large hole in the surface. I fixed the hole, repainted the damaged area and considerably enhanced the entire painting. It was part of a group show several months later. The painting was very well received and sold almost immediately.
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Daisy at the Mirror acrylic on canvas

36 x 48

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Roger Aplon
At The End

www.rogeraplon.com

was a founder and editor of CHOICE Magazine with John Logan and Aaron Siskind. He has published eight collections of poetry, the most recent being The Man With His Back To The Room, and one of prose Intimacies. For seven years or so hed been living and writing in Barcelona, Spain but returned to San Diego last year where he now teaches writing workshops - both independently and with San Diego Writers INK. He occasionally reads his work with musicians from Wormhole and the Trummerflora Collective and has recently been awarded an arts fellowship from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico.

I turn to the beginning. That time when possibilities clawed at our skin leaving welts like furrows where we could plant anything: cotton, for the sheets on which we spread our bodies for hours of love & sometimes just sex for the sake of the act itself, tobacco, for those late night sessions under the stars with brandy & coffee & talk of revolution & mayhem & visions of traveling on, apples, for the fallow days of winter when neither you nor I spoke of the future or the past but were stuck wrestling with the descending cold, spinach, for the salad to rival all salads with tuna & capers, Gorgonzola & almonds, currants & pinoles, lime juice & cold pressed olive oil, tomatoes, red & yellow, large & small to suck on a hot June afternoon at the edge of a still lake where wed dangle our bare legs & dream, garlic, to heal the wounds we have & will inflict, not only those that run red but those that are too deep to surface willingly, sweet peaches, for the last days of August when we lay on luscious beds of new mown grass & licked the juice that dripped from our sated lips, & . . . gardenias, your mothers favorite, filling the house with their excess one in your hair that afternoon the ship arrived to carry you away

Introspective: At The End

Because I normally work from images rather than ideasand because this piece dates back to November 2008, I cant say for certain how it began. That said, I think its fair to guess the impetus was a memory or memories of a relationship that was no longer and/but had been enriched by many and various tactile (sensual) connections, a partial catalogue of which (along with imagined others) makes up the major body of the poem. And . . . the rest, as they say, is in the editing. A process I take quite seriously not letting a poem go until many months after its initial birth.

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Millicent Borges Accardi

Millicent Borges Accardis recent publications include a chapbook, Woman on a Shaky Bridge (Finishing Line Press) and poems in New Letters, Tampa Review, Nimrod, and over 50 literary publications as well as anthologies, most notably, Boomer Girls (University of Iowa Press). Her writing awards include The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for poetry Barbara Deming Foundation The California Arts Council Residencies at Yaddo; Jentel; Vermont Studio; Fundacin Valparaso, Spain; Milkwood, CZ

http://millicentborgesaccardi.com

Manhattan
She had already had him On her mind, the financial Analyst she could not stop Talking about at the burger joint In Mid-town, in front of the Mitzvah Tank on the way to the harbour and Even when we were buying fake Prada Purses on Mulberry Street. She had already had him On her mind when she insisted on Breakfast at Tiffanys for expensive Cufflinks, with the famous logo, clutched Secretly in her palm as her boy children Begged for FAO Schwartz and Night At the Museum with Dexter and Dum Dum. She had already had him On her mind when she walked up the stairs After the second elevator on the Empire State Building and looked through the large V shaped openings of the metal fence At the End Iron, Met Life and Chrysler buildings No longer housed by companies for which They were named. She had already had him On her mind when her husband snapped A photo of her with a rush of emotion As her chin turned down against the wind As if she were kissing someone else. She had already had him On her mind when our two families Had lunch at Rockefeller Center, watching The ice skaters circle the frozen ring.

Introspective: Manhattan

This poem was written about a recent trip to New York City and observations made while escourting friends from Europe around the tourist sights both major and minor and how the relationship of the people on the trip intertwined with my own relationship with the city.

She had already had him On her mind when her boys father, exasperated Stood up and said, Well, theres nothing to see Here, is there? He threw his tray and the silverware Hit the floor and the plastic plates bounced like A heart too weightless to begin with, empty Plates too light to even do a decent job of breaking.
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Otto Lange
Otto lives and works in Winterville, GA with his wife and an epileptic dog named Peanut.

http://ottolange.com http://ottolangegallery.blogspot.com

Otto Lange started oil painting in 2006. In 2009, he took first place in several juried exhibitions, showed in seven group gallery shows, and has his work in prominent collections across the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Europe. Ottos paintings have been featured in the 2007 book Mego 8 Super-Heroes: Worlds Greatest Toys and he was the cover artist for the summer 2009 issue of the prestigious Indiana Review. In 2010, Otto will be teaching oil painting workshops and developing a DVD on traditional oil painting techniques. He has numerous group exhibitions throughout the year, and has already taken first place in the Chicago-based Inspiration Cafes 17th Annual Juried Exhibition.
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O Pear oil on panel 6 x 8

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Q&AOTTO LANGE

Blueberry Rambler oil on panel Another thing is that I like the idea of elevating a fairly stupid idea through labor and craft. Theres something kind of funny to me about that. Seriously, my painting shoe horn isnt any intellectual escapade, but I love the pursuit of ennobling the inane. Do you have a ritual that you follow before a work is started? Once Ive assembled all of my components (little drawings, objects, photos, etc.) and Im ready to work, I like to have a little comfort noise in the background. I love late 1950s through mid-1970s television shows (detective and drama in particular), and 1940s through late 1950s radio shows. I also listen to audiobooks, but usually non-fiction titles. The only exception is that I listen to any book read by Edward Woodward (of Callan and

8 x 6

Where do you find your inspiration? In relation to my work, I typically focus on weird little abstract feelings or silly situations as the impetus for a piece. An example would be, like, a guy tells an inappropriate joke in mixed company. Does Phil try to cover for his social faux pas by attempting another joke? Do Steve and Lois try to assuage Phils feelings by laughing anyway in spite of his comedic limitations? That awkward situation would be something in the back of my mind as I work. I also feel sometimes that I intentionally go to great lengths to take any sort of intellectual component out of the work. I often focus on the color relationships to a greater extent just because of the fact that the brains reception of them has such an indiscriminate subliminal effect on the viewer.

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Black and Blue The Equalizer fame). I paint in a series of layers and glazes, and the little treat in my workspace enables me to focus on the more laborious steps in my paintings. What is your hidden talent? Im a master goldsmith, jeweler, and wax carver. I also do fairly accurate impersonations of Murray Hamilton ( the mayor in Jaws that wouldnt close the beaches), James Mason (Lolita, North by Northwest), and Lance LeGault (Memphis Mafia alum and voiceover guy). The problem is that whenever I do these impersonations nobody ever knows who they are to begin with. Have any of your mistakes become a success?

oil on panel

8 x 6

Well, actually painting itself was one of my mistakes. I initially responded to drawing because the tactile nature of shaping a form directly to the surface with your fingers felt very natural to me. The major attraction to painting was really the color. The chemistry of oil painting and the mixing of color is a very seductive world to explore. Listen, there are times that I get so enraptured by the act of mixing paint that I actually believe I can make blue. Okay, so my inceptive stages of oil painting (Ive been painting in oil for about five years and seriously for about three) were daunted by the separation of my hand from the actual surface of the support. I didnt like the brush, but ultimately, the depth that painting in oil offered me obscured my resistance to change.

OTTO LANGE

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Shoe Horn

oil on panel

14 x 11 How did 2009 treat you? It was fantastic! The galleries and collectors that I have worked with have been absolutely wonderful, and I have really forged some great relationships this past year. Oh, and I finally got over my thing with telling people what I do for a living. The statement, Im an artist, always had a vague modicum of pretension to me. The alternative declaration, Im a painter, would sometimes lead to a series of questions about the benefits of using a flat-latex in a master bathroom. So, now I feel comfortable (depending on the given situation) saying one of the following: I am an artist, a Karate Instructor, or an engineer (the choo-choo train kind).

What are you working on next? Im making work for shows that are coming up this year. I actually have been giving some thought to working more thematically, but its not really in my nature. I used to feel a little awkward about the fact that I would be in an exhibition with other artists who had 10 to 15 paintings of a similar subject, and then right up there in the middle would be my collection of paintings that had absolutely no common thread at all. Id hear, Wow, that crazy bastard is all over the place! Now, I embrace it, and I think its a fairly accurate depiction of how my silly little brain works. Oh, but to answer the question, Im painting some giant popsicles, beer cans, and a few naked ladies.

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OTTO LANGE

Portrait (With Lolli)

oil on panel

30 x 30

I really think that in a veritable sea of great contemporary painters, the main thing that I have to offer is the expression of my character through painting. I strive to make the best work that my abilities will allow.
OTTO LANGE
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Left

Cherry oil on panel 20 x 20

Introspective: Cherry
I think the most recent painting that Ive worked on that had some challenging elements to me would be cherry. I work in somewhat of a loose interpretation of the traditional old master method involving a monochromatic (or slightly toned) grisaille followed by a series of transparent glazes. My goal for this painting was to really mute the colors except for the boot in an attempt to, I suppose, over-emphasize its importance to me, and also to give a little touch of warmth too. Well, a problem that emerged was that I had a temperature conflict with the boot relative to everything else in the composition once I started glazing it. The painting was fairly unified and psychologically satisfying in its monochromatic state, but once I began to add the layers of color over the underpainting the overall tone seemed to feel a little incongruous. In the end, I got what I wanted, but I arrived at the solution through allowing my underpainting to play a more dominant role in the finished work. The glazing of color has such a dramatic transformation in the painting process that its somewhat intoxicating (and difficult to resist ). Sometimes you already have what youre searching for, and yes, less is more.

OTTO LANGE

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Linda Olafsdottir

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www.lindaolafsdottir.com www.lindaillustration.blogspot.com
Linda Olafsdottir was born and raised in Reykjavk, Iceland. After earning her BFA degree in Fine Art/Printmaking from the Iceland Academy of the Arts, Linda continued her education and got her teaching credentials from the same school. After two years of teaching she moved with her husband and son to San Francisco, California, to study Illustration at the Academy of Art University where she graduated with honors with an MFA degree in Illustration in the Spring of 2009. Since graduation Linda has been working on her Illustration and Fine Art. She recently illustrated her first book, an Icelandic Poetry Book Tell me more and more..., published in Iceland in November 2009. Her work has been featured in numerous shows in San Francisco and Iceland, in art related blogs and most recently were rewarded in the newest edition of the Creative Quarterly Magazine.

Homesick oil and acrylics on panel 12 x 24

LINDA OLAFSDOTTIR

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Q&ALINDA OLAFSDOTTIR
Where do you find your inspiration? My inspiration for my illustration comes first and foremost from my children. The humorous side of the every day life inspires me to create. My closest surroundings inspire my paintings. San Francisco is the subject of most of the paintings Im doing now. Do you have a ritual you follow before each new work is started? Before my pencil touches the surface my studio has to be clean, or if not clean, at least organized! I have my coffee next to me and either a quiet music or no sound at all, which can sometimes be a challenge with two children in the house! What are you working on next? I am currently working on getting my illustrations out there. Sending out samples, meeting with publishers, etc. along with continuing to add to my portfolio. I am working on the finishing touches of a story I wrote and illustrated. When Im not working on my illustration projects I paint cityscapes and I find it the perfect balance between these two art forms that I love.

Left

Girl in a Red Dress watercolor and pencil 8 x 8

Right

Potrero Hill oil on canvas 25 x 25

Has your art inspired a poem? Yes it actually has. Usually the illustrator is inspired by the words, but Ive been featured twice on a blog site for poems where my illustrations have inspired the poets who follow that blog. Its fun to see words added to my image instead of vice versa. However I recently illustrated an Icelandic poetry book for children and adults and enjoyed that very much. How did 2009 treat you? I think 2009 treated me very well. I graduated with honors in the Spring. Shortly there after I got to illustrate my first book and in the Fall I had my first solo exhibition in San Francisco. I took my portfolio to NY in November which was a great experience and my works have been well received where they have been shown. In my personal life I celebrated my daughters first birthday and my son turned eight. Overall I think it was a good and a happy year. Explain your process. When working on my illustrations I start with gathering inspiration for my project. I do a bunch of sketching, take photo references and then I start the finished drawing. If working on a large surface I usually have my drawing copied in the size I need and then attach that copy onto the surface. I then tone it with acrylic color and start painting, first quickly with acrylics, than color pencils and then oil paint. For my cityscapes I work from a photo reference and paint with oils on a toned canvas or a panel. 120
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As an artist and an illustrator I look at myself as a storyteller through images, the link between the words, the image and the audience. I like my work to meet the viewers in a good way, I want them to experience something warm and joyful by looking at my paintings. I like my work to be visually pleasing, sometimes comforting or even funny.
LINDA OLAFSDOTTIR
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Taller Than I Am oil, acrylics and color pencils on board 11 x 17

LINDA OLAFSDOTTIR

LINDA OLAFSDOTTIR

Halloween oil, acrylics and color pencils on board 11 x 17

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Introspective: In the Big City

This piece is a part of the story I wrote and illustrated. This is a very dramatic scene in the story, which is about a little girl that moves from a small town to a big city in a new country. The story is inspired by my son and his experience of moving from tiny Iceland to San Francisco. This scene shows when the character in the story arrives to the big city and sees her new home for the first time. I wanted a very dramatic perspective to show how petite the little girl is in this new and overwhelming environment. I wanted the buildings to tower over the girl and to have them painted in muted colors. The only

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warm tones of the paintings are on the girl in the foreground, to make her stand out from the cold buildings and to separate the life from the life-less objects. My biggest challenge with this painting was to get the drawing as accurate and believable as possible, using the right references and the right perspective, without it being too realistic or stiff, but still maintaining the liveliness of a childrens book illustration.

In the Big City oil on panel 12 x 24

LINDA OLAFSDOTTIR

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Edward Nudelman
is a widely published scientist and poet. Nudelmans first book of poetry, Night Fires, was a semifinalist for the Journal Award (The Wheeler Prize) given by OSU Press in 2009. Night Fires was published Publications by in Pudding 2009. House

Autobiography
Its not easy to measure progress; every din and molt, down to the second; or recall special events, luster and darkness, pitfalls, high points, the taste and smell of wine and books, vellum and leather, wallpaper coming off and paint going on. Its not easy to record what might have been in another time, in another body, another reaction burning in the catalysts murky margins, along dots interlaced with joy, dashes lined with pain. You scribble incantations in your lab notebook with precision: red ink for success, black for failure. The results section is filled to the hilt with graphs. But the conclusions dangle in the either-or. How many summersaults have you turned to get where you are now, and how many remain? Your little hand races round like a mouse on a wheel while the big hand delivers the pith of the message. The data looks good, but after many revisions, youre still worried about the purpose line. Youve got work to do before its ready for publication. Your manuscript- your life- still needs a title.

Nudelman

received a Pushcart Nomination for Two Sides of Self, in 2009. Casting the Nines, an anthology of nine poets with nine poems (PHP, 2009) honored Nudelman as one of its participants and on 09/09/09 the nine poets passed out free copies of the book to strangers in nine different cities. Some of his poems have been recently published in Ampersand, Syntax, The Atlanta Review, Best of Cafe Cafe

(anthology print journal), several poems in OCHO (Mipoesias

Magazine), Plainsongs, Tears in the Fence, Floating Bridge Press, The Orange Room Review, The

Penwood Review, and The White Leaf Review. Nudelman lives with his wife and their Golden Retriever, Sofie, just North of Boston.

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NOAH DAVIS
By Grady Harp
Single Mother with Father in the Picture

Constructing a Personal History

YOUNG 26 YEAR OLD

Los Angeles artist Noah Davis is creating that response to his psychologically informed paintings the art world hopes to see at least once in a generation. He has in a few short years quietly emerged as a painter of substance, an artist who delves into an imagery gathered from his imagination, his depth of knowledge of art history, social history, literature and poetry, his observation of the people around him, and his response to those events and historical influences that make him reflect and yearn to share. Davis comes to this threshold of public notice well prepared, having trained in The Cooper Union School of Art in New York, moving to Los Angeles after accepting the fact that the current milieu of graffiti art in New York was not where his visions lay. He worked in public arts administration, always painting, until his output was noticed by important fellow artists who recognized Noah Davis had something unique to say. Though becoming

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Richards Reply

established as one of this countrys steadily growing important Black Artists group, Noah Davis does not view his works as political statements: race is more an opportunity to share his views of the people and events around him. His paintings feature Black people as observed characters and as created images for his uncanny ability to tell stories in his narrative paintings. In Single Mother with Father in the Picture he examines a simple home portrait, yet the ever constant psychological implication is there with the father in the picture being a barely visible framed image on a table. In Richards Reply he paints a patently burdened man (based on Step n Fetchit) reluctantly rising to another day, while in 1984 the figure with a childs face becoming a white mask, gives the impression that with the accoutrements of a bedside telephone and a stack of books, the character is placed in a transformed environment. These paintings are gentle on the surface but suggest a struggle between the realities of the day and the reminder that night and death suggest isolation and hints of mortality. Davis most recent series of paintings, FORGOTTEN WORKS, is in response to poet/ author Richard Brautigans 1968 novella In Watermelon Sugar, the story of the people and the events of iDEATH, a new Eden in a post-apocalyptic world where everything is made out of watermelon sugar, with the old destroyed world represented by the forbidden area called Forgotten Works, a huge trash heap where the puzzling suicidal character inBOIL stirs strange consequences. The novella alludes to communal experiments of the 1960s, involving the intersection of

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NOAH DAVIS

The Forgotten Night

Inboil

Painting isnt an aesthetic operation; its a form of magic designed as a mediator between this strange hostile world and us, a way of seizing the power by giving form to our terrors as well as our desires.
Pablo Picasso

All Those Lost to Oh Well NOAH DAVIS

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nature and technology. From this intriguing mix Davis has created impressive portraits of Inboil, The Forgotten Night, and the narrative, surreal events of All Those Lost to Oh Well, and the ghastly pairing of What We Did to the Elephant in the Room with What They Did to Themselves. Noah Davis does not strive to illustrate books, myths (as in his recent exhibition in New York entitled ISIS AND OSIRIS), or current events. Instead he uses these springboards of inspiration to masterfully paint his responses. Painting does something to your soul that nothing else can. Its visceral and immediate I think its very important that art remains to be about ideas, but it shouldnt be an either/or battle between concepts versus painting.I think the dream for any artist is to create a world in which you can express your own ideas. Standing in the presence of Noah Davis paintings generates a respect for his gifts technically as a painter, and emotionally as an artist unafraid to seduce us into the secrets of our inner responses to the events and history of the people in the world around us and within us. Images Courtesy of Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, CA. 130
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What We Did to the Elephant in the Room

What They Did to Themselves

NOAH DAVIS

Walter Bjorkman
is a writer residing in Maryland, born in Brooklyn, NY in 1948. He received a BA in
Literature in 1970. His work has been published in O&S, OCHO, metazen, and upcoming in BluePrintReview. Most of his new work is posted on MiPo.

Lost and Found on the B Train in Winter

I first heard the rumble, felt the roar before I was born in my Mothers own cave, on her doctors way I first saw the white porcelain straps, felt the frayed straw seats smelled the wet drying wool before I was one year of age Record snow the Christmas eve three months before my birth then every month thereafter - I rode the rails in that womb while dirt-crusted plowed snowdrifts piled to the sky and were covered anew, freshened again Bread factory aromas ran down from the street the sugary candy factory ones too, the car would rise and emerge into the light, a city-wide roller coaster ride Coney Island began at the train platform edge A distant cousin lived in an apartment above a store the el curving just outside his window, near Ebbets Field eyes wide at the gaps in the stairs, big enough I could fall through my Fathers hand safely protecting the climb First neck nuzzles and thigh grabs after ice skating in the city in the car-end lone double seat, our semi-private room midnight heads on shoulders, pretending to be tired while our hands began their moves I now dream a dream of dark browns, grey and black dashing, darting through vertical steel pillars, deep in this cave avoiding screeching blue-sparks from across third rails my Mother holding our hands, safely leading the way to my Father waiting on the platform across and above

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Neil MacCormick
http://www.neilmaccormick.com http://photorealism101.blogspot.com
Montreal based painter Neil MacCormicks obsessively created small scale photorealist works, reflecting the artists concerns with identity and alienation, have garnered an eager audience resulting in consecutive soldout shows at the prestigious O.K. Harris Works of Art in New York. MacCormick, a self taught artist, was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1958. His work has also shown at galleries in Toronto, Vancouver, B.C. and Victoria B.C. where he lived for almost twenty years.

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Photorealism offers me the illusion of objectivity, the removal of self. In reality, my paintings are a conduit through which I subconsciously express an almost indefinable ache with the unique marks I make.
NEIL MACCORMICK

M. Giffin Ltd. acrylic on illustration board 5.5 x 8

Parkside Bar acrylic on paper 8 x 12

Q&ANEIL M

ACCORMICK

Do you have a ritual you follow before each new work is started? I hate to think of it as a ritual, per se, but I often go through a period of listlessness or anxiety between paintings. This period of a week or so between the end of one painting and the beginning of another has to do with the intense and protracted level of concentration that each piece requires and the absence of a feeling of usefulness that painting gives me. What do you hope art historians will say about your work 300 years from now?

I try to make the unique experiences of my life into art that transcends the intensely personal to become universally representative of the human condition. I can honestly say that the opinions of art historians arent something I care about. What are you working on next? Im several weeks in to the next project House on De Brebeuf a small painting of a small nondescript house in Montreal. Entering my second year of life in Montreal, Ive begun focussing on more local subject matter as the city seeps into

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House With Motorcycle acrylic on paper 8 x 5.5

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Apartment on Convent Place acrylic on illustration board 5.5 x 8

my veins and I begin to see myself reflected in its brand of structure and roadside iconography. What is your hidden talent? Due to my fanatical desire to uproot the sources of my own issues and ideas I have developed an ability to help people see through the tangle of their own psychological undergrowth. This is something I feel is enormously helpful in

creative pursuits. I also write and cut hair. What medium have you not used in the past that you may wish to try out? I live in an area of Montreal which is replete with auto body shops and Ive begun collecting discarded metal fenders and other painted car panels for a project not entirely unrelated to painting but definitely outside of my normal practice. It may take years to complete the first piece but Im not averse to long term goals!

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NEIL MACCORMICK

Munt acrylic on paper 8 x 5.5

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Pizza acrylic on illustration board 5.5 x 8

Pizza detail after 7.5 hours

Pizza detail after 21.5 hours

Pizza detail after 35 hours Explain your process. My process begins with a single slide taken by a 35 mm SLR camera. The slide is projected onto paper or illustration board using a thrift store projector. The image is traced with a 5H pencil in a relatively loose manner. This process usually takes two hours. The paintings are done with five watered down acrylic colours and one inexpensive #6 gold sable brush, in a modified watercolour/dry-brush technique using only the white of the paper to provide

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highlights. I adhere as closely as I can to the visual information provided by the slide. I paint from background to foreground slowly building colour saturation using washes, crosshatches and stipples. I complete each small section before moving on. Aside from the area being painted, the

painting is covered by a protective layer of tracing paper. I refer to the slide in a small hand held daylight viewer. I dont produce any prints of the slide. It takes between two to three months for a typical 5.5 X 8 painting, working nine to five, five days a week.

NEIL MACCORMICK

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City Water Meter Repair Co., Inc. acrylic on paper 5.5 x 8

Right

Running Man acrylic on paper 8 x 5.5

Introspective: Running Man

My process is based around the notion that if I restrict my materials and set parameters on my methods Ill hinder the subjective decisions I make while painting. Running Man, painted during a period of intense upheaval in my life, is an illustration of how my subconscious mind tinkers with this notion and makes me choose, without conscious understanding, to photograph and then paint an image that is full of subliminal representations of the experiences Im living through: the running man in the upper window; the chain link fence surrounding the property. Its worth noting that the white of the fence isnt actually painted but is defined by the painted diamond shapes (more than six hundred of them) that define the background. The fence was the most challenging thing Ive ever painted and more than once I feared I had ruined the painting.

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Past Contributor
www.williamlazos.com
William Lazos was born
in Cairo, Egypt and grew up in toronto, Ontario. He has been painting photorealist art since 1984. His artwork can be seen in Gallery Moos, Engine gallery, and the Art Gallery of Ontario Sales and Rental Gallery, all in Toronto. He is also represented at Plus One Gallery in London, England. He focuses on three main themes: portrait and/or figurative, carnival (Canadian National Exhibition), and still-lifes. Sometimes the subject matters may intertwine with each other. William is also an accomplished mural painter, sometimes working on murals over 5,000 square feet. He has taught painting at the Toronto School of Art, and George Brown College.

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Mini Hoopla

acrylic on canvas

60 x 60

W I L L I A M

L A Z O S

Leanne III

acrylic on canvas

28 x 36

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Past Contributor
www.andvik.com

Jonny Andviks

personal and artistic horizons have

unfolded expansively since his childhood living in a farmers district in Norway. That period of geographical isolation was in retrospect a blessing for the painter he recalls. Because I grew up in a close connection to the cultural heritage of Telemark, I wasnt taught the cliches. My experience of the local people, their minds and their way of living shows in my paintings. Born in 1966, he was encouraged by his grandfather Alf Andvik in the pursuits of painting, himself a painter, donated his twelve-year-old grandson his first brush and paint. Andviks interest in drawing and painting continued as a teenager and he was further encouraged as a student both in Norway and at the Exeter College of Art in England. A frequent visitor to museums, he is inspired by painters such as Titian, Jan Vermeer, Rembrandt, John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn, Andrew Wyeth, Odd Nerdrum and several other masters.

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J O N N Y

A N D V I K

Portrait of Masterfiddler Knut Buen

oil on canvas

81cm x 75cm

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Past Contributor
www.dumaarte.com www.duma-artecontemporanea.blogspot.com

Duma was born in Lisbon, In 1973.

She studied at Iade (Visual Arts, Design And Marketing Institute) and also studied drawing and painting at the National Society of Fine Arts in Lisbon. Duma began her professional fine art career at the age of 21 and since then she had 18 solo shows and has participated in more than a hundred group shows. She works with some major art galleries in Portugal, but also made some shows in other countries of Europe and in The United States. Her works have been published in various magazines, art books and online feature articles. Duma participates frequently in art fairs in Portugal and Spain and she was awarded several times with European painting prizes.

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D U M A

The Red Dot

oil on canvas

100cm x 100cm

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Past Contributor
www.nadinerobbinsportraits.com

Spanning a period of more than 21 years,

Nadine Robbins has received

numerous awards and been featured in publications for her work as a creative director for her own agency. She is a recipient of a fellowship from the International Design Education Foundation. Recently, Nadine has refocused her attention to her portrait work by starting a two year long project called Ten Portrait Peaces in which she is painting ten full size portraits of artistic couples while documenting the whole process on her blog. Her portrait work has been published in Roll Magazine and she was featured as one of 20-2D artists from the Hudson Valley in InsideOut Magazine, The art Issue: The Hudson Valley 100. In 2009, she had a portrait called Crabby Cakes selected to be included in Figures a prestigious juried competition and Exhibition at The Art Guild, Manhasset, NY. Nadine Robbins attended the Middlesex Polytechnic in London, College de Sollies Pont in France and received her B.F.A. in Graphic Design from the State University of New York at New Paltz, graduating Cum Laude.

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N A D I N E

R O B B I N S

The Bright Lights of Broadway

oil on canvas

48 x 72

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