STUDIO JOURNAL

NEW VISITS

2011-08-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

I am looking forward to posting new journal entries. I have been doing a few visits here and there, some merely investigatory, others for a specific curatorial purpose, but in general, glad to be making them and writing about them here. Here are some links to the ones I have recently seen, as a taster in advance of my entries:

EMILY NOELLE LAMBERT

STACY FISHER

MARY ANN STRANDELL

ELIZABETH RILEY

ELIZABETH COOPER

LIZ INSOGNA

ELISSA LEVY

SUSANNA HARWOOD RUBIN

A YEAR OF AESTHETIC ENCOUNTERS

2010-10-08T14:02:00.000-07:00

Looking back over the past year, I made 50 studio visits, and this blog will slowly recount those visits starting with my next post, on D. Dominick Lombardi. These visits were made for all sort of reasons, and led in many cases to the artist being included in one or more future group exhibitions, or my writing an essay for them, or recommending them to others. Some were made just to be neighborly. None of them resulted in less than a true aesthetic encounter. You will soon have proof of this before you!

David Gibson

SVA SUMMER RESIDENCY 2006

2006-07-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

Ling, George, David, Leigh Ann in Chelsea, July 2006

This summer it has been my great pleasure to fulfill the role of instructor in The School of Visual Art’s Summer Residency Program 2006. I am humbled by the opportunity to work with students, to aid them in generating art work, communication skills, and provide an example of how to live in the art world. There are many amazing artists in this program, which counts 34 in all. A large number of them are still in their twenties and are considering the possibility of attending graduate school. Many came here from other countries, such as Lithuania and Portugal, and are coming to New York for the first time. The chance to work in a school can be refreshing, and the attention of daily alternating instructors on each student’s chosen body of work for the allotted period can be quite stimulating. Besides myself, other instructors include Jill Weinstock, Danica Phelps, Steve DeFrank, and Peter Hristoff.

I first met with students in this program during the summer of 2005, when I was invited by Keren Moscovitch, Assistant Diractor in SVA’s Division of Continuing Education, to lecture about my experiences and accomplishments in the art world. Though less famous than many other figures appearing here, it was perhaps my connection to the art world, via family connection and lifetime experience, that made me an interesting candidate. Now, as an instructor, I have gotten to share more than a passing concern with the many participants in this ongoing program, to provide the benefits of a New York art education, in the studio and outside, in the galleries and streets, which is the accepted purview of regularly attending students.

Trang Bui, Tania Castellano, Ling Chang, Annika Connor, Karina Contreras, Dana Cooper, Cathleen Cueto, Leigh Ann Davis, Marc Freeman, Tracey Goodman, Samantha Hahn, Sara Hernandez-Pons, Emily Henretta, Tamar Hirschl, Jennifer Kincaid, Rufus Lusk, Brian Maller, Cindy Mason, Kelley McCarthy, Jeremy Olson, Candida Pestana, Gabriel Shuldiner, Fumiko Toda, George Towne , Marlene Vinha

TANIA CASTELLANO

TANIA CASTELLANO

Sculpture by LING CHANG

Drawings by LING CHANG

Sculptural installation by LING CHANG

Watercolor painting by ANNIKA CONNOR

Watercolor painting by ANNIKA CONNOR

Painting by KARINA CONTRERAS

Drawing installation by KARINA CONTRERAS

Installation by DANA COOPER

Installation by DANA COOPER

Installation by DANA COOPER

Detail of artwork by DANA COOPER

CATHLEEN CUETO and her work

Work by CATHLEEN CUETO with guest

Mixed media & painting by LEIGH ANN DAVIS

Mixed media & painting by LEIGH ANN DAVIS

Mixed media & painting by LEIGH ANN DAVIS

Mixed media & painting by LEIGH ANN DAVIS

Mixed media & painting by LEIGH ANN DAVIS

Mixed media & painting by LEIGH ANN DAVIS

Mixed media & painting by LEIGH ANN DAVIS

Mixed media & painting by LEIGH ANN DAVIS

Mixed media & painting by LEIGH ANN DAVIS

Painting by MARC FREEMAN

Painting by MARC FREEMAN

Artwork by MARC FREEMAN

Artwork by MARC FREEMAN

Paintings by SAMANTHA HAHN

Sculptural installation by EMILY HENRETTA

Mixed media & painting by TAMAR HIRSCHL

Method-based painting by JENNIFER KINCAID
Painting by RUFUS LUSK

Painting by RUFUS LUSK

Painting by RUFUS LUSK

Painting by CINDY MASON

Drawings by JEREMY OLSON

Painting by CANDIDA PESTANA

Painting by CANDIDA PESTANA

Painting by GABRIEL SHULDINER

Painting by FUMIKO TODA

Painting by GEORGE TOWNE

Paintings by SONIA GONZALEZ VARELA

Painting by MARLENE VINHA

Painting by JEREMY OLSON

Painting by JEREMY OLSON

Frieze by KELLEY MCCARTHY

Sculpture by GABRIEL SHULDINER

Sculpture by KELLEY MCCARTHY

Deatail of sculpture by KELLEY MCCARTHY

Drawing installation by KARINA CONTRERAS

Drawing installation by KARINA CONTRERAS

Painting by FUMIKO TODA

Painting by FUMIKO TODA

Painting by FUMIKO TODA

Sculpture by GABRIEL SHULDINER

Installed painting by SARA HERNANDEZ-PONS

Painting by MARLENE VINHA

MARLENE VINHA (on right) with Elizabeth Hendler

Painting by MARLENE VINHA

Painting by MARLENE VINHA

BRIAN MALLER

Installation by SABRINA TORRES

MARLENE VINHA with her Artwork

MARLENE VINHA

Artwork by SILVIA FLORES

Artwork by SILVIA FLORES

Open Studios: Fumiko Toda

Artwork by SILVIA FLORES

Artist Portrait: TRANG BUI

Artist Portrait: Tania Castellano

ANNIKA CONNOR

CATHLEEN CUETO

SILVIA FLORES

SAMANTHA HAHN

EMILY HENRETTA

SARA HERNANDEZ-PONS

CINDY MASON

CANDIDA PESTANA

JENNY CARPENTER

2006-01-01T14:38:00.000-08:00

Lately, most of my studio visits are being made in preparation for upcoming group exhibitions, and there are few exceptions. Yet one recent visit was done out of the blue, and it proved quite a surprise. The artist is Jenny Carpenter, originally from Omaha, Nebraska, but who has traveled and lived in various locations around the U.S., and also Australia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and South Africa. These trips are made possible by her work as a freelance art director at various advertising agencies in cities where she has lived. As a New Yorker myself, and thoroughly ensconced in the New York art world, I was very surprised to hear how much the artist traveled. She was able to also take long periods of seclusion in her painting between bouts of travel and work, and New York remained for her a place to dream, not merely one to struggle.

I walked up the six flights of steps in a typical West Village red brick apartment building to be met by her at the threshold of her front door, a charming and somewhat stoical young woman, nervous since, as she said, there had not been many studio visits for her yet. Her small but well appointed home was preceded by a long narrow hallway, and one entered both the living room and the light of day. A wide green couch faced the windows, with a mostly northern exposure, though we know that nothing in the West Village faces exactly in one direction. The work was arranged all on one wall to my left, the artist sitting at my right ahead of me, just under those great village views.

In her emailed statement, she said that she painted oil on stained wood to allow the grain to influence the lines of a woman's face, with the scale of each image being a 1 to 1 ration on 12” x 12” birch board. I looked at these images and began to talk with her, and had a positive feeling. Here was some good work. A nice tight idea, a concept in the making garnered from her influences in the working world and how they merged with a particular notion of beauty, as well as all of the visual conceits that enter into the moment of aesthetic fascination when a beautiful woman appears on the printed page--a simulacra made palpable and commercial at the same time. Carpenter focuses mainly upon close-ups, and the images among these that I preferred were limited to a frame of the eyes, mouth, and cheekbones, with the eyes gazing deeply back at the spectator.

My main concern in learning to appreciate Carpenter’s work was my opinion on her sources. Since she does work in advertising, it is both natural and somewhat presumptuous that she would choose a type of imagery culled from the pages of fashion magazines. Yet the need to portray women’s faces--and she paints only women--has found perfect repository in the commercially viable and yet ultimately short lived use of such magazines. Here is where women are most notably typified, and if one wants a pictorial jumping-off point, there is no context more widespread than this, whether the point is to offer an alternative pictorial treatment or to freely sample the traditional modes of emotional expression which fashion models are forced to espouse. The specifically successful aspect of her portraits is that they portray all women in depicting the nameless ciphers used to exemplify the sort of passion that sells couture. Carpenter’s paintings zoom past the trappings of the industry and reveal the fuel that runs it: emotional intimacy. She qualifies the essential humanness which makes models more than visceral clotheshorses.

WELCOME TO STUDIO JOURNAL!

2005-12-26T21:15:00.000-08:00

Here I am in the studio of Marcy Brafman

This is an idea for a publication which I have been pondering for quite some time: an online magazine devoted to reporting on the various studio visits which I complete in my guise as independent curator, critic, or random art lover. Since I moved back to New York after college many of my friends have been artists, and since 2000, when I opened my first curated exhibition, I have completed some 100+ studio visits per year. This magazine was given the name "journal" because it is meant to function as one, a record rather than an art form. I look forward to sharing many of my future visits with you, my memories of past ones, and my musings on the event that takes place when I step into an artist's most intimate room. All best, David Gibson