DOMINGO, LOS DIECISIETE DE ENERO VEINTE-DIECISEIS

A new collaborative work between myself and JK Russ titled 'The Release', 2016, collage and oil on metal, 14” x 11”. We usually start with a regular-sized piece of aluminum that I commonly work on, I'll paint a standard backdrop in oil, then hand it over to JK Russ and she finds collage elements to place on the backdrop. After JK has finished, we talk about the images, configuration of forms and placement then talk about what is the best way to complete the work in oil paint. The best works or examples are the one that find a perfect conflation of our ideas and signifiers.

JUEVES, EL VEINTISEIS DE ABRIL, VEINTE-DOCE

Anti-War=Anti-Orgasm at Light & Space Contemporary, Manila, Philippines, 14 April - 5 May, 2012

MIERCOLES, EL VEINTICINCO DE ABRIL, VIENTE-DOCE

Dodo ring

JUEVES, EL VIENTE DE OCTUBRE, VEINTE-ONCE
Dick Frizzell's new book 'It's All About The Image' with my work, 'Half and Half'', 2010, oil on canvas.
Thanks to Matt S. for the pics!

MARTES, EL TREINTA DE AGOSTO, VEINTE-ONCE
A Mexican tin nicho frame, given to me by my friend Frank X Cordero from Santa Fe. The frame had a piece of newspaper in the back of it, folded over and teared, but with a date of 1910 on it. The paper perhaps had a reproduction of a saint on it, possibly La Preciosa Sangre de Cristo, or Nuestra Senora de la Luz.
I started a scraperboard-type work for this frame several months ago and have finally finished it. It's a reverse image of Durer's Melencolia engraving from 1514, in an attempt to reverse melancholy.

MIERCOLES, EL TRES DE AGOSTO, VEINTE-ONCE
I've got three or four ceramic works in this upcoming exhibition
www.raynerbrothers.com

DOMINGO, EL OCHO DE MAYO, VEINTE-ONCE
There's been a bit of a lapse in posting due to traveling around New Zeland and limited access to internet connections but here's the next invitation to "Pop Gun" at the Rayner Brothers Gallery at 52 Guyton Street, Whanganui, New Zealand.

The exhibition opens on Friday the 13th of May, 2011 and features new art works related to pop music by Andrew Ritson, JK Russ, Mark and Paul Rayner and me. I'll be adding my works to my website by the opening of the exhibition and will be previewing a couple of works on my Artist facebook page.

LUNES, EL VEINTIUNO DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-ONCE
Our latest acquisition, a ceramic crucifix by Seattle artist, Charles Krafft. The vertical text reads 'No Spitting On The Swans'.

VIERNES, EL NUEVE DE DICIEMBRE, VIENTE-DIEZ
Tonight is the opening of JK Russ' exhibition 'American Dream' at Thermostat Art Gallery in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Although there's a time delay between New Zealand and where we are in the USA, we'll be available to Skype the gallery during the exhibition opening to say hi to those that make it to the show.
The work will be viewable on Russ' website from tomorrow at this link here.

MARTES, EL TRIENTE DE NOVIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
A new retablo started today. I've been struggling a bit in the studio lately, so I needed to vent out a bit. A Facebook conversation with Pauline from 'Art And My Life' blog ( see links to the right) made a statement about neurosis and venting and I thought that was a great starting point. There's still more to go to finish it, but subtle little additions so as to not distract from the initial impact that it's a sacred spleen rather than a sacred heart.
I picked up the old frame from a Savers store here in Las Vegas, I've been having good fortune scoring lovely antique frames around the city.

SABATO, EL VEINTISIETE DE NOVIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ

We headed up to Red Rock Canyon to take the Ice Box hike with Mike and Terri. Was definitely a great idea to get out and stretch our legs and enjoy good company since the art at present is dragging it's feet. We're also planning a trip to LA soon to catch up with some folk and head out to a few fav's, The Getty Museum, Historia Antiques in Santa Monica, LACMA, and the dealer galleries at Bergamot Station and Culver City. Photo by JK Russ.

VIERNES, EL VEINTISEIS DE NOVIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
Thanksgiving last night with the Quaranto's. Fantastic food, laughs and company. Photo by JK Russ

LUNES, EL VEINTIDOS DE NOVIEMBRE, VENITE-DIEZ
BEN CAUCHI-The Doppler Effect
December 4 2010 – January 28 2011
190 Wicksteed Street Whanganui 4500 NEW ZEALAND
www.mcnamara.co.nz

JUEVES, EL CUATRO DE NOVEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
Friday night is Ben Pearce's exhibition opening at PAULNACHE in Gisborne. Here's what the email says:

'Pearce explores the personality of memory. Acknowledging its amazing range and various abilities, Pearce’s art explores memory and reconciles it with a recent and common ‘ancestor’ to us all: childhood. He strives to make visible the quirks and tragedies of our mind’s recording machinations, to materialize the emotional states that can cripple our bodies and which often distort the way we record time and memory. The nature of this internal landscape is of interest to Pearce; his sculptures may exist within his internal world but they also seek to co-exist as time-travellers in our own.

Within Pearce’s work, internal spaces are visited sculpturally. Here memory is visualized, scrutinized and retold. Spirits and stories of past lives or of family history are bought forth from the dark inner recesses they once occupied to our current time and place. Several recent works, The Red Trike and Deadline have explored the metamorphic phenomenon as a metaphor for the shape shifting self that occupies the mind.

Pearce creates sanctuaries in which memories can shelter from harm, loss and anonymity. Adapted, weathered and polished, these places seem more like manifestations of emotion rather than representations of the actual objects themselves. Dislocated, they allude to both survival and demise, creation and destruction. It is these notions of creation and destruction that interest Pearce sculpturally and this is reflected in the way he re-constructs his works after inflicting wilful damage upon them. He longs to bring sculpture closer to the practice of drawing; immediate, expressive and correctable. The idea in his work is that of dualism between the functions of mind and body. He feels that the body can retain the overflow of memory, storing unprocessed emotions in various areas, relieving the mind to gather its more receptive stimuli.

Replacing organs such as ears and a brain with a plethora of rocks suggests these may have been magically turned to stone by a spell or curse or, alternatively, that they could be suggestive of a particular state of mind. In the work Cavern No.1 (2009), a corridor-like portal emerges from (or retracts into) the corner of a room engulfing the messy and recently vacated space within its walls; at once seemingly inviting, it is also oddly aggressive. Where rocks feature in Curse (2009) and Cavern No.1, they are stacked precariously as if a totem for worship or occupation, an occupation where they can only be tenant to themselves and their consciousness.

Pearce’s works seem scarred or defunct of use, purpose and sometimes beauty, existing in an undefined space that is both grotesque and eloquent. Pearce’s works are nearly always parasitical in some way, inasmuch as they are forms which deem it necessary to clasp on to found objects: from trikes or chairs to re-made everyday objects and sometimes even the spaces they find themselves resting in, anything, it seems, is fair game.

Born in 1982, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Pearce completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2003, majoring in sculpture at Wanganui Quay School of Fine Arts.Exhibiting regularly in New Zealand, Pearce has work held in the public collection of the Sargeant Gallery, Wanganui and in private collections throughout New Zealand, England and the USA. Pearce’s work is also held in the James Wallace art collection after becoming a finalist in the Wallace award in 2008, and in the 2009 awards Pearce's work Cavern No.1 won people's choice. Pearce has also recently been included in Warwick Brown's new book ‘Seen this Century’, which features 100 artists, and his work 'Great Grandfather Clock' (which will feature as part of his November exhibition) won him the 2009 Waikato youth award.'

(Words and images courtesy of the artist)

LUNES, EL UNO DE NOVEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
I was saddened to hear that Phill England passed away on Saturday. Phill was the amazing director and cameraman of The Gravy (amongst other things) and we met when he was filming the Whanganui episode of the series. I painted this ex-voto for the episode, for Ross Liew to fill in, which features Phill holding an excessively large camera with added ephemera attached it it.
RIP Phill.

MIERCOLES, EL VEINTISIETE DE OCTUBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ

Another invitation to an exhibition, this time it's Sanjay Theodore in Wellington. The exhibition is titled 'M-13, an installation'. I'm not sure if the title is also a play on the film ratings system or not (Sanjay's a big B-grade movie buff), but here's the write-up about the exhibition:

"Like the group of stars in the milky way, from which the exhibition derives its title, the paintings, photographs and objects in the this show, M-13, are installed to be seen and experienced as a cluster – with the whole something more than the individual components. Within a framework Dadasim, the early 20th century art movement which challenged the conventions of what art could be and do, Theodore brings together disparate elements, from east and western traditions, to create an environment which draws attention to the rituals of looking both in the gallery and out.
Sanjay Theodore was born in India and came to New Zealand as a child. He studied art at Canterbury University, the West Texas State University and the New York Studio School. In the mid 1990s, before leaving New Zealand for almost a decade, he was included in several significant public gallery group exhibitions. Theodore is now based in Christchurch and exhibiting in New Zealand and the United Kingdom."

His exhibition opens at Bartley+Co Art, Wellington, on the 2nd of November.

SABATO, EL NUEVE DE OCTUBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
Yesterday afternoon, we met up with the crew and went to the Renaissance Fair at Sunset Park, just South East of the airport. The fair goes for 3 days and has stalls, fair rides and lots of 'medieval' eats. Here's me with turkey leg. Two of those and your blood turns to gravy.

LUNES EL CUATRO DE OCTUBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
Juan Muniz painting in reverse-glass technique on Gina Quaranto's office window at Blackbird Studios.
(photo: JK Russ)

JUEVES, EL TRIENTE DE SEPTIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
Below is an image that was remembered in the comments section referring to the recent painting, 'The Good Son' (yesterday's post). I painted this painting in 1997/8 while at art school. I was interested in the personification of objects, which was of interest in art, both in NZ (with Peter Robinson and Tony de Lautour) and internationally. I had forgotten about this work until yesterday. It's amazing how things hang around in the back of your mind and then present themselves years later. Thanks David!

LUNES, EL VEINTE DE SEPTIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
A photo of the framed-up 'Broken-hearted Zombie Dream' (which will be shown in Zombie Apocalypse at Blackbird Studios, Las Vegas in October). I've hung it below a wooden carved polychromed sculpture of St. John of Nepomuk's tongue - a wonderful gift given to me by a wonderful friend!
You can click on the image below to enlarge it.