MIERCOLES, EL CATORCE DE DECIEMBRE, VEINTE-ONCE
I'm stealing these pics straight from Jo's art blog (as I'm in one of them) on the Miami Art Fairs. We've been away for two weeks in Miami, and then onto Texas (Houston, Austin and Fort Worth) to check out galleries and specific exhibitions, such as the Caravaggio exhib at the Kimbell in Fort Worth.

LUNES, EL DOCE DE SEPTIEMBRE, VEINTE-ONCE
uncanny: de Chirico on the left - 'Metaphysical Interior', 1916 and Guston's 'Rain', 1975. The de Chirico is a hard image to track down, I've only ever seen black and white repros of it in two books, one of them being James Thrall-Soby's 'The Early Chirico' which, according to Guston's daughter, Musa Mayer in her biography 'Night Studio' was "...a book always at hand on my father's shelf...".

MIERCOLES, EL SIETE DE SEPTIEMBRE, VEINTE-ONCE
One more day before Andrew Graham Dixon's new book on Caravaggio is released in the USA:
http://www.andrewgrahamdixon.com/book/readBook/14

A Short doco, updated from his original one a few years back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v_FAijXpDc

reviews on the book:
http://www.3pipe.net/2010/09/interview-andrew-graham-dixon-on.html

MIERCOLES, EL VIENTE DE JULIO, VEINTE-ONCE
I knew of Scully's interest of Spanish painting but never felt it as... much as when I saw his 'Wall of Light Horizon' with the earth tones over the red bole primer, so evident in Spanish Colonial painting from the Baroque period.

Six months after seeing Scully's painting at the De Young, I revisited Goya's 'Portrait of the Marquesa de Santiago' at the Getty and instantly thought of the Scully - the saturations and values of the colours and the use of the warm light from the red bole primer penetrating through the top layer of heavy earth tone colours. His title, an oxymoron, also lends itself to the painters constant battle with illusion, allusion and space in and on a painting - the horizon of course being an example of a concept that exists in our minds, you can't ever reach a horizon as it shifts constantly in relation to where you are positioned in space; as apposed to a 'wall of light' which talks of the picture plane, but with something behind it emanating a light. These ernest questions in Scully's work about the history of painting played out as abstract paintings interest me so much that, for me, they hold a strong force of energy and knowledge that makes me want to keep looking at them.

Left: Sean Scully, 'Wall of Light Horizon', oil on linen, 2005, deYoung Museum, San Francisco; middle: detail of 'Wall of Light Horizon'; Right: Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, 'Portrait of the Marquesa de Santiago', 1804, oil on canvas, Collection of the Getty, LA.

VIERNES, EL OCHO DE JULIO, VEINTE-ONCE
Yesterday I took my usual LA pilgrimage out to Historia Antiques in Santa Monica and met up with James Caswell to discuss all things Spanish Colonial... it usually goes on for quite a while but is always absolutely inspiring and illuminating.
Here's a photo of some of my paintings in his store amongst ecclesiastical paintings.

SABATO, EL DIECINUEVE DE MARZO, VEINTI-ONCE
The photo, top-left, is a corpus-arm of a Crucified Christ statue that used to hang in the east chapel of the San Xavier Mission in Tucson, AZ. This is all that is left. It interested me as the rough wood skeleton is covered in canvas, then gessoed and polychromed. I knew that this was part of the process of making santos, but it's hard to see on complete forms. The saggy, torn canvas brought back memories of the skin surface of one of those bodies found in the bogs in a museum in the the UK. I also remembered a sketchbook drawing and a failed sculpture that I had made in preparation for my show at the Sarjeant in Whanganui in 2007. I had tried to recreate an arm out of cardboard and hot glue, nailed to wood with an ex-voto hanging off it. It didn't work, so I moved to casting in plaster, and the bottom left photo was the outcome. With molds, you can cast and recast, so I did a few variations on the dissected hand, looking at galvanisation, the power of the symbol of the hand. All these pics besides the San Xavier arm can be seen on the MOIV website here:
http://moiv.mattcouper.com/graveyore.html

DOMINGO, EL VIENTE DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-ONCE
Kurt Cobain (February 20, 1967 – April 5, 1994). Happy Birthday Kurt!

LUNES, EL VIENTE DE DECIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ

I've now got our Prologue website back up and running on the internet. I had it hosted on a free server which because a spammer's pitstop, so the site couldn't be shared on forums and along with javascript issue, I couldn't put it on my website hosted site asa subdomain. So with a quick fix of the pop-ups, I'm now hosting it on my domain server.
The website was intended as a co-catalogue (we printed a very limited edition hardcopy catalogue too) for the physical exhibition at the Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui, NZ and contained about half to 2/3rds of our present collection.

SABATO, EL ONCE DE DICIEMBRE, VIENTE-DIEZ
a stunning Louis Eilshemius painting, 'The Rejected Suitor', 1915, in the Phillips Collection, Washington DC. I'm hoping to see this painting when I head over to DC in February for the Philip Guston 'Roma' exhibition. I've never seen an Eilshemius painting in the flesh, so I'm looking forward to studying it.
My friend Peter showed me the amazing Abrams - published book of his work in the late 90's and along with Von Stuck, Kublin, De Chirico and Bocklin, he's an artist I return to when I want to see potent artworks that are heavy with symbolism and duende.

SABATO, EL CUATRO DE DICIEMBRE, VIENTE-DIEZ
I received this book in the mail today, along with a rare Guston catalogue from a Skidmore College exhibition from the mid 80's titled 'Early And Late Works"
The book I'm holding in the photo is excellent and I'm really enjoying it as it shows Guston's dedication to the process, act and execution of painting. It features many writings, lectures and artist interviews - some I've read previously and some I haven't but it's great to have them in a collected volume. I believe it to be essential reading for any painter, wither to further your knowledge or to just get warm fuzzies from the mulitude of clever analogies and quotes used by Guston to illustrate what it is to paint.

VIERNES, EL TRES DE DICIEMBRE, VIENTE-DIEZ
Last night I went out to an opening at Brett Wesley Gallery in Las Vegas, a three-person show titled 'Wild at Heart'. I particularly like the work of Sri Whipple because of it's smart art-historical referencing and knowledge and freedom of subject matter. Unfortunately, the better paintings, which had a plethora of penis and vagina-type forms, were squirreled out the back of the gallery, obviously in a fashion to NOT offend the regular buyers to the gallery ( the painting is also NOT featured on the gallery website). I got to talk to Sri and we talked non-stop for a good 20 mins (it could have been longer, but it was his opening and I thought it best not to take up his time).
Anyway, in thinking of his work, I can up with this idea, which I recently posted on Facebook:
"an exhibition I'd really like to see, preferably curated by Robert Storr, possibly titled 'F**k Paintings', showing the work of Barry Reigate (UK), Robert McLeod (NZ) and Sri Whipple (USA)"
The responses were excellent, with other folk suggesting who else could be in the exhibition and where I could possible get hold of Robert Storr.
To this I answered:
"My idea here is it look at pattern recognition in trends of painting that have a core notion but their work pushes out from that point. Also by grouping three geographically disparate artists, it shows a social conscienceness towards paint and the body, you know -pickin up on that de Kooning statement of how oil paint was invented to depict flesh."

MIERCOLES, EL UNO DE DICIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
Three portraits of the Bonham Family, 1825 by William Bonnell (1804-65) Oil on panel. Coll. of Chicago Institute. Possibly a reference point for the enlarged heads of American Pop Surrealism? Recently, I've been talking to Wellington artist Liam Barr. I guess his work could be put into the Pop Surrealism category, with Martk Ryden as the most well-known proponent of the movement. These works popped into my head for their head to body scale as a possible influence on Ryden. This photo was taken during our trip to Chicago in 2008.

LUNES, EL VEINTINUEVE DE NOVIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
An interesting comparison I found as I was thinking about the Magritte painting in the right. The work on the left is a reverse glass painting in our collection. While watching a very good DVD on Magritte that started off by tracing his de Chirico's impression on him, there were animations of some of his paintings. The one on the right had candles melting in the holders, which instatly reminded me of the work on the left. Also the mantlepiece, the train as a mortality symbol (do you think?) and the mirror as the skull, which was always designed as a way for the viewer to confront their mortality.

JUEVES, EL VEINTICINCO DE NOVIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
I've found that yesterday's Magritte painting, The Bungler was painted for the International Bulletin of Surrealism (Belgium edition), also I was watching a DVD on Magritte and this film footage of an oil painting appeared. I've never seen the painting before, So I'm going to try and hunt it out.

MIERCOLES, EL VEINTICUATRO DE NOVIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
Rene Magritte, La Gâcheuse (The Bungler), 1935, collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.
It's only a small work, about A4 size if I remember rightly. I saw in in 2003 in the Nat Gallery in Edinburgh in the Roland Penrose collection and it reached out and rang the gong in the head. I had a the postcard of it hanging on my studio for years and it influenced many paintings, including some of the large works I did in Scotland during my 2003 Royal Overseas League Residency.

DOMINGO, EL CARTORCE DE NOVIEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
A fantastic '84 J-M Basquait acrylic and silkscreen painting titled 'Logo' up for sale in the latest Sotheby's Contemporary Art auction in Paris. If you've got a spare 800,000 EURO lying around, better check if your mum can pick up the hammer-down commission if you win the bid.

MARTES, EL DOS DE NOVEMBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
I recently purchased a second-hand copy of the new Philip Guston 'Roma' catalogue, that's been produced for the current touring exhibition in Rome and Washington DC. It is another stunning Hatje Cantz publication, again, hardback and a little bit bigger than 8" x 10" (following their Guston Works on Paper catalogue from 2007).
I was pleasantly surprised to find, when opening the book, that it was signed by the editor, Peter Benson Miller.
I have yet to delve into the essays, but have read the poetic diary entries of the Guston's trip to Rome by Musa Guston, which are stunning, all the small details that triggered off memories of our Rome trips.
I can't wait to see the show in DC in Feb.

VIERNES, EL VEINTINUEVE DE OCTUBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
Today is Nevada Day, so everyone here is on holiday. Quite a nice feeling.
Last night Jo and I got a sneak preview of 'The Radiant Child', at Centerpiece Gallery. It's a new documentary on Jean-Michel Basquiat that is to be released in cinemas soon. It's an interesting documentary in that it has interviews with him, candid as they're taken by close friends of his, while he escaped to LA later in his short career. It's some what eulogized though, only touching briefly on his drug habit and his secondary-market presence. I think what found most interesting was that I thought about the movie in regards to "Manuel Ocampo: God Is My Co-Pilot", a similar kind of documentry, with a lot of the same players: Aninna Nosei, Fred Hoffman et al. and how Basquait, despite his plight, has become a template for 'minority' artists who can be bartered and manipulated for their ethnicity rather than their work.
Here's my drawing of J-M Basquiat as part of the the '27 Club':

DOMINGO, EL VEINTICUATRO DE OCTUBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
Kid Meets Cougar's Courtney Carroll vs. TVNZ 3's news presenter, Carolyn Robinson

MARTES, EL DIECINUEVE DE OCTUBRE, VEINTE-DIEZ
I'm heading into the Lou Ruvo Brain Center for a presentation on the Cleveland Museum of Art's Renaissance painting collection, then onto Blackbird Studios to drop off my work for their Dia De Los Muertos exhibition. Because it hasn't been shown in the States, I've decided to include my Reloj De la Recesion altarpiece that I constructed and painted in 2009 for The Votive Image exhibition at Mark Hutchins Gallery, Wellington.

(photo: JK Russ)