August Morning

What Light Will Do

The Yellow Steps

Stunned By What She Saw

Filibuster Baby

Artist Statement
My motto is be humble and stay busy, so I’m always working on either my poetry or art. I go to my studio every day. Going every day means I’m always a little bit ready. And I do something creative every day. I think of myself as a maker, stopping and starting within a constant stream of activity.

When I’m working on a painting, I never look at what’s come before, so that I can start each piece fresh. This allows me to sometimes make great mental leaps, to change my thinking in surprising ways.

My work serves as a kind of journal, a reminder of how I was thinking at a particular stage of my life. For that reason, I seldom change pieces once I decide that they are done. Through my series of brownstone and doll paintings I explore what light does to color, and our often hidden emotional landscapes.

Website
http://www.joannemcfarland.com/

Revolutions

Divine Madman

Work Horse

Rude Awakening

Listen Up

Silence

Artist Bio
Jake Messing was born in Northern California in 1982. He graduated with a BFA in Illustration from Parsons School of Design in May 2006. Messing works in a wide variety of media, ranging from silkscreen to pen and ink to paint and collage. His work has been shown in galleries and art fairs across the US, Canada and Europe. He has been invited to lecture at numerous prestigious universities and design studios. Messing recently returned from a two-month residency at CAMAC Center D’Art in France preparing work for his most recent solo show. He presently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Website
www.jakemessing.com

Approaching Noise (in progress), Oil on Wood, 40×34 inches

Lucas at 3 Months, Graphite on Bristol

Head Study, Oil on Wood, 18×14 inches

Artist Statement

As an expression of his own calculated observation and visual consumption of surrounding environment, introspective glimpses of reality imbue the art of David Jon Kassan. By immersing himself into his subject matter, Kassan is able to infuse his painting with life and realism. Kassan’s direction of realism follows the philosophies emplyed by the Ashcan School of American Realists. Kassan’s influences are varied; citing Robert Henri and John Sloan as his primary influences on philosophy and subject matter. As for style and technique he cites Antonio Lopez Garcia, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline and Clyfford Still as influences as well.

Website

http://davidkassan.com/

SEASCAPES
The seascapes are a series titled “Anywhere But Here”. The series consists of 436 different scenes.  The water is actually 1/8″ thick pieces of clear, vacuum-formed plastic.  The varied molded forms create the wave structure. The water color is created by placing layers of acetate underneath the plastic.  The coloring and sky are created with lights and backdrops.  The entire construction is eight inches square. I shot the scenes with a 35 mm camera using a macro lens.  I chose to shoot this small film size so that the image would be grainy when enlarged. The photograph then literally breaks down.  This is intended to reinforce the idea that the image is a simulation.  They have been shown singularly and as installations of between 1,113 and 2,712 images mounted to walls (each photo is 4″ x 6″).

ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Postcards, billboards and magazines instill in us a desire to be physically and emotionally transported to “a better place”.  We see digitally enhanced, perfectly-lit and styled homes, gardens and people. These commercial images are merely representations, completely unattainable. These constructions are meant to instill longing in the viewer.

I, too, create such non-places: images that appear real, but are, in fact, simulations. I construct images of locales, persons and lifestyles. My work is meant to isolate and emphasize the desire for the other, which is, in the end, just a creation. The viewer is left to consider this cycle of desire and dissatisfaction.

We peruse decorating and travel magazines, read adventure travel stories and scan billboards. These things instill in us a desire to have and/or be somewhere else, someone else, but some place where all our wants may be fulfilled.

Born:Chicago, 1970.
Lives and works in Brooklyn.

EDUCATION
MFA-Rhode Island School of Design
Providence, RI(1995)
B.A-DePauw University, Greencastle, IN (1992)
Parson’s School of Design, Paris, France (summer 1991)
Essex University, Essex, England (1990-91)

WEBSITE
http://www.karenconnell.com

Up to Our Necks, Oil on Panel, 6×6 inches

From Now On, Oil on Panel, 13×13 inches

Losing It, Oil on Panel, 16×20 inches

Artist Statement
Two years ago, I contsructed a 1:87 scale model neighborhood, a fictitious cluster of eleven houses depicted through model railroading miniatures, styrofoam, cardboard, and plastic, complete with string telephone wires and working lights. The process of designing and assembling the setting over several months triggered my imagination to develop characters to populate the place along with a loose timeline of events that would culminate in the neighborhood’s history. I considered who lived in each home, their family dramas, and the way their private lives might spill into view of their neighbors. The model became a stage on which to develop the psychological implications of belonging to a particular family, with all of its dramas, struggles and familiar routines. I thought: this tree will be taken down after an old man crashes into it; a father will transform this lawn into an ice skating rink; this house will be abandoned after its residents are scandalized on the evening news.

The paintings are glimpses of a scene or fragments of a narrative. Some of the images are conceived of sequentially. While the images don’t necessarily need to be “read” in order, I am interested in storytelling over time through repeated depictions of the same house or car or person, seasonal changes, and shifting vantage points. Like the disturbing difficulty of trying to put rolls of film in order several years after the pictures have been taken, I hope the collective images suggest a known past that is just beyond reach. I intend for the tiny scale to enhance an urge for more information. Similar to a memory, they are fictional constructions of significant moments and distillations of experience. One of my challenges is to invite the viewer to form his or her own connection and narrative so that he may empathize with the occupants’ seemingly mundane existence.

Working with common themes such as transition, aging, isolation, and loss, I am interested in the fragility of relationships and the awkwardness of a group of people trying to coexist and relate to one another. As I transitioned my model into winter, snowbanks of increasing depth seemed to fortify a sense of isolation and quietness. The paintings portray both the magical and suffocating potential of snow, the wonder at its stark beauty and the hopelessness that spring might never come.

Website
http://www.amybennett.com

Melee 1, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40″, 2008

Scenario 3, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16″, 2008

Artist Statement
The conflicting characteristics of play fascinate me. Play is described as the opposite of work, but is used to train children to be ‘team players’ in the workplace. What if our co-workers were always trying to bite us? People take up sports to relax and have fun, then take them very, very seriously. Think of parents at a Little League game or packs of weekend warriors in head-to-toe Lycra riding their bikes while shouting to each other about their VO2 max. Play and playfulness are everywhere.

Choosing materials and techniques borrowed from commercial signmaking, such as stenciling, digital prints and laser-cut adhesive vinyl, I use games as my language and pictograms as my ‘alphabet’ to examine how play can be both productive, teaching ideals of fair play and sportsmanship, and an end in itself, as when a falling leaf must be chased or a bottle cap flicked, for the fun of it.

Artist Website
http://www.louisaarmbrust.com/