Author: C'Ville Art Blog

The Garage is primarily recognized as a fun offbeat downtown music venue. However, if you squint and peer behind the lead guitarist, or stumble past on your way to your car on First Fridays, you discover the space also curates monthly art shows. While its shows are fairly difficult to access (the space is closed for the majority of each month), I have found the work on display to be consistently fun and intriguing.

The most recent show at the Garage is a new group of paintings/drawings by Clay Witt. These works have a different feel than his recent show at Second Street Gallery. They depict atmospheric white spaces inhabited by bears, mammoths, and tumultuous erupting steam jets. While they still have the artist’s immaculate attention to surface and texture, they seem more quickly and less preciously resolved. In some paintings, the strong mark-making creates an immediate and emotive legibility, reminiscent of  inked children’s book illustrations. Ursa I and II as well as Danae I and II display this with an etching-like quality.

In some of the larger paintings the graphite marks feel slower and more timid. To compare two polar bears, the slow thin lines in The Meeting are not quite as captivating or emotive as the thick textured hair-marks in Ursa I.

This being said, Witt’s work is gorgeous, and it is brilliant to see new approaches enter his process.

~ Aaron Miller and Rose Guterbock

The Firefish Gallery is currently showcasing a collection of works by local artist Jessie Meehan that approaches painting in a refreshing and imaginative way.

The body of work, titled “Tiny Lights,” is united by many elements, including the use of white pin points, stars or “tiny lights” that show up in each piece. The artist also layers geometric shapes in every piece, creating a sense of space and movement through the use of visual building blocks. In addition, her contrast of warm and cool colors creates a rich palette that throbs with light. It is exciting to see crisp clean paint application that is technically precise and forms that are rendered with a believable sense of lighting. Furthermore, the fun, unusual narratives that develop out of the work are vibrant and unexpected.

It is interesting to note that the artist does not always enter into a project with a predetermined plan.  This leads to varying degree of successes in the work. Some of Meehan’s paintings develop a strong sense of invention. The layered forms accentuate a specific mood and narrative. However a few of her paintings seem loose and uncongealed. Maheen’s stream-of-conscious process creations, by their nature, trend toward the generic, and when not carefully directed they become murky. For example, “From the Rooftop” looks almost impressionistic in parts and highly illustrative in others. The landscape refused to become or remain a landscape and the sense of atmosphere is solely supported by curious and wispy balls of light. The forms are not grounded, and the paint application is erratic at times. Comparatively, “On the Night the Opossum Died, Cicadas Came to Kiss Her Eyes” feels like a finished thought. The composition is designed to spiral out from the focal point, the colors are consistent throughout, and the paint application is clean, conveying the story concisely.

Overall, Meehan combines an interesting painting technique with a good color sensibility and an intriguing mix of pattern, repetition, fantastical realism and unusual composition. The show is just fun! It’s as simple as that.

~Rose Guterbock and Aaron Miller

In Laura Peery‘s current show, Serendipitea, there is a very cute balance between the clean craft and the perfectly poetic kitsch of her teapots.

The North Gallery of the Earl V. Dickerson Building at PVCC is lined with a dozen or so fantastical, bright, and whimsical tea pots, as they were snatched from the table of the Mad Hatter. The pottery is displayed on pedestals surrounded by museum-style plexiglass prisms. The teapots are sculpted as though they are made from fabric. Some resemble thick canvas, others mimic stitched leather. Each is uniquely decorated with an assortment of multi-media ornamentation, including clay flowers and leaves, buttons, metal pins, and white ribbons with words printed on them. Some of the white ribbons are made of clay, but many are printed magnets, like the sets sold to liven refrigerator doors. These words seems to sprout and grow from organic seams of the teapots. They read like disjointed cut-up poetry, but with words of calm and joy. They epitomize the mass youth dream of the tea party.

The way the sculptures are displayed makes their functionality irrelevant. I have a small yearning to pour brewed tea from them, but I am suspicious that the forms of Peery’s objects are not designed to enhance such steeping. Instead, the teapots are presented almost like archaeological finds. Their display as cultural and aesthetic art objects on the one hand makes the work less tangible as we cannot run our fingers over the myriad textured surfaces. On the other hand, this allows us a vantage point to consider and analyze these manifested teapots of dreams and imagine the wonderland worlds they originated from.

The show is well worth the short drive down route 20.

~Aaron Miller and Rose Guterbock

Rob Browning‘s paintings currently on display at PVCC‘s South Gallery is a less coherent series than his recent show at Warm Springs Gallery. However I find the variety of painting executions to be much more appealing.

The content of this show is strange and disjointed. Some images like Mermaid are eerie and surreal. Others are nostalgic and meditative, others still are rebellious and youthful. The title of the show is “Safe as Houses” and Browning’s paintings seems to echo this thought. We are given short glimpses into the comfort zones of several disparate inhabitants of Browning’s universe. The most familiar and relatable image is a slowly-drifting zeppelin woman, almost asleep. We have the serene sense of safety in the warm light of her cabin room.

Browning’s work continues to suffer from minute technical issues, in particular his edges, which are abrupt and jarring, and resolution issues throughout his canvases. His painting, Mermaid, is a wonderful small glazed portrait of a haunting, large-eyed woman. Behind her is a bright blue sky, a distant horizon line, and a small tail emerging over her left shoulder. The lack of resolution in the mermaid tail is a little disappointing though it lends itself to the quirky vibe of the image. Other resolution issues spot this painting as well, particularly on the strangely flat, un-modeled teeth. Despite these moments, the show as a whole exhibits broad exploration of paint applications, from a softly glazed telephone to a matte finished smoking suburban girl.

Browing’s work is caught between illustration and painting. There are moments I see a distinct love of the medium, and others I see graphic labors undertaken. If he were to push in either direction his work could be impeccable.

His current series is on display with Kaki Dimock’s equally intriguing illustrative works in PVCC’s South Gallery.

~ Aaron Miller and Rose Guterbock

Cynthia Burke is a local artist who paints in a style similar to that of Alex Gross and Mark Ryden. Her studio at the McGuffey Art Center is filled with inspirational objects, and dozens of quirky paintings hang on the walls. We paid her a visit to find out more about her work and her artistic vision.

Tell me a little about yourself as an artist.

Well, obviously I paint birds and animals. I never expected that I would be painting them forever, but there just seems to be no end to the subject matter. When I first started out here at McGuffey, I was painting these floor coverings, huge floor cloths, a type of early American craft that I updated to be more modern. Those were done with acrylic on canvas. From there, I moved them to the wall where I worked on them like tapestries. They were all representational and had a medieval feel, much like the Unicorn Tapestries of the late 1400’s. I always put animals in them, and then I started leaving the people out. I realized that I enjoy painting animals much more than I do painting human beings.

From there my work developed into a portrait style, very much in the line of medieval portraits similar to that of Hans Holbein and Jan van Eyck. I swear that I am reincarnated from the 1500’s or the 1600’s because whenever I need to be inspired, that’s where I go. That being said, I have never done a pet portrait, and I have also never painted an animal in its natural habitat. Somehow I feel that to get away with painting animals you have to do something really different with them. But I have been doing these portrait-style paintings for a very long time, and I love doing them.

Animals are very dignified, so the portrait medium feels right. There is something about staring into the eyes of an animal; if you stare into the eyes of a person in a portrait, you have such a clear feeling for who they are and what they are, but the longer you stare into the eyes of an animal, it feels as though you know less and less about it. You never know what’s going on in there. It’s fun to watch the viewers of my paintings staring into the eyes of the animals that I paint. They are immediately making up what is going on inside the head of that animal.

I had a show once where I painted nothing but chickens. The pieces were large ovals, and it was framed like a hall of ancestors. It was so much fun watching people look at the pieces because they were all going along the hall exclaiming, “Oh! This looks like my uncle, and this looks just like my aunt!”

Recently, I have started a new series that is going to have a lot more narrative in it. I’m trying to keep it open to the viewer so that they can create their own narrative.

Do you have any formal training?

Well, I was an art major and received my BA, but I can’t say that I really learned anything during that time. I’ve learned more through the process of painting every day.

What would you call your style?

I would call it fantastic realism. There is also an element of surrealism because it is very dream-like.

What is your medium?

I use oil paint and Liquin. If it is a smaller piece, it is always on board, and the larger pieces are on canvas. For me, that just works. Obviously, I also make all my own frames. I think framing is so important. And with these pieces, it just goes with the period to be a little overboard on the frames which is a lot of fun. For the bigger frames, I use a molding and there is gold leaf on the front and a subdued pattern on the sides.

What is your method of working?

That depends on what series it is. The ground is always a color, often pink or Prussian blue, which is a really wonderful base. But some pieces I put together piecemeal, whereas others I have done by completing the background first and then adding the figure later. A lot of that has to do with the subject matter as well. I paint very thinly in oil and I use Liquin which is a fast drying medium so I don’t have to wait. I can continue working the next day.

Why painting and not photography or another medium?

It doesn’t get more precious than paint. Hopefully, painting won’t die out entirely. It’s a little worrisome because photography seems to be very dominant right now. I just love painting. It’s a wonderful craft and it’s unfortunate because as people paint less and less, their knowledge of the craft also diminishes. It’s a craft, and I don’t want it to be lost.

Do you use photographic sources?

Yes. Usually, I use a whole bunch of photographs, many of which I have taken myself since I have traveled all over the world. I’ve been to Africa and the Galapagos Islands, South America, India, and a lot of places that offer a lot of beautiful nature scenes. China and Morocco have really influenced my work since I am very drawn to textiles and patterns.

How do you choose your subject matter?

Where does creativity come from? I’ve really been trying these days to not know ahead of time where a painting is going to end. I think you spend a lot of years trying to gain control of your medium, and one day you are controlling it too much. It can take a lot of the creativity out of the end product. It doesn’t leave the door open for surprise.

Recently, I never know where my work is going to go. I don’t do a drawing ahead of time and it’s more of a stream-of-consciousness process. It can take longer to complete a piece because one day you’ll finish up in the studio and you’ll say “Wow! That’s great. It’s been a really good day.’ And the next morning you come in and wonder “Argh! What was I thinking! That looks awful!”

How long does it normally take you to finish a piece?

I work in various sizes from very small to very large. I’m a fast painter and I can finish a small painting in two days, whereas the larger pieces can take me up to a month to complete.

How regular is your studio practice?

I’ve  always wanted to do art, and I spent quite a while trying to figure out how to make a living off of that, which is no small feat. I reshaped my lifestyle to get closer to the purest form of what I wanted to do. I started with a faux finish wall painting business. That was as close to being a painter as I could get. And it was very successful, so successful in fact that I realized I wasn’t doing my art. I didn’t have any time to.  Then for a while I was doing the floor cloths and tapestries while maintaining my business. But finally, I went cold turkey and started just painting. By that time, my work was starting to sell. I am a really hard worker, and I am here working every day. If you are going to be self-employed, you have to acknowledge that the buck stops here. Your only recourse, if you aren’t making it financially is to make more art! And get it out there! Plus, it’s what I love to do.

It would be very hard for me to do this from home. Because coming here is like going to the office. When you are at home, there is always something else you could be doing. But if you go somewhere else then you have to maintain regular hours because you are at work.

I also usually work in series towards a show. I have a show a year from now, so I try to work simultaneously on work to sell currently as well as work for my upcoming show.

Who do you consider to be your audience?

Being right here at the McGuffey is wonderful. I have been here for many years, and although people don’t come through here in droves all the time, First Fridays is a good time to meet new people. I also have work in a few galleries away from Charlottesville. Some of those venues I pursued and others found me. I also have a web presence.

There is a balancing act that I have had to get used to between painting what I want to paint and painting what the market demands. It’s a very fortunate artist who doesn’t have to pay attention to that line. Even extremely successful artists have to give some thought to their audience and what they want. I try to provide a variety of sizes, shapes, media, and content. There is a lot going on and a lot of options.

What is your favorite Bodo’s bagel?

You know, I’m embarrassed to say my favorite bagel would probably be the plain one.

With anything on it?

Nope!

You can see more of Cynthia’s work on her website, Studio Burke, or in person at the McGuffey Art Center near the downtown mall.

~ Rose Guterbock and Aaron Miller

The dreamlike encaustic collages of Lindsey Oberg currently on display at Mudhouse on the Downtown Mall have a soft, ethereal quality. The medium is unusual, and something not seen very often. It is indicative of an artist who has experimented with and fully understood her medium of choice. Although collage can often become flat and heavy, these paintings create vast spaces and landscapes with a surreal, kitschy mystical vibe.

The images are collages with thick layers of encaustic wax and oil paint on the surface. A variety of photographs and objects, some old and full of history, are embedded in the surface of the images.

The painting aspect in each image is minimal and apparent primarily in the animal figures and the atmospheric washes. The painting is good, almost great. While there is a sense of care in the craft of the painting, the animals often look copied from nature photographs. This makes the animal seem out of place, more like collage than painting. This is evident in the larger work which contains an elephant with odd dark shadows indicative of bright sunlight. It’s not bad, it’s more eerie, and begs the question “Why paint at all rather than only collage?”

Several of the images are fantastically executed. In one, a black bear peers over a small ridge in the bottom left of the image, at a fort of sorts, which has been constructed there by the artist. Each element is made with simplicity in mind and the composition is seamless. In another, beneath the layers of wax, doodles and sketchy drawings of building emerge, which are amazing and perfect for their contrasted purposeful marks.

Oberg does a great job of being wild and low key at the same time. Furthermore, her work is beautiful. Although a few seem arbitrarily aesthetic, which is to say highlighting design rather than content, the show is predominantly fun and immersive. Each poetic label is intriguing to read and allows the viewer to wallow in the artwork’s allegorical implications.

It is worth noting that The Mudhouse often has interesting artworks on display. Some shows have been more successful than others but this display is certainly a success. It  is nice to see a local gallery like Le Yeux De Monde working in collaboration with a local business to bring good art to the people.~Aaron Miller and Rose Guterbock

Material based sculpture can be immensely captivating, transforming everyday and unexpected objects through scale, quantity, and precision of assembly into breathtaking constructions. The untitled work of Hong Seong Jang currently installed at the Second Street Gallery falls into this category. Like many found object works of art, however, it struggles with the contrast between low quality materials and their re-purposing as a sculptural medium.

There are two aspects to the installation. Dark images on the walls appear to be scratchboards, a matte black surface with a silvery image peeking though. A closer look reveals a matte black surface with tiny strips of frosty cello tape layered one on top of the other to reveal an image. The small pieces of tape are crisp edged and architectural, they seem almost computer generated, like a 1980’s imagining of future graphics. The image is that of dark forests and clouds which swim into focus through an unusual play of light. The forests are lit as though a bright light shines into the trees on an overcast pitch-dark night.

These works are transformative, which is to say the medium is revealed only upon close inspection. The image of fluffy clouds seems like the work of a procrastinating office worker passing hours in his cubicle. The images seem to capture a feeling of haunted longing, with cold office materials imagining the dark natural world far beyond. While the works are beautiful and interestingly crafted, the images overall seem more meditative for the artist than interesting for the viewer.

Turning away from the images on the wall, there is a large installation covering the floor. Laminate squares lay side by side, each with a design gaudier then the last. Some of the laminate squares rise up to form short walls, small obstructions, or obstacles. They seem to be climbing objects in a child’s playground or the slick short walls of a bath house.

The artist’s attempted transformation of the space fills the gallery with a bright play of colors. However the initial sense of wonder fades quickly as the piece suffers from a lack of scale. The artist statement refers to the floor of the Sistine chapel as inspiration for the piece. The laminate squares stop abruptly leaving a large portion of the wall bare, which heightens the cheap feeling of the laminate and leaves the room feeling incomplete. While the artist may have intentionally done this to contrast the illusion of his installation with the nature of his materials, it diminishes the effect of the altered environment and costs the viewer the unexpected experience of an exotic mosaic tiled floor.

There is something missing, whether it be the a larger sense of extravagance, a complete and purposeful over-taking of the gallery space, or an understanding on the artist’s part of how to carry a message through. The piece is curious and engrossing, but it somehow manages to miss the mark.

~ Rose Guterbock and Aaron Miller

This week we share our studio visit with local artist Andy Faith.

Andy Faith’s artwork would fit perfectly in the setting of the Visionary Art Museum. It was a treat to meet someone whose personal sense of style so embodies the aesthetic of her art work. When we met, she wore a purple velvet cape with spiked hair, pink glasses, and a carved resin necklace in the shape of a snake’s head. Here is what she had to say about her artwork and her artistic vision.

Tell me a little about yourself as an artist.

I have always been the type of person who believes that if you follow what your passion is, then you can make things work. Do what you love, be happy, don’t worry, just chill and it will be okay.

I am a retired elementary school teacher and I didn’t start making art until I got a divorce. Then, all of a sudden, all this stuff came pouring out of me. My house looks like my studio, filled with stuff. I have always been attracted to things like rust and beeswax, and as I get older, I find that I am using more natural materials like branches and deer antlers, etc. When I first started, I was doing all this kitschy Jesus art, similar to the kind that I love from Mexico. But over the years, my artwork has evolved to be more autobiographical. All of my figures are me, and they depict my life story through various stages of aging, being single, and being a mother.

Around the time that I separated from my husband, I remember walking down the street in South Philadelphia, and there was this store there where everything comes from Mexico. I loved to shop there, and I loved to look at the sculptural work. I said to myself, “I’d really love to get that, but I can’t afford it. ” And then I started just making stuff like that. I was very whimsical and funny and people liked it. I even had a one woman show on the Downtown Mall.

I had so much stuff for art materials at the time that I had boxes and boxes stacked up in my bedroom. I had to make a pathway to get around them. And I would get up in the middle of the night and start working on two or three pieces at a time. I just had this energy and it really floated me. Doing artwork really helped me get through a very difficult time.

I also found that I had reinvented myself. I wasn’t Andy the wife anymore; I was Andy the artist. I even changed my name after the divorce to my sister’s middle name, Faith. My motto is “I have faith that everything always works out in the end,”and I feel that I represent “A” faith. I’m not any religion, but merely having faith will get you through in the end.

What are you working on now?

I usually have several different projects going on at any given time. A piece that I am currently working on is called “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” It’s about where we come from in nature and utilizes the imagery of the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the main nerve in your body that hits every internal organ. This symbolizes the mind-body-soul connection and a lot of the spiritual things I have been studying lately. I’m not sure I would have been working on a piece like this five years ago, but I’ve been doing a lot of soulful work with various teachers and it has come into play in my artwork. All of the heart stuff and all of the soul stuff is an important part of my collection.

Do you have any formal training?

No. But I’ve always had a soul that is attracted to unusual, provocative art pieces that really make you think. Like works by Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp, or Edward Kienholz.

I remember going to the Philadelphia Art Museum when I was a kid. I went into this room, the Marcel Duchamp room. There was the broken glass piece, the urinal, and the upside-down wheel. And then he had this piece where you had to look into it, and he made you a voyeur. There was this woman inside, a sculptural thing. But that was my favorite room in the entire museum. I will never forget that, and I went back again and again to see it.

I also feel very inspired by the kids that I teach. I base a lot of my kids’ projects on artists I love like Louise Nevelson or Hannah Hoch, African art, Sailors’ Valentines, even shoe design books.

What would you call your style?

I do call it mixed media, but it is also intuitive. Because for me, it is an experimental process of deciding what works and what does not. I try to integrate different objects into a piece and make them meaningful. And different people, they see my work and they offer so many different reactions. Some people are put off by the religious imagery I use. Some people can look at my skulls and respond with fear. They say, “Oh that’s so scary!”  I find it interesting that people interpret my work in their own way dependent upon who they are and where they come from in life. None of my pieces are scary to me because they come from me and I’m not scary. So my style is very intuitive.

What is your medium?

Sometimes I think that I do this art just because I love to collect things.

I have a whole crawl space at home plus two storage buildings, and my entire backyard is filled with my stuff. I’m just attracted to skulls and barbed wire and little pieces of hardware. That’s the cat’s pajamas for me.

I also use horseshoes, antlers, baby dolls, mannequins, and rust. My daughter travels all over the world, and she brought me a piece of rust from Tajikistan. I love it, and it goes really well on a piece that I am currently working on.

I have these spoke thingies that make great breasts and these portions of a lampshade that make great shoulders. I have baby doll eyeballs that I love. If you remove the face from an old baby doll, you will find that the eyes are amazing. I use old eyelash curlers, bullets casings, eyes glass lenses, animal bones, clock parts, and iridescent beetle wings. I even utilize used tea bags and I have a whole collection of teeth and partial dentures.

I am just so in love with my materials.

What is your method of working?

It’s funny because in my ad for my kids classes, I always advertise that art making is a problem solving process. And the process is so very important. I want the kids to know that there is no “wrong” in art. I will model ideas as the instructor, but I always want them to maintain their own vision and figure out a way to make things work and take ownership of the fact that they are artists, too.

In terms of artistic process, what I will usually do is choose a form, and then gather my materials. I’ll just start looking through my stuff to get inspired. My materials are my inspiration, and once I get started, the piece will take on a life of its own and become what it wants to be. I don’t usually start with a set idea in mind, so I let the materials inform the direction the piece needs to take to be completed. I’m constantly experimenting, and I like to follow my gut. I will try different materials until I know I have found the right ones. I’ll know that it’s finished when it’s finished.

Do you use photographic sources?

Not usually. I start with one thing and then keep building until I feel that it is finished. My favorite art is African art, and I have made figures that are inspired by African masks. But I try to let my materials inform the work.

How regular is your studio practice?

I try to come to the studio often. You can find me here most days. I always have multiple projects going on, so once I am in the studio, there is always something to do.

What is your favorite Bodo’s bagel?

Cinnamon raisin with coffee or an everything bagel with tomato, cucumber, and the baked salmon and whitefish salad.

~ Rose Guterbock and Aaron Miller