Advice from a Painter: Part 1 - Gregory Euclide

I have been preparing for teaching painting this summer - researching processes, organizing projects, and putting together power points. While doing this it occurred to me it might be more meaningful to students to hear advice and quotes from living, breathing working artists. This starts my (hopefully) weekly blurb from a painter in the form of a tip or advice. First off is Gregory Euclide. Euclide has shown in Denver several times at the David B. Smith gallery as well as the Foothills Art Center as part of their "Habitat" exhibition. Lately he's been getting a lot of buzz because of the artwork he did for the upcoming Bon Iver album (pictured above). I asked Gregory for advice to young artists and he said,

“Read as much as you can about what you are interested in. But don't let that allow you to lose the feeling for what you are interested in.”

- Gregory Euclide

Thanks Gregory!

"Moonrise"

"moonrise", small 5x7" painting on paper available on Etsy now.

New Study

small 5x7" study - acrylic on paper

whoa

Yudith Levin

Yudith Levin, Afghan from the front, 2002, acrylic on canvas, 170x150 cm

Yudith Levin, yellow, 2002, acrylic on canvas, 200x180 cm

Yudith Levin, Holding Something, 2004, acrylic on canvas, 150x200 cm

Black Eagle Child - The Lost Button

I did the label art for this upcoming vinyl release: Black Eagle Child - The Lost Button by Under The Spire

Without Cares or Anxious Thougts

Fra Angelico, "The Sermon on the Mount" - Made between 1440 and 1450, as part of the fresco decoration of the Monastery of St Marco in Florence.

(As recorded by Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Painters) "[Fra Angelico] used to say that he who practices the art of painting must have quiet, and should live without cares or anxious thoughts."

Spring - Photo of the Day

Photo by Lorna Cochrane - taken at the Denver Botanic Gardens yesterday

Art's New View: The 12 best Colorado artists 35 and under @ the Denver Post

I was one of the 12 artists featured in the Denver Post's "12 best artists under 35" yesterday. Read the list here. Also, the blog iheartphotograph recently featured one of my works.

Matthew Woodward

photo from the New American Paintings flickr stream

"West 4th St", 62" x 57" inches, graphite on paper, 2009

"Racine Street", 61"x74" inches, graphite on paper, 2009

"Lincoln Ave", 60" x 81" inches, graphite on paper, 2010

"Fuller Street", 54" x 70" inches, graphite on paper, 2010

"State Street", 100" x 88" inches, graphite on paper, 2010

From Matthew Woodward's statement;

"Over the last year I have been building a body of work around an architectural era that is disappearing from the American cityscape. The ironwork and moldings represented in these pieces hearken back to the American Renaissance and the Beaux-Arts movement of the turn of the twentieth century, which employed the conventions and characteristics of European Renaissance classicism to glorify the advent of a new Golden Age of progress through industrialism; a progress that itself constantly, necessarily and ironically shed all accoutrements of the past in order to advance and perpetuate its own motion. "

See more from the statement, show here.

RIP Ian Curtis - July 15, 1956 - May 18, 1980

Guest Blogger: Black Swan

I asked artist/musician Black Swan to recommend some music and movies and here are the choices in no particular order, described as albums Black Swan "wouldn't be able to breathe without":

Music:

• Loscil: Endless Falls (Spinning via LP as I type)
• Stars of the Lid - Any piece of released material
• A Silver Mount Zion - Kollaps Tradixionales
• The Flowers of Hell - O
• The Caretaker - A Stairway to the Stars
• Brian McBride - The Effective Disconnect
• Thomas Koner - La Barca
• Seefeel - Quique
• Boards of Canada - Hi Scores, Music Has The Right To Children, Geogaddi
• Pink Floyd - Anything recorded from 1983 and back.
• Troum - To A Child Dancing In The Wind
• Brian Eno - Another Green World
• Henryk Gorecki - Symphony No. 3
• Eno/Fripp - No Pussyfooting
• Raymond Scott Woolson - Accidental Grace Notes
• Johann Johannsson - Fordlandia
• Ludovico Einaudi - Divenire
• Jonsi & Alex - Riceboy Sleeps
• Max Richter - Memoryhouse
• Ólafur Arnalds - Eulogy For Evolution
• Ryan Teague - Coins & Crosses
• Resplandor - Ambar
• Saint Preux - Concerto Pour Deux Voix
• Sylvain Chauveau - Nuage
• Childs - Yui
• Asher - And invariably the blue
• Cisfinitum - Landschaft
• Biosphere - Substrata
• Godspeed You Black Emperor - f#a#, Infinity, Lift Yr Fists...
• Deathprod - Morals and Dogma
• Sunn O and Boris - Alter
• The Body Lovers / The Body Haters
• Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky
• Field Rotation - Acoustic Tales
• Eluvium - Copia
• Sigur Ros - ( )
• Hammock - Maybe They Will Sing For Us Tomorrow
• Rameses III - I Could Not Love You Any More
• The Dead Texan - The Dead Texan
• Underworld - Second Toughest In The Infants
• Brian Eno - Ambient 1
• David Bowie - Hunky Dory
• Manual - Azure Vista
• Robin Guthrie - Carousel
• Pieter Nooten & Michael Brook - Sleeps With The Fishes
• Popol Vuh - Entire Discography
• Ash Ra Tempel - Join Inn
• Jobraith - Self Titled, Creatures of the Street
• Tangerine Dream - Force Majeure, Alpha Centauri, Atem
• Arzachel - Self Titled
• Ulver - Shadows of the Sun, Perdition City
• and believe it or not, Cake's Fashion Nugget. also:
  
• This Will Destroy You - Tunnel Blanket

You can catch this band playing the Larimer Lounge in Denver next week on May 25th

Films:

• Anything by David Lynch, John Waters, Stanley Kubrick, Gregg Araki or Peter Greenaway.
• The Road
• Akira Kurisowa's Dreams
• Gummo
• Julian Donkey Boy
• Trainspotting
• Sunshine
• The Box
• Salo (or the 120 Days of Sodom)
• Moon
• Requiem For A Dream
• The Fountain

Black Swan recently released a new LP available on vinyl or digital download. Listen to a preview here:

The first 100 copies of "The Quiet Divide" come on red vinyl! Order here.

I'm excited to present this list, as Black Swan has been my studio soundtrack quite regularly since discovering the first album "In 8 Movements". I even made a very ambient music video to accompany on of the songs from the first album:



Thanks Black Swan!

Flea Market Find of the Day: Ghost Photo

I found this photo at the flea market today.

"Static" install shots

So much feels lost

In a recent interview with Kelly Reichardt, director of the new film "Meek's Cutoff", she describes her experiences on the road and the monotony of the American highway system:

"Ever since I was a kid, we had one of those piggyback campers where you could ride up in the bed; I don’t think you can do that anymore. We would go from Miami to Montana pretty much every summer and take a different route out west. I’d be in that bed looking out the window, and there was just a huge feeling as each state changed, and I had my little transistor up there and got local radio, and every place was just so distinct. We would camp our way across the country. And as it’s turned out, I continued doing that. In my 20s, I used to get those rent-a-cars and drive to the next state and wait for the next car, and that decides where you’re going to go. In these last years, I’ve been going back and forth between Oregon and New York, and the drive is now just something to get through. The interstates are horrific, there are no local radio channels. It’s Clear Channel, conservative corporate radio, all the way across. It’s just a series of chains, and they never end. Days Inn, Applebee’s—you really have to go far off. Even when you take the smaller roads, you still see the motels and stuff have all been run out of business. The gap between the big corporate motel and the mom-and-pop motel is huge now. It’s not exciting. It’s not an adventure now. It’s really just more of a chore. Once you get past Colorado, there are states that are very beautiful to drive through. But you can’t help it—you have a lot of time to think about what it could have been, how great it could have been, and it’s just depression, I guess. The things that Americans value, and it has been passed on to people outside of America now… So much feels lost. It’s hard. It used to be a really inspiring thing that I would do, and now I find it just really depressing. The complete corporate takeover of the country is so evident, and you can’t escape it. Your choices are so few, and they are so bad."

I agree completely.



For further thoughts on the human habitat, check out the Kunstlercast - an excellent podcast by James Howard Kunstler.

Speaking of movies - if Herzog's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" is playing anywhere near you, it was captivating and highly recommended:

triangles (ughh)

Take it easy on the triangles folks.

Artwork of the Day

Josh Tonsfeldt, Untitled, 2011, Pigment inks on reverse of Fuji Crystal Archive paper, 63 x 41"
image from Tony Wight Gallery

New Works for "do it" exhibition

“Ferdinand Demara, Jr., LIFE magazine, January 28, 1955”, Acrylic on Panel, 14x11”

“Locations of the Great Impostor”, Acrylic on Panel, 11x14”

“Ferdinand Demara, Jr., 1966”, Acrylic on Panel, 14x11”

Nathan Abels “Do It”

Working with instructions by Deimantas Narkevicius;

“Remember places you have visited and where you have spent some time, places where you had to make your everyday arrangements, constantly socialize with local people, where you may have been forced to change your habits in order to make the communication seem more natural. While walking, you slowly accustomed to otherwise unusual landscape. Your body was exposed to different weather conditions. Remember the location of these places on the map by observing it from the point where you live now. Use abstract thinking and if you wish -- an exact mathematical calculation to track down a geographical center of places you have visited.

Would you like to travel there?”

Narkevicius describes the many changes that may take place in a person while in the process of adapting to new locations. For some, this process takes a long time. For others, such as the subject of my paintings – Ferdinand Demara, Jr. – it is an integral part of existence. Ferdinand Demara, Jr. was called the “Great Impostor” after making headlines in the mid-twentieth century for his personal history of impersonating a surgeon for the Canadian navy, a teacher, a prison guard, a monk, a college professor, a Baptist minister, and a zoologist. His life was a series of adaptations to not only to a place, but to a profession, and even to a religious tradition. After his exploits were made public in a LIFE magazine in 1955, Demara found it difficult to continue his chameleon-like behavior with the ease he had enjoyed prior to publicity. I believe his body language in the second painting, based on an image from 1966, reflect the changes Demara experienced in his life after becoming an international celebrity.

Colored Vinyl

Ask anyone who knows me and they'll agree that I'm a music geek. I buy vinyl, but I'm no vinyl purist. I play music on a record player made of plastic and cardboard after all. I'm also a sucker for colored vinyl. Note: this is possibly the most "hipster" post I've made on this blog, but who cares - these records are fun.

Your standard black vinyl - with excellent cover art by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Red and black vinyl

Jimmy Eat World 7" -transparent vinyl

Gray vinyl - White Stripes - from this year's Record Store Day

Transparent red vinyl - also from this year's Record Store Day

MGMT white 7"

Blue marble Frodus 12"

Deerhunter white vinyl

The newest Black Swan album on red vinyl (edition of 100 - get one here)

Black Angels 10" on white vinyl - seeing them tonight at the Fox. Rock!

Opening Friday May 6

I have three new works in the "do it" exhibit. See them Friday night - I'll post them here Friday night for those of you who can't make it to the show.

"do it" Exhibition
May 6 - July 29, Philip J. Steele Gallery

do it is a unique exhibition that centers on the notion of interpretation as an artistic principle. Starting with a manual of written, do-it-yourself instructions compiled from internationally renowned artists, the idea is for other artists to carry out the instructions and re-imagine the procedures from their own individual perspectives. These procedures range from household chores and recipes to random social activities and abstract concepts. They can be as complex as Tacita Dean’s directions for finding a four leaf clover or as simple as Louise Bourgeois’ invitation to smile at a stranger.

In the same way a sheet of music remains static until it is played, the instructions in do it lie dormant until they are once again brought to life by another artist. No two translations of the same instructions are ever identical. At the conclusion of the exhibition, all work must be destroyed. This reinforces the exhibition’s emphasis on interpretation rather than consumerism.

Originated by Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist in the 1990s, do it has been carried out in cities throughout the world. RMCAD’s do it exhibition will feature a pool of more than 30 regional artists including graphic designers, musicians, museum directors, gallery owners, and several RMCAD alumni.

Interpreted and curated by Cortney Stell, Gallery Director.

Opening Reception
Friday, May 6, 6 - 9 pm
Philip J. Steele Gallery

The following is a list of participating artists and the artists whose instructions they have chosen to interpret:

Participating artist:	Following the instructions of:
Xi Zhang	Jay Chung
Yumi Roth	Rirkrit Tiravanija or Maria Eichhorn
Brandon Bultman	Elmgreen & Dragset
Mario Zoots	Jonas Mekas
Nathan Abels	Deimantas Narkevicius
Rian Kerrane	Louise Bourgeois
Tsehai Johnson	Febrice Hybart
Gregory Hayes	Lygia Pape
Bill Amundson	Febrice Hybart
Amanda Gordon Dunn	John Baldessari
Virginia Folkestad	Tobias Rehberger
Homare Ikeda	Carten Holler or Mona Hatoum
Viviane LeCourtois	Rirkrit Tiravanija
Laleh Mehran	Deimantas Narkevicius
Nick Silici	Bruce Nauman
Duncan Malashock	Elmgreen & Dragset
Jon Rafman	Pablo Azul
Michelle Baldwin	Joan Brossa
Adam Lerner	Christian Marclay
Ryder Ripps	John Baldessari
Colin Ward	Maria Eichhorn
Rori Knudtson	Carsten Holler
Travis Egedy	undecided
Alicia Ordal	Hassan Khan
Phil Bender	Jonathan Horowitz
Daniel Hipólito	Marjetica Potrc
Rick Griffith	Yoko Ono
Mondo Guerra	undecided
Isaac Linder	Tino Sehgal or Soo Ja Kim
Fernando Arambul	Paul McCarthy
David Fodel & Paco Proano	Yoko Ono

To learn more, please visit the do it website.

New Work: Static

"Static", Acrylic on Canvas over panel, 24x36"

More by Michael Schall

I just checked in at Michael Schall's site and once again, I'm blown away. He has to be one of my favorite artists working in graphite:

Michael Schall, Battle at Sea, graphite on paper, 70" x 94", 2008.

Michael Schall, Giant Tree, graphite on paper, 35" x 50", 2008

Michael Schall, Pool of Light, graphite on paper, 22" x 30", 2009.

Art by Rebecca Wallace

Beautiful paintings and drawings by California-based artist Rebecca Wallace;

Rebecca Wallace, Sun glare, Oil on Panel 12 x 16", 2009

Rebecca Wallace, The space that was created to fill the gap that was left when it disappeared. Oil on Panel 18 x 20", 2010

Rebecca Wallace, Attempt # 1, Oil on canvas 21x28", 2009

Rebecca Wallace, Bon voyage. 22 x 30" charcoal on paper. 2010

Rebecca Wallace, Vol 30. No. 9., Graphite and watercolor on paper, 8 x 8", 2010

Rebecca Wallace, At this time you must always have games. Graphite and color pencil on paper, 23 x 29", 2010