Year: 2015

Anish Kapoor

 

Anish Kapoor, “Cloud Gate”. Stainless Steel, Millennium Park, Chicago

Anish Kapoor’s sculpture “Cloud Gate” was constructed between the 2004 and 2006, consisting of 168 stainless steel plates which were welded together. It is popularly known as “The Bean”, the design was inspired by the look and properties of liquid mercury; the sculptures surface reflects Chicago’s skyline.

The exterior is highly polished with no visible seams. On the underside where visitors are able to walk around is the ‘omphalos’, or nave, that warps and muliplies reflections. The volume is  approximately  42 feet x 66 feet x 33 feet having a pronounced weight of 98 long tons. The volume approximately is 42 feet x 66 feet x 33 feet having a pronounced weight of 98 long tons.

Alexannder Calder

Alexander Calder, “Five Swords”, Painted Steel, 1976, Storm King Art Center

Alexander Calder’s sculpture “Five Swords” is on display at Storm King Art Center in the Hudson Valley of New York. In 2015, this sculpture underwent its “generation” treatment on site – a treatment that is designed to withstand another 40 years with only periodic top coating for fading. The work included taking all coatings back to metal, protecting the steel substrate with a zinc rich primer, applying a subsequent epoxy primer and Calder Foundation approved Calder Red topcoat.

The topcoat is a custom-made, adapted military coating that was developed through a collaboration between the Calder Foundation, the Army Research Laboratory, NCP Coatings, and Mack Art Conservation. Care was taken during the conservation treatment to collect and contain all debris in compliance with federal and state specification owing to the presence of a lead containing primer that was applied in the 1970’s.

Bo Bartlett

Three Paintings by Bo Bartlett

Bo Bartlett is an American realist painter with a modernist vision. His paintings are within the tradition of American realism as defined by artists such as Thomas Eakins and Andrew Wyeth. Like these artists, Bartlett looks at America’s  land and its people, describing the beauty in everyday life.

Bartlett was educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where realist principles must be grasped before modernist ventures are encouraged. He pushes the boundaries of the realist tradition with his multilayered imagery. The paintings’ scenes represent a deep, mythical concept of the archetypal, universal home.

Images from top to bottom: “Lifeboat”, 1998, Oil on Linen, 80 x 100; “Bone”, 2000, Oil on Linen, 86 x 100; “Leviathan”, 2000, Oil on Linen, 89 x 138

Tomma Abts

Tomma Abts, “Hope”, 2011, Acrylic and Oil on Canvas, 48 x 38 cm

Born in Kiel, Germany in 1967, Tomma Abts is a contemporary abstract painter. She studied at Hodhschule der Künste in Berlin, later moving to London where she has her studio. Known for her small-scale, intricately composed geometric works, Abts works intuitively from drawings; her finished paintings bear the mark of being carefully re-worked numerous times.

The recipient of the 2006 Turner Prize, Abts has been exhibited widely. Her work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions internationally, including at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf in 2011, Douglas Hyde Gallery in 2005, the New Museum in 2008, and the Kunsthalle Basel in 2005. She is represented in many prestigious public collections, such as The Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, Tate Britain, and the Hammer Museum, among others.

Since 2005, Tomma Abts has been represented by the David Zwirner Gallery with locations in New York, London, and Hong Kong.

Carlos Barahona Possollo: “Pelops and Poseidon”

Carlos Barahona Possollo, “Pelops and Poseidon”, 2012, Oil and Gold Leaf on Wood, 120 x 120 cm, Private Collection

Born in Lisbon in 1967, Carlos Barahona Possollo studied from 1986 to 1989 in the department of architecture at the Technical University of Lisbon. He graduated with a Degree in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon University. In 1995, Possollo accepted an invitation to become a faculty member in Lisbon University’s art department.

Possollo has worked with the Portuguese Mail in its production of original images for their commemorative stamp series honoring the 500th anniversary of explorer Vasco da Gama’s arrival in India. He also created paintings commissioned for the first nine issues of the Portuguese edition of the National Geographic Magazine.

The painting “Pelops and Poseidon” represents the love Poseidon had for Pelops, the son of Tantalus. Poseidon fell in love with Pelops and taught him to drive a chariot. Poseidon later gave Pelops a chariot of his own  drawn by winged horses so Pelops could win the hand of Princess Hippodamia, whom Pelops loved.

Paul Klee

Paul Klee, “Blühendes (Flowering)”, 1934, Oil on Canvas, 81.5 x 80 cm, Kunstmuseum Winterthur

From 1931 to December 1933, Paul Klee taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf. Germany. When the National Socialists declared his art “degenerate” in 1933, Klee returned to his native Bern. Personal hardship and the increasing gravity of the political situation in Europe are reflected in the somber tone of his late work. Lines turn into black bars, forms become broad and generalized, scale larger, and colors simpler.

Lin Jinfu

 

Lin Jinfu: Four Paintings

Lin Jinfu was born during the transition between the 70s and 80s. He uses the techniques of classic oil painting to seek and recreate the “classic beauty” of the modern Chinese male.

Portraiture and nude studies form part of all Chinese art education, but as an artistic theme, the naked male body is rare. Lin Jinfu is one of very few Chinese artists to use the beauty of the male body as a subject in his artistic creation. He studied sculpture for four years in the province of Fujian, and was then a student of the well-known artist and art critic Chen Danqing at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Lin Jinfu’s art is a breakthrough in Chinese tradition, which is staunchly conservative when it comes to talking about sex and sexuality. The naked body is easily associated with sex, and has therefore had no room in Chinese art history. The exception is the erotic art of the “Spring Palace Drawings” of Chun Gong Tu; but this was strictly intended for private use, not something that could be shown in public. Moreover, China’s tradition is patriarchal, and it has therefore been more acceptable to depict female beauty than male.

“The theme of my art is the human being; I have always been interested in the human body, in facial expressions. The human is the most beautiful thing in nature. With my brush, I wish to express the quest for beauty, to make the viewer respect and value life, and deeply within himself, to experience human beauty, a primal, quiet beauty, beyond pain and prejudice.” -Lin Jinfu