Tag: art history

Leanne Staples

Leanne Staples, Title Unknown, The Fire Escape

Leanne Staples is primarily a street, social documentary, urban landscape photographer & artist. She was given her first camera at the age of 12 by her father. For many years her concentration was mainly as an architectural photographer. It was, as she has said, “an obsessive pursuit for an unreal purity.” One day, after being annoyed by people walking into her shot, she decided not to fight it anymore, to shoot people passing by the buildings. Without knowing it, that began her venture into street photography!

She started out in film and after some skepticism about digital, she finally made the transition in 2006. A self-described gonzo photog, you can find her on the streets with camera in hand searching for the perfect backdrop in which to shoot. A few things that she is always seeking out are shadows, reflections, patterns, motion blur, clouds, graffiti, interesting people and of course architecture.

If reflagging, please credit Leanne Staples. Thanks.

Paul Miners

Paul Miners, “White Tiger”, Date Unknown, Colored Pencils on Paper, Private Collection

Paul Miners was born in Auckland New Zealand and grew up in Hamilton, New Zealand. After winning various art awards at college, he was offered an apprenticeship as an Illustrator. It was while attending trade school that Paul Miners stumbled across a life drawing class where his talent started to develop.

In late 1999 he moved to Sydney Australia to further develop his talents and career. Over the past few years Paul Miners has expanded from the more traditional style of painting to digital painting.

Although Paul Miners excelled in painting and understanding the human form, the wild side of nature interested him the most. He has won various art awards with the most recent being an Honorable Mention for his entry ‘White Predator’ in the Museum of Computer Arts  Summer Art Festival in 2010.

Reblogged with thanks to https://melimelo85.tumblr.com

Chris Koelle

Chris Koelle, “The Ascension”

Chris Koelle (visual artist, illustrator, printmaker, designer) has worked on a wide variety of projects including graphic novels, illustrated books for grownups, award-winning documentaries, cassette tapes, vinyl records, zines, more documentaries, some other books, a few logos, a motion graphics film, an art book thing that came with a rock ‘n’ roll album, some event posters, and a few other things. Chris is a member at The Printshop, Greenville’s first and only community printmaking studio.

Christian Rohlfs

Christian Rohlfs:  “Roman Builders”, Oil on Canvas, 1867, Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster, Germany

Christian Rohlfs was a German painter, one of the important representatives of German expressionism. Initially he painted large-scale landscapes, working through a variety of academic, naturalist, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist styles. Meetings with Edvard Munch and Emil Nolde and the experience of seeing the works of Vincent van Gogh inspired him to move towards the expressionist style, in which he would work for the rest of his career.

In 1929 the town of Hagen opened a Christian Rohlfs Museum. In 1937 the Nazis expelled him from the Prussian Academy of Arts, condemned his work as degenerate, and removed his works from public collections.

Reblogged with many thanks to http://varzim.tumblr.com

Kenneth Erik Moffatt

Kenneth Erik Moffatt, “God and Goddess of Teviot with Their Kelpies”

Kenneth Erik Moffatt is a sculptor and free style carver of wood living and working in Teviothead, England. He works directly into the wood, without any  preparatory drawings, adding to the carvings as his inspiration dictates.

Top Three Photos: Roof Corbel, Oak. The head of the River God Teivi, crowned with the moon and oak leaves. Interwoven in his flowing hair, are two leaping salmon, based upon “Border Reiver” graffiti, from the walls of the prison cells in Carlisle castle.

Fourth and Fifth Photos: Roof Corbel, Oak. The head of the River Goddess, embodiment of the Celtic Goddess Sulis, crowned with the Moon, hazel leaves and nuts, and adorned at the throat with hazel catkins. Also present are her two attendant spirits, a bird, and the mischievous squirrel “ratatosk,” one of the inhabitants of the “Tree of Life.”  The nine sacred hazel trees, are representative of the spring where the waters rise in Scottish folk legend.

Bottom Two Photos: Roof Corbels, Oak. Kelpies. Water Horses.

Marina Bacigalupo

Marina Bacigalupo, “Walter and Benjamin” (From the Hito Series), 2005

Martina Bacigalupo was born in 1978 in Genova. After reading literature and philosophy in Italy, she studied photography at the London College of Printing. In 2005 she won the Black & White Photographer of the Year Award, and joined Reflexion Masterclass in Paris.

For the past four years Martina has been working as a freelance photographer in East Africa, mainly based in Burundi, working on personal projects and collaborating with different international NGOs (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, Care, Handicap International).

Martina was selected for the 2008 Joop Swartt Masterclass and won the Amilcare Ponchielli Grin Award in 2009. In 2010 she was awarded the Canon Female Photojournalist Award.

Paul Klee

Paul Klee, “Dream City”, 1921Watercolor and Oil on Canvas, 48 x 31 cm, Private Collection

Paul Klee was born in a family of musicians in late 19th century. Klee himself was a musician and practiced violin as a warm-up for painting. Also known as a Swiss painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and writer, Paul Klee’s work has contributed much to the history of art in 20th century. He experimented with new artistic techniques and expressive power of colors. Most of his paintings depict his intellectual curiosity and his detailed knowledge of music, philosophy, and nature.

Fito Pardo

Fito Pardo, “Aztec Dancer”

Fito Pardo has become one of Mexico’s top Cinematographers, he is now part of the director board at the AMC (Asociacion Mexicana de Cinematografia, The Mexican ASC).

He has more than 14 years of experience in Cinematography, wide experience in media related to filmmaking, from pre-production, production, post-production to print.

Reblogged with thanks to a great blog http://gaypaganbrother.tumblr.com

G. R. Iranna

G.R. Iranna, “Make Sure You Are Breathing”, 2002, Fiberglass and Cloth, 192,9 x 45,7 x 38.1 cm

Iranna, a mixed media artist, working mainly with painting, videos and sculptures, explores the inherent containment and freedom of the time  and space boundaries. His works are highly philosophical bordering on post-modernism, looks at the innerness of man and the existential crisis of modern life.

Benjamin West

Benjamin West, “The Death of Hyacinth”, 1771, Oil on Canvas, 229.87 x 190.5 cm, Swarthmore College

A popular mythological subject for classical painters, the story goes pretty much like this:  Apollo and his current boyfriend, Hyacinthus, were out frolicking, throwing a discus back and forth.  Apollo threw the thing one last time and his young beau ran to make the catch but missed and was, instead, hit by the discus and killed.  Where Hyacinthus’ blood fell, a flower sprang up and was watered by Apollo’s tears.

By any standard, Benjamin West enjoyed a remarkable career as an artist. This self-taught colonial painter settled in London during the golden age of English portraiture and not only made a name for himself, but became the king’s favorite.

He served as president of the Royal Academy of Arts – the titular head of the English art establishment – for 27 years during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a time when there were plenty of native-born artists worthy of the honor.

When he died in 1820 at the age of 81, West was the best-known artist in the English-speaking world. He has remained a fixture of American art history, even though he left the colonies in 1760 and, except for several years in Italy, lived the rest of his life in England.

Florian de Looij

Moving Through Eternity: Four Gifs by Florian de Looij

Florian de Looij first sat down with a copy of Photoshop when he was 12 years old and apparently he never got up. The Netherlands-based designer has been exploring digital animation and illustration ever since, and late last year started sharing his animation experiments on a Tumblr called FLRN GIF. Florian says he’s always been inspired by the likes of M.C. Escher and other artists working with optical illusions, something that has clearly influenced the direction of his design practice. He tries to make a new GIF each day.

Hermann Max Pechstein

Hermann Max Pechstein, “Badende Knaben in der Brandung (Bathing Boys in the Surf)”, Oil on Canvas, 1917

Early contact with the art of Vincent van Gogh stimulated Pechstein’s development toward expressionism. After studying art first at the School of Applied Arts and then at the Royal Art Academy in Dresden, Pechstein met Erich Heckel and joined the art group Die Brücke in 1906. He was the only member to have formal art training.

Later in Berlin, he helped to found the Neue Sezession and gained recognition for his decorative and colorful paintings that were lent from the ideas of Van Gogh, Matisse, and the Fauves. His paintings eventually became more primitivist, incorporating thick black lines and angular figures.

From in 1933, Pechstein was vilified by the Nazis because of his art. A total of 326 of his paintings were removed from German museums. Sixteen of his works were displayed in the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition of 1937. During this time, Pechstein went into seclusion in rural Pomerania.

Steve Walker

Steve Walker, “Boardwalk Triad”, 1996, Oil on Canvas, 122 x 122 cm, Private Collection

Born in Ottawa in 1961, Canadian artist Steve Walker has been a recognizable part of gay culture for at least the past two decades. Steve Walker’s paintings canbe described as pensive, quiet, emotional, haunting, empathetic, knowing. The men who inhabit these paintings tell a story that is at once very personal, yet seemingly familiar to all gay men.

Entirely a self-taught artist, Walker relocated to Toronto at the age of nineteen initially to study theater. A tour through Europe where he was exposed to the artwork of the great Masters, particularly Caravaggio, led him to start a career as an artist. Walker eventually became established for his acrylic portraits done of young men, either solo or in pairs, going about their everyday lives.

Executed with a limited palette of muted tones, Steve Walker’s large-scaled paintings were exhibited at galleries in Toronto, New York, Philadelphia, Fort Lauderdale, Provincetown and Pasadena. His work was also used for the cover art of novels by Felice Picano, Gordon Anderson, Michael Thomas Ford, and others.

Walker himself saw his work as having a universal message.  He once said, “As a homosexual, I have been moved, educated and inspired by works that deal with a heterosexual context. Why would I assume that a heterosexual would be incapable of appreciating work that speaks to common themes in life, as seen through my eyes as a gay man?”

Steve Walker’s passing was sudden and unexpected at his home in Costa Rica on January 4, 2012.. He died from a heart attack, but had no history of a heart condition. Walker once wrote: “I hope that in its silence, the body of my work has given a voice to my life, the lives of others, and in doing so, the dignity of all people.”

Notes: The Provincetown Artist Registry has an artist statement by Steve Walker on its online site: https://provincetownartistregistry.com/W/walker_steve.html

An extensive collection of Steve Walker’s artwork can be found on the official ‘Fans of Steve Walker Gay Art’ Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/groups/stevewalkerart/ 

For those interested, Gallery XO, located in Wilton Manors, Florida, has a large collection of reproduction prints of Steve Walker’s paintings, among other artists who create male figurative works. The Gallery XO website is located at: https://www.galleryxo.com

Bottom Insert Image: Steve Walker, “Jungle Boy”, Date Unknown, Oil on Canvas, Private Collection

Kenton Nelson

Paintings by Kenton Nelson

Kenton Nelson was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA.  He attended Long Beach State University and Otis Parsons Art Institute, and for the last 35 years has had his art studio in Pasadena, CA.  He has been on the faculty of the Otis Parsons Art Institute in Los Angeles and the Academy of Art in San Francisco.

Nelson traces his interest in painting back to his great uncle, Roberto Montenegro, renowned Mexican muralist and Modernist. The style of Nelson’s paintings have their origins in American Scene painting, Regionalism, and the work of the WPA artists of the 1930′s.

Nelson paints figures, landscape, and architecture bathed in light.  The objective in his paintings is to idealize the ordinary with the intention of engagement, using the iconic symbols and styles of his lifetime in a theatrical style to make leading suggestions.