Tag: Painter

He blows on the painting as if imbuing it with life

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In his studio, I get to watch him scrape down and then sand lightly a painting he’s been waiting to finish: sitting with it for days, the way a good writer will sit with an ending, even when he or she is certain. Waiting to be sure—waiting for the delightful vapors, the adrenaline fumes, of completion to wear off—and then waiting a little longer.

The painting—maybe 6 inches by 9 inches— has taken him a month.

“No one spends a month on a small painting like this anymore,” he says. Later he’ll take it to an auction in Great Falls, like a rancher with a prize bull, but carrying it onto the plane like a magazine under his arm.

The blade is rasping, the paint is falling to the bottom of the easel, rasp, rasp, rasp. He blows on the painting as if imbuing it with life, shakes it, puffs on it again, then sands it lightly, holds it out at arm’s length, and is satisfied. And it is beautiful.

~ Rick Bass, on Russell Chatham, 74, who he describes as the greatest living landscape painter in America.

Notes:

  • Thank you Rob Firchau at The Hammock Papers for pointing me to his work and the article.
  • Paintings shown above by Russell Chatham: The Seasons, April and Chatham Hayfields, 1995

Aspiring to be a (fill in the blank here)…

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You aspire to be a writer, a photographer, a painter, an actor, a journalist – an anything.  You need to take a few moments to read this excerpt and then continue on to the full post.

“I read those words, and had a sticky, squirmy reaction; I felt the way I do when I stand back and witness the horror of someone else’s undoing. It’s a tight kink in the stomach; a hard walnut in the throat. We’ve all been there, haven’t we: we’ve seen the speaker who loses the words. The young actor who blanks out on stage. The musician who forgets the chords. The writer — the food writer; science writer; academic; novelist; it doesn’t matter — blocked by fear. We wince. Who are they to even try, some whisper as we watch them tumble from their place. When it comes our time, we become that person, naked on the stage: doubtful, panicky, assured by the nagging, the poison, the gossipy gremlin chatter over our shoulders, promising that we too, will most certainly, most definitely, fail…”

Read entire post here: Elissa Altman @ Poor Man’s Feast.

Notes:

 

Super Hyper Hair

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“Jacques Bodin is a french hyperrealist painter who lives and works in Paris. Most of his paintings are made in an almost absurd scale and magnification, so the subject becomes a kind of abstraction separating it from ordinary reality and endowing it with a life of its own.”

Don’t miss more hyperrealistic hair paintings at Faith is Torment: Jacques Bodin

Find Bodin’s website and gallery here: Jacquesbodin.com.

Source: This Isn’t Happiness

The essential the spiritual oneness

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“Jacques Bodin is a french hyperrealist painter who lives and works in Paris. Most of his paintings are made in an almost absurd scale and magnification, so the subject becomes a kind of abstraction separating it from ordinary reality and endowing it with a life of its own. The hair, the orange , the herb become a world in itself, a microcosm. He focuses in on the essential the spiritual oneness of his subjects. There is, indeed, a connection between this magnified section of human physiognomy or nature and the universe.”

MICHAEL: When I look at those rear head shots of the women, I do wonder who those women are.  Is that your intention?

JACQUES: The human figure turning one’s back to the viewer suggests some interrogations: Who is this woman? Is she the artist’s wife, his daughter? Could it be my wife, could she be me? So if I answer to your question, I break the mystery.  I have the key, but I don’t give it to the viewer. I only suggest and the viewer builds his own history.

MICHAEL: Your paintings of fruit and especially oranges are fantastic.  Were you hungry for oranges and you decided to paint them instead?  They are so detailed.  I can see the pulp!  What was your inspiration?

JACQUES: Most paintings are made in a large scale so the oranges become a kind of abstraction separating the subject from ordinary reality and endowing it with a life of its own. The orange becomes a world in itself, a microcosm. I focus in on the essential, the spiritual oneness of the fruit; there is, indeed, a connection between this magnified section of vegetal physiognomy and the universe. I try to capture a dynamic form in a static pose while still conveying movement and brightness. This is for the theory. In fact, I really love oranges and particularly orange juice.

MICHAEL: When people look at your work, what do you want them to see or feel?  What is the message behind all of your hard work?

JACQUES: “I have a dream.” In two words, if anyone looking at my works thinks, ”Sense and beauty!” I would be proud of this message.  I don’t paint thinking about viewers’ opinion. I should wish people or customers could live all their life with my paintings and every day bring a brand new emotion or interpretation.

Find his website and gallery here: Jacquesbodin.com.  Find his Oranges and fruits here. Find his Herbes (grass) here.

Blue Dive

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Matt Story studied art from an early age and demonstrated a unique skill for hyper-realism.  “I was lauded for ‘photo-realistic’ technique, but I was never after that, really, after what a camera impartially sees, because there’s so much more there, captured only by the human filter of memory.  We all posses these invisible imprints, through experience and living, but often its only artists who can play it back for us, to remind us.  The paint surface needs to be a mirror for the viewer, reflecting back not his or her superficial self, but a deep shared humanness.  This is the essence of looking at a piece that’s totally unfamiliar to you and yet, being awed with a sense of recognition.  Your reactions, those memories and feelings are uniquely yours but you’re suddenly filled with a sense that, you share them, at least with the artist, but probably even with everyone else.  That of course is art at its best: the artist, sometimes doesn’t even know what he’s doing because he’s a conduit of his or her own collective awareness.” (Find Story’s full bio here: MattStory.com)