I think I’m getting back on the blogging bandwagon. I’ve taken a solid 10 months off which is the
same amount of time that I’ve been working at the new art center in
Hanover. The building didn’t actually
open until last January, but in November plans started up. Leading up to all of this, I showed up a
couple times with detailed lists of things that I wanted to happen there and
the answer to all of my lists was always “yes!” Now here we are leading into
our NINTH gallery opening of the year and I could not be more excited about it.
This month the artists who will be showing are three
painters dear to my heart. Zheyu Zhou,
Luke LeWand and Vanessa Varjian were all peers of mine in the MassArt painting
department. Each of them has a unique
view of what it is to be making contemporary landscape paintings. I could get lost in any of their
paintings. I went up to Zheyu’s studio
in Quincy yesterday to pick up her pieces and you seriously could have gotten
lost in one of those things!! The largest painting was not able to come with me
because it was 6x8 feet. Now I know
Zheyu’s work is typically large, so I borrowed one of those big utility vans
from Jeff’s family but ya, painting was still too big.
Zheyu begins her pieces by carefully tie-dying the canvas she will later use to stretch, to begin the layout of the image she is heading towards. After this is complete, Zheyu stretches her canvas around the stretcher bars to create her big squared off surface which then has to be primed with a clear primer or rabbit skin glue in preparation for the oil paint which is to come next. Once Zheyu gets going with her oils and brushes, she focuses in on using a minimal amount of paint to create a solid blend of where the dye ends and the oil begins. The process is meditative for her as she clears her mind and becomes one with this slow and careful process.
Zheyu is a truly gifted artist who began her artistic training while living in China. It sounds as though her formative years of arts training were much more rigorous, as far as perfecting craftsmanship, than I have experienced here in the States. This training started Zheyu on the way to an incredibly high level of proficiency; she could sit down and draw or paint anything she sees perfectly, but she chooses to create more ethereal works. These paintings dance on the line of the conscience and unconscious, a beautiful place to be.
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| Zheyu Zhou Looking Homeward, 2011 Oil on Canvas 23"x28" |
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| Zheyu Zhou Meditation I, 2012 Oil on Canvas 45"x73" |
I am so incredibly excited to see Luke and Vanessa's paintings tonight. They haven't dropped them off yet so I'm not sure that the pieces I'm showing here will be in the gallery or not, but here are a couple of my favorites that I've pulled from their websites.
Luke paints in a way that just screams about his consistent studio practice. You don't make gloppy, high chroma, gestural paintings like these if you're sitting down to paint once a month. Luke is on a friggin roll and I love every second of it. There is so much to see here, I want to eat these paintings for breakfast. Look at the consistency of the paint going from the top to bottom of the right side of "Runaway" and you'll see what I mean. A thin background of medium yellow under thick, overlapping strokes of muddy green to a slightly thin thwap of blue, back to the yellow before hitting a patch of detailed green, possibly suggesting a plane, then you've got part of a pink figure hanging out on the edge and some fluid, ink wash consistency of green that circles your eyes around the bottom and back up the other side of the painting. And that is just looking at one side of the painting, holy crap I can't handle it. I want to jump into these paintings and swim away for one thousand days.
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| Luke LeWand Runaway, 2013 Oil and Acrylic on Panel 14"x10" |
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| Luke LeWand Hills and Homes Acrylic on Panel 10"x14" |
Vanessa Varjian is looking around, picking up all of the interesting patches of light that she sees and putting them into a bottle for us to use as a nightlight. These are solid, heavy pieces, that transversely are bringing up vague feeling memories. I UNDERSTAND "November Sun Comfort," I have lived in that world and it has made me feel good. Along with this Autumn painting below, Vanessa also has a bunch of paintings she did of the snowy landscape. These are paintings I need to surround myself with in the cold months. They remind me that there is light, beautiful beautiful light, even during our arid and dying days.
Another thing I'm in love with in these paintings are the dynamic shapes. In "November Sun Comfort," look in the top right where the yellow horizon line bleeds into the gray sky. It picks up in a couple spots and then kind of dances around in the outline of some organic and lumpy rectangle. I don't know what is going on with that shape other than compositionally pulling what is happening below and above the horizon line together, a staple to further create the feeling of solidity in this dreamscape of a land.
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| Vanessa Varjian November Sun Comfort, 2012 Oil and Acrylic on Canvas 60"x72" |
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| Vanessa Varjian Garden Beds: Long After the Storm, 2013 Watercolor and Acrylic on Paper 9"x12" |
Opening is this Friday from 6-8 at Laura's Center for the Arts in Hanover. You can follow this link for more details. If you miss the opening but want to come and check out the work anyway, it will be on display until the week of October 21st, just let me know when you want to stop in and I'll be sure to be there to give you a tour of the space.
Also, here are links to the artists' websites in case you want to see more of their work:
