Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Artwork of the month: Kandinsky's Compositions

Kandinsky painted ten compositions, as he saw everything else as a study leading up to these ten pure works.  Unfortunately the first three compositions were destroyed in World War II.  Fuck you Hitler.  You want a reason to stop war, be outraged at the destruction of these masterworks.  

Kandinsky has always been my largest influence.  These works were planned out as complete statements, pure works of emotion, philosophy, and spirituality.  For Kandinsky, each one of these were the peaks of his work in the moment he created them.

I have had the luck to be able to view most of them.

"Composition IV"
1911, oil on canvas


"Composition V"
1911, oil on canvas
Private collection

"Composition VI"
1913, oil on canvas

"Composition VII"
1913, oil on canvas

I have traveled to the Guggenheim in New York many times only to spend time with this work.  "Composition 8" is where I feel Kandinsky reached his top.  This painting speaks to me retrospectively, and reminds me of where I am going.  I will travel to see it again many times.

"Composition VII"
1923, oil on canvas

"Composition IX"
1936, oil on canvas

"Composition X"
1939, oil on canvas

These masterworks have been a major part of my education as an artist.  I have always felt that I can not only relate to these works, but that I can see their truths and where Kandinsky was headed philosophically.  



"Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for color, and that you be a true poet.  This last is essential."
-Wassily Kandinsky.


Wednesday, June 7, 2006

Bowling Alley studies

For the Bowling Alley series of oil paintings, I furthered my study of the Hebrew language, the history of economic politics from the view point of Ludwig Von Mises, and the landscape of Minneapolis.  These drawings are simple and helped me figure out where the paintings were going.











These were okay studies...
...I like simply working from the moment and ink leads to that.




Friday, June 2, 2006

"Bowling Alley" series of paintings

This series of paintings was created from 2000 to 2002.  I worked on it at three separate studios over those three years.  The first one was created surfing the Presidential election of 2000.  We all knew at that moment that we were going to war in Iraq...the second G. Bush won the election.  It was a seriously depressing day.  The tragedy caused by Bush is felt around the globe.  And we haven't even started to feel the money end of it.  Mark my words...We are headed for the biggest financial crisis our nation has ever seen.  All of it can be blamed on the unethical use of government to make a select few people a lot of money while everyone else is raped for every penny they own.  Save every penny you make now, as you will need it when our nation's economy eventually crashes because of our illegitimate president George W. Bush.  


Artists Statement
The use of title in this series is intended to present the cultural metaphor of a Bowling Alley to communicate a general view of the condition and direction of current events.  If one were to look at political language as a bowling ball just released, hurtling blindly with a calculated force, and one were to look at us, the people, as pins, one might see how spin works.


Adam M. Considine 2002


Bowling Alley 1 "The Election of 2000" 
oil on canvas
60" x 36"

Bowling Alley 2 "The Robotic Lion"
oil on canvas 
36" x 60"

Bowling Alley 3 "The Streetlight and the Machinegun" 
oil on canvas
36" x 60"

Bowling Alley 4 "The Factory and its Master"
oil on canvas 
36" x 48"

Bowling Alley 5 "War Crimes" 
oil on canvas
20" x 80"

Bowling Alley 6 "Angel"
oil on canvas 
36" x 36"

Bowling Alley 7 "The Lion" 
oil on canvas
50" x 50"


(Bowling Alley #8, "Mad Cow a," is missing forever.  Someone purchased it and I can't find them or remember who they were.  I did not have time to take a photo when it was sold.)


Bowling Alley 9 "Mad Cow b" 
oil on canvas
44" x 74"

Bowling Alley 10 "Ape Guevara"
oil on canvas 
22" x 18"

Bowling Alley 11 "A Vegetable with Arms"
oil on canvas 
22" x 18"

Bowling Alley 12 "Dancing Robot"
oil on canvas 
22" x 18"

Bowling Alley 13 "Memorial"
oil on linen 
56" x 56"

Bowling Alley 14 "The Bomb and the Bird at the Base of the tree"
oil on linen 
70" x 30"

Bowling Alley 15 "Saint G a"
oil on linen

Bowling Alley 16 "Saint G b"
oil on canvas 
60" x 36"

Bowling Alley 17 "Iron Northern Pike"
oil on linen 
36" x 48"

Bowling Alley 19 "Stone Arch" 
oil on canvas
48" x 24"

Bowling Alley 20 "I" 
oil on canvas
60" x 30"

Bowling Alley 21 "The People a" 
oil on canvas
60" x 36"

Bowling Alley 22 "The People b"
oil on canvas 
60" x 36"

Bowling Alley 23 "The People c" 
oil on canvas
60" x 36"

Bowling Alley 24 "Sounds a" 
oil on linen
30" x 15"

Bowling Alley 25 "Sounds b" 
oil on linen
30" x 15"

Bowling Alley 26 "Sounds c" 
oil on linen
30" x 15"

Bowling Alley 27 "Improvisation" 
oil on linen
70" x 50"

Bowling Alley 28 "Stained Glass a" 
oil on linen
40" x 20"

Bowling Alley 29 "Stained Glass b" 
oil on linen
40" x 20"

Bowling Alley 30 "Stained Glass c" 
oil on linen 
40" x 20"


These oil paintings were created out of anger and frustration...
...when we think we know the truth.