Artwork of the month: Subodh Gupta

At the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, on the second floor, there is a new "Modern" art gallery.  It is a great exhibit, and a fantastic set of works.  This one is my favorite.  The medium- bronze, made to look like gold and spray painted cardboard is cool.  The context of the work is a philosophy that I can connect with, and after looking over Gupta's portfolio I can see where his ideas are coming from.

Subodh Gupta

Indian, born 1964

"Dubai to Calcutta #9"

2006, bronze with gold patina and aluminum, in parts.


This work is quite a tease...
...I will have to create something very cool now.

Caravaggio my Studio dog.

I rescued a puppy at a shelter in hayward Wisconsin.  I fell in love with my girlfriends dog, so i just had to have one.  Three years of training and I now have the type of dog I wanted.  He is now three years old and I couldn't go without him.  Check out some pics.

 Here he is in his first studio...

 Here he is in his first cone of shame...

 He still does this, if a window is open he will stand there and look out...

 2 years old

Here he is with his second cone of shame...

His special Carhartt hoodie for winter.  

New Chair design

This winter my friend Aaron Conner from Paraselenic Studio designed and built a set of chairs for "Roller Revolution" a roller girls store here in Minneapolis.  

We did a good job with these, and we do plan on tweaking the design some.  As they are we can make them with cushioned seats or decorative slats that have any direction to them.  

We designed these from scratch, taking some influence from a living room chair from the 50's.

Aaron and I after we finally completed our first set of chairs. They are very comfortable.

Painted, polished, and ready to sit in.

Thanks for siting in on my blog...

...check back soon there is more to come.

New painting -step by step.

This is a new piece I completed a few months ago.  It is an older idea that I started in 2008 that had to be delayed because of my accident I was unable to complete this until now.

It is titled...

BitTorrent #7 "Interventio, The story of Calypso" 

48x36 oil on linen

2010

With each work of art that i create i start with an academic study of my subject matter. In this case the story of Calypso from greek mythology.  I tried to read everything i could about her, the people that wrote about her and why, what was going on in the area the writers were living in, and what was the social view of live in general or the weltanschau at the time.  

For this piece i studied the painting "Calypso" oil on canvas 1869, by Karl Ernest Rodolphe Heinrich Salem Lehmann.  I Work at the Minneapolis Institute of arts as a gallery guard part time and over the past 5 years I have had the chance to truly observe this painting.  

After I feel satisfied with my study work (which i do because i just enjoy it), I then start to sketch out the composition.  Abstracting my study drawings until I find a composition that represents the subject-matter and in this case, the oil painting I was taking my inspiration from. 

Here are a few iphone pictures of the process on canvas...

To the finished oil painting...

  

Artwork of the month: American landscape.

There was an exhibit of paintings owned by local Minneapolis collectors at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts early in 2009.  For the most part I found the exhibit okay, but the idea of celebrating the wealthy was as distasteful as citrus after brushing your teeth.  Out of that revelry for the rich and their possessions I came to admire a brilliant example of expressionistic realism.

Last week I was surprised to find out the MIA purchased the painting in the exhibit that I felt was the best in show.  And here I believed that I would never see it again.

Theodore Robinson

American, 1852-1896

"Farm among hills, Giverny"

1887

Oil on canvas

"I must beware of the photo, get what I can of it and then go."

-Theodore Robinson


oh, the exhibit was titled "nobel dreams & simple pleasures..."
...wow what jerks.