About Andy Evansen

01 NIGHT OWL: PAINTING THE NOCTURNE Carl Bretzke

11 FACES OF THE SHOAH David Jon Kassan

23 AN ORCHESTRATED COMPULSION Alyssa Monks

32 GOOD, BETTER, BEST. . . Jay Moore

41 A QUEST FOR DYNAMIC PHOTO REFERENCE Rachel Moseley

52 COMPOSING A PAINTING Huihan Liu

60 PAINTING OUR TRUTH Noah Buchanan

75 USING VALUE STUDIES TO SIMPLIFY WATERCOLOR Andy Evansen

84 AN ARTIST’S PERSPECTIVE Kay Griffith Publication Schedule

Issue 27 - January 2018

Issue 28 - March 2018

Issue 29 - May 2018

Issue 30 - July 2018

Issue 31 - September 2018

Issue 32 - November 2018 CARL BRETZKE

NIGHT OWL Painting the Nocturne A “nocturne” was described by James McNeill Whistler as a painting of night, twilight or absence of direct light. A Google search will demonstrate nocturne paintings by many other well-known painters throughout history. More recently, with the improvement in plein air gear and portable lights, nocturne painting has become extremely popular.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Nocturne in Black and Gold, the Falling Rocket, 1875, oil on panel, 23-3/4 x 18-3/8 inches, Detroit Institute of Fine Arts, Gift of Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. 02 I became excited about night paintings after visiting a gallery in Carmel several years ago. The gallery featured historic California artists and was showing a nocturne by Rollo Peters (1862-1928). The painting was leaning against the wall in a dark corner of the gallery, and at first glance it looked almost totally black. To my delight, when placed under the light, a mysterious and surprisingly colorful image emerged. Interestingly, Peters was known as the “poet of the night.” I still study his work for clues about color saturation in the dark.

Charles Rollo Peters (1862-1928), Untitled (Peters’ House and Stu- dio, Monterey), 1891, oil on canvas, 36-1/2 x 51-1/2 inches, Laguna Art Museum, Promised gift of Nancy Dustin Wall Moure

Charles Rollo Peters (1862-1928), Starlit Mission—Carmel, n.d., oil on canvas, 16 x 24 inches, UC Irvine Museum, California 03 One of my first attempts at nocturne painting was during a plein air event in 2011. The final show included 120 paintings from 60 artists. Because of the striking value contrast, my lone nocturne piece seemed like a dark exclamation point floating in a sea of green and blue landscapes. Nowadays, nocturnes are very popular at plein air events and are sometimes included as a separate category in which all artists can participate.

Painting at night offers the advantage of a very stable and prolonged light effect—assuming no one turns out the lights. In this way, nocturne painting is more like painting a still life than a landscape. There is no mad rush to freeze a light effect, as there is during a painting session on a sunny day.

Boat for Sale with Motor, oil on linen, 11 x 14 inches

04 Tattoo Parlor, oil on linen, 16 x 20 inches

05 Texas Alley, oil on linen, 11 x 14 inches Cool Light on the White Cabin, oil on linen, 11 x 14 inches

Over the years, several things have become apparent to me as I try to improve my nocturne technique and my perception of color and value at night.

My preference is to start on a lightly toned panel. I’ve tried dark-toned panels as well but found I had to draw with light paint first to see what I was doing. The light paint then continued to con- taminate my darks. It seems easier on the lighter panel to do a limited drawing in dark paint and then fill in as much of the confluent darks, leaving openings for my lights. Often this means you can cover a large percentage of the painting very quickly, leaving most of your time to concentrate on the smaller light portions.

I have discovered that one can leave many of the colors very saturated and limit the use of white. Artificial light drops off prismatically and rapidly most of the time. If a light source is bright whit- ish yellow, its emitted light becomes rapidly less intense. White is quickly eliminated from the paint mixture as one then proceeds sequentially down the prism with yellow, orange, red, violet, etc., as you paint away from the light source. 06 The Last Show, oil on linen, 24 x 36 inches

07 Exxon Ford, oil on linen, 18 x 24 inches Assuming you are interested in a late night scene as opposed to a partially lit twilight scene, I recommend not trying to start your planning or drawing too early. The shapes and shadows you see after complete darkness are dramatically different than at dusk.

Interpreting the color of sky darkness is always difficult. I find that a small amount of warmth is nearly always present in my mixtures, although admittedly most of the time the dominate sky color I see is a bluish violet. My friend Jesse Powell tells me that night skies are usually not blue, and in fact he paints his a warm green (no blue) and they look correct. Obviously many things affect even a night sky, such as cloud cover and reflected light from sources on the ground.

Late Shift, oil on linen, 11 x 16 inches 08 Last Ferry, oil on linen, 11 x 14 inches

09 Regarding equipment, a good working easel light is critical to serious nocturne painting. I own several types. I find that a fairly cool light with moderate intensity works best for me.

As all painters know, there is never a single right answer on how to do anything, least of all painting nocturnes. Give it a try. You will develop your own preferences and hopefully have some late night fun not requiring an Uber ride home.

Blue Night (Studio), oil on linen, 16 x 20 inches

10 ABOUT CARL BRETZKE

Carl Bretzke is a representational oil painter who specializes in urban scenes and plein air landscapes. Carl’s work has been described in the Washington Post as “simultaneously intimate and detached…The artist’s unadorned style recalls Edward Hopper and The Ashcan school.” Carl holds an MD degree from the University of Minnesota Medical School. His undergraduate degree is from the University of Colorado, where he also received a minor in Fine Art. Carl has also trained extensively under Plein Air Painters of America signature artist Joseph Paquet.

Website: http://www.carlbretzke.com

11 D A V I D J O N K A S S A N

F A C E S O F T H E S H O A H “Please have a cookie,” Roslyn says with a Polish accent. “Thanks!” I say as I reach for the plate.

Roslyn is a sweet older woman whose privacy I feel like I’m invading while scouting out her home for the best place to set up lights and camera equipment. We came into this interview cold with only a faint hint of Rosalyn’s story. Chloe, my videographer, and I set up the lights and vid- eo equipment around Roslyn’s kitchen table. As we mic up Roslyn and her sister, we turn on the camera and settle in for a conversation about their lives and experience during the Shoah.

Roslyn: “We are twins. My name before the war was Roslyn Sharf, S-H-A-R F. So, when the war broke out in 1939, we were still living in our house. Later, about a year or a year-and-a-half later, they told us to leave the house. So, a neighbor gave us a place to live for about five months, and then it wasn’t good anymore. We went into hiding to another neighbor, for a month, in an attic.”

Me: “Who was the neighbor?”

Roslyn: “The neighbor Poles, Polish.”

Bella: “They were . . .”

Roslyn: “. . . they were Witnesses of . . .”

Bella: “Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

Two Survivors of the Ho- locaust; Roslyn and Bella Sharf, 2016, oil on panel, 13 56 x 43 inches Roslyn: “Jehovah’s Witnesses. They believed that, a person should be helped. And theywere poor, and hadn’t enough food, and then . . . And Mother helped them, I presume,when they were so poor, when they came to the store, she gave them things for nothing. I mean, they bought it, but without money, and then they didn’t pay. So, they felt obligated, grateful, and they let us stay a month.”

“Then mother decided it’s not good enough, and she took us to the station. We walked maybe three hours. On the train she started to talk to the Poles. Our Polish was very good, clean of Jewish intonation, and she asked where they are going. So, they said that they’re going to Warsaw, and Mother said we are chased out Polish people from a different area, and she’s looking for a job.”

“As we approached Warsaw, the woman said to us, ‘Come on. I know somebody in the building who wants a housekeeper. They need people.’ So, she gave us the addresses. Mother got the job.”

Bella and Roslyn are both Survivors of the Shoah. They live a few floors apart from each other in a high rise building in Queens, NYC. They are fraternal twins. During the Nazi occupation of Po- land their family had to go into hiding. They were 12 years old and both had blonde hair and blue eyes so they were able to hide in plain sight. Their mother moved them to a town where nobody knew them, and they were split up to go into hiding with two separate families.

After our conversation, Chloe and I get the usual questions asking us who we are. Are you married? Do you have kids? I tell them that I have a beautiful fiancée named Shana, and receive the same response back, “Oh! Shana, Beautiful.” Shana means Beautiful in Yiddish. Shana madala. I always think that Shana’s mom named her perfectly, but I’m biased.

I feel very privileged to be here, listening to these heartfelt, sometimes horrific and sad stories that somehow always end up being inspiring.

In 1917, a young Murray Kassan immigrated to the United States, escaping ethnic cleansing on the border of the Ukraine and Romania by the Cossacks. Murray was my grandfather, and his story of survival is a vague unfocused legend in my family for many reasons. When my father was fifteen years old, Murray was estranged from the family, and my father never saw him again. He passed away when I was very little and I never got to meet him. His story of survival is now only fragmented stories. 1314 Top: In my studio working on a portrait of Lousie and Lazar Farkas. Above: Lousie 15 and Lazar Farkas, Survivors, 2017, oil on panel, 48 x 40 inches Painting for me is my way of understanding the world around me, my way of connecting, and my excuse to interact and learn. This has been my personal way of connecting to my grandfather’s lost story. With every survivor’s story I hear and record into a painting, I feel I move closer to the connection with my grandfather that I never had.

There are fewer than 150,000 Holocaust Survivors worldwide and their stories of survival include everything after the Shoah, but their numbers are quickly dwindling. The paintings I strive to create are about more than the atrocities they witnessed and were subjected to. These paintings aim to celebrate the fashion designer, the wife, mother, father, grandfather, tailor . . . stories of overcoming their past despite the odds against them.

I never thought my personal painting journey would lead to becoming a documentarian. How- ever, now that I think about it, it is the natural progression of the rules that I established for my work and the philosophy of what I want for my work. What surprises me most is the way these paintings have changed me as a person, and how I see the world.

This whole project started with a commission inquiry. For the past 10 years, I have been focused on my own personal work and have avoided painting commissions altogether, favoring creative freedom instead of financial windfall. All of the commissions I had done previously had me com- promising my truest artistic values.

Joshua Kaufman, 2017, oil on panel, 25 x 25 inches 16 Back in 2014, I was asked by an Israeli collector if I could do a commission for him. While I was in the process of politely declining, he said that he understood, but that his subject was a very special woman, She was a Survivor of the Shoah.

I immediately said that I would paint her, not as a commission though, but as a painting that I could have control over, and that they would have the option to collect the painting if they wanted. If not I would exhibit the painting at the gallery that represents my work, Gallery Henoch. The collector went back to his mother-in-law. She had a look at my work and politely declined. My interest in painting this subject had been sparked and I have set out on this journey to paint and film as many of these very special individuals as I can.

The beginnings of my journey have been very humble. I have met almost all of my Survivors through word of mouth. Early on, I was limited to survivors who lived close to me in the New York and New Jersey area, since the project has been a grassroots initiative and was self-funded in terms of travel, videography and editing costs. That is slowly changing through the use of so- cial media and, again, word of mouth. I have been helped along by some amazing individuals as well as by some organizations that have been generously helping me and Chloe get from place to place so that we could meet new groups of survivors, as well as helping me with material and studio costs.

A close-up of me working on the facial details for a portrait of Aus- 17 chwitz survivor Sam Goldofsky (2015, oil on panel, 45 x 35 inches) Up until this point, I have been painting single and double figure paintings. In this series, as well as my previous work, I’ve always made my figures life sized so that they can speak to the viewer. The reason for this is because it allows a one-to-one conversation between the subject and the viewer, an intimate connection without my presence through loud brushstrokes or ego getting in the way. Doing these manageable paintings for myself have been a great way of slowly evolving my work into a more meaningful head space for myself. After about three years of slowly establishing myself with this evolution of work, I had the thought that I wanted to both challenge myself as well as create a painting that is much more involved and larger—a work that would be indelible, a painting with weight.

Through a lucky connection from Facebook, I was put in touch with Elana Samuels, a woman who coordinates the Survivors who speak to the public at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. She said that she could put together a group of Survivors of Auschwitz to meet with me if I could get out to LA.

A composite sketch of the full project. When complete, the painting will include 11 survivors of the Shoah.

18 When I first conceived the idea of a larger painting I was thinking it would be of maybe five Survivors, and I didn’t know how to group them. The survivors needed a connection to one another. For example, in the past pieces I have painted married couples, and in the case of Bella and Roslyn, twin sisters. Elana came up with the idea of grouping together survivors of Auschwitz since they have different experiences but also some shared. They also represent the many different countries that were imprisoned. My original idea of five or six survivors was greatly expanded when Elana got back to me with the news that she could have twelve survivors meet up with me at the museum to photograph and interview.

Luckily, I received a grant from the Jerry Goldstein Foundation—named after the founder of Jerry’s Artarama—that covered our travel costs to interview the group in Los Angeles. Having a company really believe in the project and in my work was a huge lift! I was determined to really get as much out of the trip as possible!

Here I’ve superimposed the composite sketch with my progress to date. As you can see, all will be painted in life-size.

19 While we were there we met with eleven survivors for the large painting, along with another three survivors for standalone paintings. Unfortunately, one of the original twelve couldn’t make it due to health issues, which really highlighted the inherent urgency in the project. I was able to do a benefit drawing demo at the Safe House Atelier where I drew Joshua Kaufman, a Survivor who lives in Los Angeles, to also help with the costs of the trip. Also, while we were in LA a very good friend and painting mentor of mine, John Nava, set up an amazing lunch meeting for us with the Director/Curator of the Fisher Museum of Art and the Director of the USC Shoah Foundation. They both agreed to help out with the painting series, and also wanted to talk about creating an exhibition for the paintings at the USC Fisher Museum of Art in the Spring of 2019.

Since then I have been hard at work developing the Eleven Survivors of Auschwitz painting, through digital paintings and sketches. It is going to be 18 feet by 8 feet high and consist of five acrylic mirror panels pulled together. The process has been exciting and the logistics are much more involved than I thought they would be. I’ve been documenting the challenges, stories, progress and the entire process on patreon.com/davidkassan, to create a community around this series of paintings and each Survivor’s story, over the next two years before the exhibition.

Study for 11 Survivors, Betty Cohen (detail), 2017, charcoal on toned paper, 20 x 10 inches 20 My approach to the work I create is more conceptional and is based on my intention first. I try not to think of my work as having a style; it just is what it is. Oil paint, like skin, is translucent, so it’s the perfect medium for capturing humanity. I want painting surfaces that are layered with the history of its making, mimicking the experience that our skin receives as our barrier to the world. There is so much trial and error in my work, and each painting is the record of successes and failures, hundreds of layers of brushstrokes. My paintings are the culmination of all of these thoughts—my attempts at a deeper understanding through the subtly of the answers to my questions about each individual I paint. These objective answers, correct or not, really help me to develop a clearer representation of the lives each survivor has lived. I am there just as a conduit to listen with my brush and to document in an intensely honest way.

Early on in my painting life, I struggled very hard to make work I thought would be saleable, just so I could make a living to paint another painting. About eight years ago I started to find that the work, though saleable, wasn’t nourishing. I turned inward to subjects that were close to me by painting my family and people in my life. With the paintings I’ve completed of the Survivors, I feel that I have a responsibility to not only represent them in the most authentic possible way, but also to document a deeper understanding of their lives and not just the horrors of what they witnessed early in their lives. My goal is to capture their resilience throughout their lives. This goal is a tall order for a painter. I try to never put deadlines on the paintings, and I work on them until they have to leave the studio. Each story for me is almost sacred, like I am painting a nonfiction novel about each person. Now I am fortunate to be able to create paintings that are rewarding in how they educate and affect people outside of myself.

Please stay tuned.

21 ABOUT DAVID JON KASSAN

Raw, poignant and profoundly honest, David Jon Kassan’s work aesthetically captures humanity in its true form. As an artist, Kassan acts as an empathetic intermediary between the subject he portrays and the viewer. More than simply replicating his subjects Kassan seeks to understand them. He seeks to capture the essence of those he paints, imbuing them with their own voice. They communicate with the viewer interpersonally and we see them through our own eyes. Our gaze transcends the picture plane and permeates deep into the subject’s psyche. We are moved by Kassan’s depictions, captivated by powerfully expressive hands, pensive faces, and flesh that appears warm to touch.

Kassan’s portraits pulsate with the lives of his sitters – the weighty streams-of-consciousness of past experiences, feeling and introspection. This is what reality means to Kassan – preserving the real- ness of nuanced emotion and expression emanating from the people he paints. Kassan’s technical mastery of oil paint combined with adept draftsmanship enables him to fluently represent what he sees. This is evident in the stunning flesh tones Kassan achieves. Transparent layers of oil paint are built up, forming an intricate lattice of veins, blood and skin. Through this light enters and is reflected back, infusing the subject with veridical luminosity.

We can also sense movement and life beneath the undulating creases and folds of clothing. It is the artist’s intent to control the medium of oil paint so that it is not part of the viewer to subject equa- tion. Kassan facilitates an interface between subject and viewer with which he is conscious not to interfere. The technical aspect of his work is thus a means to an end; an end rooted in the viewer’s experience. We find inherent contradictions in Kassan’s work as it oscillates between representation and transformation, reality and abstraction.

Website: http://www.davidkassan.com 22 C R A I G P U R S L E Y Art is a mysterious urge, both to make and to consume. It is a primal instinct, an attraction that masterfully blends the faculties of the intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and physical. Whether one is compelled by words, music, or the visual, the curiosity and rewards are inherently similar. Art is not a physiological requirement, but perhaps essential to the mind and/or the spirit. Art is where illogical urges can be sublimated and contained. Art is where we can connect empathically, yet anonymously. Art is where we can escape, fantasize, play, and dig in. Art is where we can hide and reveal, emote and intellectualize. I don’t believe in “Art for Art’s sake,” but rather Art, because we are humans and we must. It is a controlled container for the mind to run free—and the mind, at times, must run free.

What constitutes “art” is a question often left to the critics, historians, dealers, and collectors. And perhaps the ones who are there when the “art” occurs, the ones in their studios when that sublime, ecstatic state is reached, who witness it, feel it, live it, birth it—best be getting on with conceiving and birthing rather than defining the thing that remains as evi- dence and consequence of those events. So as a painter, I don’t want to quantify what “art” is but rather what it does and how it comes to be, as I am currently contemplating it. I am speaking specifically from a painter’s perspective, although other modalities are certainly applicable.

Absorb, 2015, oil on linen, 56 x 56 inches 24 At its most blatant, the visual art experience tells a story or describes an idea. Without words or literal explanation, the viewer is asked to make sense of the image and come up with the narrative it is meant to explain. This is possible through the use of symbology or iconographic cues. However, a compelling composition, cleverly organized in a way that distinguishes itself and tempts the viewer to stay and linger is only the superficial, first layer of the experience. Once the composition has seduced the viewer enough to command attention, the viewer is then immediately exposed to a visceral, physical, bodily experience of the materials used: the brush activity, the texture and weight of the medium, and the support it is painted on, sometimes even the smell of the medium. Two paintings of the same flower, composed the same way, can evoke drastically different narratives given the energy, speed, and weight of the brushstrokes. A light, airy touch says something different than one so unselfconsciously and unapologetically spread across the canvas. The touch of the artist’s hand is perhaps simply the relationship of the artist with his or her subject or his or her world. Or, at its best, the touch of the artist’s hand is a glimpse into the psychology of human beings, that primal fixation with searching and playing and connecting physically and presently—the desire to be seen and understood, meeting the desire to see and understand—that occurs in all of us.

25 Fusion, 2016, oil on linen, 66 x 56 inches There are two opposing, but in my opinion, symbiotic considerations or motivations in making art. Opposing because they seem to be in conflict as they rise from different parts of the brain—the cognitive versus the limbic, but symbiotic because they are of the same brain. Art needs both the rational/intellectual brain versus the sensual/emotional brain, the Apollonian versus the Dionysian, the “real” versus the abstract, the ego-self versus the no-self, the expert versus the student. And both sides must be present and both must participate. The ego must navigate, distinguish, design, impose the idea as something that needs to exist and be seen, heard, and understood. But then, the ego self must submit and allow for a beginner’s mind, full of wonder and awe, curiosity and thrill so that euphoric “flow” experience can occur and something new and unimagined can emerge. In this masterfully orchestrated space of compelling curiosity, creativity is possible and art is birthed.

It begins with a small idea that grows: I wonder what it would look/sound/feel like if I tried this one thing. A virus-like preoccupation with finding the right subject, composition, materials, size, and colors occupies most thoughts. And then one fast discovers that he or she must become familiar with, even masterful of, these variables—their possible pairings and the poten- tial outcomes. Questions and research and intrigue cycle and repeat. A practice emerges. The vision begins to solidify as the artist, driven by a maturing and educated ego, begins to decide what he or she deems visually pleasurable, and what is not. The artist fantasizes and halluci- nates a possible combination of variables that would—quite simply—excite him or her. And so, a plan is established. Time, effort, education, resources, supplies are all invested in this plan to realize a still somewhat out-of-focus mirage. However strategic the artist is, he or she must know when to push and when to submit, when to think and when to stop thinking, when to lead and when to trust. The “vision” is nothing more than gas in an engine. The subject, as well, is no more a reassurance of success than is the plan to execute it. It is merely a stage on which a play can be performed, a container for the art to be birthed into.

It isn’t a linear, formulaic process. In fact, there would be something suspect if it were. There are fits and starts as the ego aggressively marches forth, confidently at first, shape-shifting and orchestrating a grand design, masterfully manipulating the materials with impeccable attention to detail—until it is humbled by an all-consuming self-consciousness that starves the ego’s will with doubt. If the artist is going to be successful, the ego must disarm itself with its own criticism. Sometimes, often times, this submission is painful or, at the very least, unpleasant. It feels like defeat. Failure. Loss. But flawless skill and impeccable technique aren’t enough to breathe that human, energetic “life” into the work. Cleverness and calculation will not create empathy or an emotionally moving experience. If the artist can tolerate the discomfort of being lost, detach from the “goal,” let go of ideas of “good” and “right,” curiosity and intuition will decide what to do next. If the ego is humbled, and allows humility to renew curiosity and respect for the materials and the process—with all its disobedient unpredictability—it is in this moment that the conception of something authentic and new can occur. 26 Harmony, 2016, oil on linen, 60 x 80 inches

Curiosity overcomes the artist’s plans, extinguishing his or her identity. It is a “spiritual” release—a relief from the striving, struggling—that freedom from the “self” we all crave in whatever form we can tap it. It is a return to beginner’s mind—the “I don’t know” mind. The finish line becomes an open space with no identifiable destination but instead laden with many possibilities. And the pleasure of play and exploration will reward that curiosity. There can now be a riveting conversation between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, rational and emotional, intellectual and sensual, one leading the other to the next turn. The materials and mediums will transcend and become something else, no longer conventional or predictable. The vision matures beyond its original blurry glimmer. The canvas seems to inhale and exhale. Surprise and unpredictability delights the artist, the first viewer. And this is why we do it.

27 Origin, 2015, oil on linen, 72 x 48 inches 28 Rima, 2017, oil on linen, 34 x 34 inches

29 I don’t propose that there are muses and spirits influencing the artist’s hand, but the no- tion of a mystical force does help to remove the “self” from the process enough to reach a flow state. It can even feel like an outside energy is moving the brush when a flow state is peaking. That pleasurable state of no-self is overwhelming. But we mustn’t sacrifice all our accountability and control by proclaiming it is only up to gods and muses when creativity is afoot. In fact, the no-self, beginner’s mind is available to us quite often. It’s there during an intense conversation, when we don’t know where it’s going and we are totally engaged. We feel it when we experience great art, music, film, beauty, or great attraction or excite- ment—and in great loss. It grips us and moves us forward unselfconsciously. It decides for us. It knows something the ego-self—the planning, striving self—could never know or plan. And if we open to it, we can use it to access our empathy, our attention, curiosity, inspiration, and even love. This, together with the ego-self, while it masters precise skills, researches necessary information, designs and plans and sets the stage, are the midwives of art. With experience, an artist integrates expert strategy and submissive curiosity together with less and less resistance and drama, understanding that both are needed for art to occur. The artist learns to appropriately access one over the other like a perfect brush or pigment, with the knowledge that one or the other is never enough for long. Together they are formidable—sometimes turbulent, sometimes serene—but always sublime.

Deference, 2015, oil on linen, 66 x 56 inches 30 ABOUT ALYSSA MONKS

Alyssa Monks is blurring the line between abstraction and realism by layering different spaces and moments in her paintings. She flipped background and foreground using semi-transparent filters of glass, vinyl, steam, and water over shallow spaces in her 10-year-long water series. Today, she is imposing a transparent landscape of infinite space over evocative subjects.

The tension in her paintings is sustained by the composition and also by the surface quality itself. Each brushstroke is thickly applied oil paint, like a fossil recording every gesture and decision, expressing the energetic and empathic experience of the handmade object. “I strive to create a moment in a painting where the viewer can see or feel themselves, identify with the subject, even be the subject, connect with it as though it is about them, personally.”

Alyssa’s work is represented by Forum Gallery in New York City. She lives and paints in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Her latest solo exhibition “Resolution” was in March and April of 2016 at Forum Gallery. Monks’s paintings have been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions including “Intimacy” at the Kunst Museum in Ahlen, Germany and “Reconfiguring the Body in American Art, 1820–2009” at the National Academy Museum of Fine Arts, New York. Her work is represented in public and private collections, including the Savannah College of Arts, the Somerset Art Association, Fullerton College, the Seavest Collection and the collections of Eric Fischl, Howard Tullman, Gerrity Lansing, Danielle Steele, Alec Baldwin, and Luciano Benetton. In 2015, Alyssa gave a talk at the TEDx event at Indiana University, which is featured on TED.com. Recently, she was named the 16th most influential women artist alive today by Graphic Design Degree Hub.

Born 1977 in New Jersey, Alyssa began oil painting as a child. She studied at The New School in New York and Montclair State University and earned her B.A. from Boston College in 1999. During this time she studied painting at Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence. She went on to earn her M.F.A from the New York Academy of Art, Graduate School of Figurative Art in 2001. She completed an artist in residency at Fullerton College in 2006 and has lectured and taught at universities and institutions nationwide. She continues to offer workshops and lectures regularly.

Alyssa has been awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant for Painting three times and serves as a member of the New York Academy of Art’s Board of Trustees. 31 Website: http://www.alyssamonks.com B Y J A Y M O O R E

Many years ago I remember seeing an infrared photograph of a Winslow Homer painting, showing how the artist had made revisions to the painting, moving people around the boat to improve the composition. It intrigued me how the artist had the insight to make the im- provements. How did he come up with the idea to make a painting significantly better that at one point was apparently finished? How did he get the inspiration and vision for a better way to solve the painting?

Over the years, I have experienced this with my own paintings. I thought I had a good idea, worked hard to solve the composition, labored over the colors and details and called the painting finished. In many cases I even sent the painting out to a gallery for sale. After the painting languished on the walls of the gallery for a season without a buyer, the painting was returned. This is always a bit disappointing to an artist as you thought you put your very best into the painting, and your very best was not good enough. When a painting is returned unsold I usually try to examine it as to why it did not attract someone’s eye. Day after day, I tilt my head, squint and back up to critique it, and I cannot figure it out. Then one day I walk in to the studio, well rested and inspired, to look at the languishing painting one more time and AH-HA! I know exactly what to do to make it better! The idea is so plain, like the lights coming on in a dark room. I can see in my mind’s eye the painting with the changes already finished. I hurry and take down the painting on the easel that I was working on and excitedly replace it with the old painting before the idea fades away. The new edits are usually quick, confident and relatively easy. Within an hour, the changes are complete and I back away from the painting to critique the corrections. VOILA! It is a new painting!

When this transformation happens,E it R isI Clike A theR M painting U S I K has been reborn. I often give it a new title and send the painting out again. The transformation is so dramatic that in most cases the revised painting has either sold right away, won an award, or been selected for the cover of a magazine.

Pikes Peak from Betts Ranch, 2010, Oil on linen, 40 x 60 inches 33 Let me give you an example. Pikes Peak from Betts Ranch is a view from the highest point in our county and looks southeast toward Pikes Peak. I was told that the original settlers, the Betts family, were the first ones to homestead here and chose the best view looking out at the famous peak in the 1800s. The original barn stood until a heavy spring snowfall took it down just a few years ago. As I painted the 9”x12” plein air of their view, I had to use artistic license to paint out the earth movers that were scraping away the prairie grass to make a golf course and large homes surrounding it.

I thought I had a “good” idea for a painting and decided to paint it on a large-scale 40”x60” canvas. There is a group of ponderosa pine trees in the foreground that present a nice foreground for the vast distance off to the pale silhouette of Pikes Peak. I was inspired by the similar composition of the nineteenth-century Russian artist Ivan Shishkin, who depicted similar views in his country.

Soon, Pikes Peak from Betts Ranch was complete. The photographer had returned the painting to the studio, and I was preparing to send it out, but something was missing. I remember the completed painting sitting back on the easel and I was standing back from it, with my head tilted and my hand on my chin trying to decide what was missing. The trees in the foreground needed scale . . . they were 20 to 30 feet tall but you could not tell their size. That moment I looked out my studio window into the forest of pines and there, 50 yards away were a group of mule deer walking single file. DEER! That is what it needs—deer! Mule deer are very common in this area. Then the larger concept came to me: “Think about it . . . the deer have been here for a long, long time. Perhaps hundreds of years, and here we are building and scraping the land that really belongs to them.”

All to Themselves, 2011, Oil on linen, 40 x 60 inches 34 The brush flew as if by itself, and the deer were quickly dashed in as I had imagined in my mind. I stood back and a wave of satisfaction flowed over me. Now the painting was not just a pretty picture, it had meaning, very deep meaning. The new title was All to Them- selves. I had turned the clock back to a time when a few generations ago, these deer had this land all to themselves.

I had lived in this area for 18 years and seen many changes. For a time our county was named the fastest growing county in the nation. Dirt roads were paved and big box stores now filled in vacant lots. Homes were built as fast as they could get them up. Peaceful roll- ing hills were now trendy communities.

A Yellowstone Classic, 2011, Oil on linen, 30 x 40 inches

35 The new improved painting was sent out to a gallery and shortly thereafter the gallery called to let me know that Southwest Art magazine was going to feature the painting on the cover. Call it a “Muse,” an “inspiration,” “being at the right place at the right time,” whatever, I cannot explain it, but when it hits you, it’s profound.

Another example of a paintings transformation is with a painting initially titled A Yellow- stone Classic. You can usually tell a “ho-hum” painting when it has such a trite, ho-hum title. It was a painting of a single bison standing in front of a small geyser. The idea came to me when driving in my car in the park, and I got a quick glance of a large black bison standing in front of a very small, gurgling geyser. I liked the idea of the contrast of black against white spray, and recorded it in my memory bank for later. Going through my photo reference later in my studio, I felt strongly enough about the idea that I committed it to a 30x40 inch canvas. Combining five or six photos, I completed the painting to my satisfaction and drove it up to a gallery in Jackson Hole, WY. It hung there for a whole year with no takers, so I asked the gallery if I could get the painting back. For two more years, the painting leaned against the wall in the studio.

The Mighty Ones, 2013, Oil on linen, 30 x 40 inches 36 Then one day, I looked at the painting with fresh eyes and said to myself, “Wait a minute, what is that bull doing standing there all by himself. He looks awfully lonely and bored.” It is true that bison do spend a lot of time just standing there, but the painting was so static and rather dull. There was no story, no interaction or anything of interest. So, I put the painting back on the easel and did several thumbnail sketches of other bison around in various com- binations. After two or three attempts, I found a composition I liked with four other bison feeding and lying down around him. I retitled the painting The Mighty Ones.

Tranquil Evening, Elk Creek Ranch, 2014, Oil on linen, 30 x 40 inches

37 I called the gallery, explaining the revisions to the painting and asked them if it would be okay if I brought the painting back. They agreed, and within two weeks, The Mighty Ones was sold.

The third example, Tranquil Evening, Elk Creek Ranch, is not so dramatic, but proves how a slight adjustment can take a big difference. In the first rendition, I pretty much copied what was in front of me on a lake at a ranch in western Colorado. The painting went a whole summer without selling. When the painting came back to the studio, I was suddenly bothered by the angle of the shoreline on the left. I got the idea to retreat it back and make more room for the reflection of the sunset, and within an hour the painting had transformed. I sent the revised painting to a gallery in Jackson Hole and one of my repeat collectors snatched it up.

Tranquil Evening, 2015, Oil on linen, 30 x 40 inches

38 This story has repeated itself several times over the years. This doesn’t happen often, as I try to have a good concept for a painting and solve the composition before I begin. How- ever, sometimes I just cannot see the correct answer until much later.

I don’t call these happy accidents, as I have put a lot of thought into the original painting as well as making any revisions. Creating art is a funny thing. You are essentially making something out of nothing—just an idea in your head. Sometimes it’s a good idea, sometimes better. I am just trying to take the painting from good, to better, to best, and occasionally I get a second chance to do just that.

39 ABOUT JAY MOORE

Jay Moore grew up in Evergreen, Colorado, spending nearly every waking moment outdoors: fishing, camping, swimming, and absorbing the subtleties of nature that every good sportsman and artists needs. “My bond with nature formed early and became deeply rooted,” he says. Jay graduated at the top of his class from the Colorado Institute of Art and worked in graphic design and illustration for several years. It was a plein air painting workshop with the master landscape painter Clyde Aspevig that convinced him to concentrate full-time on painting.

The skills he has developed in both observing and painting have landed his paintings in magazines, exhibitions, and collections across the country. He has twice been on the cover of Western Art Collector magazine. His work has been featured in the Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, Scottsdale Art Auction, Quest for the West at the Eiteljorg Museum, as well as the Masters of the American West at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles. In September 2017, Jay was awarded the Henry Farny Award for “Best Painting,” and in 2015 he won the Victor Higgins Award for “Best Overall Body of Work” at the Quest for the West show.

“If every artist has a subject that is their ‘sweet spot’,” Jay says, “something they love to paint and they become known for, mine would be water. I just love painting and trying to achieve the illusion of water. I am challenged by capturing the depth, the current, the reflections, ripples, whatever . . . Whether it be streams, rivers, lakes, oceans, waterfalls, I love it all.”

Jay is represented by Astoria Fine Art, Jackson Hole, WY; Jay Moore Studio, Parker, CO; and Trailside Galleries, Scottsdale, AZ. His work is in the collections of the Denver Art Museum and the Pioneer Museum in Colorado Springs as well as many corporate and private collections. His collectors include former Commerce Secretary and Mrs. Don Evans, Walmart Chairman and Mrs. Rob Walton, Uline Corporation president Elizabeth Uihlein, as well as the late British rocker Joe Cocker.

Jay has said, “To create a painting worthy of my collectors, I need to experience the location—breathe the air and crunch the leaves underfoot.” That experience and that goal are reflected in the comments of James Nottage, Vice President and Chief Curatorial Officer of the Eiteljorg Museum. “Landscape paintings by Jay Moore are beautiful works that convey the artist’s strong sense of place. They are realist creations that give you impressions of seasons and expressions of both sky and earth. They are a treat for the imagination that can make you think you have been there or maybe want to go there.”

Website: http://www.jaymoorestudio.com 40 R A C H E L M O S E L E Y

A Q U E S T F O R D Y N A M I C P H O T O R E F E R E N C E Creating a compelling narrative figure panting is hard . . . at least that’s what I think. While strong technical ability and an interesting subject can make a pretty painting, I am interested in the uncontrived nuances that connect the viewer to the subject. This can be anything from a relatable expression, to suggestive eye contact, or familiar posture. While I’ve often heard, “There is nothing like working from life,” there is a spontaneity, elusiveness and ease that can be captured with photography that you can’t ask a model to hold for a long pose. This is one of the great benefits of using photo reference in painting, and in my own work I find myself constantly in pursuit of this “fleeting moment” quality. I’d like to -ex plain a little about my process for “staging” candid moments to create more natural and dynamic reference photos for a painting.

Of course there is no right or wrong way to be an artist, but when you’ve been to art school it’s hard to break away from the “should” and “should not’s” and all the rules that made you better in the first place. I was taught how to pose models properly, light them with a pleasing balance of light and shadow, and measure accurately to create a precise likeness from life.

After school I learned how expensive working from life is when you’re broke, and my income was based mostly on commissioned paintings where I was required to work from photos. I often rolled my eyes at the photographs presented to me by clients: low resolution, blown out light, flat shadows, and a lack of form . . . no, no, and no. I would then properly photograph the subject myself, using a borrowed camera (at the time), Amazon-purchased studio lights, and 24-year-old expertise. While I loved impressing a client by taking a nice reference with a slightly better camera than their point-and-shoot, and feeling like I was putting my grad school knowledge into professional practice, what I was missing was the vitality of the original references that made the client want to commission the painting in the first place. I was posing subjects almost as if I was setting up a still life.

In truth, it was most likely a lack of confidence in my artistic ability that prevented me from working from those references. It wasn’t that the photos were flat; instead, if all the information wasn’t spelled out for me, I simply didn’t have the tools to avoid making a flat painting.

42 The Standoff (study), 2017, oil

43 The Standoff, 2017, Oil on wood, 18 x 24 inches After a couple of years of experience, it came time for me to focus on a personal body of work and think about what I wanted to say that was meaningful to me. I couldn’t help but think about those early client snapshots that I had turned into pretty, academic, above-the- couch art. Now that I was becoming a better painter and had the skills to “fill in the blanks” of an imperfect reference, I knew I wanted to capture my subjects with a sincerity we connect with in everyday encounters.

Living in San Francisco at the time, I had become impulsively voyeuristic, almost by ac- cident. In a city where everyone either walks or takes public transportation, I would sit for hours on the bus watching people, sketching them without their knowledge, silently observing and sometimes even snapping secret pictures of them. Of course no one ever assumes they are being watched and what I loved so much was the authenticity and vul- nerability of these “subjects” that only comes when someone is truly not performing for another person. I got to create the drama in my imagination: Would the man sitting next to the door on a packed bus, sporting a classic tech-start-up uniform of thick frames, skinny tie, skinnier jeans, and Chrome shoulder bag, stand and offer his seat to the pregnant lady carrying a toddler and a bag of groceries? Or would he glance up and pretend he didn’t see her at all because he was so engrossed in the New York Times article dully glowing on his tablet screen? I lived for insignificant moments of truth like these, and I was determined to figure out how to translate that into a painting.

The initial challenge was learning how to capture the non-pose in a controlled studio setting with lights, a tripod and a willing subject. This began a lot of trial and error. The minute you tell someone to relax and then thrust a camera in their face, they tense up and become a deer caught in the headlights . . . go figure. My solution to this was alcohol (mistake #1), and prompting my first subject by asking her to tell me a secret (mistake #2). I learned the following: alcohol relaxes you a little TOO much, and when mixed with such a formidable task as revealing a secret, ends with a lot more loud, emotional, and forgettable conversation than successful reference shots. However, I also learned that the subject is more com- fortable when holding something or having something in their hands, and if I participate in the conversation it becomes a more inviting space.

For the next shoot I eased in, in a more natural way, leading the conversation at first and then talking less as my subject loosened up. I let the sitter eat or drink whatever they wanted while I was taking pictures. I eliminated the tripod and put the camera around my neck on a strap, shooting from chest level, instead of bringing the camera to eye level. The photos I shot were random and quick and I only took photos occasionally so the subject didn’t have much time to think about it. This time it was a success! I got a lot of great references and while none of them was perfect, there were enough shots to piece together a painting, my first in a new series. 44 Purgatory, 2014, Oil on wood, 20 x 24 inches

45 Over time I learned that if I control the light before we begin, I don’t have to worry about it or focus on it while the conversation is happening and the shots turn out better. I also found that the longer the conversation goes on, the more natural the photos become and the easier it is to forget about the camera. Participating in the conversation also means the painting is as much about me in an indirect way as it is about the subject.

The first two successful paintings from this series are a triptych called Lessons in French and another painting called Purgatory. The reference for Lessons in French was shot over the course of a three-hour conversation. I set up the lights indoors and we drank tea and had a very intimate talk. What I loved about the experience was editing the content later and deciding what I wanted to paint from our conversation. The reference was a mystery to me until the images opened on my computer screen. I spent hours reflecting on our conversation and editing to capture the essence of her story. I decided I needed three frames to capture an important climactic revelation. While this might appear subtle in the finished piece, in reality it was a pretty poignant moment.

Lessons in French (Triptych), 2014, Oil on wood, 9 x 12 inches each

The reference for Purgatory was shot in a garage under natural light over the course of a draining six-hour conversation. While the subject was known to me, I hadn’t seen him in ten years. This is still one of the paintings I am most proud of. There was so much I wanted to convey from our conversation in a single image, including how drained I was by the end. And because I didn’t have control over the light, most of the reference I shot was very poor quality. I really had to pull successful segments from multiple references and use my imagination to fill in the blanks. Painting it was as challenging and exhausting as the interaction, and I loved that the process seemed to reflect the interaction. 46 Since these early paintings, my process has evolved slightly, but the basic procedure remains the same. I never worry about a perfect reference shot. When I sit down to start a painting I always work from multiple images and pick and choose elements from each. This also forces me to do a study before each painting to make sure the pieces fit together as a larger composition and that the light makes sense throughout the piece. This important preliminary step has helped me to arrive at decisions much faster while I’m painting.

47 Double Bubble, 2016, Oil on wood, 18 x 24 inches Fools Gold, 2016, Oil on linen panel, 8 x 10 inches 48 Almost California, 2016, Oil on wood, 24 x 36 inches 49 Queen of the Desert, 2017, Oil on linen panel, 8 x 10 inches

This process has evolved my work and helped me grow tremendously as an artist. By allowing the model to run the shoot, themes have emerged that otherwise may have never found their way into my work. The sunglasses my models often wear came about organ- ically when a model told me it would help her to relax to wear them. I loved the effect of obstructing a piece of the face to make the subject more anonymous and accessible to the viewer. It forces the viewer to take a closer look to find the hidden expression behind the lenses. Also, because these shoots can sometimes take hours, I really get to know the subject in an intimate way, which makes painting them more meaningful to me. Representing them honestly and accurately has become increasingly important. 50 While this method probably isn’t for everyone (even working from photographs isn’t for everyone), what I can say with confidence from my own experience—and what I hope someone would take away from reading this—is that finding these quirky, sometimes roundabout methods in my artistic practice is what brings authenticity, joy, and passion to the work I make. This is such a personal process for me that came about so naturally. It is easy to get caught up in the “right” and “wrong” way of doing things as an artist, but it’s usually breaking away from what you “should” do that allows you to evolve and grow. Thinking back on evolving past art school and finding my own way as I gained confidence as an painter has made me excited about where this process (and processes I have yet to learn) will take me in the future.

ABOUT RACHEL MOSELEY

Rachel Moseley is a representational figurative artist from California. She received her MFA from the Academy of Art in 2010 and her BFA from Chico State in 2007. After completing her MFA, Rachel began working as a freelance illustrator, focusing on developing her oil painting skills in her free time, and eventually transitioning into Fine Art and shifting her focus from client based projects to personal work. She has exhibited her paintings across the United States and abroad, and has been teaching and building curriculum for the Academy of Art since 2011.

Rachel currently lives in Las Vegas with her husband and two babies and splits her time between Nevada and California. She is represented by RJD Gallery.

51 Website: http://www.rachelmoseleyart.com H U I H A N L I U

C O M P O S I N G A P A I N T I N G

What should the artist do to get their message across to the viewer?

I found that if I have a vision for the piece and can picture in my mind what I want the finished piece to look like, I can usually work out the problem easily. The subject matter is usually the motif. But how to set the mood and color palette? It took me longer to work out the vision for a painting I am happy with. Whether a quiet, peaceful piece or a busy and exciting piece full of movement, whether sunlit or moonlit, the heart of a painting is about taking my feeling and hopefully evoking it in the viewer, rather than merely describing a thing. Amber Light, Oil on linen panel, 11 x 14 inches. This piece was done as a demonstration. The idea was to play around the warm and cool color temperature on the figure’s head. I set up the subject under a florescent track light with the addition of a warm accent light from a 45-degree angle to the side of the figure’s forehead, nose- bridge and upper lip. The fluorescent light produces a cool-accent light on the frontal bone above the eyebrow and the cheek bone, creating a beautiful transition from cool light to the halftone, representing the local color of skin tone to shadow. I used a 2-inch sized bristle bright, a #10 bristle Filbert block in most of the figure planes and background, choosing small sized brushes to build up the small shapes, and a #4 fan bristle brush for the warm accent light with impasto paint to achieve the textural layers and the soft edges. The final stage was to make whatever necessary adjustments to push the light accent, refine key details and sharpen edges with the shadow area and background.

Since childhood I have always loved to draw everything around me. The fascination was with the simplest of shapes—whether a human gesture or the branch on a tree. It was fun at the time, but to draw it quickly required simplifying what I saw. Later, in art academy, intensive study helped me understand the essential elements, and progress to larger studio work. However, thinking of how to simplify before developing the narrative has been key for me to paint successfully. 53 Faithful Friends, Oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches. The reference photo was taken on a sunny day, but I changed the daylight picture to a night scene. Except for the different color temperatures, the shapes of light and shadow were pretty much alike. The idea for the piece was fun because it allowed me to explore the color palette and abstract elements in a representational manner.

Besides painting from life, most of my initial studio painting ideas come from casual snapshots: pictures taken during field trips, street scenes, models in rest poses. I first try to look at the picture, not as the actual object in real life, but to visualize an abstract element that has an appealing aesthetic quality. For example, a backlit light on a silhouetted shape, the lost and found of edges, value keying, the mood and feeling—these visual effects can then be broken down in many ways, such as tonal structure and pattern, rhythm and movement, color harmony and space balance, or repetition. Each of these represents a certain kind of mood and feeling, so each painting can be unique, rather than formulaic. Here are a few tips that have worked well for me in the past:

1. Simplify painting ideas! I have learned from hard experience that a painting fails not because I did not put enough effort into it, but because I had a confused initial idea and tried to incorporate too many ideas into a single painting. Each painting must have its own limitations. For example, if the painting is about tonal structure, the color should be less important than the value key arrangement, and one must be sensitive to the tonal relationship, grouping all closely related values with the larger shape, establishing basic placement of light, gray, and dark values before developing any smaller values. Stick to one idea for each painting. If it still does not work, learn why and go on to the next idea. 54 Pilgrims Gathering, 2004, Oil on linen, 36 x 40 inches. The scene was from a trip to Tibet in 2004, at the Shi- gatse-Tashilhunpo Monastery. The initial design for the piece was the abstract placement of the figures and the strong contrast to convey the meaning of the piece. I wanted the viewer to first pay attention to the group of figures before the individual. The dark V-shapes in the background were placed to balance the overall composition. The cropped figures have a more natural-looking gesture within this dynamic design.The paint application was impasto with layers built up in the light, allowing the warm under-painting to show through.

55 2. Establish a focus point. The focus point depends on what you want to say; for example, maybe the feeling of a foggy day with a small figure in the distance, or the portraiture, or the vantage points of the street. But too many focus points will distract the viewer and weaken the message.

3. Composition consists of finding a satisfactory unity within a variety of possible relationships. When working on a larger painting, it is very easy to get lost in the details when one relies on picture references. Be selective, and do not overstate. Take time off from larger works and come back with a fresh eye.

4. Have a curious mind. Sometimes I try to paint in a different way in small studies, because it frees my mind to not worry too much about the outcome, and helps develop new ideas and techniques that can be explored in later pieces. Joaquin So- rolla (Spanish painter, 1863-1923) was a great inspiration when I visited his home museum in Madrid.

Looking Back, Oil on linen, 24 x 18 inches. My idea for the painting was a contemporary figure inspired by the methods of a late-19th century group of Natural- ist artists. Soft and mute, the focus was the beautiful figure under an overcast light. The reference was a snapshot taken on the street with AF VR Zoom-Nikon 80mm-400mm long lens attached to the camera while randomly shooting from a distance. The figure peers slightly upward from the side view with the soft light highlighting her beautiful bone structure and light skin tone on the right side of the face that creates an almost lost-and-found edge towards the background. The face structure on the light side is hinted at by shadows underneath the eye socket, nose, lip and chin. Overall, the head, shoulder, and torso were a fabulous relationship to paint. Once I blocked in the basic transparent tone, I started work on her face, really paying attention to the transition from light to shadow. To get soft skin tone effects, one should avoid rugged brushstrokes—I used a sideway sable brush stroke to gently overlap new paint over previous layers to unify the skin tone transition. I think the subtly cool blue-greenish palette works well for the painting. The blue flower-patterned cloth on the figure was the flat, central shape of the design. My idea for the piece was not only to have a well-developed, finished quality when viewing from a distance, but to also enjoy the textured brushstrokes and layers when looking closely. 56 Shopping Day in Chinatown, S.F., Oil on linen, 30 x 40 inches. This painting depicts a casual scene I saw in a historical back alley in San Francisco’s Chinatown. My main interest was the design proposed in the unity of people within the variety of individual characters in the composition—to show the way our eyes can switch back and forth between first viewing this scene as a group of distinct individuals, and then again as a crowd. I first grouped all small, similar dark values as a major shape, breaking up it up within using small patterns in different values and colors on the cloth. Secondly, I used casual overlapping and cropping to create depth and perspective. I like the overcast light in the alley, and the soft cast shadow beautifully contrasted against the accent of small patterns.

57 Starlit Dance, Oil on linen panel, 14 x 11 inches. A dancer in a casual stretching movement gave me a musical/lyric feeling for this painting. 58 ABOUT HUIHAN LIU

Huihan Liu was born in Guangzhou, China in 1952. He graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art in 1975, with a BA from the Oil Painting Department. Afterwards, he taught in the Academy’s Art School between 1979 and 1985. Huihan was accepted by the Graduate school of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art in 1985. He went to the United State of America to further his study in 1987, receiving an M.F.A. from the Graduate School of the Academy of Art College (later renamed the Academy of Art University) in San Francisco in 1989. He taught at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco from 1993-2011, and was also a Graduate School advisor while there.

When in China, Huihan had participated in many regional and national show exhibitions. Since moving to the US, Huihan has been participated in many national painting shows and invitational exhibitions. His paintings have received many awards and have been collected by both private collectors and museums, including:

• “Gold Medal for Best Painting,” California Art Club’s 92nd Annual Juried Exhibition

• “First Place Winner,” 9th Annual Mission San Juan Capistrano Plein Air Painting Event, Wilmington Trust Pur- chase Collection

• “First Place Painting,” Plein Air exhibition in Bower Museum of Culture Art, Bowers Museum Contemporary Plein Air Permanent Collection in Santa Ana

• “Best of Show In Painting—John Scott People’s Choice Award,” The 25th Western Rendezvous of Art, Helena

• “Gold Medal, Master Signature Division,” Oil Painters of America Western Regional Show

• “Members’ Choice Award, Master Signature Division,” Oil Painters of America National Exhibition

In 2012, Huihan’s painting “Spring of Miao Village” was selected by the Olympic Fine Arts 2012 committee and was exhibited in London during the 30th Olympic Games, later entering the permanent collection of the National Museum of China. Huihan’s work has also been featured in articles by leading national artist/collector magazines, including Art of The West, Southwest Art Magazine, The International Artists Magazine, and The Artist’s Maga- zine. Huihan regularly conducts invitational painting workshops both in the United States and abroad. Huihan has also taught at the painting workshop in Pixar Studio, at Fechin Painting Workshop in Taos, NM; at the Scottsdale Artists school in Scottsdale, AZ; and the Fredericksburg Artists School in Fredericksburg, TX, amongst others.

Huihan and his wife, Weizhen Liang, are both full time painters and live in Santa Rosa, California. They both love to travel and regularly travel to Tibet, France, Italy and Taiwan for their painting subjects. His son, Jian, graduated from Cornell University in 2008. Huihan is an Artist Member of the Guangdong Artists’ Association in China, a Master Signature Member of the Oil Painters of America, a Master Member of the American Impressionist Soci- ety, an Artist Signature Member of the California Art Club, and a School of Art & Design Guangzhou University Professor in China.

Website: http://www.huihanweizhenart.com 59 My passion comes from the heavens, not from earthly musings. — Peter Paul Rubens

“So that’s your apology?” I said, pointing to the background of a student’s painting in which a beautifully painted figure was back-dropped by pictorial elements that rang out as edgy, alarming, designed to shock.

“What do you mean?” the student replied, confused. “That’s your apology to the contemporary art world, for the fact that you really love to paint the figure in a classical, realist manner . . . but you feel embarrassed to do so given the edgy/trendy nature of the current art scene. So you feel obliged to populate your work with elements of shock value so that you can present your classically painted figure, which is what you’re really passionate about in the first place, in a contemporary mode—that’s your apology”.

Entombment, 2014, Oil on panel, 36 x 57 inches

My question to students and emerging painters, and a question I frequently ask myself is, “What was it you dreamed of painting when you first fell in love with painting?”

Whether the answer to that question is to capture space/atmosphere/light, or expressionism of color and paint quality, or perhaps a severely realist and photographically sharp/accurate depiction of the human figure . . . whatever our answer is, it should be carved in stone on the inner friezes of our mind, and should serve as a constant beacon to remind us of how to guide ourselves in the work we make. 61 Jacob’s Ladder, 2015, Oil on panel, 48 x 48 inches

This is not to say that our artistic direction doesn’t evolve or mature over time, but it’s important for an artist to be wary of when we stray from our truth in painting. Our truth is—or should be—that beacon of inspiration that propelled us into making art in the first place. It’s very easy for us to sit down and have a private moment where we say to ourselves, “What can I do to make my work fashionable to the contemporary art market?” Or in plainer words, “How can I be famous?” 62 José de Ribera, St. Jerome and the Angel of Judgement, 1626, Oil on canvas, 262 x 164 63 cm., National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples When I was a boy, my inspiration became heart-achingly clear to me when a large art book came into the house from the library: Ribera. Right on the cover, and again inside the book, reproduced in full composition, was his masterpiece St. Jerome and the Angel of Judgment.

Aside from the painting’s alarming/stark visual illusion, it took me years to put my finger on what was really compelling me to love that painting, but much more—why it constantly served as a “beacon” for what I dreamed and hoped my art work could be. It was a confrontation, an interface, two forces interacting—the mortal and the divine; but not only that; it was another confrontation between shadow and light.

Mid-Winter’s Dream, 2011, Oil on linen, 32 x 48 inches

These elements resounded and resonated so heavily within me because as a child I had been heavily steeped in Bible stories and Greek mythology—but so have centuries and centuries of humanity before people like me. For any child, the reduced essence of those stories is that there is more to life than we see with our eyes. Those stories tell us that there is a mag- ic world at play in our lives. There is the idea that maybe we aren’t bumbling along, lost, but perhaps we are guided, watched, aided, sometimes thwarted, by a presence bigger than ourselves . . . and maybe more than that: somewhere in our subconscious we might dare to dream that we actually are part of that presence, or even further: we are that presence. 64 Ressurection (detail), 2017, Oil on linen, 27 x 58 inches

If so, then this life has meaning; and it is our very nature to search for that meaning. There- fore, we must search for that meaning . . . and maybe our art should, must, be about that search.

At least that’s how it has all unfolded for me. “Art is Big,” were words from a treasured mentor of mine, Martha Mayer Erlebacher. She said, “Art is not about the trivial, the mo- mentary, the political, the fashionable. Art is eternal.”

Certainly that’s the case when we pore through the pages of an art historical text. We find, predominantly, images that grapple with aspects of our cosmology, through the lens of myth and religion—ultimately these raise fundamental questions: Why are we here? What are we doing here? What meaning is there in existence? These questions have been the eternal ones; at least eternal as far as human existence is concerned, and our art has grap- pled with this topic from the beginning.

When I ask myself privately to make a choice as to whether I want my work to deal in the fashionable/the shocking/the exciting, which could possibly lead to more notoriety as a painter, or whether I want my work to speak of the eternal, the answer is an easy one. When I consider both the eternal aspects of the big questions of our existence, and the seemingly eternal purpose of art in dealing with them, sometimes I’m almost overwhelmed with feelings of sacrilege that I would assume art would ever be used otherwise.

65 Lazarus, 2007, Oil on linen, 29 x 46 inches

Recently an art critic friend of mine and I had a conversation. He suggested that I was painting with the goal of trying to make everyone like me, and that I should rather be trying to “shock them all.” I pointed out to him that, in fact, the more shocking thing to do, the more audacious thing to do, was to paint one’s truth; to paint from a place where we constantly remind ourselves of the origin of our inspiration, rather than try to contrive a shocking image designed to titillate an audience or induce notoriety attached to one’s name.

With that introduction, here are the truths I try to remind myself of as a painter, the truths which exist in the vision of the world as I have sought to paint it. If I’m honest, I can still see these ideas plainly written in Ribera’s painting.

Emblematic Light and Shadow

. . .all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light. — Leonardo da Vinci 66 Working with light in a painting, or making paintings that speak largely of light, quickly and easily becomes an ordeal of the spiritual. The first moment we have an existential moment with light, we know that our world appears to us because of that light (the Sun’s light for example), and we realize how much our lives, our existence, are built around that light. This occurs to us regardless of what an artist’s beliefs are in terms of religion, faith, or non-faith. So as artists, intensely reliant on our eyes, we appreciate that our eyes are really just perfect little lenses and cameras, built around the idea of understanding and using light to understand our world. For me, it’s very hard not to load heaps of poetic meaning upon this idea. And what I suggest next is by no means an original idea: Light in a painting represents the higher self, the divine essence of our human nature; the best that the human condition can offer. In a painting from Ribera’s era of the seventeenth century, the light is thick, colorful, textured, luminous, and replete with information.

Emily and the Fur Hat (detail), 2013, pastel on paper, 26 x 46 inches.

67 Venus DescendingEmily Study, at 2017,thirteen. Silverpoint, I really struggled 12 x 12 incheswith the light on her face and getting the lace right. The shadow is equally compelling. The shadow appears dark, transparent, devoid of information and color, really a void in and of itself. It is the shadow-self that Carl Jung speaks of; it is the unknown lurking in our subconscious; it is the darkness of human existence.

Therefore, the illumination of the human figure is an emblem of the divine meeting and confronting mortal humanity.

But further still, commitment to the use of light and shadow in this way ultimately sug- gests, within the same painting, that in the light we are not alone, while in the shadow: perhaps we are.

Diego Velásquez, Los Borrachos, circa 1626-1628, Oil on canvas, 5’ 5” x 7’ 5”, Museo Nacional Del Prado

68 Divinity Meets Man The mind, the soul becomes ennobled by the endeavor to create something perfect, for God is perfection, and whoever strives after perfection is striving for something divine. — Michelangelo Buonarotti

Diego Velásquez’ Los Borrachos encompasses this idea perfectly, where Bacchus himself, the Roman God of wine, sexuality, creativity, mirth, frenzy and madness, has arrived to serve drink to the common, mortal human beings who work in the vineyard. For me, the root idea of the painting sinks in if I acknowledge it this way: A God, servant of common laborers. I think this touches at the very core of our primordial human roots in that we want, hope, and dream that we are watched and aided by an observer higher than ourselves. Or maybe another way to say it simply is that we hope we are not alone . . . and especially not alone in the dark. I often imagine moments in early human existence where many of us were, in fact, just that—alone in the dark! And then what comfort, what a miracle, these stories of the Gods that anthropologically took shape, like a sudden shaft of light in the darkness to the primordial human experience. They told us not only are we not alone, but that we are cared for, and we are rooted for, we are served and applauded, and we are held accountable for what we do by a divine observer.

69 The Triumph of Bacchus (detail), 2017, Oil on linen, 80 x 62 inches The Triumph of Bacchus, 2017, Oil on linen, 80 x 62 inches The Triumph of Bacchus, 2017, Oil on linen, 80 x 62 inches 70 In paintings where the concept of “Divinity Meets Man” functions as the theme, the figures play out their relationship to their divine observer(s), and their awareness of God/the Gods is apparent and evident; we have entered into a pictorial world where life has meaning. Considering the higher meaning in emblematic light and shadow, as discussed above, these paintings also suggest that we are part human and part divine, and with the primordial human psyche there seems to be something in us that really knows that, or wants to know that. Human nature by and large seems to hold a nostalgic yearning for this divine connection and for seeing it represented in one way or another. Painting is one way to show that: to struggle, fail and succeed in the search for meaning in existence, or at least to express what it feels like to be human, to be alive.

71 In the Shadows (Boy Meets Man), 2017, Oil on linen, 28 x 21 inches The Search for Meaning Art is the greatest possible rationalization of our deepest fears, joys, and instincts as human beings. — Martha Mayer Erlebacher

Ultimately, the function of art has always been to address the search for meaning in existence. It has always been in our human nature to search, find, create (and concoct if necessary) a feeling of importance, a mandated existence.

While historical works of Art show no confusion about this, I think an important filter for us to apply is to ask how our subject matter connects to the larger idea of existence. There can be a very fine line between a work that deals with small, trivial, or overly personal/individual moments of our existence, and a work that takes the same subject matter, assesses how it connects to all of humanity, and then asks how this brings some feeling of gravitas to the entire human condition.

I think it’s important for us to metaphorically “zoom out” from our subject matter. An example, one that I see a lot, is the student who feels compelled to make a work that basically commemorates a specific heartbreak they experienced, and to make the narrative of that work specific to the literal/personal story that they themselves experienced, right down to the individual people who took part in the drama. The viewer sees this work, but no one cares.

I’ve watched these fledgling artists evolve before my eyes from self-focused, depressive, sad, lost “poets” to empowered visionaries, compelled with purpose to create meaningful art when they realize one idea: Their personal drama can be unpacked and broadened, to grapple with the larger topic of loss, abandonment, grief, and in doing so their art can both exalt and console every person that is forced to undertake those experiences. The moment the concept of an artwork evolves to approach the larger aspects of humanity, it has surely expanded to a more powerful function.

At the possible expense of popularity and notoriety, my own choice has been to try to ally myself with painters of the past who have made work that touches on what feels true, important, and eternal to humanity. Caveats aside, in doing so I find myself incredibly moved and inspired to make work that touches upon these mysteries of the human experience: the arrival of the light; the divine and the human; and, the search for meaning in our existence. In these moments, we are simultaneously vulnerable and powerful, and so too is the work we make. 72 73 Christ Crucified,2017, Oil on linen, 60 x 40 inches ABOUT NOAH BUCHANAN

Noah Buchanan’s work is based in the tradition of the Figure, and favors themes of the mythic and symbolic. He is primarily interested in depicting the human figure as an ana- tomical event, which houses the spirit of the human condition, and it’s relationship to the divine. His work is committed to the use of 16th and 17th century painting techniques, and aesthetics in light, to suggest human struggle in the search for meaning in life. Buchanan studied painting, drawing as well as extensive studies in human anatomy at the Pennsylva- nia Academy of the Fine Arts and the New York Academy of Art. He lives and works on the North Coast of California.

Website: http://www.noahbuchananart.com 74 When working plein air, speed is of the essence and the result is typically a looser painting. I find when students paint from reference photos, however, that their work becomes very tight. The knowledge that your scene will not be changing at all allows for more time to analyze, which can be a good thing, but too often the details take over and the work becomes a rendering instead of a painting. I don’t want viewers to look at my watercolors and be able to tell which were done on location and which were done in the studio. In order to get students to stop nit-picking and still paint boldly, I make them do a value study prior to the painting which focuses on the large shapes and helps them stay on track toward a fresh watercolor. Here I will demonstrate the process. Step 1: I always begin with a drawing of the scene onto my watercolor paper, concentrating mainly on the large important shapes. If possible I like to do a contour drawing, as that gets me thinking right off the bat about how shapes connect to each other.

Value 1: My value studies are an extremely important aspect to my technique. In order to find possibilities for lost edges and large shapes, it’s vital that I identify the overall pattern of light and shadow. I squint at the scene, and everything that appears “light” I leave as the white of the paper. Everything else is connected into one large middle value shape. The middle value stage is where most beginning watercolorists struggle, as they tend to paint individual “things” with hard edges or white spaces surrounding all the elements of the scene. Too many shapes is distracting. 76 Step 2: When I begin work on the color painting, I can stay very loose, working wet-in-wet. All I’m doing at this stage is putting on local color in those light areas that were left white paper on the value study. At each stage of the watercolor, I have to remember to leave behind areas that are lighter than the wash I’m applying (due to watercolor’s transparency). On this first wash the only thing lighter would be the shapes that I want to remain white paper, in this case the highlights on the boats.

Step 3: I like to have my reference photo and the value study right in front of me while working on the painting. Each is a valuable resource; the photo for color and detail and the value study to remind myself of the large shapes. I paint from reference photographs quite often, but my plein air work informs my process at all times. The pitfall when working from photographs can be a tendency to put in too much detail. 77 Just because the camera saw it, that doesn’t mean it has to end up in your painting. Step 4: Now I am painting that same large, connected, middle value shape that I found on my value study. In order to repeat that shape, I have to start at the edge of my paper somewhere and work from the “bead,” or the wet edge, of my wash. In this photo you can see the sky connecting to the elevator, the elevator connecting to the boats, the boats connecting to each other, etc. Those lost edges are spots where watercolor is at its most beautiful, where the water and pigment are left alone to do their thing. It’s unique to the medium, and it’s the reason I paint with watercolor. 78 Step 5: The finished middle value stage of the painting. If you compare this to the first step of the value study, you can see that the two shapes are quite similar. Obviously the color painting has greater variety, but the lost edges are due to the fact I took the time to find a large abstract pattern from a fairly complicated reference pho- to.

Value 2: After I’ve gotten a nice large connected wash on my painting, I’ll go back to my value study and find dark areas that I can use to define shapes more clearly and give the illusion of detail.Again, I’ll concern myself with leaving behind areas of that middle value wash by negatively painting around some important elements. I don’t try to connect all my darks, but any time I can join two or three shapes into one I feel it helps the design of the painting. These value studies usually have a clean, decisive aspect to them that is difficult to maintain in the actual painting. I have to keep reminding myself that less is more. 79 Steps 6 (above) and 7 (next page): In addition to painting in dark shapes with my brush, this is a time for scraping out details with my fingernail or a small knife. I have to catch these details while the wash is still damp in order to lift paint off and show the underlying dry color. This is much easier than trying to paint around every little rope, wire or tree branch, but it takes practice and timing. If I want a brighter light I’ll wait until the wash is dry and use a knife to scrape down to the white of the paper. 80 81 The finished painting, Storage Space. By using a good reference photo that contains all the information I need and more, in conjunction with a value study that simplifies the scene into its basic elements, I’m able to complete a painting that is convincing enough but maintains a bit of looseness and an impressionistic quality that elevates it from a mere rendering.

Labyrinth (detail) 82 ABOUT ANDY EVANSEN

Andy Evansen’s interest in art started in childhood, as he can’t recall a time when he wasn’t drawing. He decided to pursue a career in art and attended the University of Minnesota’s commercial illustration program. He worked as a medical illustrator in Minneapolis, creating artwork for medical device companies, textbooks and surgeons. Once that industry became dependent on digital art, he longed for a return to fine art and began watercolor painting.

Choosing a ‘style’ was not difficult, as Andy was always inspired by the watercolor paintings of British artists Trevor Chamberlain, David Curtis, Ed Seago and John Yardley, among others. He found himself attempting to capture the landscape with the same economy of brushstroke, taking advantage of the luminosity of watercolors done in just a few washes. In addition, he was impressed with the way those artists seemed to capture everyday scenes in such a way that revealed a hidden beauty, subjects that many would simply pass by. This appealed to Andy as he grew up in the rural Midwest of the United States, far from the large, bustling cities of the east coast or the drama of the Pacific on the west coast. His familiarity and love of simple farm scenes and small towns is evident in his work today.

His work gained recognition after winning an international watercolor competition through American Artist magazine, appearing on their cover in 2005. He’s been featured in numerous other publications since, and has become a sought-after workshop instructor who paints and teaches internationally. He became a signature member of the prestigious Plein Air Painters of America (PAPA) in 2012 and was elected their President in 2015.

His paintings have won numerous awards, including the Bronze Medal of Honor at the 2012 American Watercolor Society Exhibition, and in 2015 he received the High Winds Medal and his signature status from the American Watercolor Society. His love of painting on location also led to him being a featured presenter at the 2014 and 2016 Plein Air Conventions and inclusion in the 2017 Qingdao International Masters Watercolor Plein Air Event.

Andy has been asked to jury several exhibitions, including the Hoosier Salon in 2016 and the New England Water- color Society, Philadelphia Watercolor Society and Red River Watercolor Society National Exhibitions in 2017.

83 Website: http://www.evansenartstudio.com All of us are aware that art in all its forms serves as universal language for humanity. In addition to showing us common ground, it can also point to myriad differences. My abstracts stir emotions and often engender conversation that spotlight individual differences in imagination, thought, and analysis. I respect every individual’s unique identity and en- courage them to experience my abstracts, to think for themselves, feel what they feel, and set their imagination free!

It is rare for me to give a narrative for one of my abstracts or to assign a name (in the traditional sense). To do so would guide the viewer toward some prescribed process or con- clusion. When I do assign a name, it is because I feel very strongly about the name for that particular painting. By use of “Abstract U-__###____”, each painting is identified while honoring every person’s raw, unscripted response as well as interpretation and/or analysis. Abstract U—164, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches

I celebrate all color and natural rhythms. I marvel at all the color that surrounds me and at times changes before my eyes, engulfing the landscape and me. No matter how technically correct, a painting is simply a reflection of the reality of the place—a mere snapshot of a moment in time—“freeze-framing” colors, lighting, and motion.

And yet, I continue to hold my canvas up to reflect reality—most often the reality of color, lighting, and motion and the experience of their convergence. Sometimes I paint someone’s emotional reality, sometimes my emotional reality, and sometimes the reality of simple fantasy play. Always my perceptual experience interfaces with the paint as I am putting it on the canvas. Upon completion of a painting, it is put forth for viewers to experience. Col- ors may attract or repel. The art acts as provocateur of individual ideas, thoughts, feelings, and imagination. It triggers interpretations through filters of one’s own unique experience.

85 Abstract U—228, Oil on linen, 50 x 70 inches

Abstract U—165, Oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches 86 Of course the true splendor and magnificence is all around us. It has already been created and is there for us to “drink in” with all our senses. Paint on canvas can reflect these realities; can stir the senses; can awaken the soul to realities knowable to the spirit within. However, paint on canvas can never create that which it reflects.

87 Abstract U—308, Oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches Spring Thaw, Oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches Spring Thaw, Oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches Abstract U—313, Oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches 88 Note for Collectors

I have been a professional artist for 20-plus years. For the first several years I painted traditional landscapes, wildlife, and still life. Occasionally I would go my own way by painting an abstract. In 2012 I decided to pursue a path for which I had no mentor. My abstracts were juried into the “World of Art Showcase” held at the Wynn resort in Las Vegas. It was an international show that had many artists considered to be some of the best in the world. From there I continued to paint abstracts in my own style and labeled them with my own nomenclature because I did not consider myself an “abstract expressionist” painter.

Not too long after the Las Vegas show, I received an invitation to submit a portfolio to the curatorial committee at the Amsterdam Whitney International Gallery of Fine Art in New York City. I submitted my portfolio and was juried in for a group show in 2013. I attended the opening, and Ruthie Tucker, the owner of the gallery, asked to meet with me before I flew back to Texas. She was complimentary in her critique of my paintings, but also made it clear to me that what I was painting was abstract expressionism, and that I should stop calling them by any other label. I took her advice.

That same year I was contacted by Art Fusion Galleries, an international gallery in Miami. I placed work there. Toward the end of the year I was invited to join Open Art Code, based in Florence, Italy. In 2014, Dominique Chapelle, President of the Society of Independent Artists and Vice President Art Capital 2014 wrote the following description: “Open Art Code represents a group of artists who have very different styles, techniques, artistic training and for many years now, they have exhibited together worldwide. The complicity they have acquired at these various international shows, allows them to participate at extremely prestigious exhibitions and events.” (Grand Palais Paris 2014 /Art en Capital catalog of Open Art Code participants) I was one of the 29 international artists from the OpenArtCode group who were invited to exhibit that year. Other exhibitions and recognitions include:

In 2014 I participated in another group exhibition at the Amsterdam Whitney International Art Gallery in New York City, and in December in a special exhibition at Art Fusion Galleries, during Miami Art Basel Week

2015 – Art en Capital, Grand Palais, Paris

July – Art of the Americas, Toronto – I was invited to be the US artist is this exhibition that was held during the Pan American Games.

Named one of the Top 60 Contemporary Masters of Contemporary Art by international jury selected by Art Tour International Magazine. Abstract U-312 was awarded the “Timeless Image” award. 89 December – special exhibition, Art Fusion Galleries, Miami Art Basel Week 2016 – I was again named one of the Top 60 Contemporary Masters of Contemporary Art by international jury selected by Art Tour International Magazine. A second international jury selected the top 15 from the field of 60. I was chosen as one of the top 15.

October – Art of the Americas, Lima, Peru

December – exhibited with Art Tour International Magazine in their booth in Spectrum during Miami Art Basel Week

2017

February – Art en Capital, Grand Palais, Paris

March – London Art Biennale, London

May – Awards ceremony and exhibition for Art Tour International Magazine (Named one of the Top 60 Masters of Contemporary Art. My work was also selected for an additional special award.)

June18-July 23 – Americans in London II, OXO Tower Wharf, London

August 29-September 24 – Expo Chianciano Museum Exhibition at Chianciano Museum, Chian- cianco, Italy

September 27-October 8 – Group exhibition, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tokyo

October 24-26 – Art of the Americas on the occasion of Canada’s 150th anniversary, Ottawa (One of two artists invited to represent the USA at this exhibition.)

December – special exhibition – Art Fusion Galleries, Miami Basel Art Week

I have listed all the above to inform not only of the international appeal of my work, but also of my dedication and resolve as an artist.

Riptide (detail), 2016, colored pencil on Bristol board, 30 x 20 inches 90 ABOUT KAY GRIFFITH

Kay Griffith is one of the top abstract expressionism artists alive today.

This abstract expressionist was born in Texas, U.S.A. The experience of the convergence of color natural rhythms, light, and shadow always captivated Kay. This experience of convergence and use of texture as she paints, brings sophistication to her abstract paintings. Experience is reflected onto the canvas.

In 2016 Texas artist, Kay Griffith, was named one of the Top 15 Masters of Contemporary Art in the world by a very prestigious jury of art experts from Brazil, Canada, and Italy. The announcement followed Art Tour Interna- tional Magazine naming her one of the Top 60 Masters of Contemporary Art for 2016. This was the second time that Griffith was selected as one of the Top 60 Masters of Contemporary Art by Art Tour International Magazine. The first time was in 2015. That year, one of her paintings was also selected for a special award. Abstract U-312 (Oil on Canvas 48x60 inches) was awarded The Timeless Image Award.

By invitation, Griffith is a member of Open Art Code. Based in Florence, Italy, the organization is composed of a group of renowned artists who have very different technical styles and a varied artistic formation. They have united their talents to exhibit together worldwide, participating at extremely prestigious exhibitions and events. As a member of this group, she has exhibited for 3 years alongside the Salon des Artistes Independants of France at Art en Capital, held at the Grand Palais in Paris, France. The last time was in February, 2017.

In 2015, Griffith represented her country, The United States of America, in the Art of the Americas in Toronto, Canada. In October, 2016, she again represented the United States of America in the Art of the Americas in Lima, Peru.

England was introduced to Griffith in 2017. Her work was juried in London Biennale. This event was held March 29 - April, 2017.

In the beginning of her art career, Griffith sold her paintings in her local geographic area. In 2003 she opened her own studio (Griffith Fine Art Gallery) in Salado, Texas. To date, she continues to paint and exhibit work there. In 2012, Kay decided it was time to pursue the quest of becoming the most successful artist she could be. Soon thereafter she applied to an international show. She was one of 80 artists worldwide chosen by a jury to exhibit in the World of Art Showcase held at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas. One result of that event was an invitation to submit a portfolio for possible exhibition at the Amsterdam Whitney International Gallery in New York City. Again, her work was juried in, and Kay had her first art exhibition in NewYork.

Kay’s pursuit of excellence and artistic success never waivers. She has intense focus on becoming the best and most successful artist that her talent and determination can accomplish both at home and internationally.

Griffith is represented by Art Fusion Galleries in Miami, Florida. 2016 marked the 4th year that her work was in the gallery’s special exhibition during Art Basel Miami. Twice Griffith has received Honorable Mention in international contests (hosted by Art Fusion) that involved all mediums and styles. Griffith has had exhibitions in New York City and shows full time in Greenwich, Connecticut at CParker Gallery.

91 Website: http://www.kaygriffithart.com Thank You for Reading!

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