Tag Archives: Artist Profiles

Artist Profile Video: Scottish Painter Peter Doig – ‘Boiler House’ (1994)

In 1991, the Scottish artist Peter Doig (b. 1959) visited Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation in northeast France, a utopian housing project that had opened in 1961 in Briey-en-Fôret, then been abandoned.

To Doig, the project was a temple of hope laid to ruin, and the nine large-scale canvases it inspired — Doig’s seminal ‘Concrete Cabins’ series, the largest and most distinctive cycle in Doig’s oeuvre — became a meditation on the decay of Le Corbusier’s modernist vision of social cohesion.

Boiler House was first exhibited in Salzburg after Doig had won the Eliette von Karajan prize in 1994, and was included in Doig’s 2008 retrospective at Tate Britain. It stands alone within the cycle, an isolated building in the forest.

Depicting the building designed to house the estate’s coal boiler, it is rendered in fluid trails of impasto, and carries a stark anthropomorphic charge, the angular geometries looming large through a screen of trees, shifting in and out of focus like a memory or fragments from a movie reel.

Learn More: https://www.christies.com/features/Bo…

Art: The ‘Dangerously Independent Women’ Of Italian Painter Vittorio Corcos (1859-1933)

He went on to become a highly respected portraitist, counting Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, Benito Mussolini and opera star Lina Cavalieri among his subjects. In Coy’s view, however, his portraits were relatively conventional offerings — and Corcos’s ‘best work’ was his turn-of-the-century imagery of ‘dangerously independent women’.

Compare the biographies of Vittorio Corcos (1859-1933) and Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920), and a remarkable number of similarities become apparent. Both were born into Jewish families in the Italian port city of Livorno in the second half of the 19th century; both would settle — and artistically come of age — in Paris. Both would even excel at the same type of paintings: their provocative depictions of women.

Their reputations, however, have suffered widely different fates. Modigliani, who struggled to sell much work before his death at the age of 35, is today regarded as a master of Modernism. Corcos, by contrast, who enjoyed a long and prosperous international career, posthumously became a rather forgotten figure.

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Profiles: London Artist Flora Yukhnovich – ‘Art Of Tiepolo As Abstraction’

September 23, 2020

…she decided to trace Tiepolo’s travels across Europe, from Venice to Germany and Spain, riffing on the works he created in these different places. ‘I realised I had basically followed Tiepolo’s journey since leaving Venice towards his death,’ she notes. ‘It was quite weird and morbid but also kind of appropriate for finishing off my Tiepolo cycle.’

Déjà vu isn’t dangerous for Flora Yukhnovich – it’s part of her art. ‘I think what I find really rewarding about working from old paintings is the moment when it all comes together and you feel like you recognise it,’ she tells me. ‘It’s such a weird, instinctive feeling […] like kissing an old friend.’

A shift in interest coincided with an invitation to Venice, via a residency with Victoria Miro. It was while living there during the summer of 2019 that she became immersed in the work of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and his own particular brand of Venetian rococo. The resulting exhibition at the Victoria Miro gallery is called ‘Barcarole’ after the song sung by Venetian gondoliers, a tune known for its rhythmic sway in time with lapping lagoon waves.

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Top Watercolor Artists: American Painter Marilyn Simandle – “Choice Light”

Marilyn Simandle is an internationally known oil and water color painter. At the age of six, and learning from her mother, a musician and painter, Marilyn started painting watercolors. She has always known that she would become a professional artist. 

After receiving her BA Arts Degree from San Jose State University along with decades of discipline and dedicated practice, Marilyn has gone on to share her inspirations with the world. She is credentialed as a Master with OPAM, NWS, and AWS (Oil Painters of America, National Water Color Society, and American Water Color Society). She has authored two books, “Capturing Light in Watercolor” and “Contagious Enthusiasm”, both of which reflect her mantra “It takes a lot of practice to become a professional”. 

A native Californian, she now resides in Hampton Cove, Alabama, where she explores all her passions: painting, gardening, and playing the piano. The former flight attendant is an avid traveler and photographer that keep her fully stocked with subject matter for painting.

In her “Painterly Style”, Marilyn tries to convey her own personal beliefs of what art truly is. Her mentors are John Singer Sargent and Joaquin Sorolla. The artist’s role is to make the ordinary extraordinary. She loves to explore the interplay of light and shadow and its effects on the subject matter. Her painting compositions engage her collectors with uplifting shapes, values, and exciting colors, tonal relations and depth. Marilyn believes it is far better to leave a painting more unfinished rather than with too much detail so the viewer can complete the painting. It is more free to view a single brush stroke done with energy and confidence that 100 strokes done with drudgery. 

Marilyn often says “You become what you behold”. This is ever so evident in her paintings. Peace, joy, rest and comfort are realized by her followers and collectors through her work. A student of Marilyn’s successful workshops was once heard to say to Marilyn, “You have given me a new insight to painting and have instilled in me courage and inspiration to keep painting.”

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Top Artist Profile: Italian Illustrator Carlo Stanga

Born in Italy, Carlo has been always deeply passionate about drawing.

After graduating in Architecture at the Polytechnic of Milan, he chose to further his education attending art and design studies. He collaborated with the premier italian designer Bruno Munari, an amazing experience that influenced his way to see the world.

As an editorial and advertising illustrator, Carlo works with major italian magazines and newspapers and with international clients in Europe and in the U.S.

His distinctive style continually wins Italian Illustration awards and the work has been selected by The American Illustration Annual and won the Gold Medal Award in Creative Quarterly’s #15 contest and Awards of Excellence from Communication Arts.

In 2015 he wrote and illustrated  I am Milan, followed by I am London and  I am New York the first title of a new book collection, published by Moleskine, dedicated to the main cities of the world.

Carlo lives and works in Berlin.

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Artist Profiles: Canadian Painter Sophia Morrison

In the field of painting, Sophia Morrison explores composition and design in inks, watercolour, acrylics and mixed media.  Her experimental approach allows for elements of surprise and discovery.  Each of her paintings is an adventure and any subject may become part of the process.

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Top Artists Profiles: Illustrator Gabriella Marsh – “Sublime Lines”

Gabriella Marsh is a freelance designer, illustrator and animator based in London. She loves drawing, painting and all things hand rendered so all work begins on paper before being set on the computer, tidied up and make to move. She is currently at the Royal College of Art doing an MA in experimental animation.

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Artist Profile Videos: German Painter Georg Baselitz (Gagosian)

Richard Calvocoressi narrates a tour of an exhibition of new paintings by Georg Baselitz in San Francisco, describing the visual effect of these luminous compositions and explaining their relationship to earlier works by the artist: http://on.gagosian.com/4lzd0i9

Georg Baselitz (born 23 January 1938) is a German painter, sculptor and graphic artist. In the 1960s he became well known for his figurative, expressive paintings. In 1969 he began painting his subjects upside down in an effort to overcome the representational, content-driven character of his earlier work and stress the artifice of painting. Drawing from myriad influences, including art of Soviet era illustration art, the Mannerist period and African sculptures, he developed his own, distinct artistic language.

Top Artist Profiles: Brazilian Watercolorist Antonio Giacomin

Antonio Giacomin was born in Serra Gaúcha, where, in 1980, he started in the universe of painting. It was to improve in the United States, Mexico and Europe. In 2007, he launched the book “Poesias em Aquarela”, an inventory of thematic images resulting from trips undertaken in various regions of Rio Grande do Sul.

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In 2012, in partnership with the writer Nivaldo Pereira, he launched the book “Jeitos de Ser Brasil” , in which aspects of Brazilian culture were recorded. In 2014, in partnership with Marcos Fernando Kirst, he launched the work “Serra Gaúcha: O Passado Presente”. He won the contest to choose the design of the Queen’s crown at the 2014 Grape Festival. He lives and works in Caxias do Sul, where he maintains his studio.

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Artist Profile: Scottish Painter David Roberts Masterpieces Of “Seville Cathedral” In 1833 (Video)

Sotheby's logoThese two magnificent paintings by Scottish artist David Roberts exquisitely capture the essence of life in Seville in the 1800s. Hear how Roberts, one of the most widely travelled artist explorers of the 19th century, executed these resplendent views of the Cathedral – one capturing the ceremony of the Corpus Christi festival, the other displaying the bustle of life outside. ‘Interior of the Cathedral of Seville’ and ‘The Moorish Tower at Seville’.