Eva Hesse: Vitreous Painting on glass

Eva Hesse, Vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10”

b. 1936, Hamburg; d. 1970, New York City

Eva Hesse was born January 11, 1936, in Hamburg. Her family fled the Nazis and arrived in New York in 1939. She became a United States citizen in 1945. When Hesse was ten years old, her mother committed suicide. Racked with anxiety throughout most of her life, Hesse nonetheless persevered in her single-minded pursuit of making art. She attended the School of Industrial Art, then Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1952, and Cooper Union from 1954 to 1957. After winning a scholarship to the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Music and Art, Norfolk, Connecticut, in 1957, she was accepted by the School of Art and Architecture at Yale University, New Haven, where she studied painting with Josef Albers. In 1959, Hesse received her B.F.A. from Yale and returned to New York, where she worked as a textile designer.

In 1961, Hesse was included in group exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum and at the John Heller Gallery, New York. That year, she married the sculptor Tom Doyle. She made her first three-dimensional object—a costume made of chicken wire and soft jersey—for a Happening organized by Allan Kaprow, Walter De Maria, and others in 1962. Hesse had her first solo show, of drawings, the following year at the Allan Stone Gallery, New York. In 1964, she and Doyle spent over a year living in Kettwig-am-Ruhr, Germany, under the patronage of a German textile manufacturer and art collector. While in Europe, they traveled intermittently to Italy, France, and Switzerland. Hesse’s first solo show of sculpture was presented at the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, in 1965.

She and Doyle returned to New York in 1965 and separated after several months. Hesse began to use latex to make sculpture in 1967, and then fiberglass the following year. She started to gain recognition by the late 1960s, with solo shows at the Fischbach Gallery, New York, and inclusion in many important group exhibitions. While Hesse’s work shows affinities with the concerns of Minimalism, it cannot be easily characterized under any particular art movement. From 1968 to 1970, Hesse taught at the School of Visual Arts, New York. In 1969, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and after three operations within a year, she died May 29, 1970.

For more information on Eva Hesse: http://www.nmwa.org/collection/profile.asp?LinkID=859

To view my forming archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

High Museum of Art in Atlanta: Two Exhibitions 2011

Kiki Smith

American, born 1954

Born, 2002

Color lithograph, 68⅛ x 56⅛ inches.

On Friday I was able to view two exhibitions at the High Museum of Art, especially relevant to my work and research:

1. "Picasso to Warhol: Fourteen Modern Masters"

http://www.high.org/moma.aspx#/Picasso-to-Warhol/landing

I was happy to see that at least one female artist was represented in the exhibition, Louise Joséphine Bourgeois

and one black american artist, Romare Bearden. In the end though it left me feeling the exhibition curators included these two to placate political correctness, rather than a true effort in re-informing the art canon of Modern Art.

I most enjoyed seeing the maquette of Henri Matisse's window for the Rockefeller Center, which was a life size cut-out rendering for the window. I have never seen a stained glass maquette in color as large. It was really fascinating to see a maquette exhibited as a piece of artwork, and gives me some cues on cultivating that as an exercise in my own work. I also was humored by the lack of exactness in the cutting and pasting; something which I would criticize my own students about, and something I remember hating when I was a student in Color class at MICA. I always hated that rubber cement and envied other students that were able to neatly glue without smudges and marks on the colored papers.

2. "Kiki Smith: Rituals"

http://www.high.org/Art/Exhibitions/Kiki-Smith.aspx

So I viewed my first Kiki Smith exhibit, at least that I can recall. She was exhibited at Weatherspoon Museum in Greensboro in the past, but I do not have a direct recollection of viewing. I enjoyed seeing the works, mostly prints and at least one sculpture. I found her works very metaphorical and symbolic.

Uomini Famosi at 40 women artists

Still playing with the archive in Picasa to format the composition of the portraits. Here is the archive at 40 portraits.

You can view the hypertext with their names at: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Ana Mendieta: Vitreous painting on glass

Ana Mendieta, Vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10”

Ana Mendieta (American, born Cuba 1948–1985) is an artist whose career can be distinguished in part by her experimentation with a diverse range of artistic media.

Mendieta produced work in the seventies in which she used her own body as a medium. In opposition to the predominant modernist theories of the time, this concept was being used by several other women artist as a feminist assertion of female body as a vehicle for personal and social expression. These women's emphasis on the female body as a realistic tool for the woman artist, challenged the male tradition of the idealized female nude; and was a precursor to the direction toward the refiguration of the body in the rest of the art community during the eighties.

Mendieta sought to establish a "dialog between the landscape and the female body return to the maternal source." She envisioned the female body as a primal source of life and sexuality, as a symbol of the ancient paleolithic goddesses. Between 1973 and 1980, Mendieta created her signature series, entitled "Silueta" or silhouette. Here, Mendieta used her body or images of her body in combination with natural materials. The pieces were transient, created and then photographed just before or during their destruction. The materials used were highly symbolic. In one work from the "Silueta" series, she outlined her figure with gunpowder, creating a shape reminiceint of prehistoric cave paintings. By setting it alight, she incorporates the ritualistic use of fire as a source of exorcism and purification. Mendieta also used flowers as mediums in her series, quoting the folk traditions of Mexico. Her primary material was the earth itself. In her "Tree of Life" series, she covered her naked body with mud and posed against and enormous tree. Ridding herself of her color and form, she is visually united with the tree, arms raised in supplication.

Tragically, Ana Mendieta died at age thirty-six, the result of a fall from an apartment window in New York in 1985. She left over 200 photographs documenting her body works, and a generation indebted to her innovation and ideals.

For more information on Ana Mendieta: http://clara.nmwa.org/index.php?g=entity_detail&entity_id=5620

To view my forming archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

!WAR film

I have to blog about this before too much time passes. Last Wednesday night, about the only night I would have been able to attend, the screening of !WAR (Women's Art Revolution) was shown at the auditorium of the Salem Fine Arts Center.

I have been waiting on pins and needles to have the opportunity for it to come to Winston Salem and so pleased Salem College and their Arts Department provided such an opportunity.

I am greatly indebted to Kim Varnadoe, Visual Arts Department Chair and gallery curator.

The film was shown in conjunction with their current show, the "F" Word: Feminism. I would have liked to have been part of this exhibit, but I would have had to edit these pieces out of my solo exhibition coming up there in February/March. So I opted out of extracting, to be able to display my entire archive.

So excited though, that all of these pieces are coming together! Serendipity lives!

This archive I think could go on forever, and I am committed to keep on, as long as it takes. These first fifty, may just be the tip, I was writing so fast during the film of all the new names. Starting on Ana Mendieta today in honor of !WAR. I think she may also cultivate as a meta-narrative painting. ...Thinking on it.

You can learn more about the film at: http://womenartrevolution.com/index.php

Jenny Holzer: Vitreous Painting on glass

Jenny Holzer, Vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10”

Jenny Holzer was born in Gallipolis, Ohio, on July 29, 1950. She studied in the liberal arts program at Duke University for two years before transferring to the University of Chicago. One year later, Holzer transferred to Ohio University, where she focused on fine art studies. There she received her BFA in painting and printmaking in 1972. She continued her education at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she met Michael Glier, a fellow student, whom she married in 1984.

In 1977 Holzer was awarded an M.F.A. in painting by Rhode Island School of Design. It was during her graduate study at the Whitney Museum of American Art's Independent Study Program that she started experimentation in public art and words first entered her work. The first posters titled "Truisms" (1977-1979) surfaced throughout Manhattan. Her primary medium, language, structured her subsequent works.

The "Inflammatory Essays" text (1979-1982) was shown on street posters; "The Living Series" text (1980-1982), was cast on multiple bronze wall plaques.

Her work reached an even larger audience when she employed the large Spectacolor Board to convey her newly created "Survival Series" (1983-1985) text to New Yorkers frequenting the Times Square area in New York City. Ultimately she used electronic signboards and L.E.D. (light-emitting-diode) signs to reach the general public and museum audiences alike. In conjunction with the signs, she employed stone benches and sarcophagi etched with works titled "Under a Rock" (1986) and "Laments" (1989).

In 1990 Holzer was elected to represent the United States at the 44th Venice Biennale. Her installation, consisting of rooms filled with various texts including the latest series "Mother and Child" (1990). The texts, shown in multiple languages, pervaded the installation by way of L.E.D. signs, benches, and floor tiles. Holzer won the Leone d'Oro for best pavilion.

Her more recent work, "War" texts (1992), "Lustmord" (1993-1994) and "Erlauf Peace" texts (1995), focuses on the atrocities of war. The "War" text, first shown in installation at the Kunsthalle in Basel, Switzerland, speaks of wartime disaster. "Lustmord" is written from three different perspectives (the Observer, the Perpetrator and the Victim) regarding the rape of women in wartime. The "Lustmord" photographs, images of the text written on human skin, originally were presented in the magazine of the Suddeutsche Zeitung, reaching five hundred thousand readers. The ink used on the cover of this magazine contained women's blood.

The "Erlauf Peace" texts memorialize lives lost and peace gained in World War II. Two commemorative installations, the Erlauf Peace Monument in Erlauf, Austria, and the Black Garden, in Nordhorn, Germany, incorporate the design of landscape with Holzer's inscribed benches and stone pathways.

In addition to her permanent installations, Holzer's latest projects explore the capacities of modern technology and its ability to reach a growing audience. Her Web site, Please Change Beliefs, makes her original "Truisms" texts available for altering.

Holzer resides in Hoosick, NY with her husband and their daughter, Lili.

For more information on Jenny Holzer: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/jenny-holzer

To view my Uomini Famosi: forming archive of women artists, view: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

No Boundaries Excursion 2011

I had the profound opportunity and experience to be a part of No Boundaries, an artists colony on Bald Head Island, NC. My mentor Pam Toll, is a co-founder of this artist colony. On alternating years it is an International Artist Colony.

Pam invited me as a guest and student this year. I worked hard over the 4 days I was there. Here are some photographs, concluding with my visit to Fayetteville to see AIB MFA colleague, Dwight S. on the way home.

As Google Maps would have it, it took me through Fayetteville on my travels eastbound to catch the ferry in Southport to Bald Head Island. I thought it would be great to visit with Dwight on the return trip.

The artist colony was manifold with wonderful attributes: the other artists, the local hospitality, the environment, the opportunity to absorb into your work, walking on the beach at sunrise, celebrating 11/11/11 together, the warm sunshine after cool mornings, coffee that would put hair on your chest, toasting with wine in hand...

Look forward to our exhibit at Acme Arts in Wilmington in late January, and seeing wonderful new friends again!

My photo album of this excursion may be viewed at: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/NoBoundariesExcursion2011

Guerilla Girl 3: Vitreous Painting on Glass

Okay so my archive is coming down homestretch with 38 portraits now complete. I have just completed my 3rd Guerilla Girl, just in time to finally be able to view the !WAR (Women's Art Revolution) film next week at Salem College. This film, I believe, was released this past summer while I was at my 3rd residency in Boston. It is a film which travels to nationwide destinations upon request. So I am ecstatic at the opportunity to finally view it!

The evening was an interesting one: I went to my first Artworks Gallery members meeting and am excited to be a part of this group. I finally feel I have found my place here in Winston Salem. So I am in a celebration mode synchronized with the Guerilla Girls mission.

I really kind of like painting some of these Guerilla Girls, allowing me to have some fun and lightheartedness with all of this serious revolution philosophy. Guerilla Girl 3 is depicted in amber yellow, donning a yellow rose in her hair, and munching on an iconic banana. I am painting the Guerilla Girls on varied colors representative of a classification within the art canon. I am hoping to complete one more... I think on the rose color.

I had fun painting Frida's monkey last night as well, which will be included in the stained glass assemblage that is being completed. You will have to be patient to view this little monkey, until the work is complete.

You can view the 38 portraits now complete of my Uomini Famosi at: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass#

You can learn more about the !WAR (Women's Art Revolution) at: http://womenartrevolution.com/

Homage to Frida: Progress

My stained glass assemblage, Homage to Frida, has been progressing. All the pieces are cut and ground. I now need to work on painting details with vitreous paint, and pieces that will be fused millefiori.

You can view the progress of this piece at: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/113967877601706753492/albums/5627136653435512769?hl=en

Grace Hartigan: Vitreous Painting on Glass

Grace Hartigan, vitreous painting on glass, 8 x10”

Grace Hartigan (March 28, 1922 — November 15, 2008) was an American Abstract Expressionist painter of the New York School in the 1950s.

Grace Hartigan gained her reputation as part of the New York School of artists and painters that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and '50s. She was a lively participant in the vibrant artistic and literary milieu of the times, and her friends included Jackson Pollock, Larry Rivers, Helen Frankenthaler, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Frank O'Hara, Knox Martin, artists, poets, and writers. She was the only woman artist in the Museum of Modern Art's legendary The New American Painting exhibition, which toured Europe in the late 1950s.

Hartigan relocated to Baltimore, Maryland in the 1960s where she resided until her death. Over the years she has had dozens of solo exhibits, as well as participating in group shows for galleries such as Tibor de Nagy and Martha Jackson in New York, and her paintings are held by prestigious museums such as the Metropolitan Museum and the Whitney Museum of Art. From 1965 on she worked at the Maryland Institute, College of Art (MICA), where she was the director of the Hoffberger Graduate School of Painting.

For more information on Grace Hartigan:

http://clara.nmwa.org/index.php?g=entity_detail&entity_id=3514

To view my forming archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass