The Collage Experience at Art New York

Collage is not just about Cut and Paste…

I visited the VIP Preview at Art New York in May 2019 with a goal to see works in collage and works that explore a modern collage aesthetic – by important women artists. The fair, located at Pier 94, at 55^thStreet & Westside Highway is an international contemporary and modern art event (May 2-5, 2019).

Collage, if narrowly defined, is about cut and paste – typically with papers. Modern artists expanded its boundaries and contemporary painters use it as a visual model. A collage aesthetic can be the way a work of art is assembled or constructed. It can also be about a visual experience. We live in the age of collage.

Very quickly, I found three artists – an American Abstract Expressionist painter (Grace Hartigan) who also made paper collage, a French icon (Sonia Delaunay) who was represented at the fair by modern tapestry, and a contemporary American (Debbie Ma) who constructs large abstract paintings with marble dust. I was intrigued by the formal strategies and presentation of all three, and felt each artist offered a new way to view modern art in the context of the times in which she lives/lived.

 

Grace Hartigan, Dolls

The image above is a painting by Grace Hartigan (American, 1922-2008), seen at the C. Grimaldi Art Gallery booth at the fair.  It’s titled Dolls (1976), and is oil on canvas and 49 x 82 inches.  The collage aesthetic is expressed here in the way the artist juxtaposes figures in the painting composition.

Hartigan’s paintings included dolls, courtesans, film stars and mythical, chimerical creatures drawn from fantasy and, as the artist stated, “understanding the life you are living.” Many of the subjects she painted were poor or derelict people she saw on the streets in her neighborhood. Her life experience was a visual collage. The painting expresses the life she lived.

I learned Hartigan started to create collage in the late 1950s.

 

Grace Hartigan, collage

The two images, above and below, are collages by Grace Hartigan. From a distance I thought I was looking at collages by Lee Krasner (American, 1908 – 1984), but, walking closer, knew it was not true.

I’m reading Mary Gabriel’s book titled Ninth Street Women, subtitled Five Painters and the Movement that Changed Modern Art – about the rise of Abstract Expressionism in New York in the 1950s.  Grace Hartigan was one of the few female artists included in the movement with Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Arshile Gorky. She was known for combining gestural abstraction with imagery derived from art history and popular culture. She began to receive a high level of exposure, and her paintings were included in the exhibition 12 Americans at the Museum of Modern Art in NY (1956), as well as the exhibition The New American Paintings that traveled throughout Europe from 1958 to 1959. She had her first solo show in 1950, and three years later, her first major sale, when the Museum of Modern Art bought her painting titled The Persian Jacket (see below), oil on canvas, 57.5 x 48 inches.

 

Grace Hartigan, collage

 

Grace Hartigan, the Persian Jacket

 

Mary Gabriel’s book titled Ninth Street recounts the struggles of the early abstract expressionist artist, particularly the struggles of the women.

In 1960, Hartigan moved to Baltimore, and promptly fell off the NY art world map. Pop Art and Minimalism had eclipsed Abstract Expressionism, and male artists dominated the art market. Hartigan had to paint in a loft in a former Baltimore department store and taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art, but the college created a graduate school around her (the Hoffberger School of Painting) and she became director in 1965. Hartigan taught at the school until retiring in 2007, one year before she died.

Hartigan’s work is represented extensively in private and public collections, including the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

 

Geometric Abstraction and a Tapestry

 

Sonia Delaunay, tapestry at Art NY

I saw the image above at one of the first booths at Art NY. I walked closer to make sure the work was by Sonia Delaunay. I recognized the image because I am a great fan of the artist’s work. It’s titled Nocturne Matinale, and is a wool tapestry (commissioned ca. 1970), 70.9 x 71.1 inches. The gallerist told me Sonia Delaunay (French, born in Ukraine, 1885- 1970) was the first living female artist to have a retrospective at the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1964.  My image shows it’s a wall hanging and there are iron sculptures standing next to and in front.  I am familiar with Delaunay’s gouache paintings and prints, but never knew her works as tapestry in the same bold, geometric design.

 

Sonia Delaunay, Nocturne Matinale

The image above is another wool tapestry, also titled Nocturne Matinale, also 70.9 x 71,1 inches. With this image, you see the work without the distracting sculpture in front. Sonia Delaunay wrote: For me, the abstract and the sensual should come together…” The tapestry is lush and sensual. I wanted to touch it.

I’ve always loved and been inspired by Delaunay’s colors and geometric designs. The style is called Orphism. With her husband Robert, Sonia Delaunay was part of a group in Paris thatpioneered the style – a fusion of Cubism and Neo-Impressionism that was influenced by the vivid colors of Fauvism. In Orphism, primary and secondary colors (red with green, yellow with purple, and blue with orange) are combined to create a visual vibration.

 

Sonia Delaunay, Thunderbird

The image above is a lithograph on wove paper by Sonia Delaunay and is titled Thunderbird, ed/75, image size: 20 x 16.5 inches (52.5cm x 42 cm), sheet: 30 x 22 inches (75.5 cm x 56 cm).

 

Sonia Delaunay, Color Rhythm

The image above, by Sonia Delaunay, is titled Colour Rhythm No 1921, It’s gouache on paper, 1973 (collection: MoMA), 27 ¼ x 22 in (69.2z55.9 cm)

Sonia Delaunay died on December 5, 1979 in Paris, France at the age of 94. Today, the artist’s works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, among others.

 

Paintings and Marble Dust

 

Debbie Ma at Art NY

I selected Debbie Ma as the third artist for this post because I think her geometric paintings are stunning and believe her approach to painting personifies a collage aesthetic. I took the image of the artist with her work (above) at the fair. The work is titled No Way In (2019) and is marble dust on canvas, 64 x 80 x 3 in (162.5 x 203.1 x 7.6 cm).

 

DMD Contemporary booth at Art NY

Ma is represented by DMD Contemporary in NY, and the booth (seen above) at Art NY featured Debbie Ma as a solo artist. The paintings show depth, texture and tonality in the formal mix in every work.

 

Debbie Ma, Cross Country

The image above is by Debbie Ma, titled Cross Country (2006) and is a painting with marble dust on canvas, 60 x 36 inches (152 x 137 cm). Cross Country is a wobbly grid in brown black and white. It’s in the permanent collection at the David T. Owsley Museum of Art, Muncie, IN.

Debbie Ma’s works are a tapestry of quiet patterns in bold formation.  Her paintings are like visual two-dimensional sculptures. They are amazing to see in person.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

I chose 3 artists who lived at different times, in different places and worked in different media.

I created a collage experience for myself at Art New York in the way I viewed and experienced the art.

Please share you comments about the idea of a collage aesthetic.

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Mitchell Goldberg: Collage Artist

 

“Vicarious”

Solo Exhibition: November 1-25, 2018

Upstream Gallery, 8 Main Street, Hastings-On-Hudson, NY 10706

Reception: Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018 2-5 pm. Gallery hours: Thur – Sun, 12:30-5:30 pm

tel: 914 674 8548, web: http://www.upstreamgallery.com

 Interview: ©Nancy Egol Nikkal

 

Mitchell Goldberg titled this solo exhibition VICARIOUS and is showing his newest works in collage, image transfer and printmaking. The works focus on imagined or constructed memories of male companionship. Goldberg says: “I’m interested in male camaraderie, desire, and emotions related to body image.” His collages explore gay male sexuality through the lens of pop culture imagery, distorted memory and vicarious nostalgia.

“Vicarious” is an intriguing word. It’s an adjective used to modify another word. For example: “a vicarious thrill” – where the thrill is felt or enjoyed through imagined participation in the experience of others. As viewers, we can share in the pleasure of Goldberg’s love of his media. And – the media is the message.

Goldberg creates collage with cut and pasted papers, his own figure drawings, and image transfers of men from vintage magazines and photos. All the images are classic gay beefcake, soft gay porn, and automobiles, along with flashes of color and recycled imagery from his own work. Goldberg adds transparent layers of color in acrylic and encaustic to create depth and complexity to enhance the sense of memory altered, distorted and rewritten through the passage of time.

The artist adds: “while the works delve into the universal experience of loneliness, they also offer hope in the form of potential intimacy and companionship.”

 

Mitchell Goldberg, Remembering Them

The image above is titled “Remembering Them” and was the first work done for this exhibition. It’s a double panel collage (diptych) with acrylic and photo image transfer, 36 x 24 inches. The photos are almost all in B&W. The layered colors are blue and red. Goldberg says his assembly process for this work follows the same assembly process for media used in his previous solo exhibition.

 

Mitchell Goldberg, Summer Solstice

The image above is titled “Summer Solstice” and was done next. Goldberg says it’s from a series that feature his figure studies. This work is 16”x20” and the media is entirely acrylic and image transfer. The overlapping figures are in B&W. The transparent, layered colors are red, orange and purple.

 

I asked Goldberg about his art background and how he learned to work with all the different media he uses in collage. He made his first collages during a break before his senior year at Sarah Lawrence College, and only took studio arts classes that final year. The first collages also included pop culture pictures of men and cars that express sexual identity. His instructors at Sarah Lawrence said the backgrounds in the collages were too flat.  Goldberg said, although the criticism hurt, he managed to learn from it and his work improved.

He put together his own version of art school and took adult classes at Westchester Community College and the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in NY.” He was in his 40s and consciously decided to never take criticism personally and always try to listen and learn. He studied sculpture, drawing, life drawing and painting, learned to make stained glass, then learned to make fused glass and explore transparent color layering (with Dorothy Hafner), He studied watercolor and printmaking, life drawing and etching, working with multiple print plates.

He said a fellow student introduced him to transparent image transfer – which ultimately changed how he makes collage. He loves building layers with color and multiple images and often adds mono printing above solvent based image transfer, or transparent acrylic paint as a final layer.

 

Mitchell Goldberg, Midnight Dream

The image above is titled “Midnight Dream” and is the last he finished among the three images. This work is 12” x 24”. The media is collage with acrylic and image transfer. The collage includes a torn monoprint. The background color behind the figures images is saffron yellow. The figures overlap in a design that moves horizontally. The artist added small areas of transparent green and red.

 

The Art of Image Transfer

Goldberg says he used more image transfer and less cut and pasted papers in the collages for this exhibition. He also varied the media in each work based on size. All the 12” x 24” panels feature a torn mono print with a solvent image transfer on it.   Every work that is 12” x 12” has an image transfer of a simple 3-piece or 4-piece collage layered with an old photograph and a layer of acrylic paint. The 20” x 16” pieces all feature image transfers of a figure drawing by the artist with added layers of image transfers and acrylic paint.

Goldberg likes working with image transfers because he can re-use the original image. He likes the depth that image transfers give by revealing what’s behind the top image and thinks color layering with image transfer is so beautiful because it  enhances the dreaminess of the vision while adding an abstract dimension to the work.

The artist also says he misses having the texture and aged quality of original papers, and will return to paper collage at some point in the future.

 

I asked Goldberg if there were artists who influenced or inspired him as a collage artist. He likes James Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg, the photographers Robert Frank, Gary Wingrand and Diane Arbus – because they knew how to observe the world. He loves works by the artist Kandinsky and early works by Miro. He said Pop Art, Dada and Surrealism are primary inspiration. Goldberg likes Gay artists such as Paul Cadmus and George Tooker because they brought emotion and real depiction of the human experience into their work.

Goldberg says he tries to bring a sense of irony and wit to his work. He is critical of some gay art today because the works are basically figure studies of perfect looking men and very idealized relationships. He adds: “I have been lifting weights since my early twenties, because I also want to look good.”

Meet the artist on Sunday, November 4^th (2-5 pm) at the gallery reception. See the exhibition (Nov 1-25, 2018) during regular gallery hours: Thursday – Sunday, 12:30-5:30 pm. For information and gallery directions, call 914.674.8548. Visit Goldberg’s webpage at Upstream Gallery. Visit the artist’s website to see more works.

STILL SO BLUE

 

My Favorite Color is Blue

I wrote about the color blue recently because it’s my new favorite color. My post included a lot of images by modern artists who work with the color blue, including Henri Matisse, Richard Diebenkorn, Vincent Van Gogh, and Andy Warhol. I included a link to an article in the Huffington Post titled Blue is the New Orange written by Katherine Brooks (12/6/16) with many, many art works where blue was the dominant color, including art by Degas, Picasso, Yves Klein, Monet, Renoir, Matisse Rothko and more.

 

Yves Klein IKB 241

Yves Klein (French, 1928-1962 is my inspiration for the color blue.  I would love to be able to do a painting with collage that is totally blue. See the image here by Yves Klein. He created his own acrylic paint that is called International Klein Blue (IKB). He worked with a paint dealer to create a matte version of French Ultramarine Blue paint. The color is electric.

 

Andy Warhol, Flowers, 1964

Andy Warhol did an almost totally blue flower painting. See it here – four flowers in electric blue on a black background with a few thin green lines as stems and leaves. It’s an acrylic and silkscreen print with pencil on linen. It has a simple title: FLOWERS (1964). This image was included in the Huffington Post article.

 

Getting to Be More Blue

 

Nikkal, Blue Triangles

The image nearby is my acrylic painting on canvas, just completed. Notice it’s standing on 2 containers (also blue), leaning against the wall in my studio.  My painting is not all blue, but getting there. I won’t change this one (I frequently re-paint finished paintings), but I have a feeling that as I do new paintings there will be more and more blue, and less and less of other colors. My goal is total blue like the artist Yves Klein. My painting is 48×48 inches square, and acrylic on canvas. It has a lot of sharp edges and I didn’t use tape for every outlined edge. My triangles are black, white, blue and gray. Some are a yellow tan color blending into white. The patterns are a play of advancing and receding geometric shapes that are competing for space. I’m still creating color relationships. I will title this painting Triangles in Blue, Grey, Yellow, Black and White.

 

True Blue Affinity

Blue is the most popular color in art, and is favored by men and women alike. Here’s another fact: two of the greatest modern artists – Henri Matisse and Richard Diebenkorn also painted with blue, and Richard Diebenkorn loved Matisse’s blue so much that he used the same blue. The color is Ultramarine Blue.

 

Matisse/Diebenkorn at SFMoMA

In 2017 there was an exhibition titled Matisse/Diebenkorn at the Baltimore Museum of Art (10/23/16-01/29/17). It travelled to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (3/11/17-05/29/17). There’s an exhibition catalog with the same title. The images within the catalog are gorgeous. The image above shows two paintings. The one on the left is by Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954) and titled The Blue Window, 1913, oil on canvas, 51×35 inches (MoMA). The one on the right is by Richard Diebenkorn (American, 1922-1993) and titled Woman on a Porch, 1958, oil on canvas, 72×72 inches (New Orleans Museum of Art).

 

How Blue Are You?

I asked my students at the Pelham Art Center (Pelham, NY) to create a collage with painting and papers, and be inspired by the way Matisse and Diebenkorn used the color blue. I showed them images of paintings in the museum catalog. Their collages had too many colors and not enough focus on the one color I wanted: blue, so I asked them to do a second class project and we started with a solid blue painted background. Everyone taped their 14×11 inch Bristol substrate and applied blue acrylic to the entire paper background.  I helped them mix a blue color and they applied the paint with either a palette knife or a sponge roller. As soon as the paint dried, they added found collage papers from magazines or their own stash of papers. See four (4) collage paintings by students in my class Create with Collage below.

 

Jane Regan, collage

The image above is by Jane. You see the gorgeous blue back ground and the collage on top. Notice the shiny top additions. I think it’s cellphone over pasted papers. The work is 14″x11″ with papers, acrylic, and other media on paper.

 

Harriet Goldberg, collage

The image above is by Harriet. I flipped the image horizontal. I think it looks good. Notice the background is painted blue and there are a lot of collage papers. The work is 11″x14″ with magazine and painted papers, acrylic on paper.

 

Anne Haley Enright, collage

The image above is by Anne. She made the painted area smaller than 14″x11″ and square. You can see the blue acrylic in the center of the composition. Anne likes to extend the borders with collage. It’s a spiral design and has a lot of rhythm.

 

Paulette Coleman, collage

The image above is by Paulette. You can see the entire background is painted blue. She created a narrative collage with text and magazine cutouts with figures. There’s a lot of drama and personal story here.

 

I hope you enjoyed all the blue. Stay tuned. There will be more blue soon. Your comments are always welcome.

The Color Blue

Matisse/Diebenkorn at SFMoMA

TRUE BLUE AFFINITY

The image nearby shows two paintings. The one on the left is by Henri Matisse (French 1869-1954), titled The Blue Window, 1913, oil on canvas, 51×35 inches (MoMA). The one on the right is by Richard Diebenkorn (American 1922-1993), titled Woman on a Porch, 1958, oil on canvas, 72×72 inches New Orleans Museum of Art.

These two paintings were part of the exhibition Matisse/Diebenkorn that opened at the Baltimore Museum of Art (10/23/16 – 01/29/17) and travelled to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (3/11/17 – 05/29/17).

I recommend you visit the Baltimore Museum online for images and information, including a link to a video “Richard Diebenkorn on Beginning a Painting” and additional links to exhibition reviews on TV and other media. Here are five (5) things to know about Diebenkorn that are part of the online exhibition site: (1) His work is in almost every major US museum collection (2) Diebenkorn moved between abstraction and figuration (3) He lived and worked in California – and the light and space of the West Coast infuses his paintings (4) He was influenced by several Modern European and American artists, including Henri Matisse, his greatest influence, but also Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cezanne, Edward Hopper, Willem de Kooning and Piet Mondrian, and (5) He is best know for his Ocean Park series, named for the Santa Monica neighborhood where he lived from 1966-1988.

 

The Baltimore Museum of Art was the only East Coast site for this exhibition.

I recommend the exhibition catalog, also titled Matisse/Diebenkorn, published by The Baltimore Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoCA) in association with DelMonido Books, Prestel. The catalog shows works by both artists on facing pages and includes essays that give a lot of information about the affinities and connections between the artists.

 

THE POWER OF THE COLOR BLUE

Blue is the most popular color in art, favored by artists and preferred by men and women alike. Diebenkorn used the same blue colors in his paintings as Matisse. If you check out images of blue paintings by Diebenkorn, you’ll see most of his paintings are blue, and the blues vary in hue and color from warm to cool, and pale to deep tones. His oil paints had to include Ultramarine, Cerulean, Cobalt and Prussian blues.

 

The color blue represents both the sky and the sea, and is associated with open spaces, freedom, intuition, imagination, expansiveness, inspiration, and sensitivity. Blue also represents meanings of depth, trust, loyalty, sincerity, wisdom, confidence, stability, faith, heaven, and intelligence.

Blue can be strong and steadfast or light and friendly. Read more about the meaning of the color blue here.

 

HOW BLUE AM I?

 

My recent abstract geometric paintings have a focus on blue. Like Diebenkorn’s abstractions, some of my paintings include other colors like grey, green, orange, black and white.

 

Nikkal, Jacob’s Ladder 1, acrylic on canvas

 

The image nearby is my painting titled Jacob’s Ladder 1. It’s acrylic on canvas, 52×40 inches and includes triangles in a gridded space. A friend suggested the title. She said the painting reminded her of an old child’s game constructed with thread and wood blocks where the blocks change their location and shape when you juggled the threads.

 

I was playing with shapes and colors in this painting. I used Ultramarine blue as a primary color, but also used Cobalt and Manganese blue. I created blue greens when I added different yellows into the blues. My colors are layered and show blues are under or on top of other colors. Up close you can notice blue under white, blue under deep red orange, blue under gold and salmon pink, blue under grey and green.

 

Nikkal, Blue and White Triangles, acrylic and paper collage

I wanted to create a painting that showed blue with white variations. The image nearby is Blue and White Triangles, a diptych, 24×32 inches on two panels I created with paper collage painted with acrylic in Ultramarine, Cobalt, Cerulean Blue and Whites. I mixed the paints to create lighter and deeper blues. The colors are layered with blues over whites. You can also see I used greens under colors and added oranges. This work is about color relationships expressed with painted cut triangle papers.

 

Nikkal, Blue Triangles on Black, 12×12 inches, acrylic and paper collage

 

The image nearby is a small 12×12 inch collage on panel with blue and black painted papers. The blue triangles are cut papers painted with Cobalt Blue acrylic. The black papers are painted with a mixture of Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber acrylic to create a dark tone that looks like black.

 

Blue is the New Orange

 

Vincent Van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889, oil on canvas

 

Andy Warhol, Flowers, 1964

 

The two images above are the painting Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh (oil on canvas, 1889) and Flowers, an acrylic and silkscreen print with pencil on linen by Andy Warhol. See these images and others in a fun read in the Huffington Post titled Blue is the New Orange – about the color blue, written by Katherine Brooks (12/6/16).

 

The author writes blue is now the most popular color in art. See 28 gorgeous examples, with art by Degas, Warhol, Picasso, Yves Klein, Monet, Renoir, van Gogh, Matisse. Rothko, and more.

 

Yves Klein IKB 241

The image above is an untitled Blue Monochrome by the artist Yves Klein (French, 1928-1962). Photo credit: Levy Gorvy at Art.sy. Klein created a color field painting in a blue so rich that you have to see it in person because the blue is so intense and spectacular. In an artsy.net article titled Yves Klein’s Legacy is about Much More Than Blue (Jan 9, 2017), Tess Thackara wrote Klein was seduced by the deep cerulean blue of the French Mediterranean Sea and obsessed by the brilliant blue skies in Nice. Yves Klein worked with a paint dealer and created International Klein Blue (IKB), a matte version of French Ultramarine blue paint. The color is gorgeous.

 

CHOOSE BLUE

Some blues cannot be mixed. You have to buy the paint in tubes or jars to get the exact color. I work with acrylic. Visit Dick Blick online and see a color chart that shows all Golden heavy body acrylic colors sold in a paint tube or jar. You can see every color imaginable. Choices for Blue colors include: Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Blue, Cobalt Teal, Cobalt Turquoise, Ultramarine Blue, Light Ultramarine Blue, Manganese Blue Historic Hue, and Phthalo Blue (green shade and yellow shade)

I have all these colors in my studio. I typically mix some small amount of one blue into another blue to create variations in hue and tone, and add other colors like yellow and white, grey or green to change the color absolutely. But, if you want cobalt blue, you have to use the tube that’s cobalt blue.

 

I hope you are inspired by the color blue. Your comments are welcome.

A NEW FOCUS ON DIPTYCHS

the artist with Metro twins at Upstream Gallery

 

The image nearby shows me standing with two acrylic paintings on canvas. I was at the Upstream Gallery installing my solo exhibition titled Duality/Assembly. The exhibition includes recent paintings and collages on canvas and wood panels.

My exhibition opens April 26 and closes May 20, 2018. Upstream Gallery is located at 8 Main Street in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY.  Gallery hours are Thursday to Sunday, 12:30-5:30. The opening reception is Sunday, April 29^th, 2-5 pm.

 

 

I have a new fascination with diptychs, doubles and twins. Twins (identical and fraternal) fascinate me because there’s a paradoxical doubling: two the same and two different.  Identical twins share the same sex and (usually) the same features. Fraternal twins can be the same sex or different and may not even look alike. Fraternal twins are really just siblings, but they share a lot of the same closeness as identical twins because they were womb-mates. My diptychs are fraternal twins.

I call the paintings above Metro Twins. I see them as a kind of diptych because they are together and their colors and patterns are related.

I like to put things together. Diptychs allow me to play with doubles. Diptychs also ask the viewer to look at the differences and similarities, so the viewer is connected in the process in viewing the art and can make very interesting observations. Every diptych in the Duality/Assembly exhibition is about relationships and a metaphor for the spaces we share. Both Metro twin paintings touch and are placed so they stand on the same height above the floor. Metro 6 on the left is taller (60”x36”) and Metro Teal on the right is shorter (42”x40”), but the lines in the grid and the pattern of squares connect. Both paintings are acrylic on canvas. Both paintings are about color relationships and shared space.

 

Nikkal, Blue Triangle Diptych, acrylic and collage, 24″x32″

 

 

The image nearby, titled Blue Triangle Diptych, is made on two wood panels, each 24” high by 16” wide. The left panel is painted paper collage. The right panel is acrylic painting. The triangles are different shapes and sizes.  The colors are blue, and black (and brown) in the left panel and blue, green, black, white and caramel in the right panel. They’re fraternal twins.

 

 

 

 

Nikkal standing by 2 paintings at Upstream Gallery

 

 

The image nearby shows me standing in front of two acrylic paintings that are still placed on the floor, waiting to be hung on the wall. There are 6 paintings at the exhibition. Most show color relationships. Some of the colors are greens; others are blues. The painting on the left is titled Nines. It’s a medley of black and white colors, acrylic on canvas, 60”x36”. I added a lot of painted paper collage as I worked on the painting.  You can see all the papers when you stand in front of the painting. On the right is a painting I titled Jacob’s Ladder. It’s one of three paintings at the exhibition with the same title, all exploring triangles where blue is the dominant color. If you come to the exhibition you can see how each one is different – and you can ask me to tell you the meaning of the title Jacob’s Ladder.

 

 

 

 

Nikkal, B&W Triangles, acrylic and collage, 32’x40

 

The image nearby shows a collage with white and black painted papers on canvas. It’s titled Black and White Triangles, 32”x40” and installed near the gallery entry.  I love to work with colors like green and blue, but also like to create with black and white paint and painted papers. In this collage, I’m layering triangle shapes to show positive and negative space. I’ve created several black and white triangle collages on 24”x16” panels and put them together for this exhibition as diptychs and doubles.

If you visit the gallery, you’ll see one double installed as two panels hung horizontally, one above the other. The top panel is titled White on Black Triangles. The lower panel is titled Black on White Triangles.  Both are 16” tall and 24” wide. They are almost identical twins.

I show a diptych with two 24”x16” panels hung vertically, each touching the other. Together they are 24”x32”.  One is a grid with triangles. The other is a geometric abstraction with stripes and circles. I decided to put them together and let the viewer ask: why do they go together? Is it because they’re the same size done as paining/collage on panel, or the fact that they’re both black and white?

 

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Duality/Assembly is about putting things together. The exhibition includes works in the Metro series with squares that were never in line, but held in place, and works in the Triangle series that show triangles that intrude under, over and into another’s space. I think all the paintings and collages are an abstract representation about the spaces in which we live, how we live with others and how we share our spaces.

 

Nikkal, Roll Call, acrylic and collage on canvas, 14″x14″

 

 

The image at left is titled Roll Call. You can see it as soon as you walk into the gallery. Its acrylic and collage on canvas, 12”x12” framed to 14”x14” and part of a new series titled Curvy Geometric. I included several small works from the Curvy Geometric series because they are small and done with black and white painted papers I thought they fit in well with the other works in black and white.

 

 

 

 

 

There are two gallery rooms at Upstream. I have my works in the East room. Two new gallery artists will also show works at Upstream in the West room: Antonio Alvarez does abstract acrylic paintings and Madlyn Goldman does found wood assemblage sculpture and collage. There’s a lot to see.

 

If you are nearby, I hope you will stop by and see the exhibitions. Upstream Gallery hours are Thursday to Sunday, 12:30-5:30.

Jurors and Jurying Art Exhibitions

 

Several people commented about my recent post Duality at the Islip Art Museum, where I am showing a two-panel abstract diptych in blue, black, white, green and gold ochre. See the image below. I submitted two images as digital files for review for this show. Scott Bluedorn was the juror who selected works in the exhibition. He is a long Island artist. His studio practice includes painting, drawing, collage, assemblage, installation, photography and cyanotype. He makes collages that are futuristic and Surrealistic.The exhibition is titled Duality: Glimpses of the Other Side and continues to September 17, 2017. Visit the Islip Art Museum, located at 50 Irish Lane, East Islip, NY on Long Island. Gallery hours are Th/F 10-4 and S/S 12-4.

 

nikkal, Blue Triangle Diptych

 

Blue Triangle Diptych is geometric abstraction in two parts (a diptych), 24 inches tall and 32 inches wide. The triangles are in different media and are arranged in a different pattern on each panel. One panel (on the left) is a collage made with painted papers. Every blue and black triangle is cut and pasted paper. One panel (on the right) is an acrylic painting. The paint is layered and I used tape to get sharp lines.

 

nikkal, Blue and White Triangle diptych

The 2^nd entry, seen nearby, was not accepted for the exhibition. It’s a diptych and all collage on two panels and made with blue and white painted papers arranged as triangles. I love the range of blue and soft green and white in the painted papers. I prefer this triangle diptych, but was happy the juror accepted one work for the exhibition. It made me wonder how he made his decision. One of the comments to the post came from Karen Rand Anderson, an artist who lives and works in Rhode Island. She writes a blog, She said she liked the blue and white diptych better than the one the juror selected. I told her I agreed, but said I assumed the juror wanted to see juxtaposition, per the exhibition title, and the piece he selected has more dialogue going on. Maybe I was wrong.

The jury process is subjective

Here’s a little information about how it works – and it’s important to understand the process is a crapshoot. You can never assume any work will be accepted – unless the show is an invitational and the juror (curator) tells you he/she wants a specific piece. By definition, an invitational is never a juried show. Artists enter juried exhibitions all the time for different reasons, sometimes for prize money and also to build their resume. The typical juried show includes one juror who looks at digital image files for every work submitted and selects the works. Typically the juror is a professional artist or gallerist, sometimes a prominent art critic, and sometimes an artist with a regional, national or international exhibition reputation. What gets selected into the exhibition is his/her decision. Sometimes the works are selected first by image file review and then by direct visual inspection to make sure the work is the same as the image file.

I typically do not enter juried shows. I wrote that I entered this show because the exhibition title: Duality: Glimpses of the Other Side was intriguing. My work is abstract and not narrative. My new studio focus is about duality and the serendipity of mismatched twins. I see diptychs as fraternal twins. I like the concept that twins can be the same and also different. Even identical twins can be different (if they try). It takes looking to see how they are different. I intend to focus on diptychs.

Recently I interviewed two jurors about the process of how they select works for an exhibition.

 

The juror looks for strong works

I emailed Susan Hoeltzel, the juror for an annual show at the Upstream Gallery, 8 Main Street, Hastings on Hudson, NY titled PaperWorks (June 22-July 23, 2017). I am a member of this artist-run gallery and helped hang (install) the exhibition that includes a large and beautiful array of paintings, drawings, 3D sculpture and other works on paper submitted by local and regional artists. Gallery members do not enter or show work in this exhibition. The juror came to the gallery to see the exhibition after it was installed. I didn’t meet her and emailed her to ask how she selected the works for the show. I told her that gallery members were very pleased with the works she selected. I did not tell her I helped install the show. She replied: Thank you – I also think the exhibition looks great and extend my congratulations to the people who installed the show (It’s not that easy to hang a group show and the people who installed this one were sensitive to the transitions between the works, making it visually pleasing and leading the viewer from one work to the next.) I took that as a compliment. She wrote: In choosing the work, I was simply looking for strong work that represented a broad range of approaches – style, content, media, etc. She added she was working without information about dimensions, so was trying to make sure not too many works were selected for the space. It’s a big space and there are a lot of works to see.

Susan Hoeltzel is the former director of the Lehman College Art Gallery, City College of New York. Susan has exhibited her mixed media drawings on canvas nationally and internationally. Her works explore objects and the meaning we construct around them – about illusion and what we infer from the flat, two-dimensional surface of the work. Her most recent series deals with plants, particularly invasive species.

 

The juror picks what he likes

I spoke with the artist and educator Stuart Shils in person July 15 at the opening reception for the 9^th National Juried Exhibition at the Prince Street Gallery, 530 West 25 Street, NY, NY (July 11-29, 2017).

 

nikkal at Prince St. Gallery

The image nearby is me standing in front of my collage titled Amok at the Prince Street Gallery opening on July 15. I submitted 3 entries that are part of a new series titled Curvy Geometric. Amok was accepted, seen here on the wall above another framed work.  Amok is made with painted papers, magazine text and  tan Washi papers with thin bamboo sticks. The Washi papers add a transparent layer. I’m a layerist. This framed work is 18 inches by 17 inches I was pleased that it was installed in the gallery on a small wall with only 4 works. There were about 50 works in the show, mostly small in size, mostly paintings.

I met the juror at the reception and complimented him on the exhibition he selected. I asked him to tell me how he chose. He said he picked what he liked. Simple. The show includes 45 artists. He said he rejected about 300 entries – that means 1 out of 7 artists was accepted. I said I was surprised to see so many semi-abstract and abstract paintings in the show. I checked Shils’ website before I entered the Prince Street Gallery juried show and basically entered because the juror’s works look like abstract paper collage. I asked Shils to tell me about his paper works. His answer surprised me. He said his work is not really collage. He said he puts papers together and then disassembles the work after he takes a photo. The product is the photo. It’s a collage concept. I did not ask if the photo is material or immaterial.

See works by Stuart Shils online, including window collages, painting, monotypes, drawing, photography, video and a book with his photographs titled “because I have no interest in those questions…” (Sold out).

 

The juror picks the art and creates the show

I remember a comment I heard many years ago about juried shows in a seminar led by the artist Kay WalkingStick. She is an American Artist and one of today’s most accomplished Native American contemporary landscape painters.

She basically said – don’t be upset if your work is not selected in a juried show. In some cases your work doesn’t fit the concept the juror intends. In some cases, the other works submitted are so different from what you submit that your work will look like it doesn’t belong in the show and that’s why it’s not accepted. She added: in some cases your work is so much better than all the rest that it can’t be included because all the others will look terrible in comparison. AND there are probably other reasons. Try to be positive.

Maybe the juror doesn’t like your work. Don’t take it personally.

Please add your comments. Tell me if you’ve been a juror and how you made your decisions. If you’re an artist, tell me if you enter juried shows. Tell me if you love or hate the process. Share what you know.

Copy Copy: Collage and Appropriation

 

Appropriation is a very useful concept in contemporary art and essential to appreciating contemporary collage art.

 

I like to make funky figure collages with papers and text cut and pasted from magazines like W, Elle. Vogue, and ArtForum. I thumb through the magazines and tear out pages when the right image strikes. Everything becomes a magazine mash-up.

 

nancy nikkal, sex celebrity, collage 2016

 

The image nearby is my collage titled Sex Celebrity. This work is part of a new series with female images done in collage with various cut and pasted papers. Some of the papers are straight out of the magazine. Some are painted with acrylic. Some papers are purchased in an arts and crafts store. I like to mix and match and create works that combine image, color, pattern and texture. Most of all, I am fascinated by celebrity culture and Pop Art. My goal is to create images that are edgy, sexy and provocative.

 

The image you see is a collage on a 12×16 inch panel showing two x two females. Everything is an image: some more, some less real. The colors in this collage are creamy white, grey-black, green and tiny touches of pale blue and red.

 

The large female image is a close-up of a face, eyes closed as if in a swoon. She seems ensconced in a reverie in a garden setting, surrounded by green. She’s a beauty. Her eyes are decorated and glittery. There’s a large, expensive diamond jewel floating near her nose. The jewel looks like a delicate flower or a garden bug. I’ve seen expensive jewels in fashion magazines. They’re highly crafted with multiple stones. A beautiful woman deserves a beautiful diamond. I embellished the image, but it’s straight out of the magazine.

The smaller female image in my collage is a figure in a couturier outfit and her breasts are exposed. You see a lot of that in the fashion magazines currently. She’s standing in front of the large face image. There’s a third image in black and white located on the lower left side. It may be a print by Pablo Picasso torn from an art magazine. I took it because it was the right size and in black and white. There’s a fourth image on the right side that’s a face and facing left. If you look carefully, you can see eyes, eyebrows and hair. The face is made with striped green paper. I like stripes. I like to combine abstraction, reality and fantasy.

 

I cut and pasted all the papers. There is no actual glitter and no jewel – just papers to simulate jewels and glitter.

 

Appropriation in Art

I recommend the book titled Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. It’s a little book with a lot of big ideas. The author says: remix and reimagine to discover your true path. It sounds like collage.

Appropriation in art is defined as the act of using pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation applied to them. The artist’s job is to decide how much image transformation is necessary. Some artists feel guilty for stealing an image. I’m not sure that’s true for everyone. There is so much to steal now. Images are everywhere. I think it’s how you use them that makes a difference.

 

nancy nikkal, flat chested, collage 2017

The image nearby is a magazine collage I created on a 14×11 inch paper substrate. I gave it the title FlatChested. I think she is. She’s high fashion and very thin. The image is inspired by the concept Exquisite Corpse where the parts don’t have to match. Each of the 3 parts comes from a different magazine page. I liked the pink background in the middle section and the model’s long, graceful hand. Her eyes were made up with glitter and that was also appealing. I liked the wild, dark hair in the top section that has a mustard yellow background. I liked the pattern where the hair is separated by a part in the middle. The width worked well with the cut-off hat in the pink section. I liked the dot patterns in the black and white bottom section. Everything worked well. I didn’t have to add glitter because the model already had glittery eye makeup. I changed her mouth and shortened her torso. Colors are gold, pink, black and white. Her skin color is caramel brown. The papers come from W magazine. There are only 4 pieces in this collage –  three horizontal rows of cut and pasted magazine papers and a mouth from a model image in black and white (from the same magazine).

 

 

My students often ask me about copyright infringement and appropriation. One student this winter had to overcome – and actually did overcome – her resistance to appropriating magazine images. I persuaded her. We talked about it all through the winter term at the Pelham Art Center where I teach contemporary collage to adults. Her career is print publishing so I understand her resistance to appropriating images. I really like her 3 portrait images. Each one is very different. See them below.

 

student portrait collage with papers & glitter

 

The image nearby is the 1^st portrait collage Ilene created in class. Her papers included stamped drawing paper (dots) for the face, chevron-striped paper for the dress, decorated papers from magazines and painted paper for hair, eyes, nose and mouth. The collage is on 14″x11″ Bristol paper (substrate). Ilene spent a lot of time cutting papers for the hair, eyes and mouth. Notice one eye is light brown and the other eye is a black and white pattern. Ilene added green glitter eye makeup last. Her background is grey magazine paper with a printed gallery name as vertical text. I remember Ilene asked me if she should cut, cover or leave the vertical text. I said yes – leave it in – it’s not too prominent. Ilene’s 1st collage has a lot of directional movement with pattern and cut papers. The grey dots in the face are tilting down right. The vertical text is parallel to the right edge.

 

 

 

student collage, assorted papers & glitter, 2017

 

The image nearby is the 2^nd portrait collage Ilene created in class. It’s much more abstract and the eyes, mouth, chin and hair are made with cut triangle papers. The papers come from magazine pages but do not show a model’s image. There’s a lot of dynamic energy in the way Ilene placed the cut papers. Notice some of the magazine papers are solid black, beige, yellow, blue and magenta red. Notice a few of the cut papers have stripes and crosshatched line drawing that adds texture. I love the spaces around the triangles. Ilene used a minimum number of papers but still gave us a sense of modeling the shape of a face. Notice the shading in the red papers for the lips. The way Ilene cut the papers gives a sense of volume. Notice the nose and tiny hands (each within a contrasting triangle) are actual magazine images – the only ones in this collage. Hooray for appropriation! I believe Ilene made the hands and nose small to make them less obvious as swiped magazine images. Notice the magenta-red lips are larger than either hand.

 

 

student collage, exquisite corpse portrait, 2017

 

The image nearby is the 3^rd portrait collage Ilene created in class based on the concept Exquisite Corpse. I believe I made my collage FlatChested (above) during the class to demonstrate how to cut magazine papers in angled, horizontal strips, using different models for each piece. Ilene’s portrait includes a woman’s eyes, ears and hairline on top and a man’s mouth, chin and neck below. She included a black round hat for the top strip in the collage, and found decorated papers in swirly patterns and bright colors for the bottom strip. I know she loves this portrait collage. I really like the contrast of one face in color and another face in black & white, and really like that one half of the face is male and the other half is female. Ilene selected images with care so that the expressions in the eyes and mouth co-mingle.

 

 

 

EXQUISITE CORPSE at PINTEREST

See 72 pins (images) for the Exquisite Corpse at my Pinterest site. Some of the images are historic examples. My students love Exquisite corpse as a class project and I set up Pinterest boards so they can check out images online. Read more about the Exquisite corpse here.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Today, appropriating and remixing images and media is common practice for visual, audio, and performing artists. Appropriation is a strategy. Visual artists would not be able to create the mash-up of  images we create without all the images online and in magazines. They’re available, plentiful and we find them. Please share your thoughts. Do you swipe images and use them in collage? Do you re-mix other media? Tell me if you love the Exquisite Corpse.

Thanks for sharing – Nancy