Painters and Painting by Jeff Evans

Following on from the inaugural exhibition “Unprecedented” (online) Gallery Gary Giordano, is presenting “Painters and Painting” at Artsy.net.

Closing June 20, 2021, this exhibition calls to our attention the practice of painting.  I’ve known Gary for a few years now, and to say he is interested in these processes would be an understatement.  It's a varied group of artists and the works cover many different ways of painting as well having disparate influences. 

Joel Adas, paints so directly, and gets light-filled space, horizon and weather in just a few strokes. Look for Sunset 1, to see this and the landscape.

Darren McManus’ paintings call on scientific principles and theories, and the result is exceptionally complex and beautifully composed works. The compositions dictate the unique and irregular shapes as well. 

I enjoy Robert Zurer’s Landscape 42, which for me has some Georgia O’Keeffe influence. There is a balance to this painting as well, and it differs from the others in this exhibition.

Sophia Chizuco’s Stardust from 2019, uses pattern and repetition to create a painting that while based on views from a flight, creates the sense of airiness, or oxygen as well.

Bill Page’s works might be the epitome of this exhibition’s string. Based on the light, colors and architecture of Mexico, his works are purely paint, surface and color.  Basilica Guanajuato embodies this physicality of painting. 

Alice Zinnes’ paintings are inspired by poetry and the written word and result in spectacular surface, shadow, and depth.  Abstract painting might fall away for you as some landscape or other imagery come into your view. Looming Edge of Black, 2020, does that for me.

Born in Conflict, 2021, by Mark Rosenthal, is a beautiful work that has a sense of motion which is difficult to successfully capture in a painting.  Birth and figurative imagery is present amongst some terrific scraped and pulled painting. 

Olga Alexander has given us some well balanced and complementary color choices in Passion Fruit, 2020.  The line weight of the black paint takes me toward figurative drawing.  Successfully I think, as Olga calls out landscape as the subject. 

I mentioned to Kellyanne Hanrahan recently that developing a technique that is new and unique in painting is extremely difficult.  Painting on found objects such as rope-covered board in People Being Outside 72, 2020, she is able to deftly illustrate detailed figurative imagery on what surely must be an unforgiving surface. 

Gary Giordano is also a very direct painter, and these paintings of skulls are just that. The direct and layered technique, lends itself well to the depiction of bone.  Particularly true in the work Face of Covid,  from 2020.

And I painted two canvases specifically for this exhibition; and that deadline served me well to get my studio up and running at full steam.  

Jeff Evans

Visit the exhibition here:  https://www.artsy.net/show/gallery-gary-giordano-painters-and-painting

Response to Art Center

With the current events recently, we have seen a culture change "revolution" and a new understanding about art. Traditional colonist venues of whitewashed museums and capitalist consumer driven galleries are no longer relevant to Artist. The new generation of highly educated Artist who value critical thinking and social justice seek environments, and communities willing to allow a new contextualization of their work. Unfortunately, far too often local agendas by governments and business organizations who control power and resources corrupt the process of local centers. Instead of becoming exciting creative venues attracting audiences they become Arts and craft centers which do little to advance the community.

Faith or Doubt St. Peter

Faith or Doubt St. Peter

 When a painting is made, something which did not exist now exist. Something is created, it comes into being. The painting becomes an art object, its own being, with its own qualities. The ambition of the Artist is to transfer energy, emotion, conscious and subconscious thought onto a physical surface. The Artist hopes to manifest and share an experience. This experience is unique and although it is the artist intention to share something with the viewer. Often it interpretated in the viewers own terms. Thus, the painting is unique taking on its own identity. The Artist is a creator, and the viewer allows space in which the creation can live.

 The Artist Caravaggio’s representation of Saints broke from past painting imagery where holy persons where portrayed in gold sounded by kingdoms.  He used people of the streets even prostitutes as his models for religious icons. This may have been a resource available and affordable to him at the time, but there is a symbolism and a shift in thinking on how Saints where portrayed. Caravaggio painted them as people with humanistic qualities representing figures from lesser class of society. They were painted and presented as those who did not have wealth and lived common lives not as aristocrats. Caravaggio it is rumored used a prostitute as his model to paint Death of the Virgin which was rejected at the time.

 The Artist Michelangelo used symbolism to portray Saints. They would be painted with objects or with the symbol of their Martyrdom. For example, Michelangelo’s self-portrait in The Sistine Chapel is in the image of St Bartholomew who was skinned alive. In the painting he is holding his skin. This also was symbolic of how Michelangelo felt after completing this massive project.

 I connected with these ideas when I painted this Portrait of St. Peter. In my painting St Peter is clasping his hands I removed the keys that he is often painted with symbolizing the keys to the kingdom of heaven. I left an open to interpretation of what he is doing with his clap’s hands. He could be praying. He could be preparing to hold the keys. Perhaps he is holding and examining something as a man of science which is symbolic of denying faith. I painted him unclothed being humanist and close to earth.  I made him much younger than the way he often has been painted. I envisioned to be at that age when he took up his path. I left the beard one of attributes used to identify him.

Freedom Flag

Freedom Flag

 I have a close friend who is an actor, and I was moved by her performances after seeing her in several plays. Later at lunch in Williamsburg Brooklyn we stuck up a conversation about performing. I asked her what it feels like after a good performance? She told me it was wonderful but sometimes it is the cost which is hard. She mentioned a documentary on Marlon Brando where he talks about this the price you pay, “the cost.” That always stuck with me.

 As an artist who gives and expresses through emotion, I sometimes feel this pain., but in contrast when an audience responds to the work it makes it all worth it.  

Liberty

Liberty

 Lady Liberty or Libertas is a subject I wanted to paint after I visited the Metropolitain Art Museum in New York city. I saw the painting Liberty by Delacroix painted 1831. The painting was painted to celebrate the French Revolution where it features a bare breasted woman advancing across the barricade with her compatriots.  Libertas is an ancient Roman goddess and is a symbol chosen to represent Liberty.

This painting was also inspired by a New York Artist who visited my studio. We talked about using text in painting which lead me on a journey of exploring words and letters as characters. While I painted, I entered a meditative state, and lost conscious understanding of what was happening. I don’t know who the second person in the painting is. Male or Female? I remember drawing it with several large marks of enamel without even thinking.

Public Art

Paintings invoke a visual experience. They have a physical presence which we can also respond to in their scale and how they are being presented. The environment in which the work is present and the area and space around a painting affect how one sees it, and how one experiences it. Art created for public space allows a direct experience from Artist to Viewer. Artwork which is directly present on the street can contextualize the presentation of the work, in a way where it is presented outside agenda driven art world actors.

Lambertville New Jersey has an Arts weekend in the beginning of October. I was asked by the Manager of The People’s Store, a co-op building in the downtown section of the city, to create something on the street outside the building. This interested me because of as I mentioned there is an immensely powerful and direct engagement in street art.  I began the project by building a three-dimension structure with one-inch PVC pipe. The structure was created to display a seven-foot painting I had created in my Philadelphia studio. The used of materials I bought at a home goods store. I wanted the materials to reflect a raw quality like construction one might see on a road environment. I also installed solar lighting to light the piece at night. The large-scale painting was painted during the covid shutdown with an inspiration relating to fear and anxiety. Seeing the painting on a dark street expressed this perfectly.

My work is often emotional and has a physicality.  The scale of the work and distance or way the work is presented relates to our human scale and the relation of us to the piece. There is a physical and tactile quality of the work as well. When the work is placed on the street or outside a Gallery space many barriers are removed and the viewer can meet the work on their terms with their own boundaries of distance, touch, and engagement. My intention is to share the emotion and the aesthetic of the work directly and in this way.

Arts Weekend Lambertville NJ (Copy)

I will be displaying in a small outdoor exhibition on North Union and Church Street in Lambertville NJ the weekend of October 10 and 11 during the day.

Story 2/13/19

Each painting is a story or chapter is a story connected to a series of paintings. The paintings need to express an Idea or feeling.

Color

Blue, green, red every day. I’m going to continue to paint with my left hand.  I’m using Yellow with a lot of orange, red orange, blue green, yellow Green and lavender.

The paintings are going into a new place. I need more yellow, white lots of white. I want to get the full impact of white, white as a color, like red or blue

Art Value 12/17/18

Some viewers have been taught by agenda driven dealers and authoritarian Art critics that paintings are a commodity. The value in art is in experiencing the work. It’s not about immediately looking for the dollar value, or a signature as if the painting is a product. I wrote the world yes in place of a signature while I was exploring text in painting. I put it where it would be signed. When the viewer looks for the signature. Yes, a positive word is what they see.

Image 12/17/18

Currently I believe that representation gives the viewer to much information. I want the viewer to respond or complete the painting. What comes from their life experiences.I don’t want to define it too much .

Texture 12/15/18

I want the viewer to stand one or two feet away, to feel as if they are in the painting and explore the texture and the material almost touch it  I want the viewer to read my paintings by standing very close and look across it sideways.

Flag 10/1/18

I was asked to create a flag for a group show in Bushwick, but I neglected to follow the format, thus the painting was to wide. I kept fighting the idea and the cliques of doing a flag and thought about the iconic image and the emotions it triggers. I wanted to destroy as much possible on the surface, at one point and after much frustration and being unable to sleep the idea of cutting up studio rags and drop cloth to college came to me. It added a rustic and worn feel.  which was perfect. I sowed the stars and painted with different colors.

Painting 12/15/18

I’m in a very emotional state when I paint. I don’t always think and analyze what’s next, or when making a decision. Often it is spontaneous. I’ll grab different paints and materials and mix them at random. I depend on my experience and subconscious.

Lorraine Dancing 8/2/18

She is Dancing here, so often I’ve watched her dance, and this was very easy as its imprinted in my subconscious, I love the rhythm in this painting, I also like these blues and silver.

Drawing 12/1/15

 I love to put down hard at first, make strong marks. So what if this is a contradiction, its who I am.

Figure Sketches 11/15/18

I finished this series of figures. They come from drawings I made last winter with models. My goal was to paint with the same looseness and freedom I have when I draw. A relaxed and unconcerned effort. I’m just having fun, it’s very easy. I am able speak in my own voice when I do this.

Set Up 12/14/18

• I heard a comedian talking last night and explaining how the set-up is important, how it builds momentum up to the delivery of the punch line. Working in the studio is similar in that the setup is important before the delivery of a painting.  The emotional build up. The selection of a pallet which colors, the decision as to what surface to use, even the tables to work from arrangement and height.

Energy 12/15/18

Each space has its own energy which is connected to the community influencing the work created there. Each painting is a story and a story behind the story of the painting process or creation.