Previously on Skandalon

Lee Price graduated from the Moore College of Art in 1990 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting. It’s interesting to note that he (she?) took private studies with Alyssa Monk.

Fernand Pelez (Paris, January 18, 1843 – August 7, 1913) was a French painter of Spanish origin who worked in Paris. Pelez portrayed social issues in a realistic style. (Wikipedia)

Read a short analysis of his work over at The Art Tribune. In addition, for French reader, don’t miss Myriam Tsikounas’ exposé on the socio-historical context of this image over at the L’Histoire par l’image website.

Michael Peck’s artistic practice is concerned with the sensation of disorientation and dislocation that is often felt within the post modern world. Exploring issues regarding the loss of cultural identity, his work particularly focuses on the effects within minority groups and individuals existing on the fringe who are challenged to assimilate within the larger community. (more)

Michael Peck was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1977.

Previously on Skandalon : Paul Roberts, photorealistic paintings of bodies in or on water.

About Aaron Romine:

In Aaron Romine’s recent paintings his characters have become stand-ins for something larger. Although obviously recognizable as specific people (they are all actually his friends), the work is contemplative and the scenes are a commentary on current culture. His painstaking paintings have become psychological allegories. He has looked past pure sexuality into how his subjects relate to each other, pushing their relationships to a level of intimacy. While influenced by such artists as Manet, Piazetta, Gaugin, Sargent, and Velazquez, his work has recently veered away from (strictly) historical references. (PragueBiennale.org).

First spotted via This Isn’t Happiness.

Previously on Skandalon.

This photorealist painting belongs to the Desire for Anima series:

an exhibition of new oil paintings on paper by Israeli artist Yigal Ozeri. His paintings of young women are unusual for their uncanny realism and psychologically engaging presence. This is achieved by Ozeris using both still photography and video in their initial stages, and painting the final works with thousands of tiny brushstrokes which animate the paintings, surfaces.

This series of paintings explores portraits of young women, either standing together nude in dense grass fields, or posed alone, often wearing a pink diaphanous and lace gown. Many appear like film still, caught, unawares, unselfconsciously laughing, or moving through the lush backgrounds. Others gaze directly at the viewer in a somewhat challenging and unsettling manner. In some, all that is visible are fragments of the girls, body, faces, limbs, richly textured garments. In every painting, Ozeri captures the vulnerability of the girls bodies, at the transitional age between youth and maturity. For the artist, the results of his paintings express his feminine, anima, Carl Jungs concept of the essential woman. This psychological presence is the hidden essence of his work. (more)

Yigal Ozeri was born in Israel in 1958. He now lives and works in New York.

About Richard Estes:

“Richard Estes (born May 14, 1932 in Kewanee, Illinois) is an American painter who is best known for his photorealistic paintings. The paintings generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate city and geometric landscapes. He is regarded as one of the founders of the international photo-realist movement of the late 1960s, with painters such as Ralph Goings, Chuck Close, and Duane Hanson.” (wikipedia)

Artist statement:

“I use photos as references for my drawings but I am not after a perfect reproduction at all. I use a photo very loosely once the proportions are established. I usually work as if I were drawing from a live model actually. I work with movement and expression, working fast on larger, more unimportant areas, and slowing down on parts that need more attention. I am actually improvising a lot. My main concern is to capture the essence and substance of forms in order to get close to a perceptible presence of the subject.” (more)

Check Dirk Dzimirsky’s blog.

Rodgers late paintings are somehow reminiscent of Bret Easton Ellis novel Glamorama.

About Terry Rodgers:

“Rodgers’ current work focuses on portraying contemporary body politics. His rendering of the upper-class leisure life stands as an iconic vision of today’s society. The resulting paintings are not snapshots or slices of life, not verite records of actual moments in actual party or family situations, or diaristic records of his life, but carefully constructed and composited fictions, designed to elicit the most meaning and sustain the maximum amount of ambiguity.

Terry Rodgers attended Amherst College, with a major in the Fine Arts. His strong interest in film and photography influenced his style in the direction of representational realism in art.” (more)

Artist statement:

“Importantly, however, is that nothing I create is meant to judge or criticize. I am merely looking closely at who we are, the density of influences upon us, the choices we make, and the recognitions that occur in trying to comprehend a universe with no signposts.” (more)

First spotted via This Isn’t Happiness.

Adam Stennett recently gave an extensive interview for the exposition DISQUIETED at the Portland Art Museum:

GW: …and then there’s references to pharmacology, the further references to conspiracy, I am wondering about your relationship to those signifiers, why you brought them in? What they mean to you? I know how I’m reading them but what is your intention with this?

AS: Ok. One thing I try to focus on as an artist is using every experience to influence your work and using your experience to build your work. My father was a professor of pharmacy for 35 years and is actually getting an award tonight in Portland.

GW: That is one of the reasons you are here?

AS: Yes.

GW: You grew up in Portland, right?

AS: I grew up in Corvallis, but spent some time in Portland. So I sort of grew up with this science and pharmacy background and then the idea of medicine. Most of the medical breakthroughs that happened in the last 150 years are partly due to mice and the sacrifices that mice have made. If it wasn’t for experiments with mice a lot of these things wouldn’t happen. I think mice are amazing creatures and incredibly important to human life.” (much more)

Previously on Skandalon

“Lick Line is a series of mouths floating in space and rendered in exacting detail. Aiming to seduce, glistening and salacious tongues poke out and beckon the viewer to come close. Seen as a group, the tongues undulate and bounce. Like many voices talking at once, they invade our space with eroticism, strangeness and perverse possibility.” (press release : Julia Randall: Going Solo)

More of her drawings over at the Jeff Bailey Gallery.

Previously on Skandalon