Liliya Muglia: I was born in the former Soviet Union where I studied classical art in an academic setting from the age of nine. During my years in L’viv, Ukraine, I obtained a master’s degree in pharmacy, but after the Chernobyl explosion and subsequent collapse of the economy, I migrated to Canada where I requalified as a pharmacist at the University of Toronto. I also continued my studies at the Academy of Realist Art (ARA) and graduated in 2013.
Today I have left the field of pharmacy and am a full-time artist with my studio located at ARA in Toronto, Canada. As a classically trained artist, I use the realism of my work to support my imaginative disrupted vision of the world which comes from my personal life experience, and future expectations.
I typically paint in oils and develop themes based on a narrative much as a writer who writes a novel with main and supportive characters and frequent changes of composition and color schemes. I do preliminary studies in charcoal and conte with real models and create subjects from different perspectives. In these studies, I use different sceneries, clothing, accessories, and attributes as part of a foundation for the final execution of my work.
The goal of my work is to transform my subjects into a narrative and to capture the subtlety of the human condition. By doing this I bring to life paintings which involve and engage the viewer through the beauty of interpretive realistically painted works within an imaginative disrupted reality. I produce art as a statement of my thoughts, fears, and desires and deliver the viewer my artistic vision.
My creative motifs often illustrate the power and beauty of feminine interpretations. These interpretations can be found in the depictions of feminine forms weather they contain human subjects or not. In addition, each piece is painted with a tension in mind and this tension is felt by the viewer and although sometimes the characters may struggle, fail or perish, the strength of the feminine protagonist is always present.
As a result of disillusionment with conceptual and post-modern art at the end of the 20th Century, many artists have turned to a more traditional figurative representation in order to reach their audience on a higher level of interpretation. Most of these artists studied in ateliers under the curriculum of the Old French Academy (17th to 19th Century) obtaining the technical skills of the old masters in order to create their artistic statement.
I am one of these artists who embraced the traditional forms of classical academic interpretation in order to create new and modern interpretations of classical realism. My works come through the prism of my thoughts with precise execution and this inspires the imagination and affirmation in the mind of the viewer and seeks to change their artistic preference in favour of artwork that is refined and divine.
Yuqi Wang, "Red Hook Fantasy," 2018, oil on linen, 68 x 58 in.
How contemporary artist Yuqi Wang, a master of portraiture, discovered Western Art, defied authorities in school, and has answered the question, “Why am I here?”
Portrait of a Portraitist
BY DAVID MASELLO
Yuqi Wang (b. 1958) is looking for the right word. A vintage recording of the great tenor Franco Corelli singing Neapolitan love songs is playing on the phonograph in his Red Hook (Brooklyn) studio, a quiet, contemplative space shot through with beams of sunlight from the west.
“In my portraits, I try to capture something spiritual about the people, their humanity, their interiors — but those are still not the right words I’m after to describe what I want to do as a portrait painter,” Wang says while pointing to various canvases. Although born and raised in China, Yuqi (pro-nounced “Yoo-chee”) Wang speaks English fluently, albeit with an accent, but to find that precise word for his intention, he consults an online Chinese-to-English dictionary.
“Ah, here it is,” he says, holding out the iPhone to show the answer that appears in both English and Chinese characters. “‘Dignity,’ that’s what I want to achieve with everyone who sits for me. Their dignity.”
To look at the many painted faces and figures on the walls and easels of Wang’s loft-like studio is to see the inherent dignity of the men and women he has chosen to depict. Some of the figures are clothed, others are not, and while most are physically beautiful, some wear their years a bit more frankly. Given the way Wang characterizes his subjects, it is not surprising that he cites Rembrandt as among his most important influences.
“Rembrandt tried searching for what was inside a person and putting that on the canvas,” Wang says. “He painted people, yes. But he didn’t always seek out pretty faces or prettily shaped bodies. His figures appear like lighthouses on the sea. You see the real person. The first time I saw Rembrandt paintings, in an art history book as a boy in China, I was very touched. I didn’t recognize the faces he painted as being Western art or Eastern art. They were human faces. That’s what mattered to me.”
Wang came of age as China was convulsed by Mao’s so-called Cultural Revolution, which began in the mid-1960s, and which forced people to shun all things Western, be they political or aesthetic. It wasn’t until Wang was 10 or 11 years old that he saw his first example of true Western art — a black-and-white image in an old newspaper hanging in someone’s window as a makeshift curtain.
He remembers stopping to stare at the image of the figure with long hair and an enigmatic expression. It was Leonardo’s Mona Lisa. “I had no concept of what was or wasn’t Western art at that time, but I couldn’t stop looking, even though the face was a little scary to me.”
Yuqi Wang, “Fatalistic Artist,” 2002, oil on linen, 80 x 68 in.
Later, in high school, he saw more examples of Western art in textbooks and art magazines. Those images, coupled with a truly revolutionary exhibition of paintings loaned by French museums and mounted in Beijing in the late 1970s, provided Wang with a firm context for the subject matter that has propelled him forward ever since.
He cites Chardin, Millet, Waterhouse, Moreau, the Barbizon School, and Courbet as among the artists and movements that helped forge his artistic identity. “Even today, I keep thinking of the Pre-Raphaelite artists and how powerful it was for me to see their works, especially the red-haired woman in the boat in Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott,” he says, referring to the legendary figure who died of unrequited love.
Yuqi Wang, “From Red Hook,” 2005, oil on linen, 30 x 30 in.
AN EARLY REVOLUTIONARY
Today Wang is one of the world’s acknowledged masters of portraiture, having won prizes and notable commissions, including a grand prize and first place prize from the Portrait Society of America, and a second prize in the National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever competition.
Yet the portraiture for which Wang is famous is not actually the genre he pursued as a young artist. When he attended the Academy of Fine Art in his home city of Tianjin, he was assigned to learn printmaking. “In those days, what you were assigned to study in art school was what you had to study for the four years until graduation. There was no breaking of rules. I was warned that if I kept trying to make oil paintings, which is what I wanted to do, I wouldn’t get my certificate at the end.”
In true revolutionary spirit, however, the precocious Wang defied the authorities. For his graduate thesis, he produced a series of paintings depicting Chinese country life, an echo, in many ways, of the 19th-century French pastoral scenes he had recently come upon and admired. “I must admit, I became a kind of star on campus,” he recalls.
Yuqi Wang, “Champagne,” 2007, oil on linen, 56 x 50 in.
Later, Wang attended Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Art, where he was finally able to experience the thrill and methodology of painting live models, the technique he continues to use whenever possible. There, renouncing the color palette, notably garish reds, that had been promoted by Communist authorities, Wang painted a poignant scene depicting two farmers — a man and a woman just in from the field, dirty and exhausted but inherently noble — a work that earned him a prize. “That painting was dark and its colors muted; it was realistic in ways that paintings in China had not been for many years.”
In keeping with his passion for depicting real people doing real things, Wang later embarked on a five-part series of paintings of a woman. “I remember as a young kid attending a funeral and I saw a girl there in a dress with a white collar. The sight of her and what she was wearing, both on her and the expression she wore on her face, really touched and moved me.” It was from that memory that Wang produced the canvases that traced the complete life of a woman, from girlhood to old age.
Yuqi Wang, “Yan: Melisand Forever,” 2014, oil on linen, 48 x 48 in.
From the time he was a boy drawing anything and everything to when he became a student and, later, a teacher, Wang learned the importance of cultivating the right subjects. To be a good — now a great — portraitist requires the earning of trust. The sitter needs to trust the artist for whom he or she sits, often for weeks at a time. It also requires a special vision on the artist’s part — the ability to see into a person.
“As a boy, I taught myself to draw as a way to protect my dignity during the disastrous years of the Cultural Revolution,” Wang explains. “I purposely sought out people I knew would be friendly, willing to let me draw and paint them. My first models were family members, neighbors, and classmates.”
Although China had become a very different place by the mid-1990s, Wang was eager to begin a new metaphorical canvas in his life. Chinese friends already settled in Chicago encouraged him to come there.
“There were four reasons I decided to go to Chicago,” Wang recalls. “One was that I had seen in Paris some of Gustave Moreau’s mythological scenes, and I was especially intent on seeing Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. I also wanted to see Sir Georg Solti conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, to watch Michael Jordan play basketball, and, maybe, the fourth reason, to see where the Mafia once had so much power.”
While Chicago proved to be the right portal to life in America, Wang continued to feel the pull of New York City, eventually relocating there, where he remains, shuttling daily between his Brooklyn apartment and his studio nearby.
Yuqi Wang, “The Artist with His Subject (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.),” 2010, oil on linen, 64 x 64 in.
Wang remembers his first tour through the rough-and-tumble, post-industrial landscape of Red Hook; he had heard that the light there — and the low rents — were ideal for artists. “The landlord took me up to the roof of this building, and when I saw the 360-degree views from up there — of Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty peeking between a church and some factories — I thought, this very setting could be my subject.”
Indeed, to look at “Red Hook Fantasy” (shown at top) his recently completed, and quite magnificent, self-portrait, is to see not only the dignity of the sitter, but also the very surroundings and structures just outside his windows. The factories, the Gothic Revival Catholic church on the corner, the same roof from which he first admired that panorama, the noirish alleyways of Red Hook — all appear as the backdrop to the artist in his paint-smeared smock.
Hovering over this scene — which is decidedly urban and also jarringly post-apocalyptic — is the painted word Melencolia. This references yet another historic master who has influenced Wang: Albrecht Dürer. “I love this word because it evokes the artist’s ‘loneliness,’ which I experienced myself, especially during the Cultural Revolution.”
Wang opens a sketchbook containing some early iterations and ideas for the self-portrait. Page after detailed page reveals a figure, hovering almost angel-like in the background next to him.
Asked about that shadowy figure, Wang replies, “That is Gustav Mahler. I am crazy about Mahler. I wanted to include him, somehow, in a self-portrait because his music is so important to me.” Recognizing, finally, that he was forcing that image onto the canvas in ways that did not feel right, Wang ceded control and instead included an overt reference to Dürer, who represents, perhaps, a more direct artistic bond. Wang’s self-portrait now includes a version of Dürer’s angel from the master’s famous engraving Melencolia I.
Yuqi Wang, “Sunset in Red Hook,” 2015, oil on linen, 56 x 46 in.
ANOTHER PALETTE
In addition to his palette of pigments, Wang works with a musical palette. Whether it’s a recording of Wagner’s Parsifal, a Shostakovich symphony, or, most often, Mahler’s Titan symphony, music accompanies every one of his brushstrokes. “Why Mahler?” Wang asks rhetorically. “Because Mahler is always thinking about the human condition, about philosophy, about religion, about nature, about the meaning of life.”
To further emphasize this musical bond, Wang goes to a corner of his studio and pulls out a canvas that shows a humble house, situated at the end of a long expanse of dense green woods. “This is Mahler’s house in Austria, which I went to see. He had no motherland, really. He was Jewish in a world hostile to Jews. He was always in search of a home, never at home. Even in China, you go from village to village and a person’s accent is different. It marks them as an outsider. I still feel like an outsider, too.”
But feeling like an outsider has advantages for an artist, as it heightens one’s powers of observation. Wang continues to express awe at the people he has met through both serendipity and introductions. One of his most notable models is the Harvard-based scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., whom he has painted three times; the most formal version hangs at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington.
Wang points next to a large canvas in progress that depicts a beautiful, discreetly nude woman. He was introduced to the sitter, Charlotte de Broglie, by a neighbor who thought she might make a good model. “It turns out she’s a French princess, the real thing,” Wang explains. When she visited his studio days later and saw Wang’s completed canvases, she was the one to offer herself as a model. “She sat for me four or five times. She stated that she couldn’t commission a portrait, but she did hint that once it was complete, maybe her father would buy it!”
In his large portraits, Wang paints not only his sitters’ likenesses, but also their histories. Just as he did with his self-portrait and that of Gates, he has included motifs that reference the princess’s life — for example, an image of Ingres’s 1851 portrait at the Metropolitan Museum of Art depicting the Princess de Broglie. “That is her direct ancestor,” says Wang, pointing to the woman in a shimmering blue gown he has eerily recreated. Also depicted is another relative of the princess, a man who won a Nobel prize in physics. Today the young princess’s gown, trimmed in what appears to be chinchilla, hangs beside the canvas, ready to be worn should she return for another sitting.
Wang continues to study his self-portrait, which he gave himself as a kind of birthday present. While painting it last year, he suffered a serious gallstone attack during which, he says, he “kissed death.” That episode, coupled with world events that have led him to despair — everything from the current U.S. president to Brexit to the European refugee crisis — is what led him to inscribe Melencolia on the canvas.
“One day, I walked to the end of the Louis Valentino Pier, here in Red Hook, and I looked across the water to the Statue of Liberty. I asked myself, ‘What is the value of life? Why am I here?’” By the time he returned to his studio, he knew the answer. “I’m here to be an artist, and every artist’s mission is to speak out.”
Having described this episode, Wang shifts to a cozy seating area in his studio, furnished with a couch and floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with CDs and LPs. He pulls out a vintage LP and puts on Wagner’s Parsifal, the tale of a man’s quest to find the Holy Grail. “Bach, Mahler, Wagner — they help me find the entrance to my soul,” Wang says as the needle drops.
Surveying the many canvases in Wang’s studio, as well as those in private and public collections, it is clear that Wang has found his soul and is sharing it with the world.
David Masello is an essayist on art and culture, a poet, and a playwright who lives and works in New York. This article was originally published in Fine Art Connoisseur, January/February 2019.
Patricia Brentano, "Red and Orange Debris," acrylic on canvas, 5 x 6 ft
Patricia Brentano developed a spiritual attachment to the natural world growing up in southern Indiana. Her work is rooted in direct observation and a felt sense of nature. She transformed her suburban yard into a native habitat to benefit the migratory birds as well as the local environment. Much of her inspiration comes from her own back yard.
She has partnered with NJ Audubon and The Nature Conservancy of Indiana to create site specific installations. She has received commissions from environmental organizations and hospitals as well as private collectors. As an educator, Pat gives talks on how to transform our yards into native habitats as well as a workshop about learning to see and reconnect to nature.
“We Don’t Own Nature: The Artwork of Patricia Brentano” is on view online and at the Monmouth Museum (Lincroft, New Jersey) through March 15, 2021. Learn more at monmouthmuseum.org.
Patricia Brentano, “Winter’s Bone,” acrylic on canvas, 40 x 60 in.
In 2012, PBS nationally aired the NJN State of the Arts documentary about Pat as an artist and environmentalist. The Institute for Women’s Leadership at Rutgers also produced a documentary about her work as part of their Transforming Lives Project. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the Mid-Atlantic States. She is a NJ State Council on the Arts Individual Fellow, and a Puffin Grant Recipient.
Pat’s work on endangered birds received the Curators award at the Chesterwood Museum in MA. She was also awarded a residency at I-Park in Connecticut and The Evansville Museum in Indiana. She earned a BFA from Washington University and an MFA from Tyler School of Art. Pat has studios in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, Naples, Florida and Shohola Pennsylvania.
Patricia Brentano, “Sunlit Landscape,” watercolor on paper, 22 x 30 in.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Birds have no arms. They cannot speak. They build nests, hunt for food and defend their young with their beaks. They are delicate creatures that defy gravity and fill the forest with idiosyncratic song. Tragically, since 1970 North America has lost 3 billion birds. In the suburbs we have slowly destroyed their habitat, replacing it with sterile grass and ornamental trees and shrubs cut into balls. We fail to see the beauty and significance of native habitat.
Nature is not neat. It is tangled, layered, textured and ever-changing. The isolation we have endured during the past year has forced us to re-evaluate the way we see the world. Now we look out our windows and walk our neighborhoods. We are finding solace in what has always been there, nature. My work is about seeing this authenticity. We must preserve what remains and educate others to do the same. The artist has always had the capacity to comfort and enlighten. I want my work to be a visual voice for the birds.
Patricia Brentano, “Autumn 2,” ink and mud, 37 x 50 in.Patricia Brentano, “Tangled,” charcoal, 37 x 50 in.Patricia Brentano, “Icy Woods,” acrylic on paper, 37 x 50 in.
As part of our effort to continue to help artists and art galleries thrive, we’re proud to bring you this week’s “Virtual Gallery Walk.” Browse the artwork below and click the image itself to learn more about it, including how to contact the gallery.
Une Postcard of Coco’s Terrace by Alice Williams, Oil, 39 x 39 in.; Anderson Fine Art Gallery
Juchoir by Orville Bulman (1904 – 1978), Oil on canvas, 20.125 x 18.125 in., Signed; also signed, dated 1958, and titled on the reverse; Rehs Galleries, Inc.
Golden Retrievers by Bart Walter (Born 1958), Bronze, 12.5 x 8 x 17 in., Signed; Rehs Contemporary
The Stretch by Jocelyn Sandor Urban, Oil on panel, 16 x 22 in., (20 x 26 in. framed); Vermont Artisan Designs
Want to see your gallery featured in an upcoming Virtual Gallery Walk? Contact us at [email protected] to advertise today. Don’t delay, as spaces are first come, first served, and availability is limited.
Marcia Burtt, "Ruffled Water, High Tide," acrylic, 30 x 36 in.
Starting college at the University of Chicago, Marcia Burtt graduated from UC Berkeley and earned an MA in art from the University of Montana. Fine Art Today had the opportunity to ask Burtt about her style of contemporary landscape paintings and her chosen medium.
Fine Art Today: What’s a common question you hear about your contemporary landscape paintings?
Marcia Burtt: I’m often asked how a painter can find her own style.
To me, style is simply what results as we painters try to show what we think is most interesting or beautiful about what we see. It’s also the handwriting that develops as we use the medium we find most comfortable for our purposes.
Style is just who we are when we’re working!
It’s not something self-consciously developed to make our work look interesting or to make our paintings different from anyone else’s.
The same is true of brushwork, which is nothing more than the evidence on canvas of what we’re trying to do.
Why do you paint in acrylic? Do you work outdoors or mainly in the studio?
Unless I’m creating a 12-foot painting for hospital installation, I paint almost entirely outdoors. Spending hours on location intently observing the natural world is a kind of meditation. It allows my eyes to unpeel like an onion, so that everything becomes beautiful.
Acrylic is seen by many as a medium that’s hard to manage on location. For me it’s the road to the meditative process I experience as I work outside.
I love the freedom of jumping right in without a plan, drawing, underpainting, or even a thumbnail. That way the entire painting process is a joy.
I absolutely need a medium that lets me revise when I change my mind!
Acrylic is not only opaque and quick-drying, but it cannot be lifted or dissolved by subsequent layers. If I don’t like the stroke I just put on, I can use a damp rag to remove it immediately.
In essence, it’s oil painting without the waiting. The colors are just as rich, and I can mix and apply them exactly the same way. Yet it’s easy to scumble one color over another to create a pointillist effect or to revise the edge of a grove of trees without getting the sky color dirty.
When the weather changes, I can too. As the sun and shadows move, I can follow them. When the tide and waves go in and out, I can paint over and over, searching for what works with the rest of the painting.
When my drawing isn’t accurate, I can paint the negative shapes to correct it, working back and forth from one shape to another in a lengthy painterly duet.
Please tell us about your paintings of water.
Whether calm and reflective, ruffled, or ocean rollers, I love painting water. Maybe because I enjoy waiting for just the right moment to put each brushstroke on the canvas, an acutely meditative practice.
“Colors of a Grey Day” was painted during an intense week when I worked all day every day along the coast of Laguna Beach. The overcast sky and tide that came gently in and gently out kept the scene from changing much. Soft blues, greens, and bronzes flowed off my brush onto the canvas. This was one of the easiest paintings I’ve ever done, and one I’m still satisfied with.
Marcia Burtt, “Colors of a Gray Day,” acrylic, 24 x 24 in.
“Ruffled Water, High Tide” took many sessions at the same time of day over the course of more than a week. Sunny weather meant the shadows changed during the day. Light wind caused the water to ripple, and ripples don’t sit still!
But above all, because I didn’t draw beforehand, I spent an enormous amount of time revising so that features I became aware of as I worked would weave together to satisfy my compositional sense.
The arc of the clifftop with tree shadows on top of it is intersected on the right by a patch of sky as it works its way down through the trees, and that line is picked up by a shadow in the cliff, continuing to a vertical as it drops into the water.
That arc intersecting the winding slender vertical seemed absolutely necessary as it echoed the large vertical blue column of sky and water on the left.
Because it’s acrylic, no one but us knows there are dozens of versions under what we see.
Marcia Burtt, “Ruffled Water, High Tide,” acrylic, 30 x 36 in.
PAVEL SOKOV (b. 1990), "Jackie," 2018, oil on linen, 24 x 18 in., available from the artist
There is a lot of superb contemporary realism being made these days; this article by Allison Malafronte shines light on a gifted individual.
PAVEL SOKOV (b. 1990) — a young Russian painter currently based in Montreal — offers the art world an impressive array of talents and services, including commissioned portraits, figurative works of his own composition, and a weekly podcast titled The Creative Mastermind Show. This energetic artist also travels extensively, bringing an array of cultural influences back to his studio to inform these and other projects.
Sokov spends most of his time these days working on commissioned portraits, with such recent clients as the royal families of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, leaders of industry and government, and a well-known rapper. He is also involved as a portraitist in the 350 Visionary Project, which highlights 350 innovative women across multiple disciplines and vocations. Sokov is quite vested in this initiative and sees it as a way to visualize examples of aspiration for girls and younger women.
In his studio, where he tackles subjects of his own choosing, Sokov is eager to express through paint the stories of the distinctive characters he encounters during his travels abroad. One example is his painting “Jackie,” which shows a man with a legendary-musician-like look lighting a cigarette in a café.
Beyond the sitter’s intriguing appearance, we get the sense he has a story to tell. As Sokov explains, Jackie was a “bad boy” who fought for the Americans in the Vietnam War and today is a popular tour guide in Ho Chi Minh City. The artist met Jackie there this year as Jackie was explaining how merchants along the Mekong River Delta trade goods and services.
Having graduated from a business school in Montreal prior to his art training, Sokov is not afraid to marry painting and marketing. He chooses to remain without gallery representation, as he has managed to attract and retain his own clients and followers. Although he does exhibit in group shows and currently has an agent who has brokered two major assignments, Sokov plans to remain independent.
Considering he only started painting a few years ago and has already achieved several milestones — including a commission from Time to paint Vladimir Putin’s portrait for the cover of its 2014 Person of the Year issue — Sokov will surely do just fine marching to his own drum.
Tanya Atanasova,, "White Rabbit," oil on canvas, 110 x 100, 2021
One to Watch: Tanya Atanasova is a Bulgarian born figurative painter, currently based in Antwerp, Belgium. Atanasova shares how extremely emotional, intense moments, and strained relationships have informed her art.
“Back in the day, surviving was a real thing,” she says. “Having the skill for ‘guessing the person’ and knowing who to trust was often your only weapon in life. So, there is no wonder I primarily paint people and portraits.”
Tanya Atanasova, “Tiger,” oil on canvas, 140 x 100cm, 2018
On Becoming a Portrait Painter
BY TANYA ATANASOVA
I was born in 1978, in Koprivshtica – the very heart of The Balkans. At the time I was born, Bulgaria was still a communistic people’s Republic and I can still recall a lot of the regime-time-feel of the country and the mentality back then. On the surface our family was a standard, middle-class, working family, but digging deeper – it had a rich history of extremely emotional, intense moments, and strained relationships, which have played a significant role throughout my life.
I had two brothers, who were very much into painting, creating, crafting, and inventing things and we all use to attend painting lessons at a local artist’s atelier for years.
When I was nine, my brother Iliya (11) – an incredibly bright kid – died by an insane accident and that marked the beginning of a very different life then. My father could not bear his depression anymore and quickly found his way to abusive drinking and gambling. My mother left us, starting a new live and becoming super-religious. And in a sense, they both found their consolation in different niches / addictions and we were left behind, growing up with all the complexity of “neglected kids.”
Tanya Atanasova, “Lou,” 120 x 80 cm, 2018
As I grew up, the socio-political situation in the country had changed (it was around the time of the fall of The Berlin Wall). The small-town mentality together with the numerous family secrets started suffocating me and one night, when I was 13, I left the house of my father and took the train to no return.
I came to Sofia and I found my mother; I moved in and lived with her during the next few years.
Those were trying years of changes, chaos, comprehensive, pervasive crisis, hyperinflation, mafia wars and general misery and impoverishment. The ones who could, left the country; many people just didn’t make it.
Tanya Atanasova, “Still Water,” oil on Belgian linen, 70 x 46 cm, (27.6 x 18.11 inches), 2020
Back in those days, I met the Sredovski family, who almost adopted me and thanks to their moral support and the super hard work of my mom and my brother supporting me financially – I graduated successfully from the National Art Academy in Sofia. In the hungriest years of the modern history of Bulgaria, I studied art and everyone claimed I was crazy.
Many stories later, I became the very first Erasmus exchange-student in Sint-Lucas Academy in Ghent and a year later, I moved to Belgium to stay.
As a slightly traumatized kid, I easily made an “observing teenager.” (I only opened up verbally, when I met my second family – they are all very sociable and chatty). I’ve been trying to understand people and social phenomena nonverbally all my life. I used to be good at reading body language and facial expressions. Back in the day, surviving was a real thing and having the skill for “guessing the person” and knowing who to trust was often your only weapon in life. So, there is no wonder I primarily paint people and portraits.
Tanya Atanasova, “Philip,” oil on canvas, 50 x 70cm, 2019
Nowadays, when things start to move too fast, I tend to slow down and start on a painting, which will spend at least a few months in my studio with me. In the era of quick-replaceable social media profile pictures and selfies – my gaze goes into the story of every character I create. I am interested in the psychology and unique complexity of my model and I try to become an intermediary between subject and viewer – building a connection that goes beyond painted portrait. Looking at the paintings should be like glimpsing the character’s diary or reading a page from his / her biography.
Also, being born in a country where everything was about functioning in a group, the communal life and with unification going on on every level – I’m now, very much interested in the individual. For that and many other reasons I love painting portraits/individual moments and personal stories.
Tanya Atanasova, “Jens,” oil on canvas, 55 x 39 inches, 2018Tanya Atanasova, “Michel with Octopus,” oil on canvas, 120 x 110, 2016Tanya Atanasova, “Eva,” Oil on Belgian linen, 120 x 90cm, 2019
My solo show ECHTE MENSEN – Real People, is just one more declaration of love for personal stories. The exhibition is open for visitors at Cultuurhuis de Bijl, Zoersel (Belgium), and is on view through February 2021.
Matthew Benedict, "The Sea Cook (Cook and Crew of the U.S.S Monitor)," 2017, gouache on wood,
48 x 59 7/8 in/122 x 152 cm,
photo: Joerg Lohse,
image courtesy of Alexander and Bonin, New York
Painted in gouache on wood or paper, Matthew Benedict (b. 1968, Rockville, Connecticut) employs trompe l’oeil framing, illustration, and decorative arts conventions in his portraits, seascapes, and still lives. Benedict’s fascinations with systems of belief ranging from the biblical to the occult are embedded in the work as are literary references and contemporary allusions.
Matthew Benedict, “Ghost (Happy New Year. Normandy, 1914), 2011, gouache and varnish on wood, 72 x 48 in/183 x 122 cm, photo: Joerg Lohse, image courtesy of Alexander and Bonin, New York
More from the Alexander and Bonin gallery:
The artist’s paintings relay archetypal or mythological narratives, deliberately pulling parables from the ancient past into the present. Benedict grew up in New England, which is reflected in the maritime themes and legends that are prominent in his work, though the mythologies are often conflated with modern imagery and staged recreations that sometimes include evidence of their own artifice.
Matthew Benedict, “Bad Charles,” 2001, gouache and wax varnish on wood, 71½ x 48 in/182 x 122 cm, image courtesy of Alexander and Bonin, New York
The earliest works in the exhibition are “San Lorenzo of Rome” and “Saint Joan of Arc,” the first of which was exhibited in the windows of the Grey Art Gallery in 1993. Depicted in near life-size scale on large sheets of paper, Benedict’s interpretations of Catholic saints are integrated into his work as modernized bearers of symbols of the transcendental.
Matthew Benedict, “Saint Joan of Arc,” 1997-98, gouache on paper, 96 x 60 in/244 x 152.5 cm, image courtesy of Alexander and Bonin, New York
Initially shown in a large survey exhibition of Benedict’s work at the Von der Heydt-Museum/Kunsthalle Barmen in 2008, “The Black Bursolino” displays a collection of objects, a wand, two coins, three swords, and a seven of hearts, all motifs which indicate the omnipresence of magic and transformation in Benedict’s work.
Matthew Benedict, “The Black Borsalino,” 2001, gouache and Damar on wood, 36 x 48 in/91.5 x 122 cm, photo: Joerg Lohse, image courtesy of Alexander and Bonin, New York
Also included are paintings from a 2008 cycle of works inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s paintings of the Isle of the Dead, which draw from Benedict’s experiences visiting two real-life “Isles of the Dead,” Isola San Michele, the walled, gothic, cemetery-island of Venice, and New York City’s little-known Hart Island, located just off of City Island in the Bronx.
Matthew Benedict, “Isle of the Dead, Venice (Isola di San Michele, Venice, 2008, gouache on wood, 36 x 48 in/ 91 x 122 cm, photo: Jason Mandella, image courtesy of Alexander and Bonin, New York
Benedict studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the New School for Social Research, New York. He has had several exhibitions of his paintings and sculptures at Alexander and Bonin, New York and Mai 36 Galerie, Zürich.
In 2008, a large survey exhibition of Benedict’s work was presented at the Von der Heydt-Museum/Kunsthalle Barmen, Wuppertal, accompanied by “The Mage’s Pantry,” a monograph published by Hatje Cantz.
He was in residence at the Versailles /Giverny Foundation in 2011 and had solo exhibitions at Galeria Álvaro Alcázar, Madrid (2008 and 2011) as well as Stene Projects, Stockholm (2013 and 2016).
Benedict’s works are included in the permanent collections of the FRAC de Picardie, Amiens; Dallas Museum of Art; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the NASA Art Program, Washington, DC.
Matthew Benedict, “Pool Sharks at the Safehouse, 2019, gouache on wood, 36 x 36 in/91.4 x 91.4 cm, photo: Joerg Lohse, image courtesy of Alexander and Bonin, New York
Alexander and Bonin (New York, NY) recently announced an exhibition of paintings by Matthew Benedict, titled “Manifestations.” The exhibition includes works that Benedict has made throughout his 30-year career, providing an opportunity to see significant works seldom on view to the public. For information, please visit alexanderandbonin.com.
Brian Keith Stephens, “Promise You Never Make Me Eat Sardines,” 2020, oil and wax on cotton.
The Lyman Allyn Art Museum recently announced the opening of a new exhibition on highlighting the work of local Connecticut artist Brian Keith Stephens (b. 1973). “Almost True Tales” explores the artist’s fascination with animals as mythic symbols across time and culture. The exhibition will be on view through May 9, 2021.
Brian Keith Stephens, “Your Dress Is A Curtain,” 2020, oil and wax on Canadian birch.
More from the museum:
Spread throughout three galleries, “Almost True Tales” will feature 18 large works of art. In vibrant, figurative paintings, Stephens draws on legends, fables and folk tales from around the world to invest his animal subjects with meaning and emotion, revealing a common cultural language that resonates with children and adults alike.
Brian Keith Stephens, “Perfect Romance,” 2020, 57 x 38 inches, oil and wax on cotton
“Growing up in Connecticut, I have always found animals as a vessel for depicting human emotion; I believe in many ways animals are capable of expressing human emotions in a way that is both understandable, mysterious and alluring,” says Stephens. “At the center of my work and life are these fascinations with myth, the spectrum of human passion, our kinship to the spirit of the wild animal, and the challenges of balancing the real with the fanciful. My art has been and continues to be my outlet for exploring these themes and conjuring up new ones.”
Brian Keith Stephens, “Who’s That Lipstick On The Glass,” 2020, oil and wax on cotton.
At a time when the omnipresent flow of information makes it harder than ever to identify what is true, Stephens’ work encourages viewers to recall the simple virtues embodied by animals in countless tales. These enduring folk wisdoms are a source of solace and a reminder that decency can prevail and help the world to heal in even the most difficult times.
“It is a great pleasure to welcome Brian Keith Stephens, an increasingly well-known and beloved artist from our region, for a solo exhibition here in the Lyman Allyn,” says Sam Quigley, Director at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum. “No stranger to many aficionados beyond these climes, Stephens has shown his work frequently in New York, Palm Beach, Boston, Provincetown and other American cities, as well as in many important venues in Europe. Clearly, he is getting the widespread recognition he deserves, and we are very pleased to be able to share this cohesive body of work in our intimate galleries.”
Brian Keith Stephens, “Not All The Songs Are Worth Singing,” 2020, oil and wax on cotton.
Stephens graduated from the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in 1998. He then attended the Academie de la Grande Chaumier in Paris and, in 2004, received a Masters of Fine Art in Painting from the City College of New York. Since 2000, he has exhibited in solo shows and group exhibitions in the United States, Germany, France, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Bulgaria. His work is represented in private collections around the world. He lives and works in Old Lyme and Brooklyn, NY.
Brian Keith Stephens, “My Lover Is Coming Home,” 2020, oil and wax on cotton.
For more details about “Almost True Tales,” please visit www.lymanallyn.org.
Alixandra
By Aiden Kringen
24 x 36 in.
Acrylic and ink on canvas
$5,750
Aiden Kringen’s work is a balance between traditional realism and geometric abstraction. His goal as an artist is to encapsulate idealized beauty through a cracked or broken lens. Kringen strives for beauty through controlling and organizing chaos. For him, the process of painting a portrait or figure involves balancing between reality and abstraction, down to each single feature of the face or hand. He dissects the figure using line work, dividing between tone and texture, and then reconnects the pieces along invisible planes throughout the painting. He has a respect for the pure and beautiful human essence while accepting that it is imperfect, and therefore depicts it through fractured linework. Kringen has always had an interest in traditional realism, but within his work, he’s strived to pare it down and reassemble it along a geometric framework that fits within a modern context. Aiden resides in Graton, CA.
You can visit him, along with 100 other artists, at the Celebration of Fine Art in Scottsdale, Arizona, through March 28, 2021. Contact us at 480-443-7695 or [email protected].
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