Wendy Jones
Fine art is the head and the heart and the hand together

The Rebellious Curator

(posted on 14 Sep 2022)

Miniature Forgeries now on view at kleinwerksgallery on IG

 

I had so much fun creating tiny copies of 20c abstract art. I didn't have enough time to make more for the show, so I'd like to have a yearly mini forgery exhibit. There are too may I wanted to try and make!

 

I lied and said I was busy.

 

I was busy, but not in a way most people would understand.

 

I was busy taking deeper breaths.

 

I was busy silencing irrational thoughts.

 

I was busy searching for calm in a chaotic world

 

And I was busy praying for strength.

 

Sometimes this is my busy.

(posted on 13 Jun 2022)

 

These are a few rainbows I'm experimenting with in watercolour as a study for a larger painting in oil. They are about 3x5 inches on w/c paper. I'm finding rainbows extremely challenging and one of the hardest things I have ever tried to paint. 

I'm interested in rainbows for a few reasons. 1) I find them to be one of the most beautiful things in nature. When I researched the science, I was amazed by the complexity of the many different kinds of rainbows and how light and atmosphere works. 2) They are a challenge to paint, and I want to figure out how to pull it off in an interesting way.

3) I'm interested in the question of cultural and religious appropriation of the rainbow, and the original rainbow flag.

 I did some research on the orgins of the rainbow flag and I found it ties to the German Peasant Wars of the 16c. These wars took place in the Alsace Region near Germany (where my ancestorial roots are from). I was surprized to learn that a flag with a rainbow was used as a banner by the peasants who fought against the Feudal System during the 1500's Holy Roman Empire. This flag shows a colourful rainbow intended to refer to the covenant God made between Noah and Himself(Genesis 9:1-17). Below the rainbow there is a line in Latin text which reads: "Verbum domini maneat in etternum." which means "The word of the Lord stays eternally." Signaling the eternal validity of God's covenant between Man and God. Underneath the line in Latin, there are two lines in German text: "Die ist das zeichen des ewigen bundes gotes." which means that the rainbow is the sign of the eternal covenant of God. 

"Then God said, I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you, and with all living creatures. For all generations to come. I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is a sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth. When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will floodwaters destroy all the life. When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth." - Genesis 9:12-16

 

This is the original painting as I first painted it. I wanted to depict spring blossoms on a tree. Baker was secondary subject and strictly from memory. After a few years, I felt the painting was weak and lacked depth. 

 

So I made the changes and transformed the tree and surrounding area into Fall. 

I rarely if ever use reference photos so this was completely from my own imagination. 

I would love to know which is your favourite.

(posted on 29 Apr 2022)

Much of Twombly's work is a direct reflection of his response to Greek and Roman mythology and contemporary graffiti. His gestural drawing and painting technique is extremely hard to replicate.

 

"One could say that any child could make a drawing like Twombly, only in the sense that any fool with a hammer could fragment sculptures like Rodin, or any house painter could splatter paint as well as Pollock. In none of these cases would it be true. In each case, the art lies not so much in the finesse of each individual mark, but in the orchestration of a previously uncodified set of personal rules about where to act, and where not, how far to go, and when to stop. In such a way as the cumulative courtship of seeming chaos defines an original hybrid kind of order which in turn, illuminates a complex sense of human experience not voiced or left marginal in previous art." 

 Kirk Varnedoe - Chief Curator, MOMA, and Professor of Art History, Princeton U.

(posted on 20 Apr 2022)

"Creating artwork allows your mind to be in a safe place while it contemplates the tougher issues you are dealing with. 

One can use the tools of a brush, paint, pastels,crayons, etc. to expose, and even for a short time, colour those issues in a different light." - George E. Miller

 

 

(posted on 12 Apr 2022)

(posted on 11 Feb 2022)

"The landscapes were in my arms as I did it." - Helen Frankenthaler

(posted on 14 Jan 2022)

"When I was a younger man, art was a lonely thing. No galleries, no collectors, no critics, no money. Yet it was a golden age, for we all had nothing to lose, and a vision to gain. Today it is not quite the same. It is a time of tons of verbiage, activity, consumption. Which condition is better for the world I shall not venture to discuss. But I do know that many of those who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where we can root and grow. We must all hope to find them."

Mark Rothko

(posted on 13 Jan 2022)

 

 

"The more frightening the world becomes, the more art becomes abstract."

Wassily Kandinsky

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