►Adam Hunter Caldwell - Evoking paintings

►Adam Hunter Caldwell, born 1963 Framingham, Massachusetts. Education BFA with honors CCAC in 1998.

Artist's Statement...

My paintings and drawings juxtapose elements of abstract expressionism and classical figuration. During my training at the California College of Arts and Crafts, I began to create collage drawings that layered disparate images on top of one another; I now use oil paint in a similar way, starting with an abstract background and then adding more photo-realistic details, allowing the work to dictate its own construction. The resulting palimpsest of figures and abstract shapes represents the conflicted and paradoxical emotions that underlie my work. My paintings evoke the tensions between mind and body, self and other, present and past. They also raise questions about the nature of identity, particularly concerning issues of gender and sexuality. I am deeply concerned about the world around me, and my work reflects my reactions to social issues such as war and consumerism by contrasting images from American advertisements and popular culture with images of rituals from around the world. 

The eclectic nature of my work reflects my wide range of interests and influences. My figurative painting and drawing has been influenced by the realistic yet expressive work of Odd Nerdrum, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Antonio López García, Jenny Saville, and Barron Storey, whom I studied under at CCAC. Theories of consciousness by philosophers such as Daniel Dennett have also informed my art work. I am inspired by my grandfather, author Erskine Caldwell, and his commitment to representing the unseen and marginalized members of our society. I am also heavily influenced by music, movies, and comics, all of which have shaped my identity. I am an accomplished guitarist and martial artist, and these disciplines also inform my artistic perspective. 

One of my most important areas of inspiration is the community of artists I surround myself with. Painting in particular can be a very lonely and isolating practice, so I make a point to attend drawing groups and I share studio space with David Choong Lee. Although the process can be solitary, I paint to commune with others and allow them entrance into my interiority. Painting connects me to my world and times and culture. I always hope to create work that will invoke in someone else the feelings I have had before great art. 

http://www.adamhuntercaldwell.com 

►Alex Varanese - Urban cartography

►Alex Michael Varanese releases music as broken time machines, has released one episode so far of an animated sitcom. He is native to the bay area. Thinks John Hughes is bigger than Jesus. He is an ardent believer in hard determinism and wishes he were better friends with fate; is guilty of an overuse - but never misuse - of the word "literally"; draws upon a limitless supply of cheeky quips designed specifically for ironic, post-hipster posturing; likes red more than you do.

Alex's clients are: Nike, Google, Publicis / Chevrolet, Fortune, Playboy, Island Records, Wired UK, Money Magazine, Surface Magazine, Advanced Photoshop Magazine, Computer Arts Magazine, CBS, Sapient-Nitro / Drambuie, Rowohlt Verlag / Jack Kerouac (view work).

http://www.alexvaranese.com/  

►Philippe Faraut - Mastering portraiture

►Philippe Faraut is a figurative artist specializing in life-size portrait sculptures and monumental stone sculptures. His media of choice are water-based clay and marble. He received his degree in woodcarving and the construction of French fine furniture from Germain Sommeillier in Annecy, France, his boyhood home. An avid traveler, Philippe's destinations have allowed him the opportunity to study the cultures of many countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, thus influencing his work in portraiture sculpting. After establishing residence in the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia, he developed an interest in modeling the head in clay. Soon thereafter, he relocated his studio to New York State and began teaching sculpting classes. 

Philippe has created numerous original works ranging from six-inch porcelain figurines to monuments in both stone and bronze. He has exhibited his sculptures in various galleries and national competitions including several of the National Sculpture Society's Annual Exhibitions shown in New York City and Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina, as well as the American Portrait Society's Annual Exhibit in New York City. In addition, he has studied forensic reconstruction with internationally recognized expert Betty Pat Gatliff.

For nearly twenty years Philippe has traveled throughout the United States and Canada, teaching sculptors and aspiring sculptors how to render portraits in clay at private studios and institutions such as the Longview Museum of Fine Art in Texas. Together with his wife Charisse, the couple has made Philippe's techniques available to students in the form of a three-part video series, in addition to step-by-step instructional sculpting books. 

As an award-winning stone sculptor specializing in representational art, Philippe feels that the renewed interest and willingness of artists to return to the study of the human form has the potential to bring back to our society an appreciation for traditional beauty.

Philippe and his wife Charisse are committed to creating unique specialty teaching materials for their company PCF Studios, Inc. All tools and casts are designed and made locally at their Honeoye studio. They also oversee the quality and printing of their books and DVD productions by printing in New York State.

http://philippefaraut.com/

►Henri Matisse - Words of wisdom

► Why have I never been bored? For more than fifty years I have never ceased to work. 

► When I put a green, it is not grass. When I put a blue, it is not the sky.

► I desire pleasure. I am not a revolutionary by principle. I was educated in an entirely different manner. 

► My mother liked everything I did. It is from her affection for her that I always drew what theory failed to offer me per finish the painting.

► Would not it be best to leave room to mystery?

► What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape: it is the human figure. 

► What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter, an art which could be for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.

► Expression, for me, does not reside in passions glowing in a human face or manifested by violent movement. The entire arrangement of my picture is expressive; the place occupied by the figures, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, everything has its share.

► I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have the light joyousness of springtime, which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me.... 

► Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.

► I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.

► Exactitude is not truth.

► Cutting into color reminds me of the sculptor's direct carving.

► Seek the strongest color effect possible... the content is of no importance.

► In modern art, it is undoubtedly to Cézanne that I owe the most.

► The essential thing is to spring forth, to express the bolt of lightning one senses upon contact with a thing. The function of the artist is not to translate an observation but to express the shock of the object on his nature; the shock, with the original reaction.

► I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish.

► A young painter who cannot liberate himself from the influence of past generations is digging his own grave.

► There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.

► You study, you learn, but you guard the original naiveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.

► An artist must never be a prisoner. Prisoner? An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc.

► It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.

► I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some sort of Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.

► I would like to recapture that freshness of vision which is characteristic of extreme youth when all the world is new to it.

► There are always flowers for those who want to see them.

► Creativity takes courage.

► It is not enough to place colors, however beautiful, one beside the other; colors must also react on one another. Otherwise, you have cacophony.

► Work cures everything.

► Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul.

► I have always sought to be understood and, while I was taken to task by critics or colleagues, I thought they were right, assuming I had not been clear enough to be understood. This assumption allowed me to work my whole life without hatred and even without bitterness toward criticism, regardless of its source. I counted solely on the clarity of expression of my work to gain my ends. Hatred, rancor, and the spirit of vengeance are useless baggage to the artist. His road is difficult enough for him to cleanse his soul of everything which could make it more so.

► It is my dream to create an art which is filled with balance, purity and calmness, freed from a subject matter that is disconcerting or too attention-seeking. In my paintings, I wish to create a spiritual remedy, similar to a comfortable armchair which provides rest from physical expectation for the spiritually working, the businessman as well as the artist.

►Santtu Mustonen - Vibrant illustrations

►Works by Santtu Mustonen are illustrations with a bit of movement that make them look 3Dimensional. Santtu is an Amsterdam based graphic designer / illustrator / trippy-gif-maker, has an all new portfolio bursting with strange shapes, wild lines, and funky color combinations that will make you poke your computer’s screen.

http://www.santtumustonen.com/

►Spunky Zoe - Captivating mixed media

►Spunky Zoe (Seungyea Park) is an artist based out of South Korea. Spunky Zoe creates large scale pieces using mere ball-point pens and acrylic on paper.