Deadly Friends, by Patrick Lee

I don't know much about this Los Angeles-based artist - but came across some of his drawings a few months ago. I've hard a hard time locating more of his work online, but the link below to the gallery that represents him has a few others. I am particular interested in the tension he creates between these "tough guys" and the tradition of fine art portraiture. These are men who live a coarse existence, yet Lee captures them with delicacy.

From his gallery website:
Lee’s drawings are painstakingly crafted over months of refinement. Inspired by photographs he takes of men from the streets of America, they convey a unique insight into class and gender ideals. Many subjects are ‘outsiders’ or ‘outlaw’ types; mimicked by pop culture icons and contemporary heroic figures.

Patrick Lee online

Deadly Friends (Rock Star), 2007, graphite on paper, 24" x 36"


Deadly Friends Study #14, 2007, graphite on paper, 14" x 11"


Andrew Wyeth Dies, 91

This week's post is devoted to one of the most important American painters of the last century: Andrew Wyeth, who died this morning at age 91. I saw an exhibition of his watercolors and drawings a couple of years ago - one of the best I've seen. His steadfast commitment to recording the world around him with poetic detail is unparalleled. His painting, "Christina's World" (pictured below) is one of the great icons of American painting. Also below is a link to an article about his death and his life. Even if you don't know of him, raise a glass of wine and get to know what he left behind...

Famed Artist Andrew Wyeth Dies

Andrew Wyeth Art

Christina's World (1948)
Tempura on Gessoed Panel
32.25" x 47.75"


Trodden Weed (1951)
Tempura on Panel
20" x 18.25"


Wind from the Sea (1947)
Tempura on Masonite
18.5" x 27.5"


The Human Project, by Steven Cosentino

I'm not very familiar with this artist - and I don't find his paintings to be particularly engaging. However, I stumbled across this piece of "social art" he created and found it to be pretty impressive. Below is his description of the project - a massive portrait "painted" with the discarded clothing of homeless people. Note especially the "ghost image" left after the work was destroyed...

The Human Being Project
In 1999, Grand Central Neighborhood Social Services was informed that its landlord, St. Agnes Church, was selling the hundred year old building that housed the entire social service program for the homeless. A real estate developer planned to build a high rise apartment on the site. To protest the move, I decided to paint an image of a "Human Being" on the roof, using discarded clothes from the center as the "paint". The image measures 65x35 feet and was featured in the New York Times. The building was destroyed along with the "Human Being" and fifteen of my murals inside. Hundreds of homeless people were displaced.



Attempt by St. Agnes to cover up the image before the sale of the building. The church ripped up all the clothes and painted those areas black. The mismatch of blacks (paint and tar) produced this black version.



Cosentino Studios

Sarah McKenzie's paintings look at the phenomena of suburban expansion. Her site is worth checking out - and scrolling to some of the later paintings of suburban neighborhoods. They are clearly images of these residential places, but the combination of a larger scale and aerial viewpoints cause them to read as abstractions.

From her artist's statement: "The generic forms of suburban architecture provide a convenient framework through which I explore the basic structures and issues of geometric abstraction -- stripes, grids, flatness vs. depth, color relativity, and so forth... At this point, my work is only minimally about suburbia. Tract homes and strip malls provide the fodder for the paintings and help to place them in a specific cultural moment in time, but the work is ultimately about paint and the nature of pictures. To the extent that my paintings still comment on suburbia, it is through the moments of visual rupture... which may be interpreted as revealing cracks in the suburban American dream."

Sarah McKenzie

Build Up (2005)
Oil on Canvas
72"x72"



Interior, Strandgade 30, by Vilhelm Hammershoi (Danish)

Going back in history a bit - to the work of Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershoi. I just recently came across his work and quite possibly have found a new "favorite" to add to the list. He is not as well known, but his paintings feel like a merging of Vermeer and Andrew Wyeth. His best known works are interior domestic scenes, often with a female (usually his wife) with her back to the viewer. Very understated, yet intimate. The focal point almost always seems to reside on the back of her neck. This kind of "reverse portraiture" is a very contemporary move considering the time in which he was painting.

From Wikipedia: "Hammershoi's paintings are best described as muted in tone. He refrained from employing bright colors (except in his very early academic works), opting always for a limited palette consisting of grays, as well as desaturated yellows, greens, and other dark hues. The overall impression of his style is one of coolness, restraint, and quietude. His tableaux of figures turned away from the viewer project an air of slight tension and mystery..."

Hammershoi Images on Google

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior, Strandgade 30, 1908 (oil on canvas, 79 x 66 cm)

The Edge of the Ring, by Andrew Haines

Andrew Haines is a painter I came across a year ago or so. I appreciate his sensitivity to the banality of the everyday. This is from a portion of his artist's statement:

"Observing the tedious details of the every day built environment, I revel in subjects that my aesthetic training originally taught me to hate. Tracking the motion of the sun over a suburban strip mall, vinyl clad housing, or the ubiquitous chain link fence; my subject is frequently a visual irritation that I pass everyday. Working with the pest, I usually manage to eke out some kind of beauty, even if satire or derision were the original intent."

Andrew Haines Paintings

The Edge of the Ring, by Andrew Haines (2006)
Acrylic on panel
16" x 18"

Monument, by Jeff Eisenburg

Monument, by Jeff Eisenburg (2008)
Graphite on paper
11" x 16"

Jeff Eisenburg's Drawings