So I know I’m a moron, but my first reaction to these is that I just don’t like the signature. Also, unrelated to that thought, but related to this painter’s work: I’m trying to remember have we ever posted a still life painting?
well, i may be a moron as well, but my first reaction is that i really don’t like the paintings. in fact, i think they might need some nuetron bombing. harsh, i know.
it’s just that these give me such an underwhelming type of feeling…the exact opposite of the feeling i get when i look at stanley’s. these all feel like sketches. very non-specific in a ubiquitous type way. the color also feels like an easter bunny barfed.
Um…we’ve posted some still life related paintings. Most of Gordon Cook’s work is still life. And you posted that Hugh Yorty painting, which, admittedly was a still life made to look like a landscape. Jessie Fisher was a still life, especially if you consider ’still life’ is a half-goofed translation of ‘nature morte’ (dead nature?). That’s a good point though. Maybe we’ve been inadvertently still-life biased.
I saw these in a catalog the other day, and some of that easter-bunny-barf looked pretty good–winter light warms and cools, very tasty. But I admit I had the same Stanley-related reaction: Every time I look at that drawing on that post, I’m transfixed. I just stare and stare.
Maybe they would be better in person? I know that digital images, slides, etc. do not do justice to a lot of work. On the flip side, some work is disappointing in person. (these are earth-shattering revelations, I know.)
Do any of you think about the inevitability that your painting will become a new image (through its reproduction) while making the painting?
I kind of love it, sometimes, because I love ‘compression’ –an image that’s packed full (hence my being transfixed by the Stanley drawing). The jpeg obviously has a breaking point in terms of enlargement, but when it’s a small-scale facsimile, the images get unbelievably crunchy. I guess I have to qualify that with my being comfortable with a reproduction of an image having a different life from the image itself, as long as the work itself remains better or equal. I don’t really think about it when I’m making the work, though.
Being someone who came to know a lot of culture-making painting by reproductions first, I’ve often found seeing works in person very empowering. The task seems less impossible. Maybe the new academe isn’t college art programs anymore. Maybe it’s jpegs and wikipedia.
i don’t like many of my own images on reproduction. i think it’s kind of similar to the sensation when you hear your own voice on recording. the ‘oh my goodness, that’s me?’ sensation. i like my paintings best in my studio. before they get the chance to venture out in the world, in whatever capacity.
but, i don’t tend to worry much about the whole thing. not unless i’m applying for jobs, and then it makes me a little queezy.
Sloane, I just want you to know that I think it’s a good question. I am in fact biting my tongue on this matter.
Sam, I almost wish you hadn’t put the ‘neutron bomb’ tag on this painting. I thought it was funny at first, but then the phrase ‘with a whimper, not a bang’ got stuck in my head and it’s really coloring how I see this painting. I just can’t get past it.
Last, speaking of squiggly painterly paintings with acts of re-population going on: http://brianallensmith.com/painting_01.htm
Right at 11 if this was the face of a clock. Does anyone else see 2 figures doing what I think they’re doing? Or is it just me?
it might just be a ‘low hug’. perfectly innocent.
what i like about brians images is that he does bring little moments of specificity to them. and the tangles of forms complicate the space. also, he uses some really dark values in contrast to the more atmospheric ephemeral stuff. that makes a world of difference, i think.
I am interested in Sloane’s comment about the painting becoming another work with another nature when duplicated. Painting in particular seems to suffer when reproduced since an already flat surface gets flatter and there is no supporting contextual information that shows you are experiencing a fragment of its reality, as in the photo of a sculpture or installation. Video gets to capitalize on this.
It would be interesting if not sort of silly, to do a drawing in non-photo blue paper and pencils–it could not actually be copied or photographed.
I guess I get carried away with a lot of ideas about how we look and how we see and how we value, as much as what the image is or looks like.
Hard to have a strong opinion about these…They’re not that bad, but there’s not much to grab the eye and hold it, nothing to make one wonder or speculate about the subject-matter…They’re obviously painted by someone with a little training yet little conviction in what she’s trying to communicate…As to the question of reproducing paintings, I long ago stopped hoping for any fidelity from photography…The best we can hope for is a decent image that might make the viewer want to see the real thing, pretty much the way any advertising works…
Hello. been looking at your blog lately. Huge fan of the Midwest paint group. Myself, I guess I am BI..a Bi-coaster…or philadelphia based yet arkansas raised. PAFA and IU. I feel I have more in common with a lot of Midwest Art values, those admired by the midwest paint group, etc. anway….
LaFuente. I have mixed reactions. This is her strongest show, I think, to date. These are all one-shot paintings, from my understanding. She follows the lead of a painter like Stuart Shils, who does numerous one shot landscapes, shows at Tibor de Nagy, has a website. LaFuente recently finished her MFA at Brooklyn, studying with Lennart Anderson.
Any comments on the previous show at Gross McCleaf: Voices and Interiors..? Group show, interesting.
some other painters of interest: http://www.kenkewley.com (check the archives). Neil Riley at Keny gallery. Rodrigo Moynihan at Robert Miller gallery.
I am not sure how to post a picture, if possible.
Chris Lowrance, I did see the George Rose at Wright State, I had the chance to teach there for a year. Of course I thought of you, remembering you talking about him. Thanks for showing more here on this blog.
Thanks, John. Hope you are well.
As a tangent to Eva’s statement that the jpeg strips the painting of supporting context: So much contemporary art is shown unframed. I’ve been taking photos in galleries of the side views of paintings, thinking about doing a post of ‘painting sides’–who’s are clean and neat (not mine), whose are full of drips and finger-prints etc. But the photos just make no sense when you look at them. It’s almost as though the photo insistently rips the context from painting.
(Just FYI, my impressions in written form: Eric Sall and Matthias Weischer have very aesthetically pleasing messy sides; Michael Borremans uses the occasional drip hauntingly well; Steve Budington’s painting sides are almost unnaturally neat and tidy in an almost doctor’s office kind of way.)
oh dear, the sides of my paintings have dust monkeys trapped in them. yuck. now that i know people are out there looking, i will be more careful. it’s kind of like publicly airing out your dirty laundry or something.
So the camera kind of “steals the soul” of the painting. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how one might make a painting/drawing that doesn’t lose so much from being “copied” in various ways. The idea is that maybe the painting can actually start to be recontextualized (reborn?) rather than DEcontextualized.
Eva, I like your blue-paper/pencil idea. It’s bratty and funny, but could be used to make some interesting commentary on aura and value
I just found your blog and enjoyed reading your opinions about Christine Lafuente. I like her work in many ways. One is the way she uses paint, really mushy. Her urban subject matter appeals to me too.
There is another painter I’ve been looking at who works in a similar vein, Jordan Wolfson. I’d be interested to know what you all think about him.
It’s a surprise to find a discussion on my painting, especially this painting. This was a two-session painting, although that is generally how I begin a series. Sorry if I offended with the color. I tend to experiment with palette all the time so it can be odd at times. This was done on-site in the blaring hot sun. Painting en-plein-air in Brooklyn, NY is a challenge. Ofthen the right view is exactly at the wrong spot. Hi John Lee!
I stumbled upon this blog in googling Lafuente’s work, which I like better than Shil’s kind of formulaic stuff. Not even sure why I was looking, except that it came up sometime today after my visit to Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill. I’m in an exhibit coming up there this month, juried by Sam Gilliam.
I love her atmospheric paintings. They’re loose and painterly and have a great handling of subtle color. Note to Ms L- puh-lease do not apologize for your own choice of color.
As for location and this blog’s purpose – I find a lot of painters bounce around, so no coast is apropos. Each area I’ve lived in influences my work and palette. I look forward to more of your postings.
Christine, I really enjoy your paintings and refer to them often when I am feeling uptight about my work. My work is very tight compared to yours. I have been struggling to make my work more loose and interesting and a teacher of mine told me to look at your work which was already familiar with. You and Shils rock in my humble opinion.
…the same sort who have ever looked at paintings in reproduction and – because of years of experience in both making their own and looking at others “live” – have come to be able to have opinions about is presented to them, right or wrong. i wonder if you have opinions about paintings you have never seen in person… i know i do (especially since there are more than i’ll ever get to see). but once i do get to see certain of them, some of my thoughts, feelings, and opinions are validated while others are cast aside. i can tell you that the “ego-centric” group of people who comment and lurk at this blog would happily give up prior conceptions in the wake of a physical viewing – if the work caused them to.
I, for one, will admit that the discussion that happened on this post was certainly not our finest moment. In terms of thoughtfulness, or decorum. It’s certainly more flip at points than a painter as serious as LaFuente deserves (whether or not individuals responded to the work). Sorry about that. This discussion was one of the firsts, when people were still working out how these might go in this kind of forum. The sort of conversation that happened here hasn’t really happened again on MWC.
I think most of the poorer moments were mine. I apologize for not keeping things a bit more level in this discussion. All of my arguments and opinions could have certainly been dealt in a more thoughtful and formally critical manner. Thanks for the check! I certainly would like the pleasure of seeing this artist’s work in person.
I took notice of a few of these comments recently and I just wanted to say how much I appreciate this site regardless of the tone of the commentary. I’m very happy to notice that a critical community has formed around here that tends to be a little more constructive, but at the same time honest unfiltered opinions are not so bad as long as everyone realizes the limited place of authority in which they speak from.
I myself, offer opinions with the hope to grow in my own thinking, so I am always looking to have my thoughts challenged and confronted as well as I am hoping to have them affirmed. Above all, I think most people around here are searching for a forum where they can exchange ideas with people who care about the same things no matter how diverse their opinions may be. I for one value this resource and I have enough humor to realize as “The Dude” Lebowski so eloquently stated “but that’s just like your opinion man!”
I also stumbled on this blog through doing a search for LaFuente’s work. I love her work — the freedom, the mystery of undefined things, the clarity of her colors.
Thank you to Fred Bell for mentioning Jordan Wolfson — I found some of his work on the web and enjoyed it, too.
If you like that loose, free approach, you might also enjoy Eva Stina Bender (watercolor) and Charles Sovek.
I apologized above for being flip, but I’m still just not convinced by the work. LaFuente, to me, represents a kind of diminished expectation for what painting is and can be that I absolutely can’t support.
I recently discovered Christine LaFeunte’s work at Morpeth Gallery while wandering through Hopewell N J where I grew up! Then I came across an ad for her October exhibit at Morpeth in Art Collector. I have been reading through all your critiques and comments on this site; it’s great to know there is such a community.
um, i’m not so sure, but i think i see 3 little blobs of people under that structure on the right. are they repopulating after the bomb?
Yeah, I know. Technically not a true neutron bomb painting. Follow the link, though.
So I know I’m a moron, but my first reaction to these is that I just don’t like the signature. Also, unrelated to that thought, but related to this painter’s work: I’m trying to remember have we ever posted a still life painting?
well, i may be a moron as well, but my first reaction is that i really don’t like the paintings. in fact, i think they might need some nuetron bombing. harsh, i know.
it’s just that these give me such an underwhelming type of feeling…the exact opposite of the feeling i get when i look at stanley’s. these all feel like sketches. very non-specific in a ubiquitous type way. the color also feels like an easter bunny barfed.
Um…we’ve posted some still life related paintings. Most of Gordon Cook’s work is still life. And you posted that Hugh Yorty painting, which, admittedly was a still life made to look like a landscape. Jessie Fisher was a still life, especially if you consider ’still life’ is a half-goofed translation of ‘nature morte’ (dead nature?). That’s a good point though. Maybe we’ve been inadvertently still-life biased.
I saw these in a catalog the other day, and some of that easter-bunny-barf looked pretty good–winter light warms and cools, very tasty. But I admit I had the same Stanley-related reaction: Every time I look at that drawing on that post, I’m transfixed. I just stare and stare.
I agree with Jen. I’m not whelmed, or even interested.
Maybe they would be better in person? I know that digital images, slides, etc. do not do justice to a lot of work. On the flip side, some work is disappointing in person. (these are earth-shattering revelations, I know.)
Do any of you think about the inevitability that your painting will become a new image (through its reproduction) while making the painting?
I kind of love it, sometimes, because I love ‘compression’ –an image that’s packed full (hence my being transfixed by the Stanley drawing). The jpeg obviously has a breaking point in terms of enlargement, but when it’s a small-scale facsimile, the images get unbelievably crunchy. I guess I have to qualify that with my being comfortable with a reproduction of an image having a different life from the image itself, as long as the work itself remains better or equal. I don’t really think about it when I’m making the work, though.
Being someone who came to know a lot of culture-making painting by reproductions first, I’ve often found seeing works in person very empowering. The task seems less impossible. Maybe the new academe isn’t college art programs anymore. Maybe it’s jpegs and wikipedia.
i don’t like many of my own images on reproduction. i think it’s kind of similar to the sensation when you hear your own voice on recording. the ‘oh my goodness, that’s me?’ sensation. i like my paintings best in my studio. before they get the chance to venture out in the world, in whatever capacity.
but, i don’t tend to worry much about the whole thing. not unless i’m applying for jobs, and then it makes me a little queezy.
Sloane, I just want you to know that I think it’s a good question. I am in fact biting my tongue on this matter.
Sam, I almost wish you hadn’t put the ‘neutron bomb’ tag on this painting. I thought it was funny at first, but then the phrase ‘with a whimper, not a bang’ got stuck in my head and it’s really coloring how I see this painting. I just can’t get past it.
Last, speaking of squiggly painterly paintings with acts of re-population going on: http://brianallensmith.com/painting_01.htm
Right at 11 if this was the face of a clock. Does anyone else see 2 figures doing what I think they’re doing? Or is it just me?
it might just be a ‘low hug’. perfectly innocent.
what i like about brians images is that he does bring little moments of specificity to them. and the tangles of forms complicate the space. also, he uses some really dark values in contrast to the more atmospheric ephemeral stuff. that makes a world of difference, i think.
I am interested in Sloane’s comment about the painting becoming another work with another nature when duplicated. Painting in particular seems to suffer when reproduced since an already flat surface gets flatter and there is no supporting contextual information that shows you are experiencing a fragment of its reality, as in the photo of a sculpture or installation. Video gets to capitalize on this.
It would be interesting if not sort of silly, to do a drawing in non-photo blue paper and pencils–it could not actually be copied or photographed.
I guess I get carried away with a lot of ideas about how we look and how we see and how we value, as much as what the image is or looks like.
Hard to have a strong opinion about these…They’re not that bad, but there’s not much to grab the eye and hold it, nothing to make one wonder or speculate about the subject-matter…They’re obviously painted by someone with a little training yet little conviction in what she’s trying to communicate…As to the question of reproducing paintings, I long ago stopped hoping for any fidelity from photography…The best we can hope for is a decent image that might make the viewer want to see the real thing, pretty much the way any advertising works…
Hello. been looking at your blog lately. Huge fan of the Midwest paint group. Myself, I guess I am BI..a Bi-coaster…or philadelphia based yet arkansas raised. PAFA and IU. I feel I have more in common with a lot of Midwest Art values, those admired by the midwest paint group, etc. anway….
LaFuente. I have mixed reactions. This is her strongest show, I think, to date. These are all one-shot paintings, from my understanding. She follows the lead of a painter like Stuart Shils, who does numerous one shot landscapes, shows at Tibor de Nagy, has a website. LaFuente recently finished her MFA at Brooklyn, studying with Lennart Anderson.
Any comments on the previous show at Gross McCleaf: Voices and Interiors..? Group show, interesting.
some other painters of interest: http://www.kenkewley.com (check the archives). Neil Riley at Keny gallery. Rodrigo Moynihan at Robert Miller gallery.
I am not sure how to post a picture, if possible.
Chris Lowrance, I did see the George Rose at Wright State, I had the chance to teach there for a year. Of course I thought of you, remembering you talking about him. Thanks for showing more here on this blog.
Hello to Sam King.
John Lee
Thanks, John. Hope you are well.
As a tangent to Eva’s statement that the jpeg strips the painting of supporting context: So much contemporary art is shown unframed. I’ve been taking photos in galleries of the side views of paintings, thinking about doing a post of ‘painting sides’–who’s are clean and neat (not mine), whose are full of drips and finger-prints etc. But the photos just make no sense when you look at them. It’s almost as though the photo insistently rips the context from painting.
(Just FYI, my impressions in written form: Eric Sall and Matthias Weischer have very aesthetically pleasing messy sides; Michael Borremans uses the occasional drip hauntingly well; Steve Budington’s painting sides are almost unnaturally neat and tidy in an almost doctor’s office kind of way.)
oh dear, the sides of my paintings have dust monkeys trapped in them. yuck. now that i know people are out there looking, i will be more careful. it’s kind of like publicly airing out your dirty laundry or something.
So the camera kind of “steals the soul” of the painting. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how one might make a painting/drawing that doesn’t lose so much from being “copied” in various ways. The idea is that maybe the painting can actually start to be recontextualized (reborn?) rather than DEcontextualized.
Eva, I like your blue-paper/pencil idea. It’s bratty and funny, but could be used to make some interesting commentary on aura and value
And I just accidentally discovered that wordpress inserts “emoticons”. This is tremendously exciting. :*
Hello John Lee! The Lennart influence is apparent for sure. Something about all those warmy-cool colors, and the minimized subject, I think.
Edge conversation: My paintings’ sides are clean but only because I tape them.
I just found your blog and enjoyed reading your opinions about Christine Lafuente. I like her work in many ways. One is the way she uses paint, really mushy. Her urban subject matter appeals to me too.
There is another painter I’ve been looking at who works in a similar vein, Jordan Wolfson. I’d be interested to know what you all think about him.
Nice, subtle color, brushhandling. Kind of like Dickinson but splashier.
It’s a surprise to find a discussion on my painting, especially this painting. This was a two-session painting, although that is generally how I begin a series. Sorry if I offended with the color. I tend to experiment with palette all the time so it can be odd at times. This was done on-site in the blaring hot sun. Painting en-plein-air in Brooklyn, NY is a challenge. Ofthen the right view is exactly at the wrong spot. Hi John Lee!
correction: I generally do begin a series with one-session paintings- or drawings.
I stumbled upon this blog in googling Lafuente’s work, which I like better than Shil’s kind of formulaic stuff. Not even sure why I was looking, except that it came up sometime today after my visit to Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill. I’m in an exhibit coming up there this month, juried by Sam Gilliam.
I love her atmospheric paintings. They’re loose and painterly and have a great handling of subtle color. Note to Ms L- puh-lease do not apologize for your own choice of color.
As for location and this blog’s purpose – I find a lot of painters bounce around, so no coast is apropos. Each area I’ve lived in influences my work and palette. I look forward to more of your postings.
Christine, I really enjoy your paintings and refer to them often when I am feeling uptight about my work. My work is very tight compared to yours. I have been struggling to make my work more loose and interesting and a teacher of mine told me to look at your work which was already familiar with. You and Shils rock in my humble opinion.
what sort of ego-centric morons would conject such drivel about christine lafuente’s paintings … ? see them live … and then have an opinion.
…the same sort who have ever looked at paintings in reproduction and – because of years of experience in both making their own and looking at others “live” – have come to be able to have opinions about is presented to them, right or wrong. i wonder if you have opinions about paintings you have never seen in person… i know i do (especially since there are more than i’ll ever get to see). but once i do get to see certain of them, some of my thoughts, feelings, and opinions are validated while others are cast aside. i can tell you that the “ego-centric” group of people who comment and lurk at this blog would happily give up prior conceptions in the wake of a physical viewing – if the work caused them to.
I, for one, will admit that the discussion that happened on this post was certainly not our finest moment. In terms of thoughtfulness, or decorum. It’s certainly more flip at points than a painter as serious as LaFuente deserves (whether or not individuals responded to the work). Sorry about that. This discussion was one of the firsts, when people were still working out how these might go in this kind of forum. The sort of conversation that happened here hasn’t really happened again on MWC.
I think most of the poorer moments were mine. I apologize for not keeping things a bit more level in this discussion. All of my arguments and opinions could have certainly been dealt in a more thoughtful and formally critical manner. Thanks for the check! I certainly would like the pleasure of seeing this artist’s work in person.
I took notice of a few of these comments recently and I just wanted to say how much I appreciate this site regardless of the tone of the commentary. I’m very happy to notice that a critical community has formed around here that tends to be a little more constructive, but at the same time honest unfiltered opinions are not so bad as long as everyone realizes the limited place of authority in which they speak from.
I myself, offer opinions with the hope to grow in my own thinking, so I am always looking to have my thoughts challenged and confronted as well as I am hoping to have them affirmed. Above all, I think most people around here are searching for a forum where they can exchange ideas with people who care about the same things no matter how diverse their opinions may be. I for one value this resource and I have enough humor to realize as “The Dude” Lebowski so eloquently stated “but that’s just like your opinion man!”
I also stumbled on this blog through doing a search for LaFuente’s work. I love her work — the freedom, the mystery of undefined things, the clarity of her colors.
Thank you to Fred Bell for mentioning Jordan Wolfson — I found some of his work on the web and enjoyed it, too.
If you like that loose, free approach, you might also enjoy Eva Stina Bender (watercolor) and Charles Sovek.
I apologized above for being flip, but I’m still just not convinced by the work. LaFuente, to me, represents a kind of diminished expectation for what painting is and can be that I absolutely can’t support.
I recently discovered Christine LaFeunte’s work at Morpeth Gallery while wandering through Hopewell N J where I grew up! Then I came across an ad for her October exhibit at Morpeth in Art Collector. I have been reading through all your critiques and comments on this site; it’s great to know there is such a community.
Chris Lafuente is a ROCK STAR!