Smart Painting and Perceptual Data at Artspace New Haven

If you live in or near New Haven, I recommend checking out these exhibitions that are currently at Artspace in New Haven, until March 2, 2014.

The first is Smart Painting, an exhibition by ten artists, curated by John O'Donnell. The concept of the exhibition is answering questions such as what a painting looks like, how it was painted, and what it was painted on, by breaking down a painting into its anatomical parts of bones, flesh, and brain. This exhibition plays around with that concept in a smart way :)

Curator's talk with John O'Donnell

There were many excellent works that challenged your mind. There was one work that particularly captured our attention, a work by Zachary Keeting entitled January (4). The painting was a beautiful arrangement of colors, shapes, and textures. The deliberate, well thought abstraction created an interesting form, something akin to a mysterious landscape.

DH viewing January (4) by Zachary Keeting

The second exhibition, Perceptual Data, presented works by Neil Matthiessen. It was very intriguing with the kind of beauty and depth can only be captured if you were actually in that room. You know, it is one of those things that you think you have seen it just because you view it online but then you realize that online viewing was lacking something, maybe that evoked intention and vibrancy in person. Matthiessen's work is influenced from science, technology, and visual culture.

Away and Now Back with Some Stories of Arts and France

I have been neglecting this blog but, of course, not on purpose. It's a good thing I'm not a writer who has to meet several deadlines. I would be in so much trouble.
We went to South of France not too long ago. We rented an apartment in Nice for our base and exploring the surrounding areas. Nice is a beautiful city and it's one of those things where pictures won't be able to translate certain feelings you can get from a place. The ocean has that gorgeous azure color like a gemstone, which you can see from your google search, but it's way way way better when you experience it with your own eyes. I felt like I was fitter there because we had a chance to walk everywhere, which I loved. I could walk to a boulangerie to get some croissants, pain au chocolat, bagette or some treats, because it was right at the corner of our apartment. How cool was that?
Public transportation was great. We could take buses easily or trams. The rate was flat (1.5 euro) no matter how far the distance was, for example going to Monaco, which was around 50 mins by bus would be the same rate as going to Vieille Ville Nice. The city has many features that I love - many public parks, a lot of Museums, cute buildings, open market, beautiful beach, mountain view, mild temperature.
Other towns/ villages near Nice are also nice. We only managed to see some of them - Cannes, Vence, Saint Paul de Vence, and Monaco. The farthest place we went was St. Tropez by boat.
Leaving Nice was absolutely difficult, but we shall return :)
We took tons of photos from our cell phones, my camera, and DH's camera, so below are only few of them. I may share some on my next posts.

We took printmaking class when we returned home. It was a fun class. I've never tried printmaking before, so this class was pretty much an introduction to familiarize us with different techniques in printmaking. We learned about Monotype, Drypoint, Etching, Woodcut/Linocut, and Xerox transfer. We learned so much from the class and our printmaking teacher was really generous sharing her knowledge and time in the class.

I've been busy painting, drawing, participating in some shows. I will share some pics of the progress next time.

                             

Some pics from our printmaking class

DH made those prints on the right. Those patterns look like they should be on Japanese paper :)

Valentine's Day @Yale Art Gallery

Dh and I went for a little outing yesterday. There was "Once Removed' exhibition that runs until April 7. We also checked out the current exhibition Modernism for America, and their Indo-Pacific Art Collection.

Indonesian funeral mask

Some Pics of Art Progress and Others on 12.12.12

Some progress in the studio and random pics from travel

                           

Seal's Painting

Pics of Paintings in Progress, Sketches, and Some Mixed Media Works

I just managed to transfer these images from my camera.

Paintings still in progress. Some of them are just because I'm still not completely happy with them and the rest are because I just started working on them

Mixed Media works that I tried when I was in need to step away from my painting

Applying colors to see if I like it or not

Fun sketches and also ideas development before working on canvases