Soey Milk is an artist working out of Pasadena, CA. She recently had a solo show at La Luz de Jesus this past February and showed just how amazing she is with oils. Soey also keeps a blog and uploads any new art she creates, which alerted me to the recent works I am about to share. I am blown away by how skilled she is with a such a wide variety of mediums. Two of the recent works she posted are influenced by Die Antwoord’s Yolandi Visser. The first thing that struck me about these two works, is that even though the focus is on a famous musician, they were done in such an elegant way that I believe anyone can fully enjoy them even if you don’t like Die Antwoord or Visser. This cannot be said for many works that were influenced by celebrities. Head on over and take a look at Soey Milk’s blog and be inspired.
On June 16th, Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City opened a duo show with new work from Caia Koopman and Sarah Joncas entitled Between Wind and Water. Both artists have very different styles, but the show doesn’t look odd because of this. The last solo show that I remember seeing from Sarah Joncas was at Last Rites Gallery last April 2011. Taking a look at her personal website, you can see that she is going to have another solo show at Last Rites this coming December 2012. Her work seems to be getting a tad darker, and in some cases even a bit more erotic—these changes however are subtle. I do hope she keeps moving in this direction, or even one that would not be expected. Both artists submitted some top-notch work to this show, so take a look at the preview and then head over for the full show. There is also a good interview with Sarah Joncas over at the Sour Harvest blog.
Almost 2,000 people attended the 3rd Annual O+ Festival held in the Historic Stockade District of Uptown Kingston from October 5th through 7th this year. The Festival whose tagline is “Bartering the Art of Medicine for the Medicine of Art,” is based on the provision of free health access to all participating artists and musicians. Bands such as the Felice Brothers performed, and public artwork was displayed throughout Uptown Kingston. In total there were 40 bands, 41 artists, 58 healthcare providers, and 4 dentists. There were 443 hours of care donated, totaling $69,450 worth of free health access. Amazing coverage for this groundbreaking event helped to make this year a tremendous success. All of the money raised goes toward the provision of medical supplies for the event. For more information on O+ or to learn how to become involved next year, please visit: www.opositivefestival.org
One of the most dire problems in the art world is the sheer lack of health service assistance that artists have access to. This is not an acceptable way for a professional artist to live. The risks they take are major; the odds are not in their favor. Artists who depend on their work for income need to find a way for their health to be supported.
Tom Cingel
Enter O+, a new festival that was started by a dentist, a doctor, and a couple of artists – all friends – in Kingston, NY (near Woodstock). Their idea is quite simple: Artists come to the festival to perform or show their art, and are ‘paid’ with health care of all kinds ranging from physical therapy, blood tests, dentistry, eye exams and the like. Covering everyone’s healthcare is no simple matter, but much success has been had with the festival thus far. It marks the beginning of a solution to the artist healthcare problem.
Artists can apply to get their artwork into the festival, but it’s highly competitive. The best way to get involved is to volunteer and still get access to some of the health services offered. For details on volunteering, check out the site here.
Taking part in any way means spending Columbus Day weekend in October up in Kingston, NY, which is a short two-hour drive north of Manhattan with bus services leading directly into the heart of the festival. If attending is not feasible for you, spreading the word will help call attention to the festival and help it grow so that more artists can be helped. You may want to consider starting a version of the festival in your city.
Snake image by Paul Heath /// Photos by Jason Sebastian Russo
James Jean has just released an image of his latest painting. Entitled ESL, this 18″ x 24″ oil and pumice on wood panel painting, is currently on view at the Ivory and Black Gallery in London. The texture/glare in the image is the pumice used in the painting; it would be great to see this in person to really get a good idea of the mood created with all of that texture.
One June 9th, the Mint Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia, opened Linearity, a group show featuring 25 artists working in a variety of mediums all on paper. The show was curated by artist Kelly McKernan, and is now on available to view on the web. There is some great work in this show, a few pieces were very surprising such as Nobody Lives Forever by Megan Frauenhoffer (shown first). This mixed-drawing has the same figurative style Megan is known for, but its a new style overall and looks amazing. Take a look at the preview images below, from Megan Frauenhoffer, Kelly McKernan, Kaspian Shore, and Gene Guynn, and then head over to the rest of the works.
Von Scaramouche has just released a new print by Jeff Proctor. Entitled Blue Skull, this print is 18″ x 24″ on Moab Entrada Bright White Rag paper, signed and numbered in an edition of 70. Each print also comes with a certificate of authenticity. This print comes from a painting Jeff featured in his solo show at Breeze Block Gallery in Portland, OR. The goal was to bring “beauty into his typically gory art”.
René Campbell is an artist working out of Adelaide, Australia. I stumbled upon this digital painting browsing around Reddit. Not the most amazing place to find art, but there are some great finds there if you look around. The moment after I saw this piece, entitled Curiosity, I knew I had to share it here. René is 18 years old, is completely self-taught, and aspires to be a successful artist. While this is of course the goal for every artist, I think René will do quite well. If this is the caliber of work she is currently producing, imagine in the next few years what we will be seeing. This piece is 100% digital and took between 4-50 hours. Head on over to René’s Society6 page for more. Also, make sure to click the image to see a larger version, all that detail is worth it.
Long time readers of the site might remember the work of Minjae Lee, one of the earlier featured artists and still one of the most searched for key words on the site. It’s been a few years since I have taken a look to see what Minjae Lee was up to, but this past week I checked out his website and was blown away. Not only has he updated his website, but there is now the option to order limited and open edition prints of some of the paintings. I spent quite a while looking through the site, and am featuring 3 works from 2012, I highly suggest you head over to the site and check out the rest.
