Realist Art

Work featured on the RedBubble homepage

2010-11-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

Hi Richard,

Take a deep breath … your work is on the RedBubble homepage today. One of our homepage curators picked your image because they thought it was brilliant. Less than 3 in a thousand works make it onto the homepage – so that’s a great achievement!

Here is link to a copy of the page
Happy bubbling
Natalie

Artwork

2010-10-30T19:06:00.000-07:00

Gallery

The Artist's Studio (L'Atelier du peintre)

2010-10-30T13:43:00.000-07:00

The Artist's Studio (L'Atelier du peintre): A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in my Artistic and Moral Life, 1855, 359 × 598 cm (141.33 × 235.43 in), oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

I have always wanted to know who were all those people in Courbet's studio. So I did some research and added the identifying titles to the painting as best I could determine. If there are errors, please let me know.

Saga of the Cataract

2010-10-13T13:58:00.000-07:00

As I recover from cataract surgery on my left eye, I have decided to journal the event. The experience was interesting. Once the date had been set, I waited with some concern while the time drew near. Among the many things I contemplated was how the implant would effect how I viewed my subjects. I never worried about this with glasses because those were only magnifying devices that helped my over-the-hill presbyopian lenses see details I had been able to see from across the room. But this! This was going to be a full-blown entrance into the world of Cyborgasm. I even asked the Doc if I could get an implant that would let me have x-ray vision or one that would allow me to see in infrared. Unfortunately, those options aren't available right now.

As the day arrived, I was driven to the hospital (for some reason, I was suddenly to frail to drive or as my wife had always assumed, to blind. Even though I read every sign and license plate on the way there.) Once in the room, I was dilated, stuck, undressed, taped and assured that everything would go well. Had I harbored any thoughts to the contrary, I would not have been there in the first place. Even so, I had already practiced drawing with one eye and was sure I could handle it if anything not go as planned.

My wife is a nurse at this hospital so as her husband, I felt it my duty to leave as memorable an impression on the staff as possible during the short time I was a guest of the establishment. As I was wheeled into the operating room, I raised a plaintive hand from the stretcher and in homage to one of my favorite films uttered one of the most famous lines in cinema, "Soylent Green is people!" I don't know how many of the staff got it but my wife was totally mortified even though this line was her favorite also. She always seems to get a kick out of when Charlton Heston rages it in that final scene. Maybe it was my delivery. Oh well!

I wont go into the actually surgery as I think I may have signed some sort of nondisclosure agreement, other than to say, it was over almost as soon as it started as far as I was concerned. Those anesthetists know their stuff. Once I had awakened enough to assure them I was not brain dead, they rolled me out.

Back in the room, I was given my final instructions and got to see my eye patch. It most closely resembled a spoon with evenly spaced holes in it. Kind of like an insect eye. Cyborgian. Cool!

At this point, I wanted to utter some appropriate Borg phrases like "Resistance is futile" or "Your distinctiveness will be absorbed into the collective" but thought better of it. They had me in a wheelchair after all. But, there in the elevator I beheld Santa wearing the same apparatus on his right eye as I had installed on my left. I say Santa because he had long flowing white hair and beard and was possessed of the jocular rotundity so embodied in that jolly elf. I looked across and our eye met. I gave him a thumbs up and blurted, " Put us together and we have a completes set!" Behind me I heard the anticipated “Gasp” from my wife. I wheeled through one door as Santa stretchered through the opposite. I turned to my wife as she was shaking her head and muttering something I didn’t catch (bionic ears are next on my list) and said, “I didn’t know they operated on Santas here.” Another gasp followed by more muttering and as I rolled down the hall I decided that whatever my punishment was to be, it had been worth it.

My cyborg eye is healing fine and it tests with 20-25 vision. I will still have to wear reading glasses but I feel confident that the process hasn’t affected my ability to play the piano. I couldn’t play before and still can’t.

I have reached two decisions as a result of this event. First, I intend to schedule my other eye as soon as possible. Second, my Halloween Character is a no brainer. Lee Majors, watch out. Bionic ears are next.

My Art on Ovation

2010-09-20T20:36:00.001-07:00

Figure Study

2010-09-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

Figure drawing using a
4B graphite pencil on
Strathmore Paper.

10x15 inches

Figure Study

New Drawings of the nude

2010-09-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

New Drawings
figurative drawings

Fine Art America Drawings of the nude

2010-09-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

A collection of drawings of the human figure from all over the world.
nude drawings

The Moment is ending

2010-01-04T16:26:00.000-08:00

The caught in the moment exhibition will soon be over and this is your last chance to view a collection of modern masterpieces that will never be seen together in Portland again.
27 Figurative realist artist from Portland and national painters and sculptors are displaying 79 paintings, drawings and sculpture. There are 3 Living Masters included in the show and a once-in-a-lifetime display of virtuosity in painting and sculpture.
Genre Art Advocacy Center is an organization that was formed to promote the art and artists working in the realist genre today. The Center acts as a clearinghouse for resources, networking and information that will help advance the new modernism, realism. Genre adheres to a policy of excellence in technique, theme and execution of masterworks by living artists. This exhibit is the first example that shows fine art is still being created.
The artists represent some of the finest talent working in realist art today. Many of the artists are local and together with the national artist in the show combine to produce a show of beauty and virtuosity.
Artists with works in the show are Alan Merris Bell, Semyon Bilmes, Daniel Bilmes, David Bollt, A. D. Cook, Jean-Marie Chapman, Martin Eichinger, Aimee Erickson, Eduardo Fernandez. Emily Gordon, Ken Grant, Joseph Highfill, Joanne Licardo, Gabriel Mark Lipper, Bryce Cameron Liston, Lucong, Mike Magrath, Kris Parmele, Alexander Rokoff, Raphael Schnepf, Duffy Sheridan, Nate Snitzer, Heather Soderberg, Jon Swihart, John Van Dreal, John Vistaunet and Richard Ferguson.
The show, curated by Richard Ferguson, is taking place at 116 N. Tillamook street. The hours have been extended to 11:00-7:00 Daily and 12:00-6:00 Sundays till January, 14th. The show is free to the public. See an online preview of the show at:
www.ga2c.org

Call 503-318-4635 for more information.

Artist's reception

2009-12-21T22:44:00.000-08:00

Artist's reception was held for the artists in the "Caught in the Moment" art exhibit. Many positive comments were made including "The best show in Portland ever". The show is being held in the 611 building on North Tillamook in the Rose Quarter. Check out www.ga2c.org for more information.

Caught in the moment

2009-12-01T16:38:00.000-08:00

Genre Art Advocacy Center

Caught In The Moment Exhibit of Figurative Realism scheduled to Start on December 10th.

The show will feature Sculpture and Paints by Alan Merris Bell, Semyon Bilmes, Daniel Bilmes, David Bollt, A. D. Cook, Jean-Marie Chapman, Wayne Chin, Martin Eichinger, Aimee Erickson, Eduardo Fernandez, Emily Gordon, Ken Grant, Joseph Highfill, Joanne Licardo, Bryce Cameron Liston, Lucong, Mike Magrath, Kris Parmele, Alexander Rokoff, Raphael Schnepf, Duffy Sheridan, Nate Snitzer, Heather Soderberg, Jon Swihart, John Van Dreal and John Vistaunet

Genre Art Advocacy Center

2009-07-29T17:19:00.000-07:00

Genre Art Advocacy Center

The Film Local Color is a must see. The cast is excellent, the cinematography gorgeous, the music perfect and the story inspirational while driving home it's point. Congratulations are due everyone for an excellent production. I especially congratulate George Gallo for his script and direction. He has accomplished with this film what Artists should do with their art. Inspire, challenge, provoke and most importantly, bring beauty into our lives.

Theatrical Release Schedule

Realism — The New Modern

2009-07-29T01:17:00.000-07:00

Realism in the visual arts and literature is the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life, without embellishment or interpretation. The term also describes works of art which, in revealing a truth, may find the underling beauty in the mundane and nobility in the common.

Realism often refers to the artistic movement, which began in France in the 1850s. The popularity of realism grew with the introduction of photography - a new visual source that created a desire for people to produce things that look “objectively real”. Realists positioned themselves against romanticism, a genre dominating French literature and artwork in the late 18^th and early 19^th century. Undistorted by personal bias, Realism believed in the ideology of objective reality and revolted against exaggerated emotionalism. Truth and accuracy became the goals of many Realists.

The advent of the so-called impressionists, a term coined by art critic Louis Leroy in a satiric review published in Le Charivari, led to the eventual end of the state approved solon system. Oddly enough, the realism of Gustave Courbet and the Barbizon school, the acknowledge predecessors of the Impressionist, contributed to both events.

New movements including Neo-Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism and eventually, abstract expressionism followed impressionism. Art seemed to capture critical attention by having a certain amount of shock value. The twentieth century was replete with art designed to shock, provoke or express a social or political ideology. The “shock of the new” had arrived.

Tom Wolfe summarized that history in his book The Painted Word: “In the beginning we got rid of nineteenth-century storybook realism. Then we got rid of representational objects. Then we got rid of the third dimension altogether and got really flat (Abstract Expressionism). Then we got rid of airiness, brushstrokes, most of the paint, and the last viruses of drawing and complicated designs”. After providing examples of other techniques and the schools that abandoned them, Wolfe concluded with conceptual art: “…there, at last, it was! No more realism, no more representation objects, no more lines, colors, forms, and contours, no more pigments, no more brushstrokes. … Art made its final flight, climbed higher and higher in an ever-decreasing tighter-turning spiral until…it disappeared up its own fundamental aperture…and came out the other side as Art Theory! Art Theory pure and simple, words on a page, literature undefiled by vision…late twentieth-century Modern Art was about to fulfill its destiny, which was: to become nothing less than Literature pure and simple”.

Meanwhile, pushed into the shadows by the critics, the museums, and the art historians: in short the entire art establishment, a few voices pierced the fog with work so brilliant that it drew an immediate and brutal attack by the establishment.

Andrew Wyeth’s stark realistic tempera paintings of his Maine neighbors and their farms drew constant debridement from critics. Museum exhibitions of Wyeth’s paintings set attendance records, but many art critics were critical of his work. Peter Schjeldahl, art critic for the Village Voice, derided his paintings as “Formulaic stuff, not very effective even as illustrational ‘realism.’” Common criticisms were that Wyeth’s art verged on illustration and his rural subject matter to sentimental.

There were others quietly painting and sculpting in what had become, in art-speak, representational art.

In the process, almost every trace of the process and techniques of the old masters had been lost. No longer taught in the Universities, where a stack of old tires set to burning was presented as conceptual art, the apprentice/master Atelier system all but disappeared.

But some artists refused to allow the loss of such hard won knowledge. They taught themselves from old books, mixed their own paints and rediscovered techniques and mediums long abandoned by contemporary artists as retrograde and useless in “making” art.

Today, their perseverance and dedication to their craft lifted realism out of the shadows and into the light. Mammals were around long before the dinosaurs existed and were ready to take their rightful place when the behemoths finally became extinct. So it is with realism, the new modern.