Mark England

"Umber America"  48" x 74"  2012

title unknown

title unknown

"China"  2008

"First Vision"  2012

Mark England's paintings blur the line between map and landscape. What appear at first to be imaginary constructs are in fact references to very real places. There is no attempt to accurately portray the cartography or terrain but rather to pile on symbolic motifs and layers of meaning and associative objects. The intent is to portray the landscape not as an objective reality but as subjective experience awash in personal history and cultural contexts. Whether you see them in this or light or not almost doesn't matter because their beguiling complexity draws you into them regardless. Like the vast panoramic moral landscapes of Heironymous Bosch they invite the eye to wander from one intriguing detail to another, zooming in and back out trying to take the measure of the whole and the parts all at once. Too see more go to the Artist's website: markenglandart.com
His work will be included in two upcoming group shows at Visions West Gallery in Bozeman, Montana from July 12 through August 8 , and at their gallery in Denver from July 5 through the 31st so if you happen to be near either one go check it out.

Apologies

Life has gotten a little ahead of me. I'll have new art posted sometime this week. Sorry for the delay. In the mean time here's some really old art; one of my personal all time favorite images of how life can be both difficult and beautiful all at once. Winter's over but it stays true all the year 'round. (This is a fairly high resolution image so go ahead, download it and use it).

"Hunters In The Snow"  Pieter Bruegel the elder  46" x 64" (117 x 162cm) oil on wood panel  1565

Edmund Mathews

"The Offering"  30" x 40"  oil on canvas

"The Gathering"  30" x 40"  oil on canvas

"The Docking"  24" x 30"  oil on canvas

"The Immigrants"  18" x 24"  oil on canvas

"The Excavation"  72" x 36"  charcoal and acrylic on linen

Edmund Mathews began a new series of paintings and drawings just a couple of years ago exploring a world in which giant crates, steamer trunks and other containers loom as powerful symbols of human transience. We place an enormous value on home and stability, but history is a story of movement "by chance, instinct, plan or force" (as the artist says). And when people move they bring whatever material goods they can with them. This luggage, the baggage of human dislocation and relocation, takes on a mythic role in these images, as if they were the most iconic symbols of who we are, telling the story of where we came from and how we got here. The paintings are executed in a very simple and straightforward manner, no pretensions of expressive technique or highly stylized rendering. This simplicity adds to their appeal in my mind, grounding them in a way that seems rooted in common experience. Each image may vary slightly in tone, from the magical wonder in "The Gathering" to the epic struggle of "The Offering". But mostly they seem somewhat detached, mere observation of a universal truth. A truth that may be become more and more familiar to us all in times ahead. For there is a good chance that as climate around the world shifts we will see ever increasing numbers of people on the move, their lives upended and made more precarious by change. And they will cling, as travelers have always clung, to those precious things that they bring with them from their homes.
There's a few more from this series on the artists website: www.edmundmathews.com .
He has plenty of other work as well from sculpture to commercial digital work. Personally I can't wait to see more from this series which was also included in the most recent issue of New American Paintings #105 (congratulations Mr. Mathews!)