Tom Parish

"Osteria"  66" x 72"

"La Porta Verso La Luce"  60"x72"  2009

"Wait Here"  66" x 78"  2007

"Doppo Mezzanotte"  68" x 72"  2006

"Notta Serena"  66" x 72"  2009

I've never been to Venice. Until now.
Tom Parish was born in Minnesota with an English name from French and Finnish parents but his heart belongs to Venice, Italy. He's been painting scenes from his beloved city for a decade. He's captured the place in many moods from bright sunlit days to cool quiet nights. He seems to look especially for those hidden corners that all cities possess, those small places where one can imagine that the crowds simply cease to exist. There is a kind of emotional magic in those urban spaces where one can feel alone with the massive built environment that surrounds you. How much more powerful that feeling must be in a place as old and surreal as Venice. But his paintings include moments with people as well. Again they're quiet moments, not trying to depict the hectic pulse at the heart of any city but the simple moments of individuals in their daily routines. Looking through these paintings is likely to make you put Venice on the top of your list of places you must someday see.

To see more online you can check out the gallery through the link above or look through the artist's website: tomparish.net

Trevor Young

"Claim Etiquette"  50" x 50"  oil on canvas  2012

"Blue Brand"  42" x 42"  oil on canvas  2012

"Civilian Departure"  42" x 42"  oil on canvas  2013

"Three Squares"  48" x 48"  oil on canvas  2013

"Man in Box"  42" x 42"  oil on canvas  2011

Trevor Young's paintings combine minimalism and realism in perfect combination to capture the peculiar loneliness that haunts America's constructed landscapes. This atmosphere or spirit of loneliness is especially strong at airports. Traveling by car, bus or train, it is possible to open a window and breathe the air rushing by, which somehow turns the act of transportation into adventure. Airplanes and Airports are containers in which everything is in a state of suspended unreality, disconnected from the larger world. And yet, there is still something latent within them that holds a promise... for they also are the means of the most significant physical translocation available to us. They represent not only the very limits of impersonal tedium but also the promise of unlimited exploration. This kind of dichotomy is present in much of our contemporary built environments. The artist seems to love the cold impersonal structures of modernity in a way that is not remotely ironic, but rather it's opposite. There is wonder here. It seems to me as if the artist somehow possesses that spirit of loneliness, as if he becomes it, personifies it, and coolly observes with seeming detachment, and yet captures with aching nostalgia, places that most of us never look at twice or even notice at all as we bustle through or past them.
You can see more at his website, www.trevoryoung.net
or the websites of his galleries, J. Cacciola Gallery in NY, and David Klein Gallery near Detroit.

Leonid Tishkov

Private Moon series - "Moon and Hunter"

Private Moon series - "The Crane for the Moon" Xiaogang container yards - Photo Po-I Chen

Private moon series, Journey to Paris "More than simply dead"…Homage to Marie Laurencin

Private Moon series - "Who Washed Ashore?"  Sizihwan - Photo Po-I Chen

Private Moon series - "Two Moons" arctic 2010

Leonid Tishkov is a a former physician from Moscow, who is now a conceptual artist. In addition to a variety of installation work he has spent years lugging an electric moon around the world and photographing it a stunning variety of evocative settings. Often the artist is himself incorporated into the picture creating a narrative scene in which the moon, cast down from the heavens interacts with the lonely mortal. While it is unclear whether the photographer Po-I Chen is responsible for taking all of the actual photos, he (and any others that might have been involved) certainly deserve some of the credit for these images. There are loads of them to look through on his blog:
leonid-tishkov.blogspot.ca
Click on the tag Private moon if you want to see just these or you can scroll back through all his work if you're curious.
 thanks to www.booooooom.com for posting these before me.

Night Scenes

One year of posting passed me by last November without me even noticing. I made a short comment about my 100th post and nothing whatsoever about 200. So in celebration of nothing in particular, I've decided to post this slightly different format. It is sort of a curated show if you will, the theme being, obviously, "Night". For a few years now my own work has been almost exclusively night scenes, and so I am always fascinated to see how others approach the subject. These pieces have all been posted on this blog before. Here they are again with occasional comments and links to the individual artists' websites.
(also, I will be in Santa Fe trying to find a gallery so there will be no new post until I get back, next Wednesday)

Many of these can be viewed quite a bit larger. Just click on the image.


Possibly my favorite night painting of all time, an absolutely fascinating visual narrative mystery and a unique capture of the contrast between warm man-made light and a brightly moonlit snowy landscape.
Amy Bennett "Surviving Winter" 9" x14"

I would love t see what this piece looks like in real life. Leaving more than 3/4 of the painting in absolute darkness is a bold and visually arresting move, and really evokes the feeling of night blindness driving on the snow.
Owen McAuley "Madison NY" 12" x 16" 2004

Of course the night is readily used to create a haunting atmosphere and that is definitely the case here in this portrait of a decrepit and empty insane assylum.
Maya Kulenovic "Sanitarium" 48x36"

Combining the narrative visual structure of graphic novels with a diagrammatic interpretation of a house the artist tells the tale of it's occupants' nocturnal lives.
Mark Andres "Ice Palace"

The lights of man and the the unfathomable depths of the night blue sky are employed to prove that painting the dark need not be colorless and somber.
Linden Frederick "No Exit" 2005, 45" x 45"

Nobody does nocturnal cityscapes like this guy, whose career, if I'm not mistaken, is on a well deserved and rapid upward trajectory.
Kim Cogan "Night Owl" 38"x50" 2009

Night scenes are also immensely rich soil for the seeds of myth and fable.
Kathleen Lolley "The Creation of Fireflies" acrylic on wood 2007

Jesus as a nightlight. And lovingly rendered in egg tempera. What's not to like?
Dennis Harper "Jesus Nightlight" 1995 11" x 9"

This simple composition captures perfectly the feeling of a fairly plain roadside hotel and piling on all kinds of emotional inferences for anyone who has ever traveled alone.
Dan Witz "Sherburne Hotel Lamp"

Ever since I stumbled across this sketch it has had a special place in my heart right next to another one of his, of a woman flying through the front windshield of her car. Clifford Elgin "Cop Finding body in Road"

Another narrative fable, the title works like a story unto itself.
Amanda Blake "When The Sea Turned Purple They Knew They had Gone Too Far" 14x14" oil on panel

Another night time tale, this one features zombies. It's the distant panoramic viewpoint that makes the fate of the rooftop archer so compelling.
Daniel Danger “I came to know an archer”
24×24 three color screenprint with hand painted elements

Night time is also of prime time for the dubious goings on of young men, captured here with deft photo-realism.
Alex Roulette "The Deal" 19x18" oil 2007

Technically this may be more of a twilight scene but night is imminent and the nightmare is already present, and it may well be one of the coolest paintings I have ever seen.
John Brosio "Fatigue" 48" x 60" 2009

Owen McAuley 2

In my earlier post (August 25, 2009) I griped about his online images being too small. That problem so far has not been corrected (although I have it under good authority that this might change) but the appearance of new work mitigates my frustration. If you happen to be around Austin, Texas before December 12 you can see his these new pieces at dberman gallery. Otherwise you'll just have to settle for his website like me. www.owenmcauley.com.
Complaints aside, I love the atmospheric approach he takes to portraying the night. I'm also intrigued by how he takes that lonely hazy point of view and applies it to what others might see as a well lit room. He reminds us that the dark is always there, waiting to engulf everything at the flick of a switch.















"Aluminum sunset" 24x36" oil on linen 2009










"Gravity Loves You" 10x22" oil on linen 2009
















"Caress" 18x24" oil on linen 2009
















"Capuchin" 24x36" oil on linen 2009







"Plan C" 6x20" oil on linen 2009

Kim Cogan

Back to some more traditional work. These are gorgeously painted and of course I just can't resist a good night scene. There's plenty of daylight equally well done at kimcogan.com
(please click on these, especially the second piece, to see a little more detail)

















"Night Owl" 38x50in. 2009













"Williamsburg at Midnight" 34x64in. 2008
















"Room Without a View" 24x36in. 2009

Nicholas Weber

More night scenes handled quite differently and very effectively than any of the others I've posted.
He does quite a few studies of female figures as well, but they all strike me as somewhat sexually idealized and not nearly so honest as these lonely introspective paintings. But no matter what he's painting there's no denying his talent.
There's a lot of work on his website: www.nicholasweber.com






















"L.A. Corner" 40" x 30"

















"Somewhere in NJ" 20" x 30"






















"Outside My Parent's House" 32" x 30"