Scott Listfield

Scott Listfield approaches art with his tongue pressed firmly against his cheek. His pop-art aesthetic is interesting. He clearly loves popular culture in the form of science-fiction and film but finds the commercialism of pop-art itself something of a joke. It's a tension that needs no resolution. Like the astronaut that inhabits his work, Mr. Listfield is not an alien to pop-art. He's from it, but has gone away, and upon returning, finds the whole thing strangely ludicrous; a kind of parallel to his real life experience of being overseas, then returning to America. Having done so myself I can vouch for the odd sense of surreal displacement one experiences. The astronaut serves not only as a stand-in for the artist but for the viewer as well, a figure both a part of and apart from the strange reality we inhabit. The whole premise is played for laughs, mostly, but underneath the humor is a genuine and biting critique of what our contemporary culture deems valuable. The work has gotten a good deal stronger in both technique and composition over the years, though the wit was always there, and I look forward to seeing the world through Mr. Listfield's visor for many years to come.
www.astronautdinosaur.com

"Boom"  oil on canvas  12" x 9"  2010

"Coke Machine"  oil on canvas  24" x 18"  2008

"Flying Cars To The Right"  oil on canvas  12" x 9"  2010

"NASDAQ"  oil on canvas  12" x 9"  2009


And I am grateful to the art of Jeff Koonz if only for the fact that he provides ready fodder for the wit of other artists.

"Grand Canyon"  oil on canvas  24" x 48"  2008

Daniel Adel

Daniel Adel is a successful illustrator and portraitist in a addition to his work as a fine artist. He also does exquisite watercolors and photography, but here I'm looking at his oil paintings. The Majority of these consist of rumpled up pieces of paper usually white against a dark backdrop, sometimes black against pale. Most of the others are flowing draperies and linens defying gravity in an undefined space. The cresting waves and the locks of Samson's marble hair shown below, are parallel works, displaying his interest in simply defining flowing dynamic forms that are realist and representational on the one hand, but completely abstract in their utility to the artist. It's clear the he is not particularly interested in trying to represent paper and what paper means. It's all form, and light and fluidity and structure. Oddly, for me, drawing a piece of crumpled up piece of paper was one the entry requirements for the art school I attended as a freshman. Mr. Adel has taken a cute little academic exercise and eked out just about all it's possibilities in a mesmerizing fashion.

There's plenty of paper and linen paintings at arcadiafinearts.com and loads more, plus portraits, illustrations, watercolors and photography at his website: www.atelierruebasse.com

"Arabesque II"

 These wave paintings remind me of some of the current work of Kim Cogan

 "Biarritz"

"Orpheus"

 "Nymph"  40" x 40"

"Samson"  11" x 14"


The machine pieces here are somewhat different, but I for one would love to see more.

 "Phaeton II"

"Phaeton III"

The Gryllus - Cara Thayer & Louie Van Patten

The Gryllus is the working title of a collaborative painting effort by two young artists, Cara Thayer and Louie Van Patten. Painting and drawing is almost universally a individual form of expression. Collaborations generally tend to be less satisfying than amusing. And it must be rare indeed for combined efforts to exceed those of the individuals. Most of the impetus here, for both the subject matter and the style, seems to come from Louie judging by their earlier, presumably graduate level work. But Cara clearly brings something to the canvas, possibly a more rigorous commitment to the concepts which they explore diligently for the the best possible results (her own work tends toward a more multi-disciplinary approach including sculpture and installation in addition to painting). It is all too easy to have an intriguing idea, knock off a couple of modest examples and then abandon it for the next idea. Part of creating good art is being committed to your concepts. Here they are primarily examining the possibilities of paint to capture the varying qualities of flesh, it's reflectivity and elasticity especially. But they have a few other irons in the fire as it were. I wish Cara and Louie the best of luck on their experiment, which will require not only a commitment to their ideas but to each other as collaborators. A complex endeavor to say the least.
More of their work can be seen on their website, www.thegryllus.com or at bluecanvas.com and myartspace.com which I believe is where I first came across their work.

"Droitural II"  24" x 32"  oil on canvas  2010

"Lurid Complexion V"  36" x 36"  oil on canvas  2009

Lurid Complexion IV"  25.5" x 48"  oil on canvas  2009

"Stomata"  oil on canvas triptych  24" x 72"  2009

...and possibly a sign of things to come?

"Mythology of Self"  oil on canvas diptych  24" x 36"  2010

Alex Roulette (update)

I posted Alex Roulette's work last October not long after he graced the cover of New American Paintings. Since then new pieces have been periodically showing up on his Flickr page. One of the most remarkable things to me, is that almost everything he reveals is excellent. Most of us recognize that you have to work your way through a good deal of mediocrity to find the occasional golden touch and generally, the artist is too close to his or her own work to be the best judge of which is which. So with each new amazing piece I've made a note to myself to do an update on this up and coming contemporary realist. The other day I happened to see the painting "Jump" (below) in the latest issue of Harper's magazine (you won't see it on the website) and figured the time is now. He applies a photo-realist approach to  a particular american mythology, the misadventures of young men. Not a surprising theme given that Alex was born in 1986. What is surprising is that he is able to portray his subject matter with both intense honesty and dispassionate objectivity creating compelling narratives of surprising poignancy.
Check out his website: www.alexroulette.com

I urge you to click on the images below and view them a good deal larger!

"Jump" oil on panel  24" x 38"  2010

 "Airborne"  oil on panel  26" x 37"  2010

"Windmill"  oil on panel  30" x44"  2010

"At The Lake"  oil on panel  20" x 21"  2010

"At Swim"  oil on panel  28" x 42"  2010

"At Swim"  detail