Simon McWilliams

"Nanpu Bridge, Shanghai"

"Restoration Dust"  oil on linen  60" x 72"

"Smoke and Ladders"  oil on linen  60" x 72"

"Inside the Palm House 2012"  oil on linen

"M-Machine Number 2"  oil on linen  72" x 60"

I posted Simon McWilliams work about two years ago (May 2010) and he's been hard at work since then. He has a new show coming up in May down in LA at Skotia gallery in Culver City.

The subject matter of his work is primarily urban architcture, especially large construction sites which he interprets with a wild exuberance of color, as if these stuctures were not being built but were blooming in a hothouse environment. He also paints greenhouses so perhaps the analogy is an especially apt one. It's a fevered and fantastic take on the prodigious efforts we human's make to build new stuff all the damn time. The hothouse metaphor may remind you of the impact all this activity is having on the atmosphere and that does load the work with an angle of interpretation. But he does not address it directly. This is visual work first, conceptual second, if at all. He captures a kind of grand and dizzying chaos that is both beautiful and alarming. By doing so for purely visual reasons the potential for analogy to our own crazy civilization and it's dazzling potential for demise is made all the more powerful.
There's plenty of great stuff to look through in his website: www.simonmcwilliams.com

Matt Brackett

"When the Wind is Blowing in the East"  36"h x 36"w  oil on linen on aluminum panel  2011

"The Familiars"  36"h x 48"w  oil on canvas on panel  2011

"An Infinite Whole"  60"h x 35"w  oil on canvas on panel  2012

"The Shallowers"  25"h x 48"w  oil on linen on aluminum panel  2010

"Sink and Swim II"  4"h x 5 3/4"w  oil on linen on aluminum panel  2010

I first posted Matt Brackett's work in December 2009.A couple weeks ago i got an email announcing some new work and this is some of it. If you are at all interested in narrative art and natural realism then this is an artist for you. His figurative work has given way to scenes with animals, partly inspired by children's stories and books shared with his daughter. But in these decidedly grown up narratives the animals take on deeper mythological overtones. There is no single interpretation to be had. As with all myth, ambiguity lies at the heart of its richness, so that meaning is not one thing, but layered in such a fashion that it cannot be objectively identified, only intuited. You can see more of this work plus his earlier family life tableaus on his website: www.mattbrackett.com

Mathew Borrett

"The Ground Came In Quietly"  ink on paper

"Exploring a Hypnogogic City" - ink on paper

"A Nightmare Remembered 17 Years Later" - ink on paper

Hiding Places - ink on paper

"Each Dream a Grain of Sand"  ink on paper

Usually I like to post recent work by an artist. Every one of these drawings is from a series that the artist did in 2003. Most of his more recent work seems to be in the area of architectural illustration, some hand drawn, some digital. It's excellent work. All of it. But this series is just too good to pass up. There is a distinct Escher-like quality to them. That has a lot to do with the architectural geometry of the pieces and the black and white technique. Escher's interest's however were more specifically about geometry, and optical illusion. Mathew Borret is more specifically concerned with architecture throughout his work, how things are built, and how their exteriors conceal or reveal the nature of their interiors. In this series he uses that as a metaphor for dreams. In most an empty bed lies close to a possibly endless maze of alternate interior spaces leading ever deeper into the recesses of the mind and it's imagination.
Check out more of these and his other work on his website: mathewborrett.squarespace.com

and thanks to the folks at: www.booooooom.com where these came to my attention.

Benny Fountain

My previous post featured some work currently on display here in Portland, OR. In the gallery immediately next door (Froelick Gallery) is work by Benny Fountain. So there's twice the reason to head down there. The work is mostly, but not exclusively, night scenes. Most of it depicts scenes from the artist's kitchen. The location is clearly one of convenience. The subject matter is not what you see. The subject matter is seeing. I've always enjoyed impressionism as much as anyone, but it is hard these days to see the revolution that it was; An entirely new way of seeing, expressing light itself, how it shimmers and refracts and scatters about the world. But I have often felt that the soft diffused brushwork of the impressionist technique seemed least appropriate for bright sunny days when hard edges and precise clarity are so notable. Mornings and evenings always worked better. However, night... night is the time for impressionism. At night the boundaries between objects begin to blur in the shadows. Colors fade and bleed into one another and the mind struggles to put the pieces together in their proper order. Benny Fountain has carried these ideas forward to perfectly capture how the eye and the mind see in imperfect light. By doing so he evokes the joy of seeing, of looking and noticing that each time you look, things are a little bit different. His earlier work which demonstrated a mastery of color has given way to the muted tones of darkness, but the color is no less central. And the geometric configurations of his kitchen scenes provide a wonderful counterbalance to the loose gestural technique.
You can see more at the artist's website: www.bennyfountain.com