Ross Bowns

"Coalesced Space"  23.5" x 16"  oil on Dura-Lar  2009

"Burdened"  18" x 24"  oil on canvas  2009

"Remain"  17.5" x 24.5"  oil on Dura-Lar  2009

"Suffers Lasting Pain, But Pretends Calm and Composure"  oil on panel

"An Obsessive Regret Lingers" 16" x 24"  oil on panel  2010

Anyone who has ever painted recognizes that the process is a fascinating exercise in potentialities, where accidents often suggest whole new directions in which to take a piece. Often these happy accidents are lost in overworking. Then in frustration one wipes out large completed areas to begin anew only to marvel at the revelation one's angry gesture suddenly reveals. And so it goes. Ross Bowns' work is all about this process and how it interacts with the attempt to record perception. He begins with the conceit of representation, looking and trying to depict what one sees in two dimensions. But he makes no attempt to end there. Very quickly the figure begins to melt into the painting process itself and he searches not for a way to finish the painting but rather for the perfect moment to simply stop painting and show us how the whole thing works. The fact that he chooses the human figure as his subject is in this sense irrelevant. But in another, it is perfectly apropos. It is one of the oldest and most traditional subjects in painting, carrying with it the weight of tradition and the whole history of technique and method. But it also helps to convey the fact that his work is as much an inward looking process as an outward one.

See more at rossbowns.net

I came across Ross Bowns work recently on www.artistaday.com

Yosman Botero

paintings are untitled

From a series called "Condensation"  2010  Acrylic on layered plexiglass 28 x 32 x 10 cm

Yosman Botero is a Colombian painter and sculptor. His paintings deal almost exclusively with aerial views of large urban centers, depicting the lights spread out along the arterial highways creating a shimmering pattern on the earth below. Thanks to the ubiquity of airplane travel everyone can immediately recognize these scenes. There is certainly something mesmerizing about staring down from a tiny airplane window at the transformed world lit below, as one descends or takes off in darkness. Mr. Botero captures that gleaming abstract magic, stripping away the constricting frame of the tiny window to leave us floating above it all. There is no judgment here. We may be horrified at how thoroughly mankind has overtaken the land or we may simply be amazed at the marvelous magnitude of our invention. Either way it's an awesome sight.
In his sculptural work he builds up three dimensional images by painting on layers of plexiglass. My favorites of these are haunting, obscure faces that seem to be emerging as from a thick fog. A sense of atmosphere concealing detail, from which reality emerges infuses both approaches. To see more go to: www.behance.net/Yosman

I first came across his work at www.freaksonline.co.uk

Robert Minervini

"Regeneration" acrylic on canvas  46" x 50"  2010

"Reclamation Project"  Oil, acrylic and spray paint on canvas  46" x 50"  2010

"The Rising Tide"  acrylic, oil and spray paint on canvas  46" x 50"  2010

"LA (sell me something else)"  acrylic on canvas  50" x 68"  2009 

"Tomorrow Dreams"  acrylic on canvas  75" x 126"  2011  

Robert Minervini's sometimes cryptic paintings are a curious blend of old fashioned heroic landscape from the days of Bierstadt and Caspar David Friedrich, and a modern urban post-apocalyptic chic, complete with graffiti and graphic art influences. It sounds unlikely but you can see the results for yourself. Forlorn high-rises and super highway flyovers soar into the miasma of a palm tree swamp or above the creeping reclamation of invasive city plants. He combines textured rendering with flat stenciled shapes and a graphic feel, and ties it all together with sometimes unlikely but effective color palettes. All of this lends a surreal weight to a vision of the modern urban environment which is both bleak and pop at the same time. While painting is his primary medium, he also produces installations, sculpture and murals.

You can look through all of it on his website: robertminervini.com and keep track of latest news and other tidbits on his blog, robertminervini.blogspot.com

His work was published recently in New american Painting 91

Christopher Stevens

Theatre of the Whole World [2004]  oil on panel  45 x 68 cm

Washed Up [2009]  oil on canvas  137 x 183 cm

Whistling in the Dark [2008]  oil on canvas  137 x 183 cm

Slow March of the Tides [2001]  oil on panel  38 x 57 cm

Leviathan [2006]  pencil on paper  25 x 35 cm

Christopher Stevens is  a hyper-realist artist who has long been fascinated by the transformation that takes place in the mind when one scrutinizes the very small. What seems at first an insignificant detail becomes an entire landscape. What seemed minuscule becomes vast. He's peered at and explored pieces of cloth and carpet and tiny portions of photographs printed in magazines. But his greatest fascination has been the transformation of paint itself. The idea of paint as a medium which can be used to represent anything else on a two dimensional surface is toyed with here in a fascinating way. He depicts in two dimensions, the three dimensions of paint on the palette. In this way the paint becomes a world of its' own, full of unique landscapes and creatures and mysterious forms that rise up from the surface as if from a new sea. It is a fascinating and happy marriage of high artistic concept with meticulous and compelling execution.
You can see more of his work at the website of his gallery: www.mummeryschnelle.com

I'd like to thank visualinventory.blogspot.com for making me aware of this artist.