John Clowder

"Avian Flu"

"Hellmaw"

"Hydra"

"A Fay Joust"

"Opiate Dragon"

John Clowder is a collage artist using the moniker "Revolverwinds". Collage artists are, in his words, the art world's "endearing scavengers" exhuming  "obsolete adverts, morbid medical texts, bone atlases and zoographic curios" to put together  their Frankenstein creations. His imagery is well suited to this description. But there is certainly an element of humor lurking in his horrors as well.

I'm afraid my descriptive powers are currently in check due to the general mayhem of my current circumstances. I hope to get back to regular biweekly posting soon. My apologies. In the mean time check out more of  Mr. Clowder's wry monstrosities at the following sites:
www.bluecanvas.com/revolverwinds
revolverwinds.blogspot.com
www.behance.net/Revolverwinds

Ruprecht von Kaufmann

"Merkur"  2011  oil and acrylics  220 x 440 cm

"No Panik"  2009  oil and wax on canvas  130 x 170 cm

"Spirit"  2010  oil on canvas  150 x 180 cm

"The Prisoners," 2011, acrylic and oil on canvas, 106 x 212 inches; Photo by Ivo Faber

"MittSommer" (Midsummer) Acrylic on felt  180 x 500 cm  2010

The art critic, John Seed recently posted a selection of 10 memorable paintings from 2011 on his Huffington Post blog. It included a few artists familiar to me and some that weren't. Among those I had not seen before was Ruprecht Von Kaufmann, a German born and based artist whose work straddles the yawning gulf between illustration and fine art so successfully that the gulf is reduced to a mere fuzzy patch between two sides of the same room. While he also delves deep into the more conceptual and installation side of things with canvases ripping apart and peeling off the walls, his more straightforward representational work also demands to be taken seriously, even though he employs a highly graphic figurative style reminiscent of the sort of thing you might find in comic books (ahem, excuse me, I mean graphic novels - the case has long ago been adequately made that this is an art form in it's own right). The paintings tend toward monochromatic grays and blues giving the work a decidedly melancholy air, and the subject matter is likewise somber and occasionally downright horrific. The power and energy of the painting itself draws you in. The style is loose. Control can be the death of this kind of work. His underlying mastery of drawing gives a tautness that balances the loose brushwork so that the whole seems to balance on the knife edge between two ways of failing without ever doing so.
you can see more on his website: rvonkaufmann.com

Rachell Sumpter

"Cornucopia"

"Aa"

"Finery"

"Jokulhlaup"

untitled

Rachell Sumpter's work lies firmly in that visionary/mystical/spiritual realm that all to often is best by shallow new age ineptness. Where others fail, she pulls off something quite marvelous. Her style of soft ethereal pastel backgrounds painted over with hard edged stylized figures and plants evokes a folk tradition without actually resorting to  imitation of one, not an easy trick to pull off. Many of her figures are clothed in what appear to be the traditional brightly patterned textiles of Lapland, but here I'm only guessing. Even if that is the case, her interests are hardly regional. The title "Aa" as many scrabble players know, refers to a specific type of volcanic formation in the Hawaiian Islands, and an earlier title for the piece "Cornucopia" was apparently "Adventures in the Pacific Northwest". Her work appeals to the spiritual wisdom of oral traditions and simpler more "primitive" lifeways. By not mimicking or overtly expressing any one of them she is getting at something universally human. Whether that something is elegiac or hopeful is hard to say. It is just the sort of thing that dewy eyed romantics and new age aficionados attempt but so rarely accomplish. Truths that might indeed be profound are often expressed with mere triteness. The only way to avoid this is to find new ways to speak of old things. Ms. Sumpter is doing just that.
you can see more at her Website: www.rachellsumpter.com
and at Hosfelt Gallery in New York.

Jeremy Miranda

"Microclimate"  24" x 20"

"South Facing"  46" x 48"

"We'll Have You Down Sometime"  48" x 50"

untitled - from a series titled "Contact"

"Greenhouse at Night"

Jeremy Miranda is an eclectic and talented painter working out numerous issues of form and structure both natural and manmade while also exploring color, light, design and even narrative ideas. His stylistic approach varies greatly from quick loose sketch-like studies in simple washes to complex formally executed paintings, but in all there is a kind of breezy confidence that is quite disarming. Most of his work is on a relatively small scale but it is not really fair to represent them as I've done here, as single individual pieces. Rather, most of his work seems to reside within a thematic series. There is a wonderful series about a mysterious greenhouse that drifts ashore on the waves of some dark New England beach where curious onlookers gather. Another (not shown) depicts bookcases forming one or more sides of an interior with the far side opening out onto open natural space. Others are more abstract. While there are some wonderful larger, more fully developed pieces like "South Facing" and We'll Have You Down Sometime" his impulse seems more and more geared to the quick study, knocking off each piece almost impatiently so he can move onto the next idea or the next variation. Because there are so many ideas. He seems to be an artist brimming with ideas, with energy, enthusiasm, and best of all, talent.

Below is just one of an enormous series of iceberg paintings the artist has done. You can see them all here, and get a better idea of how such a simple visual subject can run rampant with variation and ingenuity.

You can see a good deal of work on his website: www.jeremymiranda.com
but I would really recommend browsing through his blog to get a broader idea of the range and context of his work: jeremymiranda.blogspot.com