Joel Sheesley

Joel Sheesley is an artist and art professor who's work for the last two years has focused around some puddles on asphalt, a ladder, and a beautiful way of looking indirectly at the world. These paintings are about the possibility of transcendence via an intense meditation upon the ordinary. And they address this idea in two different ways. One is symbolically, where the base crude surface of the asphalt (earth) is transformed by the rain to provide a window onto the heavens. And the man's presence with the ladder suggests the possibility of, or at least the longing for, a bridge between the two. But it is also through the act of painting itself that he addresses the idea. By focusing on something so mundane as a puddle on asphalt, and rendering it over and over, with such luminous and textural grace, he transforms it into a thing of beauty. The symbolism becomes mere adjunct to fact.
see more at www.joelsheesley.com





















"Messenger" 48" x 48" 2008









"Dream at a Crossroads" 30" x 81" 2008














"Above and Below" 40" x 66" 2007











"Crows" 30" x 66" 2006


Here's two older pieces demonstrating that ladders and rain are ongoing obsessions.






















"Ladder Dream" 60" x 54" 2006


















"The Storm" 40" x 50"

I'd like to thank Tim Lowly for mentioning Joel's recent show at the Chicago Cultural Center on his flickr page and thus bringing another amazing artist to my attention.

Ian Davis

In the late '90s I showed work in a gallery in Arizona that also showed work by this guy. His subject matter and approach have changed since then, although some elements of his style remain. He was good then and he's even better now. Several of these pieces were part of a New York City debut show that sold out, so he has to be pretty chuffed about that. A review in the New York Times treated the work a little dismissively but hey... he got a review in the New York Times! The reviewer's beef is that the work is illustrative and would be as suitable on a magazine cover as on a wall. The illustrative criticism is one that, frankly, I'm a little tired of hearing. What is generally meant is that the work is strong graphically and narrative. What is implied is that the work is merely commercial. Ian Davis' work does have a strong graphic presence which serves it quite well. If images reproduce well on a smaller scale it does not logically follow that they are less suited to their original larger size. Having seen Mr. Davis earlier work I can make an educated guess that the size of these paintings helps, not hinders, their intention.

These paintings, often featuring crowds of identical dark-suited men, portray the hollowness of contemporary progress, corporate monuments to inanity and the empty and absurd cabals of the wealthy. Today the rich and powerful are more often considered by the masses with outrage and fear. Ian Davis however, takes a cynical gander at the upper crust of the business and cultural elite and, for all the scope of their power and the scale of their projects, pokes fun at what is, quite often, merely empty posturing.

A good number of paintings can be seen at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects in New York
and, lucky him, there a few pieces at Saatchi Gallery in London

For a longer more informative review of his work check out this article at kansascity.com




















"Audience" 2007 acrylic on canvas




















"Chant"





















unknown title





















"Excavation"





















"Skeptics" 60" x 65" acrylic on linen 2010





















"Art Collection"

Margaret Bowland 2

The last time I posted her work (December 2008) I had little to say other than "Wow", and I guess that hasn't really changed. These are paintings that speak quite well for themselves. Sometimes a visual can say quite clearly and elegantly things that words can only stumble around. But this blog has become a way for me to practice writing and thinking about art as much as it is a place to share all the wonderful stuff I keep coming across. So with that in mind, I'd like to say that Margaret Bowland is a painter of and about beauty. Beauty is an old pre-modern artistic preoccupation but she approaches it with a very contemporary awareness. Our notions of beauty have changed. We no longer think in terms of ideals or absolutes, despite the fact that we strive for and desire them. She is aware that real beauty, in art as in life, is derived from something inside rather than from the mere surface of things (or people), and so she depicts the tension between these two; Inner beauty vs. outer beauty, how the two can seem so at odds. Interestingly, her technique, the surface of her work if you well, is as beautiful as the content is challenging.
see more of her work at her website: www.margaretbowland.com























White Crows #1 (2007) oil paint on linen 66 x 56 inches






















Murakami Wedding #2 (2009) oil paint on linen 78 x 66 inches























Anna (2005) oil paint on linen 55 x 44 inches























Beloved (2006) oil paint on linen 72 x 60 inches























Flower Girl #2 (2009) oil paint on linen 48 x 48 inches

Ortega López

Why it is that certain pieces of well executed realism have the power to move me, as these do, while others leave me cold, may remain forever something of a mystery. Certainly these paintings evoke a potent atmosphere. The emptiness of the scenes is suggestive, for such scenes are rarely so empty in our actual experience. This lends them an emotional quality that resonates for me. They carry in them more than a hint of loneliness or, perhaps, contemplative isolation. His compositions heighten the effect being both austere and graceful in their formality. The craftsmanship is no less exceptional. Subtle value shifts in what would otherwise be an empty part of the composition are brushed in roughly but with absolute confidence, just as a landscape painter must play with the subtle variations in hue and tone in a distant field. Ortega López brings the same effort and understanding to a concrete floor or a patch of dirt. To be sure, much of this is all part of a clear traditional academic approach. But few artists employ these techniques so well, and most who do are so captivated by the more traditional subject matter of bucolic landscapes that we rarely get to see contemporary scenes executed with equal grace.

See more at his website: ortegalopez.com (in Spanish and English)
or check out his blog ortegalopez.blogspot.com (in Spanish)

And definitely click on these images to view them larger.



















title unknown 180x160cm oil on canvas 2009























"Estudio Urbana" 50x50cm oil on wood 2009






















"La Playa" 46x55cm oil on wood 2009

















"Estudio de Flores" 40x30cm oil on wood 2009






















"Naturaleza Construida" 120x115cm oil on wood 2008