Sven Kroner

Untitled  2012  170 x 320cm

"Englische Landschaft" (English Landscape)  2010  150 x 280cm

"Patmos 2"  2008  160 x 250cm

"Bei Geltendorf"  2011  125 x 190cm

"Oktober"  2009  160 x 300cm

Sven Kroner is German artist creating monumental dramatic landscapes. There is clearly a link here to the german romantic tradition of David Caspar Friedrich and others. At the same time these are very modern images. After all, crop circles are (presumably) a recent phenomenon. The crop circle paintings and others represent a kind of pop-version of the romantic vision. The peculiar German fascination with native Americans finds it's way into his work as well, and there's Stonehenge, which is difficult to see these days without conjuring new age associations. But he manages to avoid cliche's by imbuing his work with much larger themes. In almost every piece the world is portrayed as a vast and mysterious place, in which the human presence seems tenuous at best, barely hanging on to the rough skin of this planet. It's a vision that has a strong contemporary appeal, also echoed in pop-culture via post-apocalyptic fantasies and survivalist themes. Looking around us, it may be hard to reconcile this vision with a world in which the human presence is actually difficult to escape, in which the very climate is likely being re-engineered by our massive and ubiquitous presence. And yet, it is a vision deeply rooted in our collective memories. The history of our species is a history of confronting and surviving a strange and unpredictable world, of infiltrating every nook and cranny  we could find, in order to eke out a precarious living. Kroner's work reminds us of this history, and that our ultimate success may still be short-lived. The scale and force of nature remains far beyond our control, even our full understanding. Wisdom dictates that we view it with a little more awe, and ourselves with a bit more humility.
There's much more to see on his website: www.svenkroner.de
It's in German. Click on "Arbeiten"  to see his full portfolios.

Dana Saulnier

"Still Night Falling  77" x 88"

"Night One"  63" x 84"

"Night Two"  56" x 70.25" 

"Headdress"  70" x 56"

"Hut"  78" x 91"

Dana Saulnier is an Ohio based artist who teaches at Miami University. His visceral expressionistic paintings convey an intense physicality while remaining primarily abstract. I say primarily because representation makes occasional cameo appearances. Those hints of representation along with a strong suggestion of dramatic lighting serve to make the phyicality of the work more present, more real. The forms that are created can seem incredibly solid, as if they would weigh heavily in one's hand, even as they seem to be disintegrating, merging with other forms, or turning inside out. I'm not particularly practiced at talking about abstract art, or even looking at it. I love narrative. Always have. But then, when you really look at these, narrative seems very much a part of them. What is narrative but transformation, how one thing changes into another, and the inherent tension of that process? So what I see here is a powerful abstract depiction of narrative tension. I see a dark carnal conflict teetering on the brink of either dissolution or resolution. Which will it be? What I see in the work is the raw abstract elements of story telling. The artist talks about his own work in ways that I can barely wrap my head around, so I'm sticking to my own thesis for now. But however you choose to describe them, there's no denying the raw visual energy of these paintings. You can see more at www.danasaulnier.com

Chris Ballantyne

Untitled, Parking Lot (and Rocks)  acrylic on panel  48" x 36"  2008

Untitled, Fence (and Trail)  acrylic on paper  20" x 16"  2008

Untitled, Inlet  acrylic on panel  72" x 48"  2008

Untitled Intersection (Woods)  acrylic on panel  48" x 36"  2008

Backyard Fences (Plank)  india ink on paper  12" x 16"

Chris Ballantyne's paintings are spare. The compositions are often extremely simple, formal arrangements of shapes. The details are executed in a highly graphic manner. He sometimes paints directly on a wood panels allowing the grain of the wood to create a background texture, or he'll paint atop a textured wash to give the work a certain ephemeral depth, but ultimately he leans toward a stripped down minimalist treatment of representation. The results are surprisingly evocative. In almost all of his work he is describing physical spaces, man-made spaces, demarcated by walls, fences, roads, a simple line. It is the boundaries that are his subject matter. The spaces themselves are almost always empty.  There is a loneliness to these images, a sort of bleak nostalgia for emptiness. But there is an undeniable element of humor layered through them as well. It's as if our propensity for loneliness, our constant need to create arbitrary boundaries and call one side in and the other out, is in fact a very amusing sort of habit if you stand back from it just a little. One of his few figurative pieces (not shown) is of surfers riding what's called a standing wave or tidal bore. The wave does not move. It is, in a sense, a kind of boundary and the figures ride upon it, going nowhere, neither upstream nor down. This nonspace, this betweenness, this state of being nowhere in particular, this is the realm of Chris Ballantyne.
You can see more work on his website, www.chrisballantyne.com, although there's currently nothing more recent than 2008. There are few more recent images at Hosfelt Gallery and at Steven Zevitas Gallery

Haley Hasler

"Portrait Dreaming of Family Vacation"  2010  oil on canvas  46 x 52

"Portrait as an Allegory of Fidelity"  2010  oil on canvas

"Portrait as a Lady Serving a Meal"  2008  oil on canvas  48 x 36

"Winter Madonna"  2009

"Portrait as Saint Casilde"  2009  oil on canvas  46 x 32

I can't, off the top of my head, think of another painter who has made self portrait and autobiography so completely the entire body of their work. The effect is ultimately much more than any individual painting. Each individual piece is certainly complete in it's own way, and some of them are so full of wit and passion that they need no further context to establish them as exceptional paintings. But what makes Haley Hasler's work truly extraordinary is something we can only glimpse a part of now. Because it is not complete. She is in the midst or recording her life in a peculiarly unique and revealing idiom. While a tremendous amount of factual details are conveyed in her realist execution, much more is revealed in a kind of manic fantasy life, a blend of surrealism and allegory, not removed from reality but constantly echoing and reinforcing it. Not everything here is personal. Much of it is cultural, historical or in some other fashion external to her private life. Yet all of these elements are still very much a part of her. They are the flotsam and jetsam of life in the context of culture. She is intentionally toying with the idea of autobiography, interposing and interchanging inner imaginings with exterior realities. One marked example of this is that, while the paintings at first seem very personal and revealing, in every single one of them, her face wears same expression; one of slightly bemused observation. Observation of us, as it seems. Clearly this is the expression she makes while simultaneously painting and staring into a mirror. But it has the effect of turning her carnival chaos imaginings into something like a challenge, a mirror out of which her face stares back at us: "Look at your own life..." her expression seems to say. "You think this is crazy? Just take a good long look..."

Check out her website: haleyhasler.com

You can see some older images, which is really worthwhile to get a feel for the long term project her work has become, at alpha gallery.

thanks to artist Benjamin Rogers for the heads up.