As part of the Stockholm Arts Calender, Bonniers Konsthall will host an important and very worthwhile “Business to Arts” event next Tuesday at 17.30 on the 15th May, 2012. As an active Bonnier member and promoter of Business to Arts executive education. The HAC is glad to support and recommend this business evening mingle for business and organisation executives who want to understand more about how art is used for business branding and development. Representatives from small, medium or large sized businesses and organisations are most welcome. This event should not be missed as it offers a significant opportunity for individuals to meet up and brainstorm with industry experts and professionals.  

Absolute Vodka is a good example how art can be used to gain global brand awareness, growth and recognition through well produced advertising and marketing campaigns. Bonnier’s Art Gallery is one of Sweden’s premier art institutes and venues for Swedish and international contemporary art education and promotion. In this years spring show, the first major solo exhibition by Swedish artist Klara Kristalova whose sculptures embrace the cliché of the “Nordic” with a mysterious plant and animal life, but she turns this cliche with new, contemporary stories.

Our Commercial Art Partner Konstbar will sell signed, limited edition, digital prints. The HAC and Konstbar work closely together to identify trends among young Swedish artists in early stage career development. Konstbar will sell limited editions by artists who have exhibited at Bonniers Konsthall, such as Ming Wong. During the evening Konstbar will provide special offers and advice for business and art organisations.

SWEDISH VERSION

Välkommen till en kväll om konstens roll i näringslivet!

Tisdagen den 15 maj bjuder Bonniers Konsthall och Konstbar in till en mingelkväll om hur företag och organisationer kan använda konst i sitt varumärkesbyggande. Efter välkomstdrink och föreläsning visas svenska konstnären Klara Kristalovas första stora separatutställning.

Tisdagen 15 maj
17.30-18.00 Välkomstdrink
18.00-18.30 Marknadsför er med konst. Föredrag av Erik Modig, forskare vid Handelshögskolan.
18.30-19.00Guidad visning av Klara Kristalovas utställning.Inbjudan är personlig och gäller för dig och en vän.

OSA senast 11 maj till therese.dyhlen@bonnierskonsthall.se

 Marknadsför er med konst!
Absolut Vodka, Diesel, HM – alla är företag som har flörtat med konstvärlden. Med utgångspunkt i modern konsumentforskning förklarar Erik Modig varför och hur konst kan användas i ett företags varumärkesstrategi.Erik Modig forskar inom konsumentmarknadsföring med fokus på kreativ kommunikation på Handelshögskolan i Stockholm. Han driver även Art Concept Store.

Läs mer om Art Concept Store

Bonniers Konsthall och Klara Kristalova
Bonniers Konsthall är en plats för svensk och internationell samtidskonst. Under våren visas här den första stora separatutställningen med svenska konstnären Klara Kristalova. Hennes skulpturer omfamnar klichén om ”det nordiska” med ett mystiskt växt- och djurliv, men hon fyller klichén med nya, samtida berättelser.

Läs mer om Bonniers Konsthall

Konstbar
Konstbar säljer signerade, limiterade digitaltryck. Konstbar arbetar nära unga svenska konstnärer för att tidigt fånga upp trender och förmågor. De säljer även utvalda multiplar av konstnärer som har ställt ut på Bonniers Konsthall, till exempel Ming Wong. Under kvällen kommer Konstbar att ha specialerbjudanden för företag och konstföreningar.

Lär mer om Konstbar

Bonniers Konsthall, Torsgatan 19, Stockholm. T +46 8 736 42 48. www.bonnierskonsthall.se Ons – fre | Wed – Fri 12 – 19, lör – sön | Sat – Sun 12 – 17, Avprenumerera Skriv ut inbjudan

SEAN SCULLY " HUMAN ARTIST" OIL ON CANVAS

I have great admiration for the Irish artists  Brian McMahon,  Sean Scully and  William Crozier  who are well recognised and rank highly as some of Ireland’s leading international artists.

Brian McMahon is highly regarded by his peers and art critics as a highly talented Irish Contemporary Artist working mostly in oils. He has developed into an intensely expressionist artist which has clear affinities towards the “CoBrA” art group, a European Avant-Garde Movement active from 1948 to 1951. Similarly McMahon applies thick, broad and rapid brush strokes of richly coloured, heavily worked canvases of landscape, still life and figurative subjects. He often works ‘plen air’ and his paintings stand testament to this process. Within the intensity of his oil coloured pallet one can also see further similarities to the post-impressionist Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh.

William Crozier 1930 – 2011. Born in Glasgow Crozier received his art education at the Glasgow School of Art between 1949 and 1953. He spent time in Paris and Dublin before settling in London where by 1957 he gained a reputation, and some notoriety, among fellow artists through the early success of his exhibitions of assemblages and paintings at the ICA, the Arthur Tooth and the Drian Galleries, with whom he had a long association.

Throughout his life Crozier has always allied himself and his work consciously with wider European art and culture. In the 1950s and 60s he was part of the artistic and literary worlds of London’s Soho, a close associate of ‘the Roberts’, Colquhoun and MacBryde, John Minton and William Scott, and part of the expatriate middle-European and Irish intellectual circles in London of the time. A friend of the poets, Patrick Kavanagh and Anthony Cronin, Crozier spent 1963 in southern Spain with Cronin, an experience that was to prove pivotal to his development as an artist. On his return to the UK, influenced by the experience of visiting Belsen, he began a series of skeleton paintings, which anticipate ‘New Expressionist’ German painting of the 1980s.

Based in London from 1964, Crozier continued to exhibit there and in Edinburgh, Dublin and continental Europe. In common with many senior artists of the 1960s, the artist combined painting with teaching, first at Bath Academy of Art, (with Howard Hodgkin, Gillian Ayres and Terry Frost), then at the Central School of Art (with William Turnbull and Morris Kestleman), at the Studio School in New York and finally at Winchester School of Art where, as Head of the Fine Art Department, he led a strong centre for painting based on the European tradition. However Crozier always saw teaching as a distraction from painting and gave it up as soon as he could.

From the 1980s, with studios in Hampshire and West Cork, Ireland, his painting blossomed with a new freedom and confidence. In 2006 Crozier brings undiminished energy to the challenge of developing a language for figurative painting. He now divides his time between his studios in Hampshire and Roaring Water Bay in West Cork.

William Crozier has represented the UK and Ireland overseas, and has been awarded the Premio Lissone in Milan and the Oireachtas Gold medal for painting. In 1991 the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork and the Royal Hibernian Academy curated a mid-career retrospective of his work. He was elected to Aosdana ( the body founded by the Irish Government to honour artists who have made an outstanding contribution to the arts) in 1992 and he is an honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy.

Sean Scully was born in Dublin and raised in South London. He studied at Croydon College of Art and Newcastle University. He was a recipient of a graduate fellowship at Harvard in the early 1970s and subsequently settled in New York.

Scully was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1989 and 1993. He has exhibited widely in Europe and the United States, and is represented in the permanent collections of a number of museums and public galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., The Art Institute of Chicago, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the National Gallery of Australia, the Tate Gallery, London, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, and many other private and public collections worldwide. In 2006 Scully donated eight of his paintings to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, which opened an extension that year with a room dedicated to Scully’s works.^[3]

In 2005 to 2006, Scully’s Wall of Light series was displayed at museums across the United States. The work originated in a trip Scully took to Mexico in 1983. He combines abstract works with figures.^[2]

He was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich and nowadays Scully lives and works in New York City, Barcelona, and Munich.

CLICK IMAGES TO VIEW EBAY AUCTIONS OF RARE LIMITED EDITION PRINTS BY SEN  SCULLY, WILLIAM CROZIER AND ORIGINAL OIL ON CANVAS BY BRIAN MCMAHON

William Crozier Landscape Oil On Canvas

Brian McMahon Irish Landscape Oil on Canvas

Sean Scully Coloured Wall 2003

Wiliam Crozier Carborundum Pigment Print

Rica Hotels in association with the Human Art Collective is proud to present “The next level of Photography” an exhibition of original artworks by the international fashion photographer Francesco Valentino, NYC.

At a time in our society when almost everyone has a digital camera Francesco Valentino challenges the notion of what photography is and how it is presented. This stunning exhibition of fine art prints and large scale canvases consists of 26 new artworks displayed throughout at the lobby area at the Rica Hotel Kungsgatan, Stockholm, Sweden until 15 August 2012.

- “For me photography is dead. Now I want to revive it by, on the basis of objects and events that are surround me in my everyday life, give images a new dimension by reworking and retouching using both digital and old school format by hand. “Said Francesco Valentino.

Several of the works in the exhibition at the Rica Hotel Kungsgatan are created using a collage technique where Francesco applies images in numerous transparent layers. In this way, they flow together and create a new visual and stylized aesthetic. Dualism and contrast are two recurring themes in Francesco’s photography, and clearly reflected in the works presented in the exhibition.

Francesco Valentino is originally from the Dominican Republic but raised in Italy and New York City. Now he lives in both New York and Stockholm. Francesco has during his long career have worked with some of fashion’s biggest names but also with many of the advertising world’s most influential agencies.

Growing up in New York City during the 70′s to 80′s as Breakdance, Graffiti, Hip Hop and Pop Art were emerging as brand new artforms and transforming street culture. This creative period in our world art history had a profound influence on Valentino and his future development as a professional Artist, Photographer and DJ. Valentino established his NYC foothold with a DJ residency in the world famous Studio 54 NYC along side the clubs Pop Art Promoter Andy Warhol. He was also indispensable and highly regarded as a Graffiti artist (RIF) with the legendary Bronx crew and was highlighted in the film “Style Wars” which won the Grand Prize for Documentaries at the 1983 Sundance Film Festival and continues to gain a significant following.

His artwork is visually stunning and has a uniqueness in its content, colour, form and style. The artworks totally transform the exhibition space at Rica Hotel and offer numerous and varied options for art lovers, collectors and interior designers. Should you be lucky enough to live in Stockholm or maybe staying at the hotel or simply visiting our wonderful city. I highly recommend viewing this exhibition by Francesco Valentino and taking time to enjoy his artworks at the Rica Hotel Kungsgatan. Otherwise, all artworks are available for purchase direct at show or on-line through our sponsors Konstbar & Photowall. Signed Limited Fine Art Prints are for sale on-line through Konstbar. Canvas and Wallpapers are for sale on-line through Photowall.

The Human Art Collective is proud to present this exhibition of new artworks by Francesco Valentino at the Rica Hotel Kungsgatan 12th April 2012 in association with our sponsors & commercial partners. See available artworks and order your Canvas, Prints and Wallpapers on-line through our HAC Partners Photowall & Konstbar who accept all major credit card payments and ship Local, Europe & Worldwide!

SIMPLY CLICK IMAGES OR LOGOS TO VIEW ARTIST PORTFOLIO AND ORDER ARTWORKS ON-LINE

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION REGARDING ARTWORKS, COMMISSIONS OR BOOKINGS CONTACT INFO@HUMANARTCOLLECTIVE.COM

Graffiti

The Red Bird

The Dancer

Sleeping Angel

LIMITED EDITION PRINTS & FINE ART FRAMIMG

CANVAS AND WALLPAPERS

CLICK IMAGE TO READ FULL SIZE FORMAT

The Human Art Collective is proud to present an exhibition of new artworks by Francesco Valentino at the Rica Hotel Kungsgatan 12th April 2012 in association with our sponsors & commercial partners. See available artworks and order your Canvas, Prints and Wallpapers on-line through our HAC Partners Photowall & Konstbar who accept all major credit card payments and ship to Europe & Worldwide!

SIMPLY CLICK IMAGE OR LOGOS TO VIEW ARTIST PORTFOLIO AND ORDER ARTWORKS ON-LINE

CANVAS AND WALLPAPERS

LIMITED EDITION PRINTS & FINE ART FRAMING

Anton Corbijn Opening Receiption Fotografiska January 2012

It was a real pleasure to attend the opening receiption for “Inwards and Outwards” at Fotografiska. An exhibition held in honour of Anton Corbjin the world renowned Dutch Photographer, Music Video and Film Director.  I am a big fan of Corbijn’s Photography and Film work and I have followed his successful career with a keen interest since the late 70′s and early 80′s. It was during this time that Anton Corbijn journey began into the unknown. Like many of us in our early twenties who moved London we were sucked up by the explosion of new and emerging New Wave, Punk Rock bands and Art scenes.It was inevitable that London, England would become the centre of Corbijn’s world. It was’nt long before his unique photographic stlyle was spotted by the staff at NME or New Musical Express Magazine where he became an offical photographer during the 1980′s. Anton would find he was in the perfect place at the perfect time and his appointment at NME enabled him to  pursue his career with gusto having gained access to the up and coming stars of the time.

The NME was established in 1952 and was initially published in a non-glossy tabloid format on standard newsprint. NME had gone through some very difficult periods having lost ground to its competitor Melody Maker and found itself on the verge of closure in 1972. However, all was not lost after managment got a stoke of inspiration which resurrected the publication. They appointed Alan Smith as editor and Nick Logan as his assistant editor. This extreamly talented duo set out on a mission to recruit new and exciting talent and the best writers from the underground press, Charles Shaar Murray, Nick Kent, Ian McDonald and Tony Tyler to name a few. Smith handed the editor’s chair to Logan in mid-1973 having established the NME as the gospel for all music fans living in UK & Ireland and beyond. According to MacDonald “I think all the other papers knew by 1974 that NME had become the best music paper in Britain”. The publication moved towards magazine format during the 1980′s, changing from newsprint 1998. NME readerds would agree that Anton Corbijn’s photography contribuited grately to the magazines ongoing global success.

Anton Corbjin is simply so  much more than a photographer, his artistic direction is solely responsible for conceiveing a new and unique art visual for numerous bands, including Depeche Mode, New Order, Joy Division and U2. He has also directed music videos for Nirvana, Coldplay, and Johnny Cash to name a few. During 2007 – 2010 his minds eye was directed towards the production of full lenght feature films. His debut feature 2007 entitled Control won the title for Best European Film at the Cannes Film Festival. His follow up feature The American an action drama starring George Clooney premiered 2010.

Corbjin has worked as an independent photographer, portraying contemporary and modern artists, writers and poets since early 2002. His most recent projects on show at Fotografiska Stockholm Sweden have been the focus of successful painters such as Anselm Kiefer, Damien Hirst, Gerhard Richter, Lucian Freud, Marlene Dumas,Peter Doig, Karel Appel and Richard Prince. Corbjin has greatly admired the fact that these painters “created something that reflected a struggle.” The exhibition also includes a tribuite to Alexander McQueen, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits to name but a few truly iconic individuals of our time.

The opening reception produced by Spoil Concept Stockholm Sweden with the combined inspiration offered by Fotografiska staff was a magnificent occasion. All in all it was a major undertaking and it was obvious to all individulas attending that Anton had personally managed the shows logistics from beginning to end. I attended the event with my wife Tove who is also is a major fan. It was a star studded packed event where one had the opportunity to mingle with the numerous VIP’s and world stars. It was our good fortune to meet and chat with Anton, Eagle-Eye Cherry and several other artists whom we greatly admire.

I recently returned to Fotografiska for a much easier viewing as we were somewhat distracted on the opening night. Once again, I was struct by the beauty, feeling, emotion and power Corbjin’s images project onto the viewer. The same feeling I get wen I look in amazement at his black & white and colour mucic video’s and films. Needless to say this exhibition is a must see and should not be missed by my fellow fans, lovers and supporters of the visual arts. Fotografiska is a worlds best venue for Photographic exhibitions and conferences. It  offers every visitor a rare opportunity to view the worlds best photography in an awesome setting. Fotografiska staff are extreamly polite an helful and the Museum’s bookstore which offers an exceptional variety of collectable publications  should not to be overlooked.

I always enjoy my time spent at Fotografiska wheather I visit alone or with my family and friends. I like to buy a book or CD before taking a rest at the mezzanine restaurant which has amazing cusine and panaramic views over looking Stockholm City. Fotografiska offers a unique visual arts experience. A place where art lovers can go to view the very best our world of photography has to offer. Congratulations and thanks to all the staff at Fotografiska and Spoil Concept for a very successful opening receiption. I highly reccommend Anton Corbijn’s Exhibition at Fotografiska to our readers local and international.

Turner Monet Twombly

This autumn, Moderna Museet Stockholm, Sweden, will present an overview of the beginnings of modern art. The three exhibitions Turner, Monet, Twombly: Later Paintings; Another Story; and De ou par Marcel Duchamp pae Ulf Linde offer a unique opportunity to experience the way that painting, photography, and ideas converge to form Modernism in a collaboration between eye, hand, machine, and brain.

The exhibitions are supported by a busy program of events, which will be launched with three lectures about J.M.W. Turner, Claude Monet, and Cy Twombly. These will be complimented by a symposium on the concept of Late Style, a programme of films and conversation on Marcel Duchamp. The high points of Modernism will be encapsulated in lectures on key concepts in the history of aesthetics. The autumn’s activities will conclude with a symposium on the relationship between painting and photography.

Please see www.modernamuseet.se for dates and venues.

J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Cy Twombly (1928-2011) were pioneer artists, each in their own time revered and reviled. According to their detractors, they painted with reckless abandon ans according to their supporters, they pushed the boundaries of painting. Twombly described himself as a ‘romantic symbolist’, linking himself to the great painters of the nineteenth century. Like Turner’s, his works invoke myth and history, and additionally mourn the loss of classical reference within contemporary culture. Monet looked closely at Turner’s work and Twombly was a keen admirer of them.

The exhibition presents works from the second half of their careers, when the outward battles have won and the inward battles commence. In their later paintings the three artists engage in the struggle to come to terms with the passage of time, morality and loss, as well as asserting a continuing vitality  through sensuality and eroticism. In seven themes Turner, Monet and Twombly are brought together, not in competition, but as a means to explore the ways in which artists share interests, values and preoccupations.

The exhibition is constructed as a dialogue where the three artists converse across centuries, questioning and challenging each other as though each were present in the same room at the same time.

Curator: Jeremy Lewison / Assistant Curator: Jo Widoff

When Turner died in 1851 he left several unfinished paintings inn his studio. In the wake of impressionism these paintings have been appreciated as highly as the finished works. These incomplete works suggest that before anything else Turner wanted to establish an Atmosphere.’ Atmosphere is my style’ he claimed, and ‘indistinctness is my fault’. In The Thames above Waterloo Bridge (c 1830 – 1850) Turner shrouds the river in a blanket of pollution, with chimneys belching out smoke.

The London fog resulted from a combination of atmospheric pressure, pollution, from industries and an increased use of coal. Monet painted London in the winter specifically to capture the visual effects of the polluted air. ‘The motif is unimportant to me, what I want to reproduce is what stands between the motif and me’, Monet allegedly said. Monet had taken the same approach in Rouen. In Rouen Cathedral Portal ( Morning Effect ) (1894). the cathedral emerges out of the dawn, the coalescence of paint marks forming a structure that parallels the revelation of the façade in real time to the painter.

Twombly too interested in weather effects. In Orpheus (1979), the mist occludes the name of the eponymous hero, or perhaps of his wife, Eurydice, since all that remains are the letters ‘eu’. Like Monet’s and Turner’s, Twombly’s rely on materiality to create an atmosphere and a sense of mystery.

J.M.W. Turner London Burning

In the mid-eighteenth centuary, artists became interested in the sublime. The philosopher Edmund Burke (1729-1797) defined it as thej experience of anything that excites ideas of terror, pain or peril in the mind of a person who os safe in the knowledge that they are in fact not subjected to danger.

Turner’s stormy seascapes highlight the overwhelming force of the sea. Shipwreck’s catastrophic deluges and rough seas were some of his principle subjects in the last twenty years of his life. In the 1880′s, Monet chose increasingly isolated and perilous places in which to paint, emphasising the immensity and harshness of nature. Eschewing figures, Monet encourages the viewer to replace him as the perceiving body.

In Twombly’s four mythological panels Hero and leandro ( 1981-1984), Leandro is engulfed by the sea as he swims across the channel to visit the beautiful hero,. Tossed around by the waves in the first panel, he is eventually submerged beneath the spume. In the fourth frame, Twombly inscribes the closing line form a sonnet by John Keats (1795-1821). In addition to human tragedy, Twombly’s theme too is the fury and the force in nature.

Cy Twombly, Quattro Stagioni ( A Painting in Four Parts ) Tate London Copyright 2011

Twombly used boats as a theme in both painting and sculpture to emblematise the passage of time. Drifting silently, his boasts recall the myth of Chiron on the river Styx, ferrying his passengers from the world of the living to that of the dead.

On a number of occasions, Turner painted works in homage or as memorials to fellow painters or patrons. Peace – Burial at Sea (1842) commemorates his friend the painter Sir David Wilkie. Turner depicts a ship with black sails hove before the Rock of Gibraltar. Wilkie’s body is lowered to the sea in a blaze of torchlight. War, The Exile and the Rock Limpet (1842) depicts Napoleon on St Helena, reflecting on his fate and the lives lost in battle . The hot colours of this painting deliberately act as a counterbalance to the cool colours of Peace, to which it was a pendant.

Turner’s late Venetian paintings, executed after his final trip to Venice in 1840, have a mournful air. Monet’s paintings of the same city were begun on a trip with his wife Alice in 1908. Monet could not resist the temptation of measuring himself against his many predecessors – among them Turner – who had depicted Venice in the past. Many of these canvases were finishes after the death of Alice  in 1911 when he returned to Venice motifs with a heavy heart, remembering the happy days with Alice.

J.M.W. Turner, Peace - Burial at Sea 1842 / Tate London Copyright 2011

In Quattro Stagioni ( 1993-1995), Twombly both mourns the passing of time and celebrates life. The predominant colours key the mood of each season. Like many poets and painters before him, Twombly links the the progress of the year with the life cycle. Spring is full of vigour, tempered by the recognition that what rises will inevitably fall. The glorious summer id tinged with the knowledge that ‘ youth is infinite and yet so brief’. Autumn marks the moment of panic, when winter begins to draw in and morality rears its ugly head, but still there is sufficient energy for late blooms. Winter is mute; the galley’s glide towards entropy, their forms dissolving, veiled in the silvery tones of the brumal mist and ten sea.

Monet also recorded such changes in his series of Poplars in the 1890′s, as well as in his painting of flowers whose moment of bloom is tied to specific times of the year. Although not allegorical, these paintings are nevertheless imbued with a strong sense of time. Monet’s series were cycles as much as Twombly’s and he could not but have been aware of their association with the allegorical tradition of the four seasons.

Claude Monet Water Lily Pond

Although painters and poet’s traditionally favoured sunrise and sunset as times of the day to create a mood, Monet was more interested in capturing a particular kind of light and energy. In London, Houses of Parliament. Burst of Sunlight in the Fog (1904) the heat from the sun burning through the water seems more important than the Houses of Parliament themselves.

For Turner the sun is both a life giving and life taking force. Fading light symbolised the loss of both political and human energy. Turner’s sunsets  were painted in the studio, whereas the sketchiness of Monet’s View of Rouen (1892) suggests he painted it entirely en plein air. Compared with the Houses of Parliament and San Giorgio Maggiore by Twilight (1908) paintings, it is light in touch and palette. These last two works, completed in the studio, seem consciously to rival Turner, who painted both motifs of himself.

For Cy Twombly the sun was also an important motif. The Untitled (Sunset) (1986) works celebrate its power. They stem from a recollection of a late summer sunset, with its deep reds and fervent yellows mingling with greens and purples suggestive of landscape and flowers. The cooler shades of the Untitled (Porto Ercole) work of 1987 evoke the four elements – earth, fire, wind and water.

Claude Monet, Houses of Parliament / Londres, le Parlement. Trouee de soleil dans le brouillard 1904. Copyright RMN (Musee d'Orsay)/ Herve Lewandowski

In  his later years Turner introduced mythical themes that were both voyeuristic and openly erotic. He show a sustained interest in erotica in his private sketchbooks. In titillating painting such as Glaucus and Scylla (1841) and Bacchus and Ariadne (1840), Turner could cloak eroticism in myth.

Glaucus and Scylla and Bacchus and Ariadne both register intense heat, which recurs in Monet’s late painting of the Japanese Bridge. The dripping paint in these works evokes a womb-like space and the superabundance of flora suggests fecundity. Monet rejected the academic tradition where naked females were depicted in natural settings, but even though there are no nudes in hos paintings, they still convey a strong sensuality.

Twombly’s Wilder Shores of Love (1985) and the later Camino Real (II) (2010), make overt reference to sexuality whereas the Untitled paintings (1990 and 1991) echo the abundance of natural energy and ripeness found in Monet’s garden paintings. Sex and eroticism were themes from an early stage in Twombly’s career. Their reappearance in older age testifies, as it does in the work of Turner and Monet, to no diminishment of interest in the vital force.

Cy Twombly, Untitled 2007, Copyright Cy Twombly Foundation. Foto Robert McKeever.

Twombly’s series Blooming: A Scattering of Blossoms and other things (2007), appears to depict peonies, most of then past their peak. The red paint trickles down the canvas, like blood or tears. Transience is one of these paintings’ central themes, but they are also hymns to sunlight, sexuality, and generation. This mixture of regret and vitality is also what characterises Monet’s late paintings of the water lily pond. Painted during the First World War and after a period of intense mourning, a sense of human morality pervades them into contrast to the ever lasting endurance of nature. Time appears  to stand still in these paintings although intimations of sunlight reflected on the surface of the pond infer the time of day.

Turner’s studies for the Petworth commission make little distinction between water and sky, as all dissolves in the diminishing glow of the sun.  The Petworth painting were completed either shortly before or after his father’s death and the paintings have a certain air of despondency. These images remind the viewer once again of finitude and provide another link  to Twombly’s Quattro Stagioni (1993-1995), where Et in Arcadia ego, alluding to a tombstone inscription in a painting by Poussin, suggests that death exists even in the ideal world. It is a phrase artist and writers have used for centuries.

A work from painter Brian Henderson's exhibition "Planned Palimpsests" at the Taylor Gallery in Kildare Street, Dublin.

It  gives me great pleasure to introduce the renowned contemporary Irish Abstract Artist and close friend from back home Brian Henderson. This photograph was taken prior to the opening reception at  Taylor Gallery, Kildare Street, Dublin, Ireland. Brian, was born in county Wicklow, Ireland 1950 but grew up in the tranquil centre city landscape of Rathgar, Dublin 6. A self taught artist he relocated to New York City 1971 after receiving the prestigious MacCaulay fellowship administered by The Arts Council of Ireland at just 21 years of age.

The fellowship awarded the largest artist grant in Ireland at that time. It was a travelling scholarship where the artist gets to select their preferred destination. In one way or another Brian was always bound for New York City and when offered a down-town Manhattan studio which previously belonged to the now acclaimed English artist John Walker, he grasped the opportunity. This residency would become the beginning of a life long personal relationship with New York City where he lived for over three decades before returning to Ireland recently to live and work in Dublin, Ireland.

New York City became his new reality, a chance of a lifetime opportunity which held many exhilarating  experiences and friendships for a young artist in his twenties. Brian’s art knowledge and theory is second to none and there is no better person in the world to be with when he recalls his experiences and insights into the exclusive  NYC art scene during the 70′s,80′ and 90′s. I have spent a significant amount of time hanging out with Brian over the years in his Dublin studio and local watering holes enjoying some Guinness while listening, discussing and debating his human exploits as an international artist. See Brian discuss his art and personal history in a very rare in studio interview Directed by Shane Dignam and Edited by Emmet Dignam  Irish Artist Profile

Painter Brian Henderson and his exhibition "Planned Palimpsests" at the Taylor Gallery in Kildare Street, Dublin.

Brian is a very rare and talented Irish abstract artist who has developed a truly unique art form which stands out for its bold style, vibrant use of colour, scale and structure. Over the years, Henderson’s work has been consistent in its dedication to the process of painting as well as surface. The grand scale of his work, often executed as diptychs and triptychs, reveals the influence of his time in America and his affinity with painters like Brice Marden and Barnett Newman. However, despite the bold, loose brushstrokes and bright colouration of much of his work, there is a profound complexity to his enquiry.

A work from painter Brian Henderson's exhibition "Planned Palimpsests" at the Taylor Gallery in Kildare Street, Dublin.

Henderson’s paintings are the products of innumerable processes – aluminium supports are etched and sanded, primed, overlaid with hot wax, scraped with drywall blades and painted with layers of semi-dry oil – before they are arranged alongside panels of lead, brass, copper or plexi-glass. These paintings are a kind of archaeology for the artist, a stratification of his engagement with the world and a confirmation of his belief in the importance of paint as a medium.

He is an international artist with numerous exhibitions held worldwide. His first solo exhibition was held in the Project Arts Centre in 1971. NYC  Soho Centre for Visual Arts (with Ursula Von Rydingsvard) in New York to Cape Town, South Africa. Between 1968 and 1976 his work has featured in six Irish Exhibitions of Living Art; at the Musee d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, France (Art Irlandais Actuel, Aos Og) and at the Right Bank Gallery, Brooklyn, New York (The Abstract Irish). He received the Glen Abbey Award in 1972.

A work from painter Brian Henderson's exhibition "Planned Palimpsests" at the Taylor Gallery in Kildare Street, Dublin.

More recent exhibitions include Taylor Galleries 2009 Planned Palimpsests, ‘Take Heart’ after 9/11, Relief Show, 23rd St. New York, (2002); ‘Peace’, Side Show Gallery, New York (2004-2005); ‘Works on paper’ Side Show Gallery, New York, (2005); ’Abstract almost Abstract’, Ranelagh Arts Festival (2007);His work now forms part of many public collections including, The Arts Council of Ireland, Irish Museum of Modern Art IMMA, the Korean Embassy in Dublin, the Irish Embassy, Luxembourg, the Office of Public Works (OPW), Dublin, Self Portrait Collection of Ireland, the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin and Stockard Channing, New York City.

A work from painter Brian Henderson's exhibition "Planned Palimpsests" at the Taylor Gallery in Kildare Street, Dublin.

A work from painter Brian Henderson's exhibition "Planned Palimpsests" at the Taylor Gallery in Kildare Street, Dublin.

IT is with real pleasure that I have the opportunity to announce the opening reception of Human Zoo & Horse Show. A body of work by Swedish contemporary fine artist, Jon Holm. Born in Örebro 1980, Jon went on to study at the prestigious Royal University College of Fine Arts Stockholm 2003 to 2008. It was during this period that we had a chance meeting during an art preview at Sweden’s most prestigious auction house Bukowskis, summer of 2006.

Commemorative medals, like this 2000 kronor gold coin designed by Jon Holm in memory of Swedish Nobel Prize winner, Selma Lagerlöf, can also be viewed at the Royal Coin Cabinet.

The following year Jon received significant recognition as an artist when in November 2007 he was presented first prize for designing a commemorative coin with a Selma Lagerlöf motif which was later issued in 2008.

Since receiving this recognition numerous collectors have also confirmed their approval by snapping up his artworks which are a steal at current market prices. You should consider buying at least one of Jon’s paintings before his prices increase again. Truly exceptional fine art works for your home, place of work or a long term investment!

Like me, Jon recently became a family guy and we had the pleasure of catching up at Sven-Harrys a brand new art museum named after the owner which is located in the heart of Vasapark, Vasastan.  Both our family’s were present last Saturday which was the first time we had the opportunity to meet in a long while. It was beautiful Indian summers evening and Vasapark was full of activity. It was during our conversation Jon mention his forthcoming show and hence why I wanted to write this article. I am a big fan and follow Jon’s career with a keen interest and I am looking forward to lifting a glass when I attend his reception at Riche on the 12th October 2011.

Saint Germain Oil on Canvas

"the 1980 era" Natassjia Kinski Oil on Canvas

Defender Oil on Canvas

Yellow Carpet Oil on Canvas

French Currasier Oil on Canvas

Untitled Oil on Canvas

Dead Horse Oil on Canvas

Angel of The North 1998

In one of his few public speeches (at the Turner Prize award ceremony held at the Tate in 1994 when he announced that Antony Gormley— a sculptor whose work Charles Saatchi did not collect— had won the £20,000 prize), he remarked:

I’m not sure what today’s young British artists are putting in their porridge in the mornings but it seems to be working. They’re providing the most striking new art being made anywhere in the universe, and it seems every museum, from Nebraska to Alaska, is ringing up trying to organise shows of their work. Now I don’t know, any more than you, what has made our young artists suddenly so supercharged, but I am certain that teachers like Michael Craig-Martin at Goldsmiths’ College have had a tremendous effect. [Applause.] Now Goldsmiths’, and in recent years the Royal College, and some other art schools, they have set a tone and a level of ambition that has stimulated not just their graduates, but young artists all over Britain who are producing work that is challenging, articulate and relevant. Now if sometimes that work appears tasteless and cynical and uncouth, I think it’s because sometimes we all are. [No applause greeted this admission.] I think that the Turner Prize has itself become an inspiration and a catalyst. It’s a cliché, but it is nevertheless true, that we all welcome the wider interest and debate in contemporary art that the Turner Prize generates. At the very least it gives four young artists every year the chance to exhibit their work here at the Tate.

The Above Excerpt is taken from “Supercollector” A Critic of Charles Saatchi by British Art Critic John A Walker.

The Turner Prize Award was inevitable and Gormley became a sensation world wide over night. However, he was well prepared to capitalise on his growing popularity and has rapidly moved on to much greater heights. Gormley’s work is significant in that it is Human and as a Human his art touches our soul.

Horizon Field

He describes his work as “an attempt to materialise the place at the other side of appearance where we all live.”Many of his works are based on moulds taken from his own body, or “the closest experience of matter that I will ever have and the only part of the material world that I live inside.”His work attempts to treat the body not as an object but a place and in making works that enclose the space of a particular body to identify a condition common to all human beings. The work is not symbolic but indexical — a trace of a real event of a real body in time.

Antony Gormley

Gormley’s most recent project installation is set high in the Austrian Alps Lech am Arlberg. The image shows one of a hundred cast iron figures scattered over a total area of 150 square kilometres. The figures are part of an art project, called Horizon Field, organised with the collaboration of the Kunsthaus Bregenz Museum. It will display for two years high in the mountains underneath Yves Klein Blue skies.

On the 14th of August 2011the BBC world news launched the first of a new series of art programmes on contemporary artists. In “Portrait of an Artist”, Razia Iqbal interviews the British sculptor Antony Gormley about his life and his work. It was an amazing interview as Razia gets up close and personal with the worlds greatest living contemporary sculptor. It is worth noting BBC replay program schedules and Podcast by BBC Journalist Bethany Bell

Anther Place Crosby Beach

Studio Interior

Antony Gormley is represented by the prestigious London based White Cube Gallery which has White Cube was set up by Jay Jopling in 1993 as a project room for contemporary art. Although it was one of the smallest exhibition spaces in Europe, it was arguably one of most influential commercial galleries of the past decade. Situated on the second floor of 44 Duke Street, St James’s, one of London’s most traditional art dealing streets, White Cube, Duke Street was, literally, a simple white cube, a room within a room, designed by the architect Claudio Silvestrin.

The central concern when establishing the programme was to create an intimate space in which an artist could present a single important work of art or a coherent body of work within a focused environment, an idea that in some way, stemmed from the memorable experience of Walter de Maria’s ‘Earth Room’ in New York. The programme was singular among commercial galleries in that an artist was invited to exhibit only once. Since its inception, the gallery mounted exhibitions of work by many leading international and British artists including Franz Ackermann, Miroslaw Balka, Chuck Close, Tracey Emin, Katharina Fritsch, Mona Hatoum, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Ellsworth Kelly, Julie Mehretu, Doris Salcedo, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Luc Tuymans and Jeff Wall. White Cube, Duke Street closed in 2002.

Field USA 1991

The image above is a personal favourite as it was part of the IMMA exhibition I viewed at the Irish Museum of Modern Art back in the 90′s, Man how time flies! For further detailed research information I recommend a visit to Antony Gormley’s personal website where you will find a database with Eassy’s, Interviews, Text, Video, Audio, film, photography and much, much more. Personally I plan to take a trekk with the family and view the instillation in Austria, get close to heaven and enjoy the Gormley’s Human Horizon Field, underneath the Yves Klein Blue Shies!!!