Undoing painting

An interesting take on the painting process by artist Andrew Long. Making paintings without a support system. I love it!

Video: Andrew Long

Mario Naves

Mario Naves
Postcard from Florida #19, 2006
acrylic paint and pasted paper
7 X 5 inches
Image from: Elizabeth Harris Gallery

I've been all a flutter over the collages of Mario Naves that I stumbled upon over at the blind swimmer. For Naves, collage is akin to painting. I totally agree.

Indeed, Naves certainly has a painter's sensibility.

I wish I could go and see this exhibition but unfortunately my place is a little too far from NYC. This awesome video did help.

In his current exhibition Mr Naves creates startingly beautiful little collages out of torn painted paper which he prepares himself. (This is a process that I've been using for some time too. Collage is a satisfying way to work through painting problems.) Naves confidently plays with the relationships between and amongst tones, hues and texture (varied brushstokes in particular) and seems to revel in the delicious feeling of placing paper, like paint, over a surface to mask, energise or reveal.

Those georgeous colours. I'm reminded of Bonnard's paintings for some inexplicable reason.

Over here, I found another painter, Kenzo Okada, who Naves shares an affinity with. Okada paints using similar subtle shifts in tones. Unfortunately I can't find any decent images but from the available jpegs I could swear that the paint is laid down as if it were paper rather than a liquid medium.

For my first case I give to you....

Thomas Nozkowski
Untitled (S-31) 1998
ink on paper
9 x 12 inches

Ok, so this is a drawing.

It's a beautiful one though, and it's made by one of my most favourite artists. Thomas Nozkowski has been painting and drawing for many many years. You can see his paintings here and his drawings here.

I love to see a painter who can be unashamedly obsessed with the process of painting and the lushness of paint. His subject matter appear to be inspirations from a moment in time or a visual impression, such as how fragments of glass and plastic nuzzle up to a nob of moss. Nozkowski is probably a formalist so it's all about the figure/ground, baby!

Seriously, go see his paintings. I love the carnival coloured biomorphic shapes which sit confidently amongst or on top of grids and lattice work and the ameobic-like creatures that appear to have sidled shyly onto the picture plane; half coming, half going. When looking at his paintings I feel as if I'm watching figures on stage and I get the urge to burst out laughing, so surprising and fresh are his compositions. Also, Nozkowski eschews the whole 'mine's bigger than yours' thing and paints small on canvas board.

I like.

Which brings me to another artists who, unlike Nozkowski, is sadly dead.

Stay tuned....