Phoebe Unwin

Information, 2010

Oil on canvas (75.5 × 60 cm)

Image: Wilkinson Gallery

Phoebe Unwin's work always puts a smile on my face because each jewel like painting takes me on a surprising, quirky ride. Like a modern day Prunella Clough, Unwin's paintings capture the abstract in the everyday. Each painting feels like an experiment in paint; blurry, hard edge, washy, stringy, gluggy - confidently applied and sometimes deliciously awkward too. And the kicker, for me, is that each one emerges as an individual in it's own right. I admire a painter who is not afraid to change direction with each new canvas. Phoebe Unwin has a new show at Wilkinson Gallery in London and I really wish I could be there to have a look. For further reading HERE'S a good article.

Mario Naves

voice farm, 2010

acylic paint and pasted paper

9 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches

Image: Elizabeth Harris Gallery

I'm a big fan of Mario Naves' work. I wrote about him a while ago HERE and only just realised he has recently produced more of his beautiful painterly collages when I stumbled on his writing blog - Too Much Art. I won't gush again as I have already done so. Have a look at his recent work at Elizabeth Harris Gallery. It's well worth it.

Lucy Mink

I was introduced to this painter's work over at the great new site called (standard) INTERVIEW which showcases artists at work using a simple interview template . I had to giggle at the tag line; 'attempting insight since 2010'.

Lucy Mink is a painter I can really relate to. She plays with form and colour and clearly revels in the process. Her paintings are vibrant and dynamic. I love it when I see a form that breathes life and these paintings certainly do that! In her interview I was struck by her list of influential artists in which she includes Australian painter Elizabeth Cummings, also one of my personal favourites. I like her artists statement too;

I am consumed by combinations of color and form as a visual, abstract diary of my life where time does not belong to me, but to others. I am frequently organizing their things while they dance. I am in a situation.

Painters' Table

Just when I thought I had exhausted my quest to find good painting sites on the web I stumbled on this site; Painters' Table. It describes itself as a magazine of the painting blogosphere and seems to have a wide variety of links to news, multimedia, books, interviews and more. Created recently by Brett Baker, this site has great potential and just might become a definitive guide to painting resources on the net. I look forward to reading more.

Gabrielle Jones

"This too Shall Pass" 2010

122cm x 122cm 

Oil on canvas

Gabrielle Jones has a series of gorgeous works on display at the Goulburn Regional Gallery. The show is called 'Paint as Landscape' and the works ooze movement and light. I love the way paint is used to capture a fleeting moment, a memory of a sensory perception. Paint is applied generously and in equal measures of thick and thin so that the works breathe. 

I am interested in the slippage between the real and illusion, fast and slow, movement and static; the point in which nature disintegrates or decays (and the decay of the image); the time between light and dark; and nature as a site of flux and impermanence - that is, the transience of the real. - Gabrielle Jones 'Paint as Landscape' 2010 catalogue.

Gabrielle Jones has produced a very strong body of work and it is so gratifying to see this dedicated painter hitting her stride. Do yourself a favour and go see for yourself. The show ends December 4th.

Ben Young

Homo Sacer 2009

Oil on Linen

117 x 117 cm

Imp Castrato 2010

Oil, Collage, Permanent Marker & Oil Stick on Canvas

100 x 100 cm

Reactionary Primitive 2010

Oil, Collage, Oil Stick & Spray Paint on Canvas

100 x 100 cm

Passion, paint; more passion, more paint. I'm happy to have stumbled on Ben Young's energy soaked work. Check more of it out here.

Lesley Vance

Untitled (41), 2010

oil on linen

27.9 x 22.9 cm

image from: David Kordansky Gallery

I came across Lesley Vance's work a while ago. They are moody dark, velvety abstract compositions. Veils of paint are densely layered and appear to be applied in a variety of ways. They remind me of Caravaggio doing abstraction.

In her own words: My paintings originate from still lives of natural forms composed in the studio: I put together an arrangement of objects from my collection in a box where I control lighting by cutting openings for light to shine through. I'll paint this image, and once it reaches a certain point of resolution, the composition begins to evolve and I'm no longer looking at the source material. From there the the surface becomes a malleable space as the objects dissolve into pure form, although traces of the original image frequently remain in the finished work....

read more here about Vance's intelligent and intriguing process as well as her varied influences.

I love the process Vance uses and the results are gorgeous jewel-like paintings.