While working for Tommy Hilfiger in New York City, Jess Hurley Scott took her first steps in developing her unique style of painting. Living in Manhattan on the bare minimum her $25,000 salary could afford, Scott managed to scrounge up enough money for a cheap, nude-model night course at The Art Students League. The class wasn’t meant for critique but to simply be an outlet where Scott could paint. Upon her second year of attending this class, the teacher, Hugo Bastidas, approached her and asked, “why are you here?” Scott, taken aback, said, “I’m here to keep my hand in, to keep painting and not lose everything I’d done over the years, and this class forces me to come paint.” “Yeah, but why are you doing this class?” Bastidas asked, “You obviously hate painting nudes. I mean you’re competent at it, but you can tell this is not your passion. What do you paint at home?” Her … [Read more...] about JESS HURLEY SCOTT: HAND-PAINTED TRICKERY IS PICTURE PERFECT
KYUNGMIN PARK: CERAMIC STORYTELLER SEES THE WORLD THROUGH HER FIGURES
What struck me about a recent conversation with Kyungmin Park was her clarity — clarity in what she tries to convey as an artist and in how she wants people to see her work. A figurative ceramic sculptor, Park has been recognized nationally and internationally as a gifted emerging artist in her field. She is the featured artist in “Ceramic Sculpture Culture: Uniting the Figure” at Endicott College, where Park is an assistant professor of 3D studio art. The exhibit’s title references the group of professional ceramic artists who have come together to share information on gallery opportunities, future exhibitions and to provide funding and scholarships for emerging ceramic artists. As co-curator of the exhibit, Park has selected works by fellow members of the Ceramic Sculpture Culture — recently renamed Ceramic Sculpture Collective — from throughout the United States to display in … [Read more...] about KYUNGMIN PARK: CERAMIC STORYTELLER SEES THE WORLD THROUGH HER FIGURES
JEFFREY P’AN: AN AESTHETIC INSTINCT THAT CANNOT BE TAUGHT
“Art as a form of communication takes over where language leaves off.” This assertion by glass artist Jeffrey P’an crystallizes his belief in art’s power. Art, he feels, “is very well equipped to communicate things that are not usually said in words.” From his studio/factory/store in the heart of Mystic, Connecticut, P’an is communicating his interpretations and reactions to life, nature and music through his glass creations. His art is desired by a growing list of collectors all over the world. Working with a diverse palette of colors and textures, P’an’s artistry distinctively makes glass the star. “What I try to do is create an ever-changing world with the transparency.” His techniques for blending and layering geometric shapes and patterns result in designs of luminous acuity that accentuate, rather than overpower, the crystalline character of the glass. A vase becomes a medium … [Read more...] about JEFFREY P’AN: AN AESTHETIC INSTINCT THAT CANNOT BE TAUGHT
STELLA JOHNSON: EXPLORING GENERATIONAL FAMILY AND FRIENDSHIP BONDS
Photographs by Stella Johnson that focus on her 11-year immersive relationship with Greece are featured at the Leica Gallery in Boston Park Plaza Hotel March 7 though April 21. Johnson’s exhibition, titled “ZOI,” means life and coincides with the release of her book of the same name published by Wild Greek Press in Watertown, Massachusetts. To prepare for this profile, I spoke with Johnson who was in Oaxaca, Mexico, where she is engaged in a photographic exploration that has similarities to “ZOI” in the sense that her dialogue emerges out of friendships and it has developed over time. Johnson, a second-generation Greek-American, saw and experienced strength of family as an immutable and cohesive social element in Greece. In most of the countries in which she has worked, Johnson has lived among the populace and immersed herself in their culture. As a photographer, she considers herself … [Read more...] about STELLA JOHNSON: EXPLORING GENERATIONAL FAMILY AND FRIENDSHIP BONDS
JULIA JENSEN: CAPTURING NORTHERN LIGHT IN ALL ITS VARIATIONS
When I moved from Manhattan to a secluded mountaintop house in Vermont, my wonderment at the measurelessness of the landscape surrounding the house was boundless. At night, it was an endless universe of black space but in the morning light, even in April when snow covered the ground, there emerged at the edge of the distant woods the soft nuanced greens of willows and the soft reds of new growth on maples. A still-frozen stream far in the distance was the sole interruption, a meandering silver stroke spanning the snowy vastness. Recently, I set out to visit Northern Daughters Gallery in Vergennes, a cool community that boasts several top-rated chef-owned bistros, bars, patisserie shops and even a chocolatier. My interest was in seeing more of Julia Jensen’s large-scale semi-abstract landscapes that I had seen a year ago. Her paintings have a way of staying with you, long after you … [Read more...] about JULIA JENSEN: CAPTURING NORTHERN LIGHT IN ALL ITS VARIATIONS
XYLOR JANE: AN EXTRAORDINARY ARTIST WITH A NATIONAL REPUTATION
Through the ages, thinkers and mystics have recognized that numbers speak to the order of things, but artistic visual expression of this discreet order has been historically intermittent. Mathematical constructs such as the Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Ratio appear in a broad spectrum of natural features, including snail shells, beehives, pine cones and our spiral galaxy; yet, their alignment with pure mathematics remains mysterious and for many, sacred. Greenfield, Massachusetts-based artist Xylor Jane follows in the footsteps of da Vinci, Dürer, Dali, Juan Gris and Le Corbusier in bringing the magic of numbers into visual form. Jane’s selected paintings of “Counterclockwise,” on exhibit at the University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMass Amherst, incorporate the perfection of mathematics, coupled with the drama of human interpretation. Pointillism defines much of Jane’s … [Read more...] about XYLOR JANE: AN EXTRAORDINARY ARTIST WITH A NATIONAL REPUTATION