Filed under: Interview | Tags: Ellen C. Caldwell, Interview, Kim Cadmus Owens, Q&A
Kim Cadmus Owens (NAP #78 and #102) creates large oil paintings that are striking in color and subject. Glancing at a work such as “Smoke and Mirrors” or the “Alamo,” you feel as if you are moving with her paintings at the speed of light.
Kim Cadmus Owens | Smoke and Mirrors: coming and going, 2011, acrylic and oil on canvas, 48” x 156” UF (diptych)
Owens found inspiration for her work amidst technology blunders and anomalies, such as frozen, overtaxed computer screens and fragmented desktop patterns. Embedding these within her land- and cityscapes, Owens also places the viewer amidst bright and bold scenes. Many of these locales are reminiscent of old, empty, western wastelands – featuring what appear to be aged or abandoned buildings. However, because she amps up the color and imbues them with such a force of their own, and because she fragments her works with impending lines and fractures, they feel alive, burgeoning, and even hectic. The heightened feeling she creates is amplified by the visually pleasing nature of her oil paint eye candy. Her work makes me want to be on that road trip she is on, but in the meantime as I am speeding on the freeway on my own, her paintings inspire me to see things quite differently and much more brightly. – Ellen C. Caldwell, Los Angeles Contributor
All images courtesy of the artist and Holly Johnson Gallery.
Filed under: Interview, We've Got One Question | Tags: Arthur Pena, Dallas, Daniel Buren, Interview, We've Got One Question
Since 1965 painter Daniel Buren has been covering whatever he can with his colored vertical stripes. Buren has covered everything from canvas, walls, and stairs and even train cars that could be seen while looking out of a window from the Art Institute of Chicago. Yeah, sweet, I know. Buren does this in the effort of forcing us to take notice of our surroundings. He drags painting into your space to interrupt your vision and possibly your day. Buren=stripes=Buren. It’s a palindrome. He’s traded his identity for a symbol; in this case it is an exact 8.7cm wide vertical stripe in the service of painting.
Much like how Bruce Wayne traded his identity for a bat in the service of justice. Both are vigilantes. Seen in a gallery or museum setting Buren’s stripes take over the space and can feel super oppressive. You start thinking about the sterile white walls and the goddamn white cube and how this space, this institution that is justifying these stripes as art, is really only justified by the art on the walls and about the time that that damn Mike Richards wouldn’t shut that damn dog up when you had your Breaking Bad season premier watching party and he just ruined everything. Or his stripes can remind you of that time that you went to the carnival and rode the carousal and you had no homework and it was Saturday and everything was perfect because you were young and with loved ones. Either way, his stripes make you look. For Buren, the absolute discipline to his practice, his restraint to work within a set structure and his specific sized stripe has sustained a life’s interest. I recently encountered an energetic and welcoming Buren at his Bortolami and Petzel openings in Chelsea. I needed to know something. – Arthur Peña, Dallas Contributor
Daniel Buren | Optical Fiber, White and Blue Triangle, Situated Work, 2012, Fiberoptics, 99.33 inches x 99.33 inches. Photo Courtesy Bortolami Gallery
Filed under: Art World, Interview | Tags: Afghanistan, Baghdad, Glasschord, Interview, Iraq, Noah Post, painting, Steven Mumford
Glasschord posted a terrific interview with artist Steve Mumford. Noah Post spent time with Mumford discussing his time working in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Steve Mumford recently returned from his fourth trip to Iraq, where he spent some ten-and-a-half months drawing. He was embedded with numerous units in the U.S. Army, and also spent time with Iraqis, particularly in Baghdad, where he got to know many young artists. Through drawing Mumford hoped to depict the day-to-day experience of the war zone, from the point of view of both the soldiers and the Iraqis he got to know.” - Read the entire interview on Glasschord
