Merge - Acrylic, linocut & collage on canvas - 28? x 22? - 2010

On Saturday, September 17, 2011, 6-9 pm, Flatbush Artists Studio Tour (FAST) will have an opening reception for an exhibit that coincides with the grand opening of the Whisk Bakery Cafe in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. The exhibit will be on view from September 16 to October 11.

Whisk Bakery Café
1119 Newkirk Avenue, at Westminster Road
Brooklyn, NY

Opening Reception
Saturday, September 17 2011, 6-9 pm

• whiskbakerycafe.com
• flatbushartists.org

FAST is a group of local artists interested in showcasing the work of visual artists living and/or working in Victorian Flatbush Brooklyn.

Whisk opening, September 17, 2011

Whisk opening, September 17, 2011

Whisk opening, September 17, 2011

1
Altarpiece of Saint Christopher
Anonymous
14th Century

This small altarpiece, divided into three horizontal and three vertical rows, is dedicated to Saint Christopher, who protects against sudden death. His image occupies the central row, which is topped by the Crucifixion.

2
Altarpiece of the lives of the Virgin and Saint Francis
Maestro Nicolás Francés
1445-1460

This altarpiece consists of nine large panels plus the eighteen that make up the predella. The main scene is The Virgin with the Christ Child surrounded by Angel Musicians, which is completed with five scenes from the lives of Christ and the Virgin in the right and central areas, and three scenes from the life of saint Francis, in the left area. All of them are framed with gothic ogee tracery.

3
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Hieronymus Bosch
1500-1505

The open triptych shows three scenes. The left panel is dedicated to Paradise, with the creation of Eve and the fountain of life, while the right panel shows hell. The central panel gives its name to the entire piece, representing a garden of life’s delights or pleasures. Between paradise and hell, these delights are nothing more than allusions to sin, showing humankind dedicated to diverse worldly pleasures.

4
The Triumph of Death
Pieter Brueghel “the Elder”
c. 1562

In this moral work, the triumph of Death over mundane things is symbolized by a large army of skeletons razing the Earth. The background is a barren landscape in which scenes of destruction are still taking place. In the foreground, Death leads his armies from his reddish horse, destroying the world of the living. The latter are led to an enormous coffin with no hope for salvation.

IKEDA Manabu - History of rise and fall - 2006 - pen, acrylic ink on paper, mounted on board - 200x200cm

BYE BYE KITTY!!!
Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art
Friday, March 18 — Sunday, June 12
Japan Society

Bye Bye Kitty!!! is a radical departure from recent Japanese exhibitions. Moving far beyond the stereotypes of kawaii and otaku culture, Japan Society’s show features sixteen emerging and mid-career artists whose paintings, objects, photographs, videos, and installations meld traditional styles with challenging visions of Japan’s troubled present and uncertain future.

• http://www.byebyekittyart.org/
• https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/arts/design/anxiety-on-the-fault-line.html
• http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/03/17/arts/design/20110318-kitty.html

Max Beckmann - Der Nachhauseweg (Sheet 2) from Die Hölle

German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse
March 27–July 11, 2011
The Museum of Modern Art

• http://moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1103
• http://moma.org/explore/collection/ge/index

“Wabi sabi is an intuitive appreciation of transient beauty in the physical world that reflects the irreversible flow of life in the spiritual world. It is an understated beauty that exists in the modest, rustic, imperfect, or even decayed, an aesthetic sensibility that finds a melancholic beauty in the impermanence of all things.”

• nytimes.com/2011/04/12/arts/design/hedda-sterne-artist-of-many-styles-dies-at-100.html

Art of Edo Japan: The Artist and the City 1615-1868
Christine Guth

• yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=0300164130
• www.amazon.com/Art-Edo-Japan-Artist-1615-1868/dp/0300164130/

“This beautifully illustrated survey examines the art and artists of the Edo period, one of the great epochs in Japanese art. Together with the imperial city of Kyoto and the port cities of Osaka and Nagasaki, the splendid capital city of Edo (now Tokyo) nurtured a magnificent tradition of painting, calligraphy, printmaking, ceramics, architecture, textile work, and lacquer. As each city created its own distinctive social, political, and economic environment, its art acquired a unique flavor and aesthetic. Author Christine Guth focuses on the urban aspects of Edo art, including discussions of many of Japan’s most popular artists—Korin, Utamaro, and Hiroshige, among others—as well as those that are lesser known, and provides a fascinating look at the cities in which they worked.”

George Tooker, Government Bureau (1956)

“George Tooker, a painter whose haunting images of trapped clerical workers and forbidding government offices expressed a peculiarly 20th-century brand of anxiety and alienation, died on Sunday at his home in Hartland, Vt. He was 90.”

• Read the full obituary on NYTimes.com

Included in the pile were some old medical books, some children’s books in Russian, and central to the creation of this work, some notebooks used for practicing written English.

There were many interesting phrases. Why, for example, would one practice writing “to take a walk down quicksand?” It was an evocative image.

I began to tear phrases out of the notebooks and arranged them on a table top into a collaged narrative. The process took a few days as I shuffled the fragments around, adding new bits here, taking out bits there. I then began to collect images from the other books to create illustrations of the constructed tale, and arranged the pieces into pages.

Click on the first thumbnail below to view the complete story.