Dan Charbonnet

Alamos

2022

Charbonnet received an MFA from the University of New Orleans. He has work in the public collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Speed M...

Charbonnet received an MFA from the University of New Orleans. He has work in the public collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Speed M...

Charbonnet received an MFA from the University of New Orleans. He has work in the public collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Speed M...

Charbonnet received an MFA from the University of New Orleans. He has work in the public collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Speed M...

Charbonnet received an MFA from the University of New Orleans. He has work in the public collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Speed M...

Through his artistic practice, Martin Benson is exploring ways to express questions about deeper levels of reality. Inspired by sacred geometry and esoteric symbolism, his paintings embody his own contemplative practices and the experiences within them. Reconciling the tension between spirituality and the hyper-materialist modern world, his pieces act as visual koans for both the artist and the viewer. Benson received his MFA from the University of New Orleans and his BA at the University of Southern California. He has exhibited at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Contemporary Arts Center (LA), the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Jazz and Heritage...

Chryssa Repetition Signed lower right; titled on the reverse Gouache, watercolor, charcoal, and graphite on paper 15 x 11 inches Born and educated in Athens, Greece, Vardea Chryssa, known professionally as Chryssa, became a U.S. citizen and earned a reputation for her sculptured assemblages utilizing light from neon, and plexiglas combined with mixed media pieces. One of her pieces, Untitled Light Sculpture (1980) is 22 feet long and is installed in the atrium of a building at 33 Monroe Street in Chicago. It was programmed electronically to create changing patterns of reflected light through 900 feet of neon tubing. Chryssa's sculptures with precision and definite form were a reaction against the prevalent Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s with its emphasis purely upon the artist's intent. In her work, the focus is on materials and the way they are shaped for specific use by craftsmen. She got her early education in Athens, and first studied to be a social worker. She was then sent by the Greek Ministry of Social Welfare to the Dodecanese Islands and later to the Ionian Sea island of Zante, whose population had suffered great loss from earthquakes. Disillusioned that monies were being provided to restore monasteries but not to help other earthquake victims, Chryssa changed her life's direction to become a painter. In Athens, she studied art with Anghelos Prokopion. Then she went to Paris, France, and studied briefly at the Academie Grande Chaumiere and associated with surrealists Andre Breton, Edgard Varese, and Max Ernst. In 1954, she moved to San Francisco, California for a year of study at the California School of Fine Arts, and there she first saw the work of Jackson Pollock, which had a freeing affect on her and inspired her to experiment with pure form. But later she reacted against action painting with her assemblage sculptures of controlled precision. In 1955, Chryssa settled in New York City, and became the first artist to incorporate neon light tubing and commercial signs into sculpture. It is asserted that her "mature work grew out of the Greek experience, before and after World War II, wedded to the raucous letters, signs, symbols, and lights of Time Square, New York City" (Heller 125). In fact, she was so taken with the lights of Times Square that she unsuccessfully tried to get a job as a sign maker but was prevented by labor union rules. However, one of the members gave her sign-making lessons in his shop. She first made Pop images such as depictions of automobile tires and cigarettes and in sculptures, utilized letters of the alphabet, ideas that predated similar images by Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. Her first major work of interwoven light and letters was Times Square Sky of 1962, but she was dissatisfied because she thought the piece was too crowded. To create a sense of breathing, she inserted neon light, and for the first time, this material became an art medium. From that time, she was prolific and created many variations based on the letters W and A. For her, a primary motivating factor was remaining cool or mentally collected amidst the onslaught of bombarding information and to process it through her creations in new ways so that nothing was repeated. She set up her own work place...

Gouache and graphite on handmade paper. 12 x 24 inches unframed, 16.25 x 28.25 inches framed. Artist Statement: “As an artist, I find endless possibilities overwhelming and use self-imposed boundaries to focus my work. This often includes some combination of: a literal grid or graphite border, employment of barbecue skewers or wooden chopsticks in lieu of paintbrushes for mark making, use of a monochromatic or limited color palette, and a reliance on shape and pattern to tell a story. Limiting the elements at play adds a measure of gravity to each decision, and every detail about the paper, the viscosity of the paint, micro variations in hues, and even the sharpness of the point on a skewer matters. I’ve found that the more restrictions I put in place when I paint, the freer my work has become, allowing a tension to form between the organic and prescribed. Rather than sketch before starting a new piece, I spend time with the paper and begin to visualize possibilities. From there, I can expand the work incrementally. Whether I’m working in an adapted form of pointillism, playing with opacity and hue, or building patterns through repeating shape, the work evolves in its own time. It is an intentionally open process of discovery that seeks to uncover the greatest potential of the basest elements we have at our disposal”. - Kate Snow

Gouache and graphite on handmade paper. 24 x 18 inches unframed, 28 x 22.25 inches framed. Artist Statement: “As an artist, I find endless possibilities overwhelming and use self-imposed boundaries to focus my work. This often includes some combination of: a literal grid or graphite border, employment of barbecue skewers or wooden chopsticks in lieu of paintbrushes for mark making, use of a monochromatic or limited color palette, and a reliance on shape and pattern to tell a story. Limiting the elements at play adds a measure of gravity to each decision, and every detail about the paper, the viscosity of the paint, micro variations in hues, and even the sharpness of the point on a skewer matters. I’ve found that the more restrictions I put in place when I paint, the freer my work has become, allowing a tension to form between the organic and prescribed. Rather than sketch before starting a new piece, I spend time with the paper and begin to visualize possibilities. From there, I can expand the work incrementally. Whether I’m working in an adapted form of pointillism, playing with opacity and hue, or building patterns through repeating shape, the work evolves in its own time. It is an intentionally open process of discovery that seeks to uncover the greatest potential of the basest elements we have at our disposal”. - Kate Snow

Abstract figure swinging on a tree branch in foreground. Seascape, coastline background. Thick, textural brush strokes. Darius's most recent body of work is bright, colorful, wi...

Kory Twaddle "Watercolor Leftovers" Watercolor on paper Year: 2015 Size: 10 x 12 inches COA provided "I hope to use all the materials in my studio and waste nothing, so emptying out...

Artist : Kory Twaddle Title : Organ Buildings Materials : Oil, acrylic, charcoal, conté crayon, marker, string, hair, postage stamps, buttoms, and mixed media on paper mounted on pa...