Craig Alan

Populus: Homage to Van Gogh

Contemporary portrait of Elizabeth Taylor.

The popular and innovative American Neo-Pop artist Craig Alan was born in San Bernardino, California, in 1971. Although Alan was inclined to creativity and the visual arts from an early age, it was not until his family moved to New Orleans, where he truly developed a sense of artistic purpose in earnest. Alan’s first concentrated attempts at visual expression were through street portraiture, which provided him with the experience and means to purchase art supplies and further his informal artistic studies. Craig Alan attended the University of Mobile in Alabama, where he pursed a degree in the visual arts. During his time at the university, Alan garnered academic recognition and earned awards for excellence in studio art practice. He participated in Art with a Southern Drawl, one of the university’s most popular art exhibitions, which featured forty-two of Alan’s artworks. The artist’s specialty has been and is predominantly figurative works, with Alan seeking new and innovative modes or re-working historical modes of figural representation. He has experimented with and incorporated elements of make-up/cosmetic artistry, set design, sculpture, and traditional figure drawing in his oeuvre. And his shadowbox series, which combines seemingly contrasting and contradictory elements—dresses made of ribbons and feather; shells made of pierced-paper and sticks—and transcends the traditional two-dimensional art form. Craig Alan has received his greatest popular acclaim from collectors for his POPULUS series. Through an intricate process of deconstruction and construction, Alan re-creates iconic images of popular figures through the working and reworking of hundreds of miniature, individuated figures viewed from an aerial or birds-eye-view. His images of celebrities, heroes, or recognizable sites, such as the U.S. Capitol or Statue of Liberty, invite close, slow viewing and scrutiny, that ultimately reveals greater thematic associations and allusions through finely rendered hand details. Craig Alan’s variety of series of art-making—Populus, Narrative, and Motivo—reveals, through different modes of expression, the artist’s knowledge of and proficiency with the art historical figurative...

Exhibited: National Academy of Design, New York, 1906 (as no. 101) Art Institute of Chicago, 1908 (as no. 74)

American Impressionist

Literature: Bazetoux, Henri Lebasque Catalogue Raisonne (Neuilly, 2008), vol. 1, p. 223 (no. 820) (illus)

Signed and titled lower left

Archaic Hercules Skinning a Rabbit, 2019 Acrylic on canvas 53.14 H x 55.11 W in. 135 H x 140 W cm In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and his numerous far-ra...

Gyre acrylic, spray paint on canvas 80" x 96" 2022 Part of the New Minority Series Dennis Jones was first introduced to the use of a bidet while being extremely ill in Hurghada, Egypt. He has played the game of ‘Jenga’ with prostitutes in Phuket, Thailand. Once he hiked down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon from the North Rim and back in twelve hours. Jones has also visited fifty US National Parks. The work of Dennis Jones is growth oriented. There is diversity among his oeuvre and much risk in such an approach. Eschewing a ‘signature style’ that he considers to be boring, creatively limiting and market driven, he prefers to consider how method and expression intermingle and form a conceptual basis. A cursory glance may consider his prodigious output to lack focus, but a deeper reading reveals that he remains true to himself and allows his work to take him where it needs to go. There has always been the presence of a figure in his work, either implied, or directly visible. One can trace several years of development from his interest in figurative and cartoon-like imagery in, Toyland (2006), through his foray into text based work (2007-13) and a later influence of abstraction (2012-18). Following this trajectory brings one to his current body of work that combines figuration, cartoons and abstraction. He is a visual artist, educator, and architect. Each of the ‘hats’ he wears directly influence his work. He states that ‘a fascination with an integration of material, process and expression, truth of emotion and visually communicating thought are what sustain and drive him as an artist. Jones has participated in over seventy solo and group shows that include local, national and international venues. His creative output includes paintings, sculptures, drawings, installations, videos, photos, books, teaching and residential architecture. Jones’ work was selected to be included in the New American Paintings 2019 Midwest Competition Publication, juried by Staci Boris, Associate Director of Exhibitions, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Currently, his focus is on a growing body of paintings, in mixed media, on canvas that combine abstraction, figuration and cartoon imagery. Jones had a one person exhibition at the University of Michigan in September through December of 2018. A review of the show can be read on the page titled, Candyland Review. Earlier the same year, He curated an exhibition titled, SIX, that opened in January of 2018, at The Janice Charach Gallery; a five thousand square foot space, located in West Bloomfield, Michigan. The exhibition featured the work of six Detroit artists and provided adequate space for each to show a body of work…essentially six individual shows in one space. Selected venues that have shown Jones’ work include: The OK Harris Gallery, New York; Galerie Protege, NY; The Mary Washington Galleries, Mary Washington University, Fredericksburg, Maryland; The Kraft Lieberman Gallery, Chicago; The Drift Gallery, Portsmouth, NH; The Project Room, Lincoln, NE; The Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor, Canada; Artcite, Windsor, CA; The Thames Gallery, Chatham, Ontario, Canada; The Kenderdine Art Gallery, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, CA; Definitely Superior Gallery, Thunder Bay, ON, CA; Gallery Lambton, Sarnia, ON, CA, WKP Kennedy, North Bay...

Javier Calleja El Pan De Cada Día (Everyday Bread), 2013 is a stunning work that exemplifies the artists interests and influences in cartoons and comics that are imbued with creative...

Sandbar Trilogy is a brilliantly colorful pop art painting, an ode to the popular gay beach scene in Miami, Florida. Three panels of male figures are seen lounging, sitting and stan...

David Stern (Germany, b. 1956) Acrylics on canvas 71 inches by 81 inches Hand signed by artist, certificate of authenticity available Keywords: red, abs...

The painting is part of the MUSIC series and is dedicated to American CINEMA. Made on a rigid panel, it is a unique piece authenticated by the artist Acrylic enamels on panel measuri...