Bill Zima

"Sea of Trees": Large Contemporary Tree Painting

2018

In BOOM BUST REPEAT17, Peña creates a silhouette of house and fills it with sharpe-edged shapes that contain gradients and saturated hues of red, green, and violet. He balances these colors with muted tones of orange and yellow . The viewer can create a house that is yet to be built in between the gaps here. In "Boom, Bust, Repeat", Peña remarks on a house and landscape that has yet to take place. The painting is created with watercolor and acrylic paint on paper. In the foreground we see Sintra board or flattened PVC that has been CNC routed. In the "soil" beneath the house are small circular lines that have been hand drawn with India ink. The Sintra board has been cut to reveal arrows in the negative space pointing upwards as to hint at a boom in the market. Peña’s works range from painting to multimedia installations that question the ever-changing psychological landscape of America; asking the viewer to re-examine their perceptions of the “American Dream” and the affects that pursuit has on our environment and national psyche. The realization that both the idealistic pursuit of happiness and the relevance of painting in a technologically driven world informs his practice. With each composition the labor begins with digital composites of a fragmented American landscape in peril —where tension lies in the contrasts between past and present, analog and digital, representation and abstraction, and stability and instability. In his most recent series the American home (stability) and fragmented and shifting landscape (instability) are veiled by a digitally produced mat. Traditionally a mat is, by definition, a flat, thin piece of paper based material included within the picture frame and serves as additional decoration when framing artwork. He activates this commonly overlooked material by using a non-traditional material, Sintra (flattened sheet of PVC), that has a negative digitally drawn image cut-out. This cut-out might, at first glance, look hand cut however, a more astute viewer would realize the precision is mechanical. The mat has been transformed from inactive decoration to digitally produced veil that represents the technologically anxious precision we surround ourselves with. Nick Peña...

El Temor (The Fear) (#1719) 2019 Signed in black ink, l.c. Watercolor, acrylic, and India ink on paper 30 x 22 inches This work is offered by ClampArt in New York City.

First Draft (#1707) 2019 Signed in black ink, c.r. Watercolor, acrylic, and India ink on paper 22 x 30 inches This work is offered by ClampArt in New York City.

Signed and dated, l.r. Ink on paper Contact gallery for price. This work is offered by CLAMP in New York City.

Ink, graphite, and oil paint on double-sided frosted Mylar film mounted to board Signed and dated on label, verso This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Cub...

In BLUE SKIES FOR ANDREW, a piece designed for a show at the Chattanooga airport, Sue Fox pays tribute to the metaphorical expansiveness of doing one’s craft. Drawing inspiration fro...

In ALL ONE, Sue Fox makes a prescient statement about the complex racial issues which plague American life. While originally intended to function as an demographically-accurate ethno...

Jack Smith Do Not Open ‘Til Happy Hour c. 1960s Pen on manila folder 12 x 9.5 inches Contact gallery for price. This work is offered by ClampArt in New York City.

In FUNGI, FOLIAGE, AND TOPAZ, Sue Fox formally drives forward her craft. Drawing inspiration from the Slow Art movement and beginning without an explicit purpose in mind, this work utilizes smaller...

In TODDLER TANTRUM, Sue Fox tests the meditative limit of her artistic work. Intuitively collaging smaller pieces of bright pinks, purples, and yellows, she expresses the thoroughly ...