Jim Wise

"Acolyte" - surreal floral painting - clouds - Rene Magritte

2020

This painting features hues of blue and purple. Memphis-based painter, Susan Maakestad is attracted to the spaces between things, the unnoticed marginal spaces in the urban landscape. Likewise, as a painter she likes painting in the unsettling place between abstraction and naturalism. Her prosaic subjects have included big box store parking lots; pedestrian crosswalks at urban intersections; webcam traffic footage of midwestern freeways; and the landscape as viewed through municipal security cameras...

This painting features hues of blue, green and yellow. This piece is framed in a light blue-grey wooden framed measuring 15 by 20 inches. Memphis-based painter, Susan Maakestad is a...

Title: The Petrified Origin Artist: Antoni Pitxot i Soler (1934–2015) Technique: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 25.6 x 31.9 in (65 x 81 cm) Date: 1967 Condition: Unframed Signature: Signed lower right: Pitxot Provenance: Private collection Notes: Early work from Pitxot’s mature period, featuring the symbolic and meticulously rendered stone forms that would define his artistic identity. 📝 Work Description In The Petrified Origin, Antoni Pitxot presents a haunting and timeless vision of a single, eroded rock suspended in a dreamlike, undefined space. The stone, modeled with sculptural precision, appears to float over a subtly reflective surface, devoid of background or narrative context. Its porous texture, cracks, and shadows evoke a fossilized memory — a silent relic of geological time. Painted in 1967, this piece exemplifies Pitxot's unique visual language, developed through his practice of collecting stones along the Costa Brava and transforming them into anthropomorphic and symbolic compositions. The result is both surreal and solemn, an ode to nature’s memory and the enduring presence of the inanimate. 👤 About the Artist Antoni Pitxot i Soler (born in Figueres, 1934 – died in Barcelona, 2015) was a Catalan painter deeply rooted in the surrealist tradition. Coming from an artistic family —his uncle was Ramon Pichot, a friend of Picasso and Dalí— Pitxot trained as a draughtsman and painter from a young age. In the 1960s, he settled in Cadaqués, where he developed his distinct artistic universe. His paintings revolve around stone as a symbol of permanence, transformation, and memory. Pitxot created sculptural assemblages from real coastal stones and later immortalized them in oil on canvas. His works often hint at human figures, ancient myths, and allegories of time. 🎭 Connection with Salvador Dalí Pitxot was not only a close friend of Salvador Dalí but also one of his closest collaborators. Dalí admired his work and invited him to co-design the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres. After Dalí’s death...

Vintage American school surreal oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed verso. Framed. Measuring 24 by 30 overall and 22 by 28 painting alone.