Usha Shukla

Hellebore, Abstract Oil Painting, 2020

2020

Artist Commentary: I create abstract paintings inspired by memories of my interaction with nature. When I was a young girl, I enjoyed walks along the Indian countryside, taking in the beauties nature had to offer. Twenty years ago I moved to California, a place so much different from my native land. I felt out of place and disoriented. That is when I took sanctuary in nature. I have a unique technique of painting: Instead of conventional tools like brushes, I paint with air. I dilute the oil paints, pour them on a wood panel and blow air with an air blower or a leaf blower. Vapor-like shapes appear and disappear on the panel, leaving only traces of the initial layer. There is a constant process of adding and subtracting layers of paint until I get the final composition. Words that describe this piece: Abstract, Colorful, Flower, Nature, Blue, Edgy, Vibrant, abstract, Contemporary Artwork Details: - This is a hand painted, original painting - Created in California, USA - Professional grade oil paints on Wood Panel - Wood Panel with Birchwood face and 1 5/8"" Poplar wood cradle - Ready to hang with wires and D ring - Signed on the back - Professional-grade paint - Certificate of authenticity included with original Artist Biography: Usha Shukla...

Artist Commentary: This painting is part of the series "Silver Linings". This series is inspired by my days in "Shelter in Place" during the pandemic. Silver Linings, in situations ...

Artist Commentary: This painting is part of the series "Silver Linings". This series is inspired by my days in "Shelter in Place" during the pandemic. Silver Linings, in situations otherwise dull and depressing, gave me emotional and physical balance. The limited color palette emphasizes the value of using limited resources to fill our lives with colors. Words that describe this piece: B&W, Black and White, Contemporary, Modern Artwork Details: - This is a hand painted, original painting - Created in California, USA - Professional grade oil paints on Wood Panel - Wood Panel with Birchwood face and 1 5/8"" Poplar wood cradle - Ready to hang with wires and D ring - Signed on the back - Professional-grade paint - Certificate of authenticity included with original Artist Biography: Usha Shukla...

Artist Commentary: I create abstract paintings that distill the light, the intense colors, and the constant movement in nature. The final visual is pure, ethereal, and cosmic with n...

Artist Commentary: I create abstract paintings that distill the light, the intense colors, and the constant movement in nature. The final visual is pure, ethereal, and cosmic with n...

Artist Commentary: I create abstract paintings that distill the light, the intense colors, and the constant movement in nature. The final visual is pure, ethereal, and cosmic with n...

Oil paint, collage and mixed media on panel Unique work Hand-signed lower right by the artist

Stunning and expressive large scale oil painting by mid-century San Francisco artist Louis Earnest Nadalini (American, 1927-1995). Signed "Nadalini" lower right. Unframed. Image size...

Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else? Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north. An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made. Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent. Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper...

Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else? Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north. An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made. Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent. Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper, a rusted stove—is juxtaposed with the soft glow of a yellow circle. This continues Houston’s ongoing use of colour to question the particulars of perception. Heritage of All, White with Greed and Iron, and The Spaces we Breath, Houston’s titles read like lines of a haiku. Composed as prose, they are also confrontational, mapping out the cultural and environmental impacts of the extraction of resources in the Arctic. We witness scenes of violent decay, and yet simply carry on, like Business As Usual. In What Nations Come and Go a pale purple oval nearly fills the frame, revealing only in the very far right a simple cabin in front of a rocky incline. A similar imposing cloud of colour, this time blue, dominates the landscape in Mapped, Claimed, and Evaluated. The north is just as much an idea as it is a place, and is one that looms large in the Canadian imagination. There are few better examples than Glenn Gould...

Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else? Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north. An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made. Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent. Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper, a rusted stove—is juxtaposed with the soft glow of a yellow circle. This continues Houston’s ongoing use of colour to question the particulars of perception. Heritage of All, White with Greed and Iron, and The Spaces we Breath, Houston’s titles read like lines of a haiku. Composed as prose, they are also confrontational, mapping out the cultural and environmental impacts of the extraction of resources in the Arctic. We witness scenes of violent decay, and yet simply carry on, like Business As Usual. In What Nations Come and Go a pale purple oval nearly fills the frame, revealing only in the very far right a simple cabin in front of a rocky incline. A similar imposing cloud of colour, this time blue, dominates the landscape in Mapped, Claimed, and Evaluated. The north is just as much an idea as it is a place, and is one that looms large in the Canadian imagination. There are few better examples than Glenn Gould...

Size: 4ft x 8ft Mixed Media: oil, saw dust and foam on wooden panel. Steven is now one of the top emerging artists in the U.S. His works are ground breaking, bold and imbued with u...