Chris Lujan

"Beauty", Large Mixed Medium, India Ink and Coffee Grounds on Deckle BFK Paper

2000s

This large mixed medium painting in india ink and coffee grounds on heavyweight deckle BFK print paper, "Touch", depicts an abstract body in motion. With impressionistic strokes the observer can only glimpse her outline in browns and blues, leaving the finer details to the imagination, giving the work a ghostly air of a faded memory. Signed by artist on the lower right. "Capturing movement is everything to me in my work. It exists in the way the brush moves and the hand bends bringing action and life to the surface it is connecting to. The work itself can then exist as a history, and bring forth evidence of time as the essential force within the artwork. In today’s contemporary world, there are many ways to define art. That is why it is impotent that you, the viewer, understand why I create and what art means to me. For me, art is so much more than an image of an object, an advertisement or a statement. Art is in its nature the undeniable evidence of our own humanity and existence. It connects us, to each other and to our past. Speaking to the parts of us we never will fully understand, our emotions, are spirituality and are mortality. As an artist; I need to speak to these feelings and questions. Using mark-making and gestures as a guide, I search, letting go of control as the moment breathes life into the creation of my work. Through the boundary of line, I give shape to the image. Conveying an overall balance between the moment of creation and the structure of the figure. Though this practice, I strive to provoke a universal connection to the work. One that speaks to humanity's emotional understanding of empathy, curiosity, sorrow and joy." - Chris Lujan...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY “Untitled” painted in India Ink of two heads was done during what has been call Lester Johnson’s Dark Paintings of the 1960s. In 2013 John Yau wrote with much insight about that period of Johnson’s work - “Lester Johnson (1919-2010) was an innovative figurative painter who has never quite fit into any of the accepted narratives of postwar American art, and that alone makes his work worthy of a longer look. The 1960s was an explosively turbulent era marked by assassinations, race riots, space flights, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Beatles’ and Rolling Stones’ first American tours, and the rapidly escalating Vietnam War. Everyone was wary and on edge. Meanwhile, in the New York art world, all eyes were fixated on the rise and triumph of Pop Art, Minimalism and Color Field painting. Johnson was one of the few artists that attuned to the dismay that everyone was feeling during the violent and schizophrenic time, the sense that it could all come crashing down. However, his work was never overtly political or didactic. While his dark, brooding, monochromatic paintings of anonymous men gained a small and loyal following, they also became part of that largely invisible history of a time when New York was a tough scary and exciting place to be. More than fifty years after they were made, Johnson’s Dark Paintings continue to retain a coarseness that we associate with gestural Abstract Expressionism and Jean Dubuffet’s anti-psychological, anti-personal portraits incorporating sand and gravel. One sees in them the antecedents of Joyce Pensato’s gestural exaggerations of Groucho Marx, Homer Simpson and Minnie Mouse. While Pensato brings an infectious humor to her work, Johnson was more somber. I cannot help but think that both these artists chose their bedraggled subjects out of empathy and a trace of identification.” Lester Johnson, was born in 1919 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He attended Minneapolis School of Art, where he studied under Alexander Masley who was a former student of Hans Hofmann. Johnson continued his artistic career in New York City where he opened his first studio on 6th and Avenue A. His neighbor there was fellow painter Wolf Kahn. During his time there he would share a loft with Larry Rivers and married the art historian Josephine Valenti. In 1961 he briefly taught at Ohio State University before returning to New York City to share a studio with Philip Pearlstein. Jack Tworkov would invite Johnson to teach at Yale, an offer that Lester Johnson would accept and spend the rest of his life in Connecticut. Johnson passed away in 2010. Johnson's work has been exhibited in the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Walker Art Center, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Chrysler Museum of Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Museum of Art, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. This work has been framed inside of a custom frame with museum glass...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY This is one of Stanley's exquisite watercolors of the women he painted: friends, students, family, colleagues, models surrounded by their specific interest, their line of work, their area of expertise. Only upon close inspection can the detail and introspection of the artist in relation to his subject be appreciated. Stanley's work is of the quality that can be enjoyed and lived with forever. These women may be specific, but they are also every woman, strong women, and the care and tenderness with which he has rendered them comes through with great power. Stanley Rosenthal...

"Seated Figure #2" is distinctly vibrant and sexual with a feminine-mystique glow in this stunning example of Robert Parker's Expressionist watercolor. The blue, pink and black creates a brilliant exploding power that engages the viewer immediately leading to the gorgeously rendered partially nude...

"Seated Figure With Cigarette" is distinctly vibrant and sexual with a feminine-mystique glow in this stunning example of Robert Parker's Expressionist watercolor. Its colors mesh wi...

"Mental Capacity" is a fictional experience whereby an African American man from the 1970s discovers his artistic side. It is generally known that most people are either left brain o...

Garden Splendor and wonder abstract and visual Stimulation Abstract Garden Splendor by New York and California artist Ross Martin Fink (American, B-1935). An in depth abstract and Ga...

"Waiting II" Painting 19" x 11" in by Ibrahim Abd Elmalak Femmes Fatale, Circa 1980s Ink & Acrylic on Paper. Signed Signed The selection of Abd ...

Desire Ink on archival paper. Keith Carrington’s experiences have led him to express his talents through the fluid & exacting mediums of watercolor & ink. He has honed his skills, clarified his vision, experimented, explored and expanded his expression steadily over the years, the results of which thus far culminate here. Clearly, Keith’s extensive travels have roots in the luminous quality of his work, eminently holding the utmost possibilities of beauty and significance. Keith’s most recent paintings combine original comic book renderings that his mother did for Disney et al. and reinterprets them effectively combining the past with present energies and infuses his enthusiasm into these dynamic pieces that you see here today. GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2017, 2018 Renata Fine Arts, West Palm Beach, FL 2015, 2016 Renata Fine Arts, Hudson, New York 2013 60inches New York, NY 2012 60inches New York, NY curated sale with Harry Heisman 2011 KL/Karen Lynne Gallery, Boca Raton, Florida & Beverly Hills, California 2003 Dupont Gallery, Milwaukee Wisconsin 1994 Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY 1994 The Roger Smith Gallery, New York, NY 1993 Ambassador Galleries, New York, NY 1992 Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, New York 1983 Manor House Gallery, Rhinebeck, New York SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2014, 2015 C. Bell, Palm Beach, Florida 2010 Luxe Energy Aesthetics, West Palm Beach, Florida 1995 Time Warner Publishing, New York, NY 1991 Imperial Hotel Gallery, Chestertown, Maryland 1990 National Symphony Show House, Washington, DC 1988, 1987 International Jumping Derby, Jockey Club, Newport, Rhode Island 1986 Elijah Locke House, Rye Beach, New Hampshire 1984 Washington Design Center, Washington, D.C. SELECTED CORPORATE COLLECTIONS Bovis Inc., New York, NY The Kiplinger Collection, Washington, D.C. The International Monetary Fund, Washington, D.C. Hopkins & Sutter, Washington, D.C. McKenna, Conner, & Cuneo, Washington, D.C. Oliver T. Carr Company, Alexandria, Virginia SELECTED PRIVATE COLLECTIONS RuPaul, Beverly Hills, California Kelly Klein, New York, NY Governor & Mrs. Bruce Sundlun, Providence, Rhode Island Mr. & Mrs. William Aylward...

Rise Blue Butterfly Watercolor, ink on archival paper Keith Carrington’s experiences have led him to express his talents through the fluid & exactin...

Wang Tao (Chinese, 1943) "Blue Clouds with Dragons (Untitled)," 2007, Acrylic and vintage antique paper collage on canvas, Hand signed and dated L/R, Verso inscribed and dated Di...

A beautiful abstract composition, rich in visual texture by using several mediums - watercolor, ink, handmade paper and oil pastel - by Aptos, California artist Diane Pendleton Stein...