George Oswalt

'Seated Nude Female & Cat', by George Oswalt, Oil on Canvas Painting

2022

"An impromptu in music demonstrates its particular ability to translate the romantic effusion of a moment or of a mood. As I am looking through the window, the exterior scenery composes with my mood a complicated picture," says Simon-Gestin. "This piece expresses my complicated feelings about life." Impromptu #9 features two female figures conversing against a backdrop of rich blue windows, a vase of red flowers, and complimentary patterns and shapes. "After studying at the Beaux-arts in France, I have been painting, drawing, etching, making collage in the USA and in Italy, Austria, Denmark and China. In all these countries my work has been exhibited and collected. Numerous series have accompanied me during my itinerances. Questions about identity and my relation to the world mark my road. I wish to express the complexity, the beauty, the ambiguity of the world as I feel it. I paint women and children in a universe of fantasy made of strange animals in baroque situations. In all these women, there is something of me but the sum of all these women does not equal me or I would have nothing more to say." -- Josette Simon...

This 30.75" x 41" acrylic on canvas framed painting depicts an interior scene with a seascape seen through a window. This painting is a modernist work, characterized by its abstract forms, bold colors, and flattened perspective. The foreground features two mid-century chairs facing each other rendered in green, both with a thin yellow base and each with one red geometric shape that could presumably be pillows. These chairs are depicted in a simplified and abstracted manner, the use of geometric shapes and flat colors departs from traditional representational art and adheres to the linear quality of painting in which the objects are tangible and clearly defined by an obvious outline. Emerging from the bottom right corner of the work is an abstracted and simple rendering of a table with a vase of flowers. The table is designed with different colored stripes oriented in different directions, some diagonal, some vertical, and some horizontal. The flowers within the vase, and the vase itself, are represented as simple shapes with no shading or dimension, further emphasizing the painting’s modernist style. Below the table and chairs, is a vivid and flat lilac color representing the floor. In the background behind the chairs, one sees an opening, showcasing a simplified seascape with a sailboat and island. Again, the depiction of the sea and sky is highly stylized, with the use of geometric shapes and flat colors. The clouds in the sky are represented as simple, rounded shapes, with no detailed texture or shading. The composition is framed by a thin, painted orange frame. Overall, the painting employs a bold and vibrant color palette. A. David Crown...

Signed lower left Elizabeth Higgins (Canadian, b. 1960) Elizabeth Higgins describes herself as an abstract figurative and landscape painter. Everything around her serves as a potential subject, an inspiration to begin a painting. Fidelity to the landscape, the figure, or the still life is relative, as she isn’t interested in literal depictions; instead, it’s the abstract relationships of these shapes and colors, the abstract pictorial design that drives her work. Higgins’ paintings are rooted in the tradition stemming from Courbet, Derain, Bonnard, Matisse, Morandi, German Expressionism, and the Canadian Group of Seven (also known as the Algonquin School of landscape painters, 1920–1933). She is influenced by the work of her artist-teachers Paul Resika—himself a student of Hans Hofmann—and Robert De Niro, Sr. (1922-1993), as well as the paintings of contemporary artist Peter Doig. Her artistic evolution stretches across this continuum. It is the “in-between”, the hovering between representation and abstraction, that interests her, not the labeling effect of details; instead, she aims directly at the spirit of the painting—of making something come to life. John Goodrich wrote in her catalog essay, “Elizabeth Higgins’ direct brushwork and simplified forms suggest an energy, but crucially, reveal a painter who knows the power of color…” Elizabeth Higgins was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1960. As a Helena...

Contemporary Figural Abstract Interior, Modernist Living Room Scene Contemporary figural abstract interior painting by San Francisco California ...