Susan Bleakley

Bright In Winter

2019

Really bright happy cheerful work from the clifftop studio of Susan Bleakley.

'Apple Blossom' Acrylic and marble plaster on canvas board. Framed Image size 60x60 cm. 23.5" x 23.5" I create the picture first in plaster, made from marble dust and a binding age...

Chinese Blue Vase with a glimpse of Harpers painting People Watching in the background. This is a bold and vibrant impressionist still life painting from...

'Golden Grasses No.1 & No.2' Acrylic, moulding medium, Gesso and composite gold leaf on canvas board Each panel 25x50 cm I use the moulding paste to create the structure of the pict...

Early Blossom' Acrylic and marble plaster on canvas board. Framed Image size 50x50 cm I create the picture first in plaster, made from marble dust and a binding agent. This produces...

This was a blisterly hot day. Anyone who as a cat will know cats like the heat and they seek out a nice comfy spot in the sun. This comfy spot was in the middle of my stil life! In ...

Vancouver artist, Fiona Ackerman strays from botanical-themed compositions to explore the concepts of philosophy in this new abstract acrylic piece, one of two. Her colourful palette...

With Dream Flower, Fiona Ackerman has painted a gorgeous ethereal abstract arrangement of brilliant pink, purple, mauve, orange flowers and organic shapes against a background of vib...

Colourful original painting of a beautiful English Country Garden with Flowers by leading British Landscape Artist, Angela Wakefield. Art measu...

Josh Talbott's (US based) "Untitled at Sea" is an acrylic painting that depicts a small toy red piano floating suspended in a light blue sea background. Bio: Josh Talbott grew up in suburban/rural Georgia in the southern US. His first work as a professional artist was in scenic painting and murals for various production companies. An attempt to deepen his well of possibilities led to New Orleans where as a street artist he sold works to people from all over the world before loosing everything in hurricane Katrina. With short stints in Santa Fe and then Los Angeles Josh arrived in the small coastal city of Los Osos, California where he lives and works today. His curiosity is voracious and interests are many, including scuba/ free diving, sailing, surfing, gardening, geology, rock hounding, rationality, AI, history, and philosophy. In his studio there is always an audiobook on, and outside of the studio there are all manner of activities making there way into his work. He has many private collectors scattered across the globe and murals in San Francisco. ARTIST STATEMENT We live in a time of extreme and accelerated change, growing complexity, and specialization. At every stage in our human trajectory from primitive beginnings crawling out of the sea to the present gauntlet of challenges, our thinking tools and their uses are central to the story of what it means to be human. My work is informed by a fascination with thinking tools and the effects of programming and environment through the different phases of life and our capacity for storytelling. My practice consists of constructing small-scale still life scenarios of toys and other artifacts of human development, then creating photorealistic acrylic paintings of these scenes. The work juxtaposes the familiar and playful with a contemporary, complex, adult world. While I am interested in the science of the mind, and what it means to be a human, my work seldom features the human form, focusing instead on the objects and items that are frequently left behind. As such, the subject of the painting becomes the viewer him or herself because their own humanity is ultimately what is revealed. My work honors toys as thinking tools for small people and the scenes depicted explore the ways in which the culture of our formative years leaves a lasting mark and continues to shape our storytelling. The plastic artifacts of my formative years carry memories of simultaneous confusion and wonder at the world around me. These are sensations and emotions still very much present in my life. What were your imaginings and dramas when you played with toys? Are you living them today? The multileveled still life paintings of familiar toys are bright and accessible and connect to the viewer's nostalgia and playfulness while provoking deeper insights into our current evolutionary, cultural, and technological moment. I place each little curio with care into meaningful relationship to their interlocutors and environment. The plastic dinosaurs often depicted are emblematic of childhood curiosities, of great wonder and speculation at past worlds and the depth of evolutionary time, and yet they are made of a material that illustrates our shortsightedness, a quintessential human quality that makes it quite possible that these plastic creations will outlast us all. I do my best to draw inspiration and resources from everywhere to build a visual language. In my divergent path I find the musical compositions and the story of composer, Philip Glass inspiring. The story of his devotion to his craft and his subsequent successes have encouraged and inspired me. I'm influenced by writers such as Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Sapolsky, and Yuval Noah Harari, the many books by Simon Winchester, Daniel Dennet, Robert Wright...

Frank Faulkner Birches I, 2012 60" X 60" Acrylic on Canvas Produced 1987, Repainted 2012 (Contemporary Minimalist Painting with Tree Branches on Black Impasto Background) The Birch Tree paintings are an elegant and sophisticated body of work painted by Frank Faulkner in 2010-2012. White birch branches are contrasted by a dark ground that transitions from black to steel gray. The Birch Tree is the symbol of new beginnings, regeneration, hope, new dawns and the promise of what is to come. The tree carries ancient wisdom and yet appears forever young. With a natural eye for design, Faulkner was well known for his abstract paintings of low-relief decorative patterns informed by his love of the applied arts, from Art Nouveau inlays...

Birches III: Contemporary Minimalist Painting of Slender Birches by Frank Faulkner 60 x 48 inches, acrylic on canvas Vertical orientation The Birch Tree paintings are an elegant and sophisticated body of work painted by Frank Faulkner in 2010-2012. Several birch trucks intertwine; their white bark starkly illuminated against a dramatic, dark ground.against a dark ground. The Birch Tree is the symbol of new beginnings, regeneration, hope, new dawns and the promise of what is to come. The tree carries ancient wisdom and yet appears forever young. Born in Sumter, South Carolina in 1946, Frank Faulkner received his B.F.A. from the University of North Carolina in 1968, Phi Beta Kappa, and his M.F.A. from the same institution in 1972. Faulkner’s work quickly won him numerous grants and awards, including an individual artist grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1974. He was selected for the Whitney Biennial in 1975, which prompted him to settle in New York. There, he came to the attention of Dorothy Miller, Curator Emeritus of the Museum of Modern Art with a legendary eye for new talent. Since then, Faulkner has continued to garner acclaim and awards. He has been featured in dozens of one-person exhibitions (not to mention group exhibitions) in this country, as well as in Japan, Switzerland, and Germany. Faulkner’s work is owned by leading museums (the Smith College museum in Northampton, Massachusetts, for example, the National Museum of American Art and the Hirshhorn in Washington, D.C.) and by renowned collectors such as Nelson Rockefeller, Baron Leon Lambert, Phillip Hanes and Abba Eban...