Stephen Magsig

Rodeo Reflections

When I think about the conventions of painting -- a tradition I respect immensely -- I notice that my concern has always been with the interplay of light and structure" says artist S...

Karen Woods paints a traveler’s view through the window of a moving vehicle rendered in subtly nuanced gestures in oil on canvas or panel. These views from the front seat of a car looking through an often rain-splattered windshield or side window, are always about water: water from above, as a rainstorm, or from below, as a man-made sprinkler system. She is drawn to the interplay of water and light, and how it affects our perception of reality through reflection, distortion, and transformation. The compositions often include a bit of the car - the edge of a window, a side mirror, the clear curved area left by a windshield wiper - these markers situate the viewer on the journey Woods is on - we are taken inside the vehicle and shown the vignettes that catch Woods’ eye. The paintings reclaim that point in time, explore its detail, and unearth its emotional content. Woods’ work freezes and compresses a moment of everyday life; then elongates and decelerates it and in so doing, reveals its accompanying emotional weight: its anticipation, reflection, isolation, and longing. Woods is coaxing us to recognize the transcendent experiences offered by the most mundane or ordinary surroundings of our daily lives. Karen Woods was born in Seattle, WA, in 1963. She received her BFA from the California College of the Arts (Oakland, CA) in 1987 with additional studies at California Polytechnic State University and Studio Art Centers International, Florence, Italy. Her paintings have been exhibited throughout the United States with solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, and Boston, among others, and her work has been published in New American Paintings, American Art Collector, art ltd, Artweek, Western Art & Architecture, Fine Art Connoisseur, and the Idaho Statesmen. Woods’ paintings are included the public collections of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK, James Castle...

Title : Reflections #2 Materials : Oil on panel Date : March 2017 Dimensions : 60 x 48 x 1.5" COA provided Deatrick's work is an exploration of figure and space as still life, and h...

acrylic on brushed aluminum b. 1950, Teaneck, New Jersey One of the most powerful tools an artist possesses is an ability to bridge the gap between what is considered real and what is illusion. This ability to alter or enhance reality is the very crux of what an artist is all about, and their success at attaining this is usually the defining element as to their stature in the field, as either an abstract or realist painter. Occasionally a painter is able to combine these two distinct disciplines and create an art form, which holds a viewer’s attention by balancing the paradox of the flat painted surface with the illusion of depth and space. "As a painter, it is important for me to address the concerns of painting what has been done-and what can I add to this. My work on aluminum is an attempt to use the qualities of refracted light, and have these qualities interact with the painting. The completed image is produced both by refracted light, created by the use of various wire brushes and paint airbrushed in transparent layers. Within this process about half of the image is produced by refracted light alone, simulating paint, and about half by paint." For over twenty years, David Kessler followed a Photo-Realist tradition, often depicting the Arizona desert landscape...