Wood Panel Still-life Paintings

The medium of choice for Do Byung-Kyu, born in Cheonan, Korea, is dolls: they are both his conceptions and his physical expression. At the same time dolls are also the perfect tool for communicating the artist’s inner self. Expressing himself by means of dolls liberates Do from the restrictions of the mundane world. By embodying in the form of dolls his actions and thoughts, dreams and desires, and even the instincts lying in the depths of the subconscious, he transcends the secular boundaries. Dolls are his alter ego, his other self that he can construct precisely the way he wants. Sublimating the experiences and memories from his youth into various subjects of desire, Do uses dolls to paint a descriptive picture of the ambiguous feelings of contradictions from his childhood when he would abuse and kill a plaything, for example a frog, then bury the body in solemn mourning over its death. These sexual or violent games from his childhood are not likely to be limited to Do’s experiences alone. Most of us can vaguely remember indulging in sadistic acts of sexual love against a doll. Rising above a child’s simple curiosity, it is an intuitive game of the senses we play by ourselves. In a number of Do’s paintings, sticky liquid can be observed dripping down a doll’s face. This brings back recollections of the life inside our mothers’ womb where we were also enveloped by mucous waters, like the amniotic fluid. It refuses contact with the anything, and nothing wants to touch it either. The shape of such a mucous liquid is a protective layer sheltering the intrinsic identity and desires of man. It is also a substitution that satisfies the ego’s instincts otherwise suppressed by social norms. The dolls’ eyes...

Bowl of Beads,trompe l'oeil painting on birch wood panel, black, green, orange Dimensional unique painting on birch wood panel. Stanley is a classic storyteller. As an artist or her work involves a media and contains movement, mystery and suspense; as a wife and mother, she basks in the vital role of nurturer, and as a teacher she stretches her own horizons with and parking was thinking from a lot time of pursuing her art. Stanley recognizes her "stories" - visual experiences that come to her, often in the form of dreams and the daydreams -in a journal , which then becomes the sketchbook from which she distills the dreams into paintings . Once she is dedicated as an artist, working up to 40 hours a week at her studio, but she also enjoys teaching, privately and at a nearby colleges: " Painting is so egocentric, so solitary, it's nice to get outside yourself, " she says of her passion the passing it on. Helen Stanley...