Greg Kessler Figurative Paintings

The project Pink Freud and the Pleasant Horizon stems from Andre von Morisse’s interest in the powerful influence of Freud, Darwin, and Christ on ideas about psychological, scientific and spiritual motors of human life and on popular culture since the 20th century. The exhibition at ART 3 focuses on the impact of Sigmund Freud theories on contemporary society. Von Morisse is particularly concerned with the moment when society ceased to treat shared responsibilities and values as fundaments of its organization, and became atomized by bringing needs of the individual to the fore. A pivotal figure in this transition was Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays (1891-1995). An American born in Vienna, he became the father of public relations. Bernays combined the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle with theories of crowd psychology to pioneer the PR industry's use of social sciences to design public persuasion campaigns. He developed techniques of manipulating public opinion while serving Woodrow Wilson during WWI and later worked for the biggest US companies. He was the one responsible for the 1920s smoking campaign targeted at women. Born in Norway in an artistic family and educated in the US, von Morisse turns his acute insight rooted in the European tradition of intellectual irony to examination of American visual and popular culture. His imagery combines cartoon aesthetics with surrealism and pop-art, employing icons of mass culture and history of art for a playful exploration of the consumerist era. ABOUT ANDRE VON MORISSE ANDRE VON MORISSE (Norwegian, b. 1966 in Oslo, Norway, lives and works in the US) Von Morisse is a conceptual painter, interested in exploring aspects of human psychology and how we interact with the world. With his work End of a New Dawn, reviewed by Jonathan Goodman in Art in America (Oct. 2005, p.180), he was the Winner of the Best New Contemporary Artists Award 2005 at the Kunstnerenes Hus Museum in Oslo, Norway. End of a New Dawn explores relationship between painting and photography “reversing" the traditional roles of the two mediums by using paintings as the starting point for an elaborate and intricate photographic process. Andre von Morisse was born in Oslo, Norway in 1966 and came to America in 1978. In 1990, he graduated cum laude from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA and moved to New York in 1991. His works were featured in many group shows in galleries and museums in the US: Kunstnerenes Hus Oslo, Norway; The Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC; Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL; Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI; Museum of Southwest Texas, Midland, TX ; Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX. He had solo exhibitions with Silas Von Morisse Gallery (2016 & 2018), McKenzie Fine Art (2005 & 2003), and James Graham and Sons (2000, 1997) in New York, NY. His work was reviewed in: Artsy (2018), Artcritical (2018), Two Coats of Paint (2018), Artnet news (2017), The Vienna Psychoanalyst (2016), Photograph (2016), New York Times T Magazine (2014), ELLE Girl Japan (2014), Blouin Art Info (2014), Luxe Immo (2013), Art News (2007), The Morning News...

Shit happens sometimes. In this piece, the artist wanted to create an unsettling and claustrophobic space where people feel most private and vulnerable. Inspired by artist Tala Madani, she created a cartoon figure to act as the voyeur, a bright and unwelcome disturbance that cannot be ignored. Samantha Van Heest...

«Ta meg i mot» oil on canvas by Anastína Eyjólfsdóttir. A toppless woman equipped with blue boxing gloves poses by the shore. Behind her, the sky and small strip of sea create a bl...

Water & Light are two main components that make the Greek landscape unique and irresistible. Greek painter Maria Filopoulou takes up these two clichés unashamedly and transforms thei...

Painting, oil on canvas, with dimensions of 128 x 120 cm without frame and 138 x 130 cm with frame, depicting a Parade. Russian painting, signed, 1950s, of fine workmanship, fresh,...

This watercolor represents a view of the French Alps in the National natural park of Les Ecrins. The mauve mountain in the background is painted with oil a...

Imported Goods is an exploration of environment, especially focusing on the wellness of the ocean and the consequences of human plastic consumption. There is beauty in appreciation and replication, but it becomes a tragedy when it fully devours natural creation. Samantha Van Heest...

This painting was inspired by the artists very first toy, a small blue giraffe, given to her as a day-old baby. It is something that has been around her whole life, and even though it is inanimate, there is a feeling of personification through the years of wear. Her brother as a baby would call giraffes “fa,” which is always a sweet memory she associate with this toy. Samantha Van Heest...

The popular and innovative American Neo-Pop artist Craig Alan was born in San Bernardino, California, in 1971. Although Alan was inclined to creativity and the visual arts from an early age, it was not until his family moved to New Orleans, where he truly developed a sense of artistic purpose in earnest. Alan’s first concentrated attempts at visual expression were through street portraiture, which provided him with the experience and means to purchase art supplies and further his informal artistic studies. Craig Alan attended the University of Mobile in Alabama, where he pursed a degree in the visual arts. During his time at the university, Alan garnered academic recognition and earned awards for excellence in studio art practice. He participated in Art with a Southern Drawl, one of the university’s most popular art exhibitions, which featured forty-two of Alan’s artworks. The artist’s specialty has been and is predominantly figurative works, with Alan seeking new and innovative modes or re-working historical modes of figural representation. He has experimented with and incorporated elements of make-up/cosmetic artistry, set design, sculpture, and traditional figure drawing in his oeuvre. And his shadowbox series, which combines seemingly contrasting and contradictory elements—dresses made of ribbons and feather; shells made of pierced-paper and sticks—and transcends the traditional two-dimensional art form. Craig Alan has received his greatest popular acclaim from collectors for his POPULUS series. Through an intricate process of deconstruction and construction, Alan re-creates iconic images of popular figures through the working and reworking of hundreds of miniature, individuated figures viewed from an aerial or birds-eye-view. His images of celebrities, heroes, or recognizable sites, such as the U.S. Capitol or Statue of Liberty, invite close, slow viewing and scrutiny, that ultimately reveals greater thematic associations and allusions through finely rendered hand details. Craig Alan’s variety of series of art-making—Populus, Narrative, and Motivo—reveals, through different modes of expression, the artist’s knowledge of and proficiency with the art historical figurative...

Provenance: Ibid Projects Private collection, Los Angeles

The painting is comprised of two horizontal canvases bolted together. This work is part of earlier works done by the artist in the 1990's when he was...

Shadows & Light Paris gives the spectator a birds eye perspective of the Eiffel tower's first floor; the cast shadow of the building with the visitor's standing in line for the ticket office. The painting is executed in rich layered oil paint in radiating colours of a sunny Summer day. Eline de Jonge...