Gareth Edwards

Artist Q&A with Gareth Edwards

Gareth Edwards is a contemporary landscape painter. He is a graduate of Goldsmiths College, an elected RWA Academician, and is a long time resident of St Ives’ historic Porthmeor Studios, previously occupied by luminaries of British painting such as Patrick Heron and Ben Nicholson.He is a sessional tutor at the Newlyn School of Art and a prominent member of the Newlyn Society of Artists.

“The Great Lakes”, oil on paper, 16 x 17 in | 42 x 44 cm, 2020

Who is your favorite artist of all time?

Cy Twombly and JWM Turner have both been hugely influential to my work, from decades ago to the present day. They are the lode stones of my practice and will continue to be so for the immediate future. I try to get to as many shows of their work as possible, to accompany my large but still growing book collection on both artists.

How did you become a professional artist?

On the day I graduated from my Art History degree, I set up an easel in my rented bedsit and bought the materials to start painting. I have never stopped painting. Fourteen years later the Hart Gallery, London, put my work into the London Art Fair and a really well-known fashion designer bought two pieces. I went on to have ten one-person shows with Hart Gallery over the next fourteen years, until the owners retired.

What are the influences and inspirations in your work?

They are inspired by ‘Emotional Weather’ – the paintings are poetical and mysteriously evanescent. They are abstracted landscapes with a cool and subtle palette built to seduce the viewer into a half-remembered space of subtlety engineered light, the light of hope. Each painting is a poem in paint, a poem of light, space, landscape and mystery. My studio … Click here to read more

Howard Shapiro

Art Review City speaks with New York dealer Howard Shapiro about opening his gallery, some of his success stories, and his unique approach to the business of art.

“My dream was always to open an art gallery. No other business would allow me to be surrounded by beauty and help artists get the recognition that they deserve.”

– Howard Shapiro, owner of Lawrence Fine Arts in East Hampton, NY

Howard Shapiro spent over two decades as a consumer finance expert on Wall Street at firms including Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, so his friends and family were surprised when he decided in 2009 to pivot his career by opening an art gallery. But it turned out to be a winning combination: he brought with him an acute understanding of business and finance, and quickly evolved from art startup to standout.

Howard Shapiro in front of Harriette Joffe, “Untitled”, 40 x 50 in | 102 x 127 cm, c. 1980. Photo courtesy of Lawrence Fine Art.

Art was always his passion, but he took a circuitous route to get there. After earning his bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature and Art History at Yale in 1983, Shapiro was accepted into Yale’s PhD program in Art History, but his parents insisted that he choose a “real” career instead. Art was something nice to look at—and buy when he could afford it—but it wouldn’t support a family. Looking back, he acknowledges that his parents had a point. The art world would have to wait.

The Wall Street life was hectic, so when Shapiro and his wife Esther could afford to start buying for themselves, they originally sought artwork that was calm and soothing and began collecting American Impressionist works. The first work they purchased—and still own today—from a small outdoor craft fair was a … Click here to read more

Michael Netter

Artist Q&A with Michael Netter

For more than 40 years, Michael Netter has been religiously creating video art, paintings and assemblages. A self-taught artist, he became a protégé of Andy Warhol, fully immersed in the dynamic art world of New York in the early 1970s. He is represented by ACA Galleries in New York.

“Three Wise Men”, mixed media on canvas, 62 x 66 in | 157 x 168 cm, 1995

How did you become a professional artist?

I was always an artist in a sense; always loved art and saw it as a calling. I guess that’s kind of a standard answer, but I’m mostly self-taught. As I reflect more on the question, I would say it was to put my creative self to work. That I want to manifest my ideas in a lasting form of communication in a more conceptual and less literal manner than through words.

When is a piece finished for you?

It’s magical – a piece feels unfinished until, with that one stroke, it’s all of a sudden finished. That can take 2 days or 10 years. I feel all work has the possibility of being good, you just must keep working at it. In fact, sometimes I have felt like gessoing over a painting that I can’t see any potential in only to finally discover a path that works much later on. This might happen in the last 5% of effort on a work.

What are the influences and inspirations in your work?

I try to resist being influenced by other artists although I might see some dimension of their art that gives me an idea. Some art influences/inspirations are – early Italian Renaissance painters like Cimabue, Fra Angelico, etc. because they are about icons and are relatively primitive; Paul Klee because much of … Click here to read more

Lenora Rosenfield

Artist Q&A with Lenora Rosenfield

Lenora was born in Porto Alegre, Brazil and in the last 20 years she is painting in a new fresco procedure, she created made of synthetic materials for building constructions, one of her researches.

“DNA”, synthetic fresco on non woven fabric, 38 x 57 in | 98 x 146 cm, 2020

How did you become a professional artist?

I think art chose me, because I never thought of something else seriously. Everything I thought since I was a little child was related to art.

When is a piece finished for you?

There is something in my body that tells me to stop. I have a feeling of being full, like after I had a big and great meal.

What are the influences and inspirations in your work?

As a teenager I was first influence by Hieronymus Bosch, after by the expressionist like Goya that I conceder one of the first expressionist, and later Van Gogh. In Brazil I was very influenced by Ibere Camargo, by his brush strokes freedom to paint). American artists I was very inspired by Eva Hesse, the way she thought about art, and Robert Morris’ wool felt. Since I started to work with maps, I realized how I was also inspired by my travels and my grandparents that came from four different countries: Russia, Poland, Ukraine and Turkey. I met them all and the first one died when I was 20 years old. I was always very curious about them, how they got to Brazil and how was their lives before. I am very influence by that. I love to know my own and the human being origins, about the cave man and all the layers, what came first, and that research never ends. It is difficult to tell about my inspirations … Click here to read more

Pat Gainor

Artist Q&A with Pat Gainor

“Magical Mystery”, oil, acrylic, and mixed media on canvas, 36 x 48 in | 91 x 122 cm, 2019

Why did you become an artist?

I could not not be an artist. I have been passionate about art all my life and through the course of several successful careers. While a model in New York, then an actress and TV host in L.A., I always painted. Now I am a full time artist. I have been rewarded with shows and sales all over the world. I love people’s response to my work and the excitement of working on and seeing my finished pieces.

How is your work different than everything out there?

As a second generation painter, I have concentrated on developing a unique language with my art incorporating pattern as texture.

How do you know when your work is finished?

When it takes my breath away! It may not happen every time, but when it does it is a good signal that I am done. You may have to move it to another wall or location to get another take on it. Don’t look at it until you are a distance away to get the full impact. If you are amazed it is a good time to stop.

“Summer Times”, oil and acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 in | 76 x 61 cm, 2019
Pat Gainor at the National Art Center Museum Tokyo, photo by Ed Tar.

What’s different about your current body of work?

In much of my latest work, yet unpublished, my exploration of pattern, color, movement and shapes evolves to its next stage of unique abstraction.

What’s coming up for you?

My work and show concept were selected for a 2021 solo exhibition at Gallery 825 in Los Angeles. which will take place August 14 through September 10, 2021. I have … Click here to read more

Richard Metz

Artist Q&A with Richard Metz

“The Mythic Moth Menagerie the Orchard”, egg and natural pigments on tree, 120 x 55 in | 305 x 140 cm, 2018 (Park Hill Orchard, East Hampton, MA)

Why did you become an artist?

Being a visual artist grew in me slowly over time, but it was always the only path forward in my life. The process of making visual art is so satisfying and so all encompassing to me, that of course I wanted to keep doing it.

I also have a strong environmentalist side, and to some extent these have merged over the past 20 years. Being an artist now is how I explore nature and merge with the natural world. It is how I want to encourage others to explore and protect the public natural areas near them.

I have subtle visions of images, sometimes touching on a feeling from my past experiences that move me very much, and I feel so strongly that I want to portray them in my work. I have also been very moved by expressionist artists who have come before me including Chaïm Soutine, Jean Dubuffet, Phillip Guston, Susan Rothenberg, and Pierre Bonnard. Native American, African, and Polynesian art have also been influential to my work, as well as Illustrators Theodore Geisel, Franz Masreel, Lyn Ward, and Art Spiegelman.

How is your work different than everything else out there?

Some of my work is in more traditional formats, and some has struck some new ground. The tree paintings seem to be an original format that I came upon late in grad school. They are different in several ways; they are ephemeral

The works decay as life is born, lives, and dies. So much art work battles with nature, to be preserved for ever, and adds to … Click here to read more

Frodo Mikkelsen

Artist Q&A with Frodo Mikkelsen

The last ride, acrylic on canvas, 80×70 cm, 2020

Why did you become an artist?

My father was an artist, and when i was 8 years old, I told him that I wanted to be an artist. He gave me all the support I needed and told me that i had to choose a path. That path started in 1984 when I started painting graffiti at just 10 years old.

Frodo Mikkelsen, photo by Nikolaj Palmskov

How is your work different than everything else out there?

I have heard many times that my work is unique, even though I use symbols like the skull a lot. Other artists use them, but mine is just still mine, being clean and crisp.

What’s different about your current body of work?

My early work was very crowded, and I tried everything. I still do a lot of different things, but I don’t mix it anymore like I used to. I’m working on getting my art more clean and graphic; it’s shaping up!

Totem dreams, painted oakwood, 100x100x50 cm

What’s coming up for you?

Right now I am showing in a gallery in Brooklyn called Java Project Brooklyn, in a show that me and Paul Brainard curated with American and Danish artists. I am also showing at The HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Frederikshavn Kunstmuseum, and Vestjyllands Art Museum, all here in Denmark. There are also group shows in Kode, Bergen Art Museum, and in Mocak-Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow. Next year I will be showing at Vrå Art Museum, and a gallery in Hamburg and Berlin in Germany.

What advice would you give to an artist just starting out today?

A lot of people thinks that being an artist is easy, but it is hard work 24/7, so think big, have fun, and … Click here to read more

“EXODUS V: Aesthetics in the Political”

The Elixir of Ataraxy in a Sea of Trouble

For nine long months the United States has been facing severe distress from the coronavirus forcing the closing of galleries, museums and art centers in New York City. But WhiteBox Harlem continues to independently operate as a community engaged nonprofit venue, a beacon for art lovers for 22 years despite facing numerous crises over the years. Over two decades, it has nurtured many outstanding artists in New York City and abroad, continuing its mission as an experimental center for experiencing new art with social èlan.

“Exodus V: Aesthetics in the Political” is an exhibition curated by New York-based Kyoko Sato. This remarkable curatorial creates new metrics putting under scrutiny a diverse, singular group of 17 contemporary expat Japanese women artists aged 31 to 84 who chose to emigrate to New York to continue and expand their careers in a less constrained atmosphere than back home. Due to the increasing number of practicing female artists in the art scene in the past 30 years, art museums in Western countries have begun to have many feminist inspired exhibitions awakening the public’s attention to this voluminous subject. Most exhibitions tend to emphasize the inequality between men and women, or talk about women’s sexuality openly such as women’s awareness of the autonomy of their bodies. Time and again, some of these thematic shows unfortunately become cliché. In the spirit of finding a differential, I was quite curious to see how “Exodus V” may be different from many of these other women’s exhibitions I have witnessed.

At the opening reception I went through the entire exhibition and interviewed several of the exhibiting artists. I must confess my experience and exchanges observing the whole affair felt like an awakening stream of fresh … Click here to read more

Paul Brainard

Artist Q&A with Paul Brainard

“Lexicon Leader”, oil on linen, 40 x 55 in | 102 x 140 cm, oil on linen, 2020

Why did you become an artist?

I really don’t think that I had a choice. Making art is something that i do every single day; it is in my blood.

How is your work different than everything else out there?

II think that it is an interesting blend of the absurdity of existence, modernist formalism and vulnerable self effacement.

What’s different about your current body of work?

I am simultaneously trying to combine elements of the personal and the formal in a way that makes a very diverse visual language.

“Moron at the Genius Bar”, oil on linen, 18 x 17 in | 45 x 42 cm, 2020

What’s coming up for you?

I just did two shows back-to-back at the Java Project Brooklyn. The first one “Covid Kids Club” was work that was made during the Covid – 19 lockdown in NYC. March and April were especially difficult in Queens with constant sirens and death all around you. I was a few miles from the epicenter of the epicenter of Covid -19 in the first wave, so it was comforting to stay home and make art. The second show at the Jave Project is “The boring Gaze” a group show of NYC and Danish Artists co-rated by myself and Frodo Mikkelsen. It was very difficult to install 15 artists in such a confined space but i am very happy with the result . The gallery is open by appointment from November 7th to December 7th, 2020.

What advice would you give to an artist just starting out today?

Listen to your own inner voice because this is the thing that makes you a … Click here to read more