All posts in Fine Art

May 4, 2023

SPECULARIS: A New Art Exhibition in Boston

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Featured Posts, Fine Art

Steve Sangapore, a Boston artist and formerly Fine Arts Barista at The Fictional Cafe, is one of the most innovative creators it’s our privilege to know. He paints, sculpts, writes philosophy and hosts fascinating exhibits. In all his creative pursuits he’s always welcome at The Fictional Cafe. This week, Steve and fellow artist Rob Sullivan open a new art exhibit at Boston’s Fountain Street Gallery. This ambitious show of painting and sculpture brings to life its title, a Latin term that directly translates to “you watch” or “you look.” The work invites viewers in with its combination of traditional and modern practices and, echoing the contemporary specular, involves aspects of lenses and mirrors. Whether communicating transparency, the beauty of form or human spirituality, it is as if the artist is portraying images through a lens….

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April 14, 2023

Jeff Corwin: Trust in Vision

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Fine Art

Over the years, Jeff Corwin has taken photos out of a helicopter, in jungles, on oil rigs and an aircraft carrier. Assignments included portraits of famous faces, including Bill Gates and Groucho Marx and photos for well-known corporate clients like Microsoft, Apple, Rolls-Royce and Time/Life. After 40+ years as a commercial photographer, Corwin has turned his discerning eye to fine art photography. Corwin has carried his vision forward, to see past the clutter and create photographs grounded in design. Simplicity, graphic forms and configurations that repeat are what personally resonate. Visual triggers are stark and isolated vistas: a black asphalt road cutting for miles through harvested wheat; an empty, snowy field with a stream creating a curve to a single tree; or a small barn, the roof barely visible above a barren hillside. Trusting his…

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March 22, 2023

To Wonder: Photograph as Art

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Fine Art

Natalie Christensen’s exploration of surface, angle, shape and color Artist’s Statement: The Deconstructed Self In 2014, I moved from the state of Kentucky to New Mexico, leaving my lifelong home and 25-year career as a psychotherapist behind. While it was an exciting moment, it was also a time of questioning and reflection. Like many artists who have come to New Mexico, I was immediately drawn to the distinctive Southwestern light. The beauty of the natural environment is evident to most people; however, my interest was in exploring the more banal peripheral landscapes which often go unnoticed by the casual observer. I began by photographing color fields and geometric shapes. I was interested in the way light and shadow could spark complex narratives, and quickly became aware these isolated moments in the suburban landscape were rich…

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October 6, 2022

Bill Wolak — Digital Collage of Bygone Eras

Posted by Mike Rochester in Fine Art

Artist’s Statement: I make collages out of all kinds of materials. Most are made out of paper engravings. Many collages are digitally generated or enhanced. To begin a piece, I select some sources—either color or black and white. If I’m using magazines or prints or old books, I cut out some images or parts of images that interest me. Then I start working on a background or some other sort of chance construction. Much is left to fleeting insights. These are tiny miracles of inspiration. Depending on whether I’m using scissors and glue or digital images, each collage could take several hours. *** Bill Wolak has just published his eighteenth book of poetry entitled All the Wind’s Unfinished Kisses with Ekstasis Editions. His collages have appeared as cover art for such magazines as Phoebe, Harbinger Asylum, Baldhip…

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August 2, 2022

“Art as Comic Expression,” by David Meyers

Posted by Mike Rochester in Fine Art

Artist’s Statement:In my artwork I am interested in the boundary between lowbrow and highbrow culture, the semiotics of visual language and revisionist mythology. Emerging from a sardonic mire of humor, I look toward finding wonder in the mundane surroundings, a created narrative and a hair-brained idea somewhere between smart, silly and stupid. I love the visual language, the history and conversation that art creates, silly jokes, overthinking, under thinking and the dialogue in-between. I make the work that I want to see in the world. Art isn’t always about high notions of beauty and what ails the world, it can be about the screws in your pocket, about drinking a beer, about sitting in your underwear, about a piece of trash at the beach. Art’s power is its endurance, and I find it best fitting…

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July 1, 2022

“Art as Creative Synergy,” by Hank Keneally

Posted by Mike Rochester in Fine Art

Artist’s Statement: I am very fortunate. I have always been in the arts. Learning the notes on the piano from my grandmother who was a piano teacher. Listening to classical music that my brother brought before me. Playing instruments. Becoming a photographer. Practicing counseling and social work for 42 years, which I see as another artistic process. Becoming a painter. I create every day. I start with compassionate observation. I always have a camera with me. For me, great things happen where arts merge. I use paint, cameras and digital technologies. I aim for reciprocity between myself and my media. I love to be surprised in the act of creation. My artworks are all a result of these processes. *** Hank Keneally studied music and photography at Arizona State University, often staying in the dark room overnight…

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June 1, 2022

Aislinn Feldberg — “Dream World”

Posted by Mike Rochester in Fine Art

Artist Statement: I enjoy experimenting and creating art with a dark, bizarre flair in order to create a dreamy scene or landscape. My work demonstrates conflicting natures of human nature or of materials (flowing delicacy or brutal strokes). I attempt to include sarcastic or whimsical humor in my art whenever I can. I draw inspiration from my surroundings and artists that I admire, such as Gaugin, Max Ernst, Frida Kahlo, Banksy, Vincent van Gogh and Yayoi Kusama. *** Aislinn Feldberg is a writer and visual artist from Queens, New York. She is currently a Junior with a major in Studio Arts at Bard College. Her work interweaves with prior dreams and gothic influences. You can find her on Wrongdoing Mag or her website: www.oddityplayground.com.

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May 2, 2022

Carolyn Adams — Art and Poetry

Posted by Mike Rochester in Fine Art, Writing

“Epiphany” In the Absence of Red Alarms My blood sisters remember what I’ve almost forgotten, the menses that measure our time. I’ve lapsed my membership in that club, I travel free from the 30-day clock. My time is counted differently now. Days are years, years are millennia, millennia are without measure at all. There is no monthly debt; all accounts have been balanced. I spend myself as I wish now, with no child or threat of one. I’ve reached a bargain with the planets, their moons, the sky and all of its diamonds. I won’t wish on anything anymore. I have what I need. Days pass quietly here in the corner of the universe where I savor the slight air of a spring night, where my steps have taken 60 years to make sense. I…

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April 1, 2022

Eva Shaw — Whimsy Meets Reality in Art

Posted by Mike Rochester in Fine Art

Artist’s Statement: In my art, I attempt to share how the world conveys its impressions on me, whether in whimsy or reality. I love to study the complexities of nature, the swirls and hearts and mysterious shapes and then transfer them into how the brush meets the canvas. Sometimes that’s silly; other times it takes a few “edits,” as I can tweaking the objects and designs. There are even times when I return to a painting a month or more later knowing that a detail or a entire image needs to be changed. I enjoy painting as I do when writing books. It consumes me. *** Eva Shaw began painting a decade ago, after a year-long battle with breast cancer. She credits her late husband Joe’s comment that got her started. He said, “The shed…

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February 28, 2022

“Painting for Personal Joy,” by Hume Baugh

Posted by Mike Rochester in Fine Art

Artist’s Statement: I’ve been painting for five years. I am mostly self-taught. When I started painting, I decided right away that I was going to paint for my own joy, not to please other people. I wasn’t going to worry about whether the paintings were thought to be good or bad but was going to celebrate whenever someone found something in them. I have worked in other artistic contexts and there is always pressure to do well, to excel. But what this resolution regarding painting did for me was free me to simply play. Like when I was a child and I had paints. Sheer playing. This has been my method of operation since. I learn all the time, I am always experimenting, facing challenges, correcting mistakes, following unexpected paths – that is part of…

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