Tala Madani: 16 Artists to Watch in 2016

Article: 16 Artists to Watch in 2016

(NewAmericanPaintings.com)

Born in Tehran, Madani is another of a growing number of artists who call LA their home. Madani does not make easy paintings, and in them, men do not fare well. Her figures are subjected to all manner of humiliation and violence. Most are leaking some sort of bodily fluid. Excrement is everywhere. Even with all of this going on, the tone of these paintings is not hectoring. To her credit, Madani effectively employs her knack for spontaneous painterly gestures to the service of the work’s overall content. There is a purposeful, if strident, energy to each painting.

Daniel Crews-Chubb: 16 Artists to Watch in 2016

Article: 16 Artists to Watch in 2016

(NewAmericanPaintings.com)

Crews-Chubb was a Miami discovery for me this year. His solo presentation at UNTITLED was one of the highlights of the fair. It would be overstating it to call Crews-Chubb an expressionist per se, but the fluid and aggressive manner with which he handles paint certainly owes something to the legacy of de Kooning and others. There is no artifice to his paintings…what you see is what you get. In them, roughly hewn figures jostle for dominance over each other and the picture plane. I am a huge fan of how this guy paints feet.

Tala Madani: Why You Should Care About Artist Tala Madani

Article:  Why You Should Care About Artist Tala Madani

(Art News)

"The animator and figurative painter Tala Madani has pulled off an interesting feat this summer, managing to be practically ubiquitous, yet still largely unknown.

The artist, who lives in Los Angeles, had her first solo museum show in the US, “First Light,” debut at the MIT’s List Center in May. That exhibit was organized in conjunction with the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, where a smaller version premiered earlier this year.

Madani spoke by telephone from her home near the Highland Park area of Los Angeles, as her nine-month-old daughter giggled and squawked in the background. The artist was born in Tehran in 1981 and emigrated to the US as a child. Her studio is in the same Lincoln Heights building as that of her husband, Nathaniel Mellors, the sculptor and video artist who will co-represent Finland at next year’s Venice Biennale."  (more at Art News)

Jordan Casteel: These 20 Female Artist Are Pushing Figurative Painting Forward

Article: Jordan Casteel: These 20 Female Artist Are Pushing Figurative Painting Forward

(Artsy)

Casteel, who describes herself as hyper-aware of her surroundings, creates vivid large-scale paintings that picture black males from the communities where she has lived. “I am most interested in sharing sensitive, humanistic, and honest stories of my community,” she explains of this focus, which she began as an MFA candidate at Yale. Her paintings—which are now featured in a group show at HOME in Manchester, England and can be seen this summer in New York at the Studio Museum in Harlem and James Cohan Gallery—are sincere portrayals of men and boys, often in pairs or trios on living-room couches or floors, that capture family and friendship through a crisp, realist style, and vibrant colors. “Harlem and the people who occupy its streets have become the protagonist,” she says of the work she is currently producing as a resident at the Studio Museum. “Having a studio situated on 125th street has allowed for me to create a bridge between the community and the museum. The street has literally entered the museum through my paintings.”

Jordan Casteel

Yahya 2013

Taylor Art Collection

Ramiro Gomez: Painter Ramiro Gomez adds labour to vision of luxury

Article: Painter Ramiro Gomez adds labour to vision of luxury

(CBC Radio)

When Ramiro Gomez attends one of his gallery openings in Los Angeles, his eye wanders to people other attendees might not notice — like the janitors, security guards, and the gardeners outside trimming hedges.

 The artist calls more attention to these very labourers. Although their work is vital, he notes that they are missing from the pages of luxury magazines and images of manicured landscapes.

 Today he joins Shad to share how he went from nanny to painter, how his former employers reacted to his art, and why he still doesn't feel quite comfortable in the art gallery setting.

Marilyn Minter: 'Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty' at OCMA Nails the Artist's Pathology of Beauty

Article: 'Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty' at OCMA Nails the Artist's Pathology of Beauty

(OC Weekly)  

You'll need a shower after seeing "Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty," the famed artist's confrontational retrospective currently at Orange County Museum of Art. Obsessed with "the pathology of beauty," her disconcerting paintings, photographs and films expose the way commercial imagery—much of it geared toward women—is used to seduce and abandon the market it's targeted to. It's ugly, erotic and dank work, even pornographic, presented by curators Elissa Auther and Bill Arning with a steady hand, a clear eye and zero apologies.

Figgis: Gallery Met Shorts: Roberto Devereux

Set to music from the third of Donizetti's three Tudor queen operas, the most recent Gallery Met Short is by artist Genieve Figgis. She took Roberto Devereux as the jumping-off point for a whimsical animated video exploration of Queen Elizabeth I.

Ramiro Gomez: Artist Includes Cleaners, Nannies In Pictures Of Luxury and Wealth

Article:  Artist Includes Cleaners, Nannies In Pictures Of Luxury and Wealth

(Huffington Post)

One artist is drawing some serious conclusions about the invisibility of domestic workers.

Ramiro Gomez takes existing images of luxury, such as ads featuring model homes and luxury stores, and alters them to include the invisible workers who work to maintain the settings. This overlooked labor by workers — including gardeners, cleaners and nannies — is front and center in a new book released this month. (more at Huffington Post)

Ramiro Gomez: Charlie James Gallery

Ramiro Gomez On Melrose

Jordan Casteel:

Article: Interview

(Medium.com)

Where are you from?

I was born in 1989 in Denver, Colorado. Most of my family is still in Denver — my twin brother, my mother, father, and nephew are there. I also have an older brother based in Arizona with his wife and two sons.

I never realized how much I would miss it until I left. It was really special growing up in a city with such close access to nature. One of my favorite things to do was to lay on a blanket in the front yard and watch the clouds go by. I have always been a dreamer, and Denver was a city that really gave me the space and natural wonder to do that.

When were you first exposed to the arts?

Art has always been a huge part of my life. I grew up in a home that hadRomare Bearden, Hale Woodruff, Faith Ringgold, Charles White, and Jacob Lawrence on the walls. My grandmother was on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, and Dance Theatre of Harlem here in New York.

I also took a few classes at the local Art Students League. I was always making something and/or trying to realistically draw photos I’d find. Art was just there. It was hard for me to not notice or be inspired by the images and people that were around me. And my parents valued the things I would create; both of them have my artwork that spans my lifetime on their walls.

So is that when you decided to become an artist?

No. For a long time, I had decided that art was not going to make a living for me. That I needed something more practical. I originally wanted to go to an HBCU [historically black college or university] like Spelman, but I ended up attending Agnes Scott, a small, diverse women’s liberal arts college also in Georgia.

I went abroad my junior year to Cortona, Italy, and that changed everything for me. I took my first oil painting class, and I fell in love. I literally remember thinking, “I could do this forever. This is the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.” My senior year, I changed my major to studio art, but the school had no support system for oil painting, so I spent the year trying to teach myself how to paint in the school basement.