|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
A former Hudson Valley native and established regional painter, Barclay looks for places and themes in her work that evoke and inspire her dialogue with nature. In her current home and studio on Maine's Downeast coast, she has found exactly the right synthesis of emotion and space, light and atmosphere. There is a mood of elegy in her work, which reflects her deep concern for a threatened ecosystem. Her paintings radiate a primal, essential feeling for the landscape wherein the manmade is subservient to a natural world full of soft light and gentle highlights - drama without horror or disaster, power without overstatement, deep feeling without sentimentality. Barclay has traveled to diverse settings - including Monhegan Island, MA; Isle of Skye, Scotland; Kenya (Africa); and the Canadian Maritimes - to document a changing landscape. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
An intensely talented painter and printmaker, Bender's work employs a range of stylistic and aesthetic approaches drawn from centuries of art-making. Adept at creating minute and elegant drawings to producing powerful wall-scale murals, much of her work explores deeply varied emotional, psychological and philosophical aspects of contemporary life. She uses paint, color, form and imagery to induce a mood in the viewer that "reflects the conflagration of thoughts, emotions and desires motivating the figures in [her] painting." Bender tends to work in simultaneous series of works: Of note are paintings and drawings done at the Jersey shore; of the same for the Big Apple Circus (and circuses in general); of various instrumentalists making music; of interior scenes in night clubs and cafes that focus on the male/female dynamic; and, more recently, of mixed media/print-based pieces that combine images from her active visual vocabulary to form striking artistic statements about contemporary culture and aesthetics. Her work is included in the following selected institutions: Museum of Modern Art, NY; Fairview Museum, Springville, UT; Dutchess Community College, Hyde Park, NY; Fyns Grafiske Vaerksted, Odense, Danmark; Manhattan String Quartet; Colonial Williamsburg Hospitality Group, Williamsburg, VA. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(1936-2012)
Since graduating from the School of Visual Arts (New York City) in 1958, Cannas had an illustrious professional career producing high-quality paintings, drawings, and illustrations for advertising billboards, magazine articles, promotional posters, school textbooks, book covers, children's books, and design work for major corporate advertising studios (including their charitable programs). He, also, received portrait commissions from the Tennis Hall of Fame. His early apprenticeship with the prestigious Illustrators Group continued to inform Frank's strong sense of professionalism and craft. He began exhibiting his personal artwork in 1981, showing in national exhibits and garnering many awards in juried competitions. He has, in addition, been represented by a number of galleries throughout the United States after retiring from his commercial art career in 1997. Painting, both en plein air and in the studio, became a way of life for the artist. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Honored in 2011 as Master Wildlife Artist by the Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin, James Coe was described by museum director Kathy Foley as "...a painting-lover's dream. His canvases are ethereal, moody, and sensitive all at once."
Whether he is painting the birds for which he was honored by the Woodson, or views of barns and landscapes near his home in New York's Hudson River Valley, James Coe is always seeking to find in his oil paintings a satisfying and poetic harmony. "The subject matter reflects my passions in life: birds, nature, old barns and our endangered rural landscape - but the thread that ties all of my artwork together is more conceptual. My goal is to find in each motif a balance of abstract design and evocative light, and to create a luscious surface of paint and canvas."
Educated at Harvard as a biologist, Coe later earned a master's degree in painting from Parsons the New School for Design, and spent the first years of his career as an ornithological illustrator and field guide author. His Golden Field Guide, Eastern Birds was acclaimed as a 'tour-de-force' when first published in 1994 (a second edition was released in 2001). But the years of painstaking work creating detailed watercolor and gouache illustrations of birds took its toll. Jim renewed his interest in art by taking his oil paints out into the landscape, and he has been painting en plein air and in his studio full-time since 2000. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(1934 - 2011)
Margaret was born in New York City in 1934. She studied painting at the Art Students League with Edwin Dickenson and at Cooper Union, both in New York City. Married to photographer and videographer Dick Crenson, the couple moved upstate, eventually settling in the Poughkeepsie area, where they were activists and innovative artists enriching the area's creative life. Both were dedicated members of the Barrett Art Center and were exhibited by many of the region's galleries. Margaret joined Albert Shahinian Fine Art in 1998 and both she and Dick have been featured in the gallery's ongoing exhibition program. Margaret died of illness in April, 2011. Dick continues to develop his creative (and many times humorous) talents; his wire sculpture will be included in the current show.
Crenson painted primarily with oil, sometimes mixed with cold wax. She loved the directness and simplicity of applying paint with a palette knife. Primarily a studio painter, she was expert, also, en plein air. Her subjects covered a wide and sometimes unexpected range. They included personal objects, appliances and tools, kitchen tools, everyday interiors, pets, outdoor views around their home, things seen and experienced on the road, and street scenes - of local towns and villages to those encountered on the many trips she and Dick took to far-away places. Atmosphere, light, and shadow were very important to her and she was a master at evoking a sense of groundedness and place, even when painting something as simple as her iron and ironing board.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Karl Dempwolf is a longtime member of the California Art Club and a master painter steeped in the tradition of painters including William Wendt, Franz Bischoff, Hanson Puthuff and Guy Rose. As a colorist he is more resonant with 20th Century Expressionism, and the boldness of his work is much more sympathetic to aspects of Modernism than a reprise of older styles. Also an avid plein air painter, Dempwolf exploits the scenic beauty of the California coast, its valleys, mountains, and - occasionally - urban boundaries. Dempwolf continues to travel the country and abroad to work on location at National Parks and other scenic areas. He currently makes, carves, gilds and finishes his own frames - a tribute to his high standards and respect for the Arts and Craft traditions his personal art (and sense of craft) draws from. Karl has garnered many awards and a loyal collector base for his work. In 2017 he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by Plein Air Magazine at the 6th annual Plein Air Convention & Expo in San Diego, CA.
Over the years Dempwolf has participated in exhibitions including: the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles, the Frederick R. Weisman Museum at Pepperdine University in Malibu, the Phippen Museum in Prescott, AZ, the Carnegie Art Museum in Ventura County, CA, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, and the Pasadena (CA) Museum of California Art.
Dempwolf's work can be found in publications from North Light Books, entitled Art from the Parks. His paintings are in the permanent collections of large corporations, among them McGraw-Hill Publishers and the National Park Foundation. Dempwolf's recently published book, A Painter's Journey, is available, hard- and soft-bound, through the gallery or his web site. His most recent publication is Karl Dempwolf: Small Plein Air Sketches in Oil, softbound and available through the gallery, artist or online. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Eddy is a self-taught painter whose talent, vision, and very hard work have paid off handsomely - both in the number and scope of gallery representation nationally and by an enduring and growing recognition of the quality and sophistication of his work. Most of Eddy's paintings center on figures, solo or in groups, and may include animals within the overall narrative of a piece. There is a child-like, naive quality to his work, but the modeling of facial expressions and the delightful complexity and subtlety of the whole speak to a creator with deep insight, expert craftsmanship and uncompromising integrity; and, also, quite a sense of humor and whimsy. Eddy's paintings explore varying levels of abstraction and styles of narrative. While the preparatory stages of his process - he works with many layers of pigments on panel and a "ground" which is periodically distressed by physical manipulation and "mistreatment" - are nearly identical for each piece, the final surface layers determine the unique narrative for a painting. A painting's subject (or narrative) begins to declare its-self as Eddy works on the preparatory stages. This sparks a larger image, story, experience, thought, or whatever, in the artist's mind and he then takes the painting to fruition/completion. His images are both self-revelatory and broadly human. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yale Epstein has been a huge creative force for over 60 years. As teacher, master printer, painter, collage artist and, most recently, photographer, he is the embodiment of the consummate artist. His work is beautifully crafted, lovingly organized, and of the highest quality as enduring works of art. Various printmaking techniques are foundational for his current series, to which are added any number of processes - dry pigments, inks, wax, dyes, marble dust, graphite, varnishes, washes, etc - until each piece feels "right". His is a very personal approach to making art but is also one that, according to the artist, "integrates his lifetime involvement with the visual legacy of the past, as well as contemporary culture." His work evolves and is sometimes reworked - honoring a continual dialogue between his self and his work.
His most recent forays include photography and the Contemporary Modernist Series of geometric and non-objective minmalist paintings. Epstein's hope is that those viewing or purchasing his work will, also, find or experience a personal resonance and meaning with his art. Epstein's exhibition career is extensive, impressive, and successful, with work housed in major private, public and corporate collections, and continues to receive major commissions. Those include: the Albright-Knox galleries, Buffalo, NY: the Bibleotheque National, Paris, France; the Brooklyn Museum, NY; the Library of Congress; U.S. Department of State; Yale University, New Haven, CT; American Airlines; Cannon, U.S.A.; China World Trade Center, Bejing, China; I.B.M. Corporation; Ritz-Carlton Hotels; and Taiwan Maritime Corporation. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fifer is well known for his beautifully crafted plein air paintings. His is a literal approach to painting on location - grounded in the French Impressionists' ideal of quickly capturing the moment in a single sitting. While the contemporary plein air movement has recently become a huge commercialized "fad" in this country, Gary has kept clear of the hype and the formulaic - choosing to refine his grounding in keen observation and expert handling of paint. Connected historically (through his master-teacher "lineage") to the American Impressionists of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries (esp. Frank Dumond and Willard Metcalf), Gary has created a distinct personal and spiritual style to his work. A protege of Arthur Maynard (Ridgewood Institute/Academy, NJ) and student of Frank Mason's at New York's Art Students League, Fifer has moved his locus of work from the Hudson Valley to central Vermont. He is one of a handful of painters expert in Maynard's use and understanding of the prismatic palette, which enables a seasoned painter to "fix" the infinite number of possible combinations of light, weather, time of day and atmosphere to a work in timely fashion while painting on location. Fifer, however, is not a literal painter with respect to his subjects. He sees his role as one of simplifying - finding and portraying the essence of a scene: To make a painting true to the basic structure and mood of the subject while simultaneously imbuing it with an inner harmony of movement and timelessness of character. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(1922-2004)
(The following is excerpted from Wayne Lempka's essay in Howard's In Memoriam exhibition catalog, published by Albert Shahinian Fine Art, 2005.) Howard Knotts' artistic talents ran the gamut from being a painter of landscapes to an illustrator of nationally acclaimed children's books. Born in Springfield, Illinois, in 1922 and educated at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York, Knotts made his debut into the world of art in a three-person exhibition (Newcomers) at the J.B. Neumann's New Art Circle Gallery in Manhattan in 1951. From here his reputation grew. His drawings were soon included in a traveling show (Modern American Drawings) organized by the Museum of Modern Art in 1956. A solo exhibition of his paintings was held at the Greer Gallery in New York City in 1965. Eventually, Knotts' work was exhibited at a number of the most prominent museums across this country, including the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Phillips Gallery, the Detroit Institute of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Art. In the four decades that followed his moving to Dutchess County, his paintings and drawings appeared in solo and group exhibitions at countless regional institutions, giving viewers a unique opportunity to follow the career of a man who became one of the Hudson Valley's most gifted artists. His work is included in major collections including: The University Museum at Berkeley, CA; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.; Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL; Special Collections, Hatcher Library, University of Michigan; and the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Albert Shahinian Fine Art is the representative for Howard's estate, which includes over 1,200 paintings and drawings covering his fifty-year career. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(1928-2009)
Albert Shahinian Fine Art represents Saul Lambert's estate and handles all inquiries regarding his work. Please refer to Saul's web site for samples of his artwork and more detailed information: www.saullambert.com (copy URL and paste into your browser, this is not a link at this time). While Saul Lambert's work is grounded in the abstract tradition, it is to a large extent based on religious iconography. Rather than being intellectual or descriptive, it is on a personal and meditative plane, influenced by the vast dimensions of symbolic space. Saul's artist page is no longer included on this site. Please contact the gallery for more information: (845) 876-7578.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"My work is paper dolls with deep personal issues. I use humble materials - illustration board, acrylic paint, buttons, wire - to achieve elegant and sophisticated effects. I manipulate the forms and employ pattern, rich color and gesture to explore myths of deep time and current self. The act of sewing the pieces together and adding sewn embellishments puts the work into the realm of the other."
"(S)titches act by forming visible and often ceremonious attachments between materials in order to aggrandize, embellish, assert and layer authority, or swathe an object in textiles as if it were a relic."
"(T)he person wielding the needle and thread has the authority to do so, and effects a change in the world by transforming an object: making it larger, making it contain new elements, causing its increase in dimensionality (usually changing it from a two-dimensional object into a three-dimensional one), forcing a new ritualistic use upon it, and reframing it. Stitching often calls attention to itself as a means of attachment, as if the ritualized form of attachment were being showcased in the resulting object." Sewing as Authority in the Middle Ages by Kathryn M. Rudy, Zeitschrift fur Medien-und Kulturforschung, Vol.6:1 (2015)
"The female figure is my usual vehicle for expression. The female hand wields the needle, knife, and paintbrush; and that hand and mind shape the landscape my figures inhabit. The figures themselves are inwardly-focused though their gaze may be disconcertingly direct. Often they chafe at the constraints of mode but who does not also wish for the rustle of silk in their life? The figures stand proud of the backgrounds to achieve a flat/3D effect- turning the frame into a doorway, each piece a portal through which to glimpse private dramas. My work has been favorably compared to that of Joseph Cornell but in fact has been more influenced by the animation work of Jan Svankmajer, the luscious patterns, textures and graphic forms of Eyvind Earle, the eerie dioramas of the Cray Brothers and the anonymous work of my sister Seamstresses of times long past or never existed." (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Levine is a Poughkeepsie native who has lived and painted on the east and west coasts and the southwest. He has lived and worked in many places, from Italy to Vietnam, but always returned to the Hudson Valley, which he considers his home. A professional painter for more than thirty years, he continues to experiment and grow as an artist. He began his career as an Abstract Expressionist, moving to watercolorist, traditional plein air landscapist, to expressionist stylist in his journey of self-expression. He has taught painting at colleges and universities in Illinois, California, Arizona, and New York. Levine is currently working on a new series of regional landscapes whose sensibility is more akin to genre painting - not the grand vistas or obvious regional scenes but the short-distance, out-of-the-way places. Besides many solo and group shows in galleries on both coasts, he has exhibited at the National Academy of Design, NYC; the Albany Institute of History and Art; The Butler Institute; The Sheldon Swope Museum, Terre Haute, IN; Vassar College Art Museum; Northern Arizona University; SUNY, New Paltz, NY. Among his awards are a MacDowell Fellowship, the Western Connecticut State University Painting Award, Northern Arizona University Purchase Award, and - most recently - an artist-in-residence at the International School of Art in Umbria, Italy. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(1934-2020)
Lindbloom was an independent photographer in the Hudson Valley and founding member of the Woodstock Center for Photography. His output includes four monographs (Angels at the Arno, The River That Runs Two Ways, Diana in Sight, Salt Grass) and photographs shown in a broad and extensive exhibition history over the past 45 years. His work is housed in a number of important collections including the Alinari Museum, Florence, Italy; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France; Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; New York Public Library, New York, NY; Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (Vassar College), Poughkeepsie, NY; Stanford University Libraries, Palo Alto, CA; University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, VA; Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY; and Toledo Art Museum, OH. His morst current works continued two important series of images drawn from the salt marshes and pine forests on Cape Cod; a third, new series explored the element of water in its incarnations as ocean, beach and river. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chris Metze is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. He studied painting and sculpture at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia, and is now a well-established painter currently living and working in Woodstock, NY. He is interested in the non-verbal dialogue that occurs between line, shape, and color. The elements in his paintings are composed of shapes that are indistinct. They may appear to be something specific, but that remains in question. This uncertainty, as well as their interaction within what appears to be a landscape, is at the core of his paintings. Metze is interested in the line that divides the perceived rational world from the inner landscape. He is inspired by the relationship that exists between land and sky and the forms that link the two together; the gaseous quality of smoke or a mist combined with the rigid form of a tower; the expansiveness of a body of water met with undecipherable man-made structures; to make solid the space that lies between two elements creating a unique form. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Joanna Murphy is our most recent addition to our stable of outstanding visual artists. She was recently featured in her first solo exhibit - which ran through January, 2021 - alongside our 23rd Annual The Luminous Landscape national invitational. She sees her surroundings through the medium of paint. Her landscape paintings bear subtle connections to the Romanticism of the Hudson River School and the gestural painting of the New York Abstract Expressionists.
Murphy is an alumnus of the Swain School of Design in New Bedford, MA. She was influenced at Swain by painter and teacher, David L. Smith, who was a student of abstract expressionist, Hans Hoffman. Murphy also studied with Henry Hensche in Provincetown, MA. Hensche instilled in his students a profound appreciation for the beauty of nature's light and color. (Hensche studied with George Bellows, Charles Hawthorne and Cape Cod School of Art.) Murphy was awarded a grant from the Gottlieb Foundation and received an Artist Residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Manchester, VT. Her landscape murals are featured in several of the towns and private homes in the Catskill Mountains.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Perley began his artistic journey in 1975 as a maker of conceptual art, collage, and painted collage constructions, gradually moving into experiments in pure painting. He is entirely self-taught, with no formal training or participation in arts institutions. What he has developed (slowly!) over the years is his own spiritual language laid out in paint, which for him is the truest communication of all. He has had affiliations with galleries in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Connecticut, and New York and has shown with Albert Shahinian Fine Art since 2004. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Crista Pisano, known for her exquisite plein air minitures, is currently showing work drawing from recent trips to the Adirondacks and Hudson Valley. Pisano is based in Nyack, NY, and has established quite a star reputation in the national plein air (painting on location) scene for her small, beautifully crafted and presented paintings.
Pisano began painting under the instruction of John Phillip Osborne at the Ridgewood Art Institute in Ridgewood, NJ. She graduated from the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts and earned a Master Degree of Fine Arts - Painting from the New York Academy Graduate School of Figurative Art. Her on location and studio work are partly influenced by the Hudson River School. She also loves the Macchiaioli, a group of Italian Painters active in Tuscany in the second half of the Nineteenth Century.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Olga Poloukhine is a painter of icons and a former master printmaker of seascapes and still lifes; she also teaches iconography. She produces both commissioned work for religious use and work that is secular and personal in nature. For Olga, as iconographer, it is "through iconography that prayer is brought into the visual world. The iconographer 'writes' with the discipline of theological expression" - from within an established tradition - imparting his or her personal imprint on that tradition which is received and understood by an entire community." Her secular work - much influenced by iconography and its techniques (using egg tempera, gold leaf, etc.) - retains the quintessential "secular" quality of being an expression of personal feelings and reactions. It is here that she confronts the tension of human duality, that "edge" between a person's interiority and their encounter with the outer world. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thomas Sarrantonio studied Painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where his teachers included Wil Barnet and Sidney Goodman. He also holds degrees in Biology and English. His paintings have been exhibited widely and he is the recipient of numerous honors including a Pollock-Krasner Award and a Visiting Artist Residency in Normandy, France. He is a tenured professor in the Art Department at SUNY, New Paltz, and resides in Rosendale, New York.
The paintings of Thomas Sarrantonio seek to mediate between realms of external perception and internal reflection. They present themselves as meditations on nature and self. Choosing humble, often overlooked subject matter, such as the overgrown grasses at the edge of a field, he attempts to translate the dynamic processes of Nature into the stasis of physical matter on a painted surface. Small works are produced directly from Nature while large paintings are studio productions that utilize memory, experience, imagination and conceptual ideas to negotiate the terrain of contemporary painting. The paintings are offered to the viewer as templates to provoke active participation in the process of seeing and quiet contemplation of the mysteries of consciousness. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
As a well-established modern landscape painter with a background in contemporary art, Scheele reflects her own time. Instead of idealizing the landscape for the sake of sentiment or narrative, she idealizes the images that she paints for the formal purposes of enhancing the interlocking shapes that create the composition; their softened edges; and, the color that carries modulations of surface detail within the shapes. She believe that these abstract elements can elicit joy (and provoke deeper responses) in their own right, which is a modern concept. Drawing on the lineage of the abstract minimalists and color field painters from the mid-20th century (rather than to traditional studio or plein air landscape painters) she prefers to reduce a scene to its essentials - to record what is important without distraction or visual clutter; thus, to enable the viewer to experience an "expansive, chest-opening, breath-deep kind of meditative awe" in front of the landscape. Her version of minimalism is about shape and atmospherics: to paint not just the light but the air itself, and to show how these elements affect the edges and colors - and level of abstraction - of the scenes depicted. ASFA is regional "home base" for the artist and the gallery always has on hand a large and diverse selection of her oils, pastels and mixed-media paintings. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(1882-1957)
Stevens was born in New York City and became interested in painting when, as a child, his parents took him to Manhattan Beach. Returning home, he would sketch beach scenes from memory. By his late teens, he had become an accomplished sketcher and soon turned to landscape painting. Though her received private instruction, he is primarily a self-taught regionalist. He settled in Galeville (near Wallkill, NY), in the Mid-Hudson Valley, and produced a substantial series of paintings on canvas, canvas board and paper of regional landscapes and historic sites and homes - both in the NYC metro area and upriver. Stevens never married and was rather reclusive. His day job involved accounting and numbers; he did most of his paintings from sketches done on long walks and weekend trips. We know little more at this time about his person and his exhibition history, beyond his showing and selling work from his front porch and at a number of county fairs beginning in the 1940s. Shahinian Fine Art is working on a personal narrative for Stevens, especially through interviews with individuals who knew Stevens as children or had family members who knew him and purchased work from him. After his death, his remaining work was nearly lost - forgotten in a leaky barn - only to be rescued by an interested party. Most of the oils on canvas were water damaged beyond restoration. Numerous works on paper, primarily lovely regional scenes done in the 1930s, survive and the work we are offering for sale is drawn from this material. The paper Stevens used to paint on is not acid free and so the works are archivally "compromised" - however, they are wonderful slices of life in the Hudson Valley and a high value for collectors interested in the work of the Hudson River School and its progeny. (For more information, click the artist's icon to the left.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
David Thelen is a recently added painter to our stable of mid- and late-carreer artists. His inaugural exhibit at our Upstairs Galleries - "Liminal Explorations: Painting the World Between the Shadows" - opens March 27, 2021 and runs through June, 2021. A Meet the Artist by Appointment opportunity is scheduled for Saturday, May 22, from 2-5pm (call gallery to register).
Thelen currently hails from Livonia, NY, near the Rochester area. He, also, spends time in the Finger Lakes - both areas that speak to his sense of place and in which much of his painted subjects come from. A lifelong artist, he has studied and worked in many different art forms - wood, ceramics, sculpture, stained glass and painting. He finds sharing his love of art a vital part of his artistic life.
His approach to painting uses a type of reversal similar to a watercolorist's process (what Thelen calls "negative painting". Thus, his moody paintings use the dark gesso background on the canvas as the coloring for what appears black (and dark forms or spaces) in his subjects, while the remaining portions of the images are painted around the dark forms to fill in the details that the observer recognizes as "real". Thelen studied at Rochester Institute of Technology (Diploma of Fine Arts), the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, and continues his education at the Woodstock School of Art.
|
|
|
|
|
