Summer Pleasures & Gallery Strolls Return
Turbulance/Breeze #1 by Ivy Wu is a lovely acrylic & oil painting Photos: Thomas Deans Fine Art
AUTHOR: ARTSY CHOW ROAMER
SUMMER PLEASURES
& GALLERY STROLLS RETURN
For over twenty-one years now, Thomas Deans Fine Art has been presenting his annual rotating summer exhibition called Summer Pleasures. My favorite contemporary gallery is located on Miami Circle and normally hangs a diversity of work ranging from whimsical to serious. Having opened on June 14th, the show will run through August 30th, exhibiting long-established artists in genres ranging from realism to abstraction, while featuring emerging talent and new artists to the gallery.
Happening in conjunction with the summer Miami Circle gallery strolls, over a dozen galleries will open later than usual on some Saturday evenings offering light refreshments and lots of fabulous art on view. One of these events will be on July 19th from 4:00 to 6:00, where Thomas Deans will host a reception with featured artists present to meet, greet and tour the gallery with you. This post we will take a look at the background of some of the artists highlighted in the exhibition.
IVY WU
Atlanta artist Ivy Wu is an Assistant Professor of Art, teaching painting in the Kennesaw State University's College of the Arts. The works are abstract and gestural, vibrating with pops of bright color and exciting lines. She manipulates the paint, working rapidly with intuition towards her inspiration found in both nature and personal storytelling.
Lived experiences are at the heart of her work rooted in imagination and the forming of stable and unstable shapes utilizing a sort of blind drawing technique. Based on her art, she received an Honor Award Scholarship to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), receiving her Master of Fine Art in painting. Her paintings were featured in The Museum of Contemporary Art in Georgia, AAPI Talents Exhibition in Coca-Cola's headquarters, Marietta Cobb Museum of Art, Hollis Taggart Gallery in New York, Kenna Xu Gallery in Shenzhen and West Bund Art & Design in Shanghai.
She is the winner of the 39th SCAD Sidewalk Art Festival, a SCAD Alumni Atelier Ambassador, was reported on in Whitewall Art Magazine, ARTNET and featured as a passionate contemporary artist in Visionary Artistry Magazine as well as other publications. Her paintings have been collected in private, cooperate and public collections across North America, Europe and Asia.
Coeur d’ Alene by Atlanta artist Tom Francis is whimsical and fun
TOM FRANCIS
Wisconsin-born artist Tom Francis is an Emeritus Professor of Painting at SCAD-Atlanta. He arrived in city in 1978 with three degrees from the University of Wisconsin in hand to take a professorship at The Atlanta College of Art which ultimately led to teaching at SCAD. The move proved to be a revelation that radically changed his approach to his own work. Reflective of Wisconsin winters, his previoius paintings were dark, moody and intellectual but the move to the South brought out the wanna be biologist from his early years in college.
More paintings of Tom Francis from a previous show
His work became more joyous, a celebration of the saturation of light and the lush flora and fauna found in his new home. Defined by lots of paint, layering, vivid color and a variety of motifs, Tom’s paintings are both lyrical and provocative without losing complexity. And they are also just gosh darn whimsical and fun. His early love of animals found expression in these new paintings in a range of creatures from turtles, cows and fish to dragonflies and birds.
Southern life is represented in memories of a long queue of yellow buses lined up for visits to the Woodruff Arts Center, the historic Oakland cemetary and suburban windows that revealed the riotous dining experiences happening within. Palm trees, reefs and pyramids recall the road trips made to the Caribbean and the Yucatan. Imagery is the muse for the artistic expression. Tom’s work has been exhibited at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Georgia Museum of Fine Art in Athens, Georgia, the Chapelle de la Sorbonne in Paris and the Palazzo di Venezia in Rome.
JANET HAMILTON
Nashville artist, Janet Hamilton, works in contemporary abstract mixed media deeply inspired by color and its interactions together. She produces heavy texture and multiple layers in her paintings utilizing oil, acrylic, beeswax, found paper and spray paint. As a master of color choice, each palette she brings to the canvas creates a specific emotion and mood as she builds layer upon layer in a “passion-filled process”.
Instead of brushes, she chooses to work with knives as she stacks paint, in sometimes chaotic patterns, to create the depth she desires. Her spontaneity and youthful spirit bring boldness to landscapes and life to geometric designs.
MICHAEL McHUGH
New Zealand born now living in Australia, artist Michael McHugh grew up taking bushwalks and gardening with his Dad enjoying the sand, water and nature all around him. The natural world is his muse for the joyous, magical, mysterious and provocative paintings that are made in acrylic with bold happy colors. His curiosity has led him from his studio in Sydney to libraries, gardens and museums, sketching and photographing new specimens that go into the planning of his large-scale paintings.
Australian artist Michael McHugh’s Gazebo is dazzling in blue
Researching at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garde and London’s Royal Horticulture Society allowed him to discover a “new world” of flora in the botanical illustrations that helped him to develop his “own botanical language” for depicting both extinct plants as well as his newly imagined plant forms. They are a celebration of color and design that bring a smile, joy and happiness to the viewer which Michael feels we need much more of in this world.
Artist Brian HIbbard is known for his animal and landscape paintings; Horse #616
BRIAN HIBBARD
North Carolina artist Brian Hibbard begins with capturing his subject in a representational form and then moves on to a more contemporary mindset, painting in a more abstract fashion. He often experiments with tar, metallic latex and resins, sometimes entirely covering the original substructure. He views it from all angles and in a mirror to find harmony in the mix as he creates intuitively and spontaneously. Some pieces happen very quickly while others take months or years of consideration.
He paints as he lives-a worldview that is grounded in reality but still allows him freedom to invent and explore new potentials for growth. Constrasts are important in the works as are the bigger sizes which allow the viewer to enter them and better experience the work at the same level as the artist. Tradition meets modern with classical figures and subject matters while new techniques of presentation provide the base form and structure.
CLAUDIA RILLING
Philadelphia-based Claudia Rilling is both a teacher and a painter, known especially for her depictions of landscapes, urban subjects and floral still lifes. Loving both the formal and pictorial aspects of painting, she chooses to work in the sensual realm of oil as her chosen medium which allows for nuanced edges and subtleties of light.
Tulips by new artist to the gallery Claudia Rilling
Employing her motifs of landscape, cityscape and floral compositions, she often works on all three at once. Moving between paintings, she pushes around thick layers of oil to create visually exciting lines and perceptions that seem to connect in a more seamless way with each other. Each painting is carefully considered as changes and layers are built over months showing a history of the work as it progresses.
KEVIN GILLENTINE
Artist Kevin Gillentine lives and works in New Orleans with his own gallery featuring both his sculpture and landscape paintings after moving to the Big Easy in the 1990’s. He began painting at age fourteen and went on to get his degree from Memphis State University. A period in New York City found him working on Broadway and in film while attending the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Poplar Creek by New Orleans artist Kevin Gillentine
He now concentrates on his atmospheric landscape paintings that are created through a process of tonal gradations utilizing a limited range of colors. In all of the works, lighting effects create a sense of tranquility and beauty. His paintings are often referred to using a historical term called “tonalism”; a style that conveys a quality of “hushed contemplation”. They are soft, beautiful and a favorite of both designers and a group of international collectors.
CONCLUSION
Along with the artists listed above, an international group of artists will be featured along with American artists. Works by Linda Henningson, Deedra Ludwig, Debbie Ezell, Janet Hamilton and Christine So will be on view. Artists representing Atlanta and North Georgia highlighted include Ana Guzman, Evan Jones, Carl Linstrum, David Kidd, Elise Thomason, Gwen Wong, Eileen Braun, and Lauren Betty among others.
A look into Kevin’s sculpture and paintings
Thomas Deans Fine Art was established in 1983 and specializes in contemporary paintings, works on paper, sculpture and selected photography. He has a good eye for hanging a show preferring to mix artists, letting the colors and subject matters play a sort of song as you move through the gallery. I always make sure I get to this exhibit every year. The successful joining of old and new artists and the mix of price points make it a must on any collectors list.
If you enjoyed what you read, you might also like other posts under Artful Ideal. You can find other artists that I really love and you might want to add to your own collection. Until next time…
Cheers,
ArtsyChowRoamer
Follow me on You Tube, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram & Twitter
Art
If you enjoyed what you read, click on the button below!
Why? You’ll get free tips on how to start your own amazing art collection (even on a budget) plus other great stuff I promise you’ll want!.