Fountain Art Fair NYC

My three paintings (left to right), "Divining Secrets", "Winter Guardians" and "The Mind Reader" are currently on view at Arch Enemy Art's booth D204 at Fountain Art Fair for Armory week this weekend.

patrick(at)galleryml(dot)com for inquiries

Fountain NYC

68 Lexington Ave (Lexington & 25th)

Open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 

VIP: noon - 5 Friday 

Public: 5-midnight Friday

Saturday 1pm - 7pm

Sunday 12pm - 5pm

Winter Guardians

"Winter Guardians"

acrylic and silver leaf on birch panel

18 x 24 inches, plus frame

2012

$1,300.00

(SOLD)

For Bold Hype Gallery's "Far Away, So Close" show

This painting was an intense experience for me; I haven't had time enough with all my projects to work on a large painting like this since before my solo show in August, and even then I was racing to create several large pieces in a very short amount of time.

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For this piece, I wanted to create a scene about my most favorite of seasons; winter.

There is a barn owl, albino doe and raven, and two arctic foxes and two white wolves.  They are flanking a snowflake-like acanthus pentagram, which is silver leafed and painted with white details.

There are also icicles hanging from the pentagram, snow falling in the background, and some pink roses and pine cones and branches.

The concept deals with my fascination of the opposition between nature and christianity.  Throughout history, christians viewed nature as of the Devil; pagans and witches of all kinds seen as heathens.  I myself see the Devil not as a god that should be worshipped literally, but as a symbol of all that which I hate about the life-hating religions, including christianity.

Thusly, I seek to paint the beauty and majesty of animals and nature.

Before christianity, there were beautiful old ways that seem to become buried and forgotten.  

I wanted these animals, which may be seen as spirits, to be the ones who guard the old ways and make sure that some part of the magic of nature cannot be forgotten or destroyed by christianity.

These Guardians are as old as the seasons; as the winter itself, and cannot be destroyed.

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I had an extraordinarily difficult time photographing this painting because of the white highlights on the silver leaf, and the lights and darks I painted onto the birch.  Hopefully I will have a chance to get a better picture of the painting at some point.

I'm hoping to make three other paintings dealing with spring, summer and fall over the next year.

Here's the flyer for the show, I'll be in NYC for the opening!

So excited to be with such a great group of artists, at such an amazing gallery.  This is actually my first time showing in the city, so it will be a fun experience.

Augurium

"Augurium"

acrylic on birch panel

16 x 20 inches, plus frame

2012

For my August 11th solo show, Talisman at San Francisco's Modern Eden Gallery

call (415)956-3303 or email info@moderneden.com for inquiries

or corylou311(at)yahoo(dot)com 

I've been working on this painting for a while, and it's finally done!

It's called "Augurium", about the Ancient Roman practice of Augurs, whose main role was to interpret the will of the gods by studying the flight of the birds; whether they were flying in groups or alone, what noises they make as they fly, direction of flight and what kind of birds they were.  I found this and much more useful information on this subject on Wikipedia. 

Only some species of birds could yield valid signs, and the meanings would vary from species to species.  Among them were ravens, woodpeckers and owls, the ones I decided to picture here.

The curved object pictured here is the lituus, which was used as a symbol of office of the augurs to mark them out as a priestly group.

Auspicium would design the technical process of the operation, i.e. aves spicere (the Latin phrase included on the bottom frame of the painting), which means "looking at the birds".  His result would be the augurium, i.e. the determination , acknowledgement of the presence of the auges, the favour of the god(s), the intention and the final result of the whole operation.

I found this whole process to be utterly fascinating, and also added elements of floriography (the Victorian language of flowers) to the piece.  The irises represent "messages", the wild strawberries, "foresight" and "future promises" and the pear blossoms represent "hope, health, longevity" and "good government".

The talisman that the barn owl holds in it's mouth is the Fourth Pentacle of Mercury amulet which assists in acquiring knowledge of all things, including reading minds.

Here's the progress shots: