Art, they say, is in the eye of the beholder.

Depends on the beholder I suppose, but I see nothing of any merit, originality, or genuine provocation in a painting called Jesus Speaks to the Daughters of Jerusalem, that depicts Jesus on the road to Calvary, disfigured with a Looney Tunes cartoon face.

The artist, who goes by the name of philjames reckons his work is allegedly about, reimagining and re-presenting historical painting and sculptural forms to generate a sense both of the familiar and the uncomfortable through the displacement of notions of time, place, and history combined with the seemingly seamless interweaving of somewhat obscured pop-cultural references. Yeah, right!

Im all for making people think again about long-assumed images, and that certainly includes Christians, but this offering seems more Emperors new clothes than cutting-edge and constructive commentary. In other words, totally naked, in all sorts of ways.

In Sydney, Australia, where the picture was displayed, there was an organised and active protest, to the point where the picture was eventually removed. A Roman Catholic group named Christian Lives Matter launched the campaign, and called the paintingshocking disrespectful art. The artist and workers at the gallery claim that theyve received numerous abusive calls and letters and even threats of physical violence. If so, thats repugnant.

The founder of Christian Lives Matter, Chris Bakhos, thanked the hundreds of supporters who had respectfully called for the work to be removed and said that the picture was, another cheap and low attempt at mocking Christianity.

For many years now there has been an open season on Christianity, in art, literature, television, film, and theatre. We are widely mocked and criticised in popular culture. There are many reasons for that, one being that the consequences of having a pop at Christians/Christianity are either positive or harmless. Theres prestige in mocking what is still considered part of the establishment, and in spite of what some may claim, the possibility of physical violence or career damage is minimal.

The obvious contrast here is with Islam. Ive interviewed Salman Rushdie, author of the Satanic Verses, who was attacked and almost murdered, KurtWestergaard, the Danish cartoonist who drew the picture of Muhammad wearing a bomb in his turban, and lived the rest of his life under police protection, and others who have felt the sting of religious extremist intolerance. So, theres clearly inconsistency if not hypocrisy on display, and also a certain smugness.

The obvious contrast here is with Islam

But all that being said, the Jesus-like response to any controversial issue is based not on the failings of others but on the call of the Gospel. Were made by God to worship and to love, to celebrate the heart set free, but also to relish all that is given to us, and that certainly includes art and literature. The vocation of the Christian is not to limit but to broaden our vision, not to be reactive but pro-active. The Church has been the hand-maiden of creativity, whether it be the magnificence of the renaissance, the literature of Dostoyevsky and Tolkien, or even Monty Pythons Life of Brian.

If the last seems out of place, let me explain. The very freedoms, the very openness, that allows what seems to be mockery of the faith is a product of the precise Christianity that seems so under siege. Such authentic liberty would never exist in an atheistic society witness the former Soviet Union, Maoist China, National Socialist Germany or various Islamic states. The paradox that these ostensible radicals fail to appreciate is that the license they enjoy is a consequence of what they appear to despise.

The paradox that these ostensible radicals fail to appreciate is that the license they enjoy is a consequence of what they appear to despise

As for the works themselves, we have to differentiate. Anything that obliges me to think deeper about my faith is to be welcomed, even if it does sometimes hurt. Nobody welcomes a trip to the doctor but it doesnt mean we dont have to go.

Take the above-mentioned Life of Brian for example. There were demonstrations back in 1979 and the film actually banned in certain places. But today when we watch it, we see not Jesus mocked at all, but a biting rejection of collective foolishness, herd mentality, and not listening when truth is spoken. Much of the Christian response at the time was shameful.

Jesus with a fatuous cartoon face isnt the same thing at all, does nothing to make us think, and is insulting rather than constructive. My response, for what its worth, would be to politely ask the artist or the museum director out for lunch or a coffee, to explain what the Christian faith means, to talk about how fellow believers in so much of the world face daily persecution, the horror of blasphemy laws, and how we feel when we see what we hold so dear insulted for no apparent reason. It might work, it might not. But then we have to have faith, dont we?

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Remove this disrespectful painting, said the Christians. But what would Jesus do? - Premier Christianity

Riviera Coast Scene,Winston Churchill, circa 1935 Heather James Fine Art, Palm Desert

During his downtime, Winston Churchill had a hobby: The celebrated statesman was an avid amateur painter.

Now, an exhibition in California is spotlighting the former British prime ministers artistic side. Ten of his works are on display at Winston Churchill: Making Art, Making History, which is open at Heather James Fine Art in Palm Desert.

Not only was Churchill one of the greatest statesmen of the modern era, but his personal foray into painting showcased his inner workings with resulting artworks that are technically adept and aesthetically beautiful, says Jim Carona, the gallerys co-founder, in a statement. These works read like pages out of his diary, mementos of the moments and places that were meaningful to one of the most important men of his day.

The ten images, which have never been publicly displayed, come from the largest private collection of Churchills works outside of the United Kingdom. They include landscapes, seascapes, a still life and an interior portraitall bursting with vibrant color.

Churchill took up painting in 1915, when he was 40, according to the gallerys website. Following a disastrous military campaign during World War I, his sister-in-law,Lady Gwendoline, handed him a brush and suggested he try his hand at art.

Painting became a passion that Churchill would return to for the rest of his life. He took inspiration from Impressionists and Post-Impressionists such asJohn Singer Sargent andPaul Czanne. Like many of them, he enjoyed painting en plein air.

The self-taught artist was open to experimenting with new styles and dedicated to improving his technique. In his 1948 bookPainting as a Pastime, he described how he meticulously honed his craft.

I had hitherto painted the sea flat, with long, smooth strokes of mixed pigment in which the tints varied only by gradations. Now, I must try to represent it by innumerable small separate lozenge-shaped points and patches of coloroften pure colorso that it looked more like a tessellated pavement than a marine picture.

He also reflected on the experience of coming to painting later in life.

To have reached the age of 40 without ever handling a brush or fiddling with a pencil, to have regarded with mature eye the painting of pictures of any kind as a mystery, to have stood agape before the chalk of the pavement artist, and then suddenly to find oneself plunged in the middle of a new and intense form of interest and action with paints and palettes and canvases, and not to be discouraged by results, is an astonishing and enriching experience. I hope it may be shared by others.

The politician rarely sold his works. Instead, he kept them in his home or gave them to friends, colleagues and even some famous figures. Recipients of Churchills work included Elizabeth II and several American presidents, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman, among others.

Winston Churchill: Making Art, Making History isnt the California gallerys first showcase of the statesmans work. Six years ago, the gallery, which has a close working relationship with the Churchill family, staged a different show featuring ten of his paintings.

Churchill created over 500 artworks in his lifetime. According to the gallery, he painted about half of them in the 1930sjust before his first term as prime minister began in 1940. Some even believe that his art influenced his work.

Although painting was just a hobby, Churchill learned new skills which he used in his political and diplomatic life, saidDuncan Sandys, Churchills great-grandson, in a 2018 statement. It gave him a sanctuary during adversity and, I believe, made him more effective in 1940 as Hitler prepared to invade Britain.

Winston Churchill: Making Art, Making History is on view at Heather James Fine Art in Palm Desert, California, through December 31.

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Check Out Ten Never-Before-Seen Paintings by Winston Churchill - Smithsonian Magazine

LEXINGTON, Kentucky In between receiving her MFA and becoming an assistant professor of painting at the University of Louisville, Megan Bickel took an unusual detour for a career artist, earning an MA in Digital Studies in Language, Culture and History at the University of Chicago.

I share this information because I think knowing Bickels twin pursuits makes her work more readable, if not fully knowable.Knowledge, visual perception, and the disruption of both by new technologies are at the heart of the artists current exhibition, Orgonon, at Institute 193. Together, her 12 recent paintings all firmly ensconced in both the digital and the tactile convey a vibrant and disquieting sense of what it feels like to be alive right now: to witness a flourishing of creativity amid war and environmental destruction and to sense an uneasiness with artificial intelligence even as weve come to depend on it in our daily lives and interactions.

Bickel begins the works by digitally collaging her own photography, often selecting textural imagery, such as cloudscapes, grass, and trees, or sequined, mesh, and holographic fabrics. She reproduces the collages on canvas with an inkjet printer before mounting them on hardboard; she then intervenes with oil and acrylic paints, sometimes in thick globs and other times with an almost translucent lightness. Additional materials, such as hydraulic cement or holographic cellophane, amplify the works physicality or further confound the viewers visual perception.

In the shows titular work, a rough-edged triangle sits askew in a bed of tall green grasses. The digital image of a clouded sky fills the triangle, transforming it into a portal to another dimension, while a pixelated camouflage pattern at the bottom edge suggests an encroaching military presence or, perhaps, the potential for digital images to become corrupted into unreadable grids of color.

I had assumed Bickel had created the illusion using Photoshop, but the triangular area is actually a piece of reflective fabric that the artist had placed in the grass and then photographed. The clouds were not digital manipulations at all, but rather the sky reflected in the fabric. (The camouflage pattern appeared on the fabrics reverse.) That I was so ready to accept the image as a fake felt unsettling to me.

Bickels painterly interventions in Orgonon are minimal a line of green tracing a long blade of grass, some curves around the perimeter. But she also paints on the sides of the panel, which indicates a desire to draw the viewer back into the material realm, to remind us that this is, indeed, a physical object.

A much bolder application of paint features in I write because I cannot paint (2024), with its pronounced stripes of dark brown, tan, and green, and thick ribbons of Pepto Bismol pink dancing across a pastoral inkjet background. Small sections of yellow appear at first to be paint, but could also be fabric placed in the field. The work, with its playful abstractions floating across a photographed landscape, conjures notions of augmented reality.

Other works, however, resist such easy associations. Once I saw a war comic and the guns went budda budda budda and wham. My rifle was actually more like krang (2024) gently evokes the sea through sequined fabric that shimmers like the scales of a fish, as well as hundreds of small, iridescent pink brushstrokes that seem to move like a school in the ocean, and graceful arcs of deep green paint. But a smooth golden form and daubs of electric pink paint around the edges of the canvas prevent the work from becoming a mere oceanscape. Is the golden rock talisman or trash? Does the shocking pink represent toxic slime?

Similarly, in Fishbrain, what do you think about, when your kitchens on fire (2024), muted sequins glimmer inside an area thats been masked off to resemble a Zen-like stack of rocks. Peaceful, except that after enough time the aqueous layer of micaceous iron oxide starts to recall an oil spill slowly coating the ocean life with its slick, malevolent sheen.

According to the gallery statement, Bickels research assesses how Google Vision API [] would impact the fate of climate reporting due to current labeling production design. If a computer doesnt recognize that an image represents an effect of climate change, then is it even happening? What if our perception becomes so distorted that we no longer see the extent to which a digital hegemony is shaping our physical world? While Bickels research may attempt to answer the first question, her art responds to the second with a mesmerizing and uneasy open-endedness.

Megan Bickel: Orgonon continues at Institute 193 (193 North Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky) through July 27. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.

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Theres Something Toxic About Megan Bickels Landscapes - Hyperallergic

Since a very young age, Robert E. Bear has been interested in wildlife and nature, in what could be a case of nominative determinism, which theorizes that one's name can have an impact on their career, personality, or character. This was further reinforced by his experience exploring the woods and rivers with his cousins, who are of Native American descent, at the Lower Sioux Indian Community in Minnesota. At the age of 12, Bear took up painting, primarily focusing on wildlife, as a way to immortalize the beautiful creatures he saw.

Bear also credits his father, who was a silhouette artist, for awakening his interest in art and becoming his first art teacher. Despite his father tragically dying when Bear was eight years old, his interest in art never waned.

"I would get in trouble in school because I spent most of my time drawing instead of studying," Bear says. "Even before I graduated from high school, my mother signed me up for a correspondence course in commercial art and illustration. I completed that course before I went to the Army. After my military service, I went to college to study for a bachelor's and master's in art, then became an art teacher."

With a teaching career spanning more than three decades, most of which was spent teaching art, Bear has received multiple awards, including Who's Who In American Education (1994/95), Who's Who In America (2000), and National Honor Society Outstanding Teacher (2005).

Bear also worked as a museum exhibit specialist, and it led to him receiving a scholarship to study under Robert Bateman, who is one of the most famous wildlife painters in the world. Over the years, Bear created an impressive collection of wildlife paintings, featuring subjects such as mammals, birds, and insects in their natural habitats. The paintings range in size from 6"x9" to 52"x84". These paintings were done in a variety of mediums: oil, acrylic, gouache, and acrylic with gouache, and painted on mounted rag paper, canvas, or gessoed masonite. Most of these paintings are for sale, and Bear is open to inquiries from interested buyers.

Bear shares that he named his business Cave Bear LLC after a DNA test revealed that he had a significant amount of Neanderthal genes. Neanderthals were responsible for some of the earliest cave art, and Bear is continuing their legacy by creating depictions of nature. According to Bear, he is inspired to paint by the beauty of God's creations, so he loves spending time outdoors in nature, soaking in the scenery, and envisioning his next project. He also came up with an acronym for art, which stands for "Aesthetic Rendering of Thought".

"This definition of art applies to an extremely wide range of pursuits, such as painting, photography, cooking, music, and many more," he says. "If you can come up with an idea (thought), put it in a form (rendering) that can be appreciated in a pleasing way (aesthetic) by one or more of the five senses, then that's art."

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Robert E. Bear, Founder Of Cave Bear LLC, Showcases His Love For Nature Via Idyllic Wildlife Paintings - International Business Times

Todays toast of Pittsburgh sports is about to be immortalized in art.

Paul Skenes, the rookie who is the first Pirates pitcher in 49 years to start a Major League Baseball All-Star Game, will be the subject of a live acrylic painting by Baldwin Township artist Kait Schoeb at a July 26 prelude to the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix.

Her work during the Black Tie & Tailpipes Gala at Downtowns PPG Wintergarden is based on a photo of Skenes, who will be with his team in Arizona that evening. After its completion, the portrait will be put up for auction to benefit Grand Prix charity partners.

Originally, I was just going to do the skyline, because we wanted to have something broad to appeal to everybody, Schoeb said about the oft-captured Pittsburgh panorama.

But with Skenes performing historically significant feats on the mound for the Pirates, the gala organizing committee decided hed be an eminently suitable subject.

Then when I saw he got the All-Star game, I was like, sweet! the artist said. And then when I saw that they had him starting, I was like, oh, this is perfect. This is perfect.

As a full-time artist with her a business called Paints By Kait, Schoeb has produced portraits of plenty of prominent Pittsburgh athletes, including Sidney Crosby, Troy Polamalu, Andrew McCutchen, Hines Ward and Jaromir Jagr.

Painting people is definitely my favorite subject, and I really love realism and painting in oils, so thats kind of my bread and butter, she said.

She uses acrylics for live paintings because they allow her to finish a painting much more quickly than her preferred medium.

One of her early works in oil is of a bus driver named Kletus. Her Baldwin High School art teacher, Jane Riccardi, suggested that a photo of him would make for a good project for Schoeb to work on between 11th and 12th grades.

I didnt want to paint over my summer. Thats the last thing you want to do when youre 17 years old, she admitted. I wound up doing it, but the whole time I didnt have my teacher behind me saying, Change this. Do this. So I didnt know how people were going to react to it.

It wasnt until I came in my first day of senior year that Mrs. Riccardi almost fell off her chair.

With the portrait making such a positive impression on the teacher, She entered me into everything that she possibly could, and I wound up either winning first place or taking the entire show and getting best in show, Schoeb recalled. So thats when it hit me that I was like, oh. Im really good at this. But it still wasnt something that I thought could be a career path.

Further encouragement and recommendations came from pastel artist Linda Barnicott, best known for her paintings of Pittsburgh landmarks, including this years The Place for Smiles to help celebrate the 75th anniversary of Eatn Park.

Linda was the first person I saw who was doing artwork as an actual career and succeeding at it, Schoeb said. Ive met A-list celebrities, and thats fine. But meeting Linda, I was shaking in my boots, because Im such a huge fan of hers.

Schoeb relocated to Seattle for a while, but she returned to her hometown because of health issues within her family.

Im over the moon that Im back, over the moon in every aspect of my life, she said. Its so much better that Im here.

Through networking, she met Black Tie & Tailpipes Gala volunteer Jessie Tait, who recommended Schoeb for this years event.

And despite their subpar record for the majority of her lifetime, shes happy that her subject turned out to be a player for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Im a Buccos fan, through and through.

For more information about Paints By Kait, visit paintsbykait.com.

Harry Funk is a TribLive news editor, specifically serving as editor of the Hampton, North Allegheny, North Hills, Pine Creek and Bethel Park journals. A professional journalist since 1985, he joined TribLive in 2022. You can contact Harry at hfunk@triblive.com.

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Baldwin Township artist helps launch Vintage Grand Prix with painting of Paul Skenes - TribLIVE

Visually dense and conceptually expansive, Space Makers: Indigenous Expression and a New American Art surveys multiple movements and styles often absent from museums of American art. The exhibition foregrounds flat, organic abstraction from midcentury New York known as Indian Space Painting amid a mix of graphic works by Native American artists from the 1960s to the present, as well as 19th-century Indigenous objects from multiple regions around the country. Interpretive text emphasizes shared visual forms among nearly three dozen works across two galleries, while motifs echo through distinct media and time periods.

Groupings of objects frequently combine examples of historic Native art, New York paintings, and contemporary Native art. One grouping revolves around a 19th-century naaxein, or Chilkat robe, with columns of trapezoids and ovals that contain multitudes: eyes, nested shapes, faces, profiles of bird heads, and a bold black line that unifies the atomized composition. An undulating mount animates the textile as if it were being danced, evoking its origins and intended use in a Tlingit community in Southeast Alaska. To the right of the robe hangs a 1944 oil painting Untitled (Don Quixote) by Robert Barrell, an artist active in New York. At left is Nathan Jacksons 1963 woodblock print Kooshta, from his student years at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe. Jackson and Barrell each isolate and reposition elements of historic Northwest Coast design of the kind seen in the robe. Here, the naaxein appears as a vital source of inspiration for diverse artists working decades later in far-flung contexts.

In the late 1930s, artists such as Barrell, Steve Wheeler, and Peter Busa began to blend Picassos Cubist vision with Indigenous design principles, especially those from the Northwest Coast and Peru. These artists sought to make flat paintings without regard for figure or ground, pushing Picassos deconstructed pictorial space to a logical conclusion. In Untitled (Don Quixote), shown with the robe mentioned above, Barrell uses an energetic, sinuous line to unite an overwhelming assortment of shapes and elements from Native art, including animal profiles from the Northwest Coast, fragments of Din (Navajo) woven textiles, and ancient open-palm plaques from the Ohio River Valley.

Barrell and the others inspired a wider movement that came to be known as Indian Space Painting, in which a shared interest in flat pictorial space and Native art coalesced in a 1946 exhibition at Gallery Neuf in New York that also included Gertrude Barrer, Howard Daum, and Ruth Lewin. At the same time, a number of these artists launched Iconograph magazine, articulating a diffuse interest among New York painters in Native American art. The show includes a digital copy of the first issue.

In addition to the recognized Indian Space Painters, Space Makers includes more famous New York artists who also pursued abstraction in the 1930s and 40s. Paintings by Stuart Davis and Jackson Pollock flank a panel of text describing the Art Students League of New York, a leading art school that helped shape multiple movements in modern art. Davis taught at the League in the 1930s, and his students included Busa and Pollock, the latter here represented by a pre-drip canvas. Also included in Space Makers is a 1953 painting on paper by George Morrison, an Anishinaabe artist from Minnesota who moved to New York in the 1940s, studied at the League, and largely disavowed critical efforts to identify Indigenous themes in his East Coast abstractions.

We might expect to see 1940s-era New York painters juxtaposed with historic Native art, since New York artists enjoyed multiple opportunities to view Indigenous art, including the 1941 show Indian Art of the United States at the Museum of Modern Art. But while Pollock is often recognized as lifting his drip process from Din sandpainting, little attention has been paid to an earlier, pervasive interest in Native art among New York painters.

In that way, Space Makers helps redefine elements of modern American art, expanding the story of abstraction beyond a persistent focus on expressionist technique. And curator Christopher T. Green advances a step further by including more recent work by Indigenous artists in an exhibition that destabilizes a New Yorkcentric story. Equally critical for Space Makers is graphic work associated with the Institute of American Indian Arts. Founded in 1962, the Institute revolutionized pedagogy in Native American art by emphasizing direct experimentation with a wide range of materials and the study of global art history. This contrasted with earlier approaches through which Native art students considered only historic Native art and their lived experience as source material, and professional artistic production was tightly regulated through a series of juried competitions.

A satellite room in Space Makers presents digitally interactive materials including a relational map of the artists and themes. Nodes include IAIA, Indian Space Painters, Indigenous Visual Design, and the Art Students League of New York. Individual artists or styles branch out from nodes. A single artist, Seymour Tubis, occupies the center and connects to each node. Tubis studied at the League in the early 1940s, where he drew upon the Indian Space Painters concepts and then taught at IAIA starting in the 1960s, impart[ing] the movements abstracting design principles. While his artwork does not feature in the showa notable omissionTubis emerges as a pivotal figure in the narrative. For decades, many observers have described IAIA as the birthplace of contemporary Native art. Space Makers hints at a longer trajectory: Indian Space Painting too may be seen as a point of origin for contemporary Native art.

The Indian Space Painters sought to break through models of pictorial space rooted in figure/ground distinctions, and one institution, IAIA, radically changed the practice of Native studio art. Each movement relied on deep engagement with the formal aspects of historic Native art, and by focusing on both, Space Makers identifies a loose set of entangled histories that offer a promising method for relational art history.

But for curators and scholars today, the challenge is to tell stories that move beyond categorical thinking and disregard strong definitionsreceived or expandedof Native American or American art. Per the wall text and the shows subtitle (Indigenous Expression and a New American Art), however, Space Makers ultimately recasts narratives of American art rather than Native American art. In a fully relational and flat history, Native artists and objects would command the focus of analysis as much as their non-Native counterparts.

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Space Makers Charts the Influence of Native Art on American Abstraction - ARTnews

Of the many strengths of Southern/Modern, a daring and revisionist show about the American South at the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, the one that follows you out to your car is the alternate history of modern art it proposes.

Southern art or food or literature, for that matter has long suffered a reputation of isolation. You cant understand it. You would have to be born there, says the tortured Quentin in William Faulkners Absalom, Absalom! Ninety years later, Southern exceptionalism is over (mostly), and the areas artists and curators and chefs now go to great, overcorrective lengths to be global, to be modern. But the artists of Faulkners day they were still responding to an ancient, haunted South. Their audience was stationary, and their language local. They were regionalists. Or so the story goes.

Not here. These 100 or so paintings and prints suggest an invigorating direction that was there all along: a pungent pairing of social history with artistic experiment during the first half of the 20th century. By bringing together professional artists who worked below the Mason-Dixon Line (exempting Florida) between 1913 and 1956, and as far west as Arkansas and Missouri, Southern/Modern surveys the riches of a stylistic evolution you will find at, say, the Museum of Modern Art in New York the Impressionism that loosened up the 1900s, the Cubism of the 1910s, the Surrealism of the 20s, the modeled social realism of the 30s, the feral abstractions of the 40s and 50s as told by a region often buried in the art history books.

Among its big, engrossing canvases by astute social observers like George Biddle (the architect of the New Deals Federal Artist Project, which gave many of these artists work during the Depression) and Lamar Dodd (a founding father of art education in Georgia), we find a moving imitation of Monet by the Alabama painting teacher and leader of the Dixie Art Colony, John Kelly Fitzpatrick.

The lobes of cyan and mud-green in Fitzpatricks Negro Baptising (1930) jelly into a sunny riverbend. Two parishioners are about to be dunked. In the distance, further stripes of paint indicate hundreds of Black spectators on the bank none personalized but each a person. Around them all, a tall bridge traces the inner margins of the canvas, with the piers of the bridge at right and its guard rail running along the top. Its a framing device George Bellows and other urbans employed to remind us where we, the viewers, stand that is, outside the action. But in Fitzpatricks pastoral setting, the bridge illuminates our subject: A maligned community, in other words, will baptize wherever it must, even under the irksome wagon-clack of overhead traffic.

Curated by Martha R. Severens (formerly of the Greenville County Museum of Art in South Carolina) and Jonathan Stuhlman (of the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C.), Southern/Modern broadcasts the latest trends in the presentation of Southern art, such as youll find in the richly contextualized American sections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts or the Georgia Museums own permanent collection. In this telling, art is a global and porous affair. And far-flung provinces serve as entrepts to and from the vanguard not just detours to be represented like Nashville hot chicken in the flavor portfolio of Pringles.

Black artists and not just subjects share half the stage, for instance. Take Hale Woodruff, a Nashville resident who studied Picasso in 1920s Paris and learned muralism under Diego Rivera in Mexico. Only the Depression could have brought the painter back stateside, reluctantly, where he taught in Georgia and, on a Rosenwald grant for Black students, studied soil degradation.

In Southland (1936), one fruit of this labor, Woodruff arranges a rural hillside into a stressful, almost Cubist pyramid: at top are the ruins of an old manor house, at right a wasted shack, with dead stumps and tree trunks lying around. After centuries of enslavement, and now sharecropping, King Cotton had sucked the land dry. But Woodruff renders the actual painted earth in tones of salmon and sherbet singing, iridescent hues that negate all the death. Its a Rorschach test: do you see a wasteland, or a vibrant painterly possibility?

By the 1930s, federal initiatives like the Tennessee Valley Authority promised development in the South. For locals, the question became how much new pavement and electricity could be borne by their culture, by their maams and sirs, their gentility, their neighborly warmth. At Vanderbilt University a group of romantic-minded poets, calling themselves the Agrarians, protested the gospel of Progress in a 1930 manifesto called Ill Take My Stand. Robert Penn Warren, aged 25, wrote an essay for the book, suggesting Black people form their own agrarian state a defense of segregation he would spend the rest of his life atoning for.

Less famously, visual artists amplified this fear of advancement. See the sterilized surrealism of the Virginian painter Jewett Campbell, where skyscrapers spring from the natural environment. Or the watercolor satire of Homer Ellertson: in his suavely executed Dean House, Spartanburg, S.C. (circa 1932), a Goodyear service station has set up shop in the front yard of a plantation home. The sepia tone of this work feels retrofuturist, as if were glimpsing some coming destiny from an even later date.

More than Agrarian conservatism, though, the painters in this show echo what the historian C. Vann Woodward later called the irony of Southern history: the fact that, as America dominated the global stage from the Monroe Doctrine to World War II, the southeastern quadrant of the country persisted in a long line of self-destructive, embarrassing regressions, from a feudal regime to a secession attempt to an apartheid state.

Hatred of that history seems to have driven the Virginia-born painter Robert Gwathmey to adopt a style somewhere between primitivism and the illustrated wartime poster. In the ropy, segmented outlines and loud, flat colors of his Sunny South (1944), an angry piece of agitprop on loan from a private collection, workers hunch wearily with their sacks of cotton in an empty field. At left and right, an old plantation and a modern factory straddle the scene. It is an allegory of pre- and post-Emancipation, with little in visible difference for the working class. At center, the sons and daughters of the Confederacy gather around a statue of their departed hero, Robert E. Lee.

Every exhibition argues something by virtue of its parameters, and the dates at play here remind us that the triumph of American art the seminal Armory show of 1913 to the death of Jackson Pollock in 1956 took place alongside the rise of civil rights in modern political discourse.

In When the Klan Passes By (circa 1939), the Howard University painter James A. Porter uses dark but thin brushloads to convey, through the averted eyes of the Black family in the foreground, the private consequences of race terrorism. (If the dumpy Klan cartoons in Philip Gustons current retrospective deserve a trigger warning, Porters ice-bath of domestic fear needs a trigger embargo.) Unlike Porter, Gwathmeys allegory of race, with his setting like Monopoly houses, is an imagined, didactic one: His laborers come in all skin tones, arguing that the old plantocracy divided the classes for many years to come, dooming poor whites as well as Blacks.

This is a model exhibition: a targeted provincial study of the innovations we too often associate with Paris and New York. It will be relevant to the many Northern institutions that house these artists (several appear in the Mets current collection show on the Depression, Art for the Millions). A few blue-chip artists (Zelda Fitzgerald, Thomas Hart Benton, Jacob Lawrence) fit comfortably among fascinating lesser-knowns. Last fall in Los Angeles, I saw (and loved) a similar survey of Korean art. Now I want one on the Rust Belt, Canada, North Africa, India. What did modern mean to the rest of the world?

In January, Southern/Modern will travel to Nashville (a city whose controversial gentrification will let these pictures really talk), then to Charlotte and Memphis. But no farther north. Which is a shame, because New Yorks influence on the South was not only direct and palpable, as the exhibition persuasively argues, but also reciprocal, which the show does less to explore: At Cooper Union in the late 40s, Gwathmey taught the future Pop star Alex Katz. From his new post at New York University in the 1950s, escaping the South once again, Woodruff became a rare Abstract Expressionist of African descent. To the Big Apple, graduates of Black Mountain College, in North Carolina, returned like winged pollinators to a hive. (Representing the Black Mountain contingent here is an early jigsaw-paned composition by one graduate, Elaine de Kooning, and a geometric abstraction by her instructor Josef Albers, a German refugee from fascism.)

The loosey-goosey 1950s close the show, and though Ms. de Kooning is name-brand avant-garde, it was a new abstractionist (new to this reviewer, at least) who really grabbed me. After the war, the printmaker Caroline Durieux, neighbor to Faulkner in New Orleans, sourced isotopes from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, where the uranium was enriched to level Hiroshima. With scientists, Durieux developed radioactive inks that would stay active for 25,000 years.

One of Durieuxs electron prints, Carnival, Circus, or Green Abstraction (1956), a beguiling centrifugal arrangement of ripples and flakes in hot primary colors, toured Berlin, India and Pakistan in a group show called The Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. If that exhibition was some big act of Cold War propaganda, I dont care. It came as welcome relief, after our summer of Oppenheimer, to find such invention and such buoyancy in yet another Southern darkness.

Southern/Modern

Through Dec. 10, Georgia Museum of Art, 90 Carlton Street, Athens, Ga., (706) 542-4662; georgiamuseum.org. The show will travel to the Frist Art Museum (Jan. 26, 2024, through April 28), 919 Broadway, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 244-3340; fristartmuseum.org.

Original post:

'Southern/Modern': Rediscovering the Radical Art Below the Mason-Dixon Line - The New York Times

Ferrisburgh, a kestrel at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, has begun painting for mental enrichment after losing his ability to fly. Anna Morris

An American Kestrel named Ferrisburgh has found a new calling as an artist after an unexpected wing injury took away his ability to fly. The falcon led his first art class this fall at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS), a nature center and wildlife rehabilitation facility in Quechee, Vermont, where he is now an educational ambassador.

In exchange for a tasty mealworm snack, the bird ran across canvases with his feet covered in nontoxic paint, creating colorful tracks behind him as visitors watched. Meanwhile, wildlife educators told Ferrisburghs story to participants and shared what members of the public can do to help falcons in the wild, reports USA Todays Camille Fine.

The painting kestrel found his way into human care about four years ago, after he landed on the head of a man walking outside near his home in Ferrisburgh, Vermont. The bird was loudly chattering, perhaps in search of food.

After this incident, the man brought the raptor to a local rehabilitator, who concluded the kestrel had likely imprinted on humans. This means that as a young bird, he bonded to people rather than to his own species. The condition prevents him from ever being released into the wild, so the rehabilitator wanted to place him with an educational organization. Ferrisburgh, named for the location where he was found, was transferred to VINS in the fall of 2019.

We dont really know a lot about his early life, but we can assume from his friendly behavior toward humans that he was raised by humans from a young age, Anna Morris, director of on-site and outreach programs at VINS, tells Smithsonian magazine. This is, of course, illegal in the United States. You cant just take a wild bird as a pet.

Roughly the size and shape of a mourning dove, American kestrels (Falco sparverius) are the smallest and most colorfulfalcon species in North America. The little birds have reddish-brown backs and tails, blue-gray heads (in the case of the males) and pale bellies with black spots. Two dark patches on the back of a kestrels head, known as ocelli (or little eyes in Latin), may help ward off predators or protect them from songbirds, which might defend their nests by dive-bombing, ormobbing,raptors.

At VINS, rescued kestrels and other raptors serve as bird ambassadors that help teach members of the public about their ecology and the plights they face in the wild. Ferrisburgh became one of these ambassadors years ago, but this summer, his career in education took a turn. In June, keepers found him on the ground in his enclosure with a fractured wing, reports the Washington Posts Cathy Free. They still dont know what caused the injury.

Ferrisburghs accident took away his ability to fly during educational demonstrations. Still, the institute staff wanted to keep him engaged after he healed, so they began thinking creatively about new activities for the bird.

While working at a different facility as a teen, VINS environmental educator Malerie Muratori trained a crow to paint by holding a paintbrush in its beak. (They aptly named the bird Vincent van Crow.) And another VINS educator, AmeriCorps member Lexie Smith, had also previously worked with birds that created art with paint and a canvas.

With these other avian artists in mind, the team wondered whether Ferrisburgh would be interested in painting. So, in an airy part of the VINS building, they spread out newspaper and some nontoxic paint, per the Post. Using hand signals the kestrel already knew, the team taught him to run through the paint in exchange for a snack. Ferrisburgh seemed to enjoy the experiencethough Muratori and Morris admit he probably doesnt recognize that hes creating artwork. Mostly, they say, hes focused on the food.

He does have one of his little paintings up behind him in his living space so he can see the art hes created. I just dont think he understands the implications of it, Muratori says, laughing, to Smithsonian magazine. Hes certainly unaware that hes an international superstar.

Because captive animals dont face the same challenges as their wild counterpartssuch as escaping from predators, working for their food or having many sensory inputs from a changing environmenttrainers need to create physical and mental experiences that keep them engaged, Allison Martin, the director of Kennesaw State Universitys applied animal behavior lab, tells Smithsonian magazine. Art, she says, can be a good enrichment activity, even though its not necessarily a natural behavior.

Zoos across the United States have painting enrichment available for a variety of animals, including sea lions, elephants, giraffes and macaws.

Its a nice cognitive challenge for them to learn a new behavior, Martin says. Theyre not going to encounter paint in their natural environment, but it is something that is stimulating, or could be, at least.

But she says those working with animals should be mindful of the creatures needs and make sure theyre doing the activity correctly. Like Ferrisburgh, animals creating art should have a choice in whether they participate, she adds. Trainers should use positive reinforcement, such as rewards with a special treat, rather than aversive methods. They also should use nontoxic paint to keep the animals safe and monitor them closely for signs of stress.

Morris says the institute offers daily enrichment activities for all the ambassador birds. But the VINS team thought members of the public would enjoy seeing Ferrisburghs enrichment, too, so they held a family program called Coloring with Kestrels in September. Participants could watch Ferrisburgh paint while creating artwork alongside him and learning about the natural history of the species.

Communicating science to people isnt always an easy task, but art kind of speaks to everybody in its own way, Muratori says. People are there. Theyre getting creative. Theyre opening up those neurological pathways in their brains, and theyre also seeing a very adorable little kestrel also making art. And theyre becoming endeared to him, while also learning about his species and how this species right now is in decline.

While kestrels are the most common of all falcons in North America, they are disappearing. The continent has lost an estimated two million kestrels since 1970or about half the total population, asChris McClure, executive vice president of science and conservation at The Peregrine Fund, tells Audubon magazines Jillian Mock. In the northeast, the birds have fared worse: There, kestrel numbers have dropped about 80 percent in the past 50 years, Muratori says.

Researchers arent sure exactly whats behind the population decline, though some suspect its a combination of factors, including habitat loss and a drop in their insect food sources due to climate change and pesticides. Muratori says programs like Coloring with Kestrels give the institution an opportunity to talk to people about conservation actions they can take, such as building nesting boxes for the birds and not using pesticides on their properties.

In the future, VINS plans to hold a painting event twice a year, says Morris. And Muratori is already eyeing a resident raven that could prove to be a willing artist after he completes his educational ambassador training.

The role of the birds here, as educators, is building connections and empathy motivating people to make little changes in how they live their lives that have huge beneficial impacts on the natural world, Morris says. Thats what were all about.

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Meet Ferrisburgh, a Rescued Kestrel Who Started Painting After a ... - Smithsonian Magazine

by Len Lear

If you were walking down Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill recently, you just might have seen Trevor Wade Thomas and his easel-holding tripod, painting a distinctive picturesque local scene. It would be just one of the 100 local scenes he is in the process of painting, most of which are completed.

I just always liked coming to Chestnut Hill, and I am a glutton for old houses, explained the Erdenheim resident. When I am painting, people stop and ask questions. Some of them think I'm a survey worker. There is a genuine cultural interest in Philadelphia people.

In Colorado, where Thomas previously lived, he said the identity is rooted in the mountains. Here, there is a real interest in the community.

People will say, 'Did you check out this building? Did you check out that location?' The community really has a lot of fervor. Some people will ask if they can buy the painting. Of course, the answer is 'yes.' All of them are 6 inch by 8 inch oils. My favorites are churches, Valley Green Inn, Bredenbeck's, the Water Tower and views looking down the street and seeing what the outcroppings are. These things make Chestnut Hill such a cool neighborhood.

Thomas was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1987. He knew at age 5 or 6, in the first grade, that he enjoyed drawing. My teacher at the time said I had a real talent for it, he recalled. By the 10th grade I was hooked on it. My mom's maternal grandmother was a colorist. Dad was a home remodeler. His dad did mechanical drawing for Goodyear. Dad always had an artist's eye, so I got 'drawn' in and continued to study art.

Thomas earned a bachelors degree, magna cum laude, with an emphasis in studio art from Colorado College in 2010. During his undergraduate studies, he had the opportunity to study in Europe and work with various visual art media. After graduation, Thomas apprenticed for Eric James Bransby, a celebrated muralist.

He worked as Bransby's principal assistant on a mural for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and learned the traditions of egg tempera, buon fresco and traditional mural painting from Bransby, who had studied under Thomas Hart Benton, who initiated the American mural movement of the 1930s. Since then, Thomas has created two murals of his own, including an altarpiece for the Church of St. Uriel in Sea Girt, N.J.

Thomas then came to Philadelphia to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). I wanted to come east and had never been to Philadelphia, Thomas said. The city and school felt right, and I did make the right decision. The history of PAFA is trying to experience the world through painting.

In 2015, Thomas earned an MFA from PAFA. During his studies, Thomas developed a strong devotion to figuration and anatomy, which remains a central topic in his visual explorations and teachings.

The artist, whose wife, Kim (Malora) Thomas, is a child therapist and Erdenheim native, has taught art at Cabrini College in Radnor and in Colorado. In my heart of hearts, I am an academic, he said, but now I am painting the Chestnut Hill scenes three days a week ... I see the world through shape and light. I grew up a home remodeler's son, so I have a puzzle-like process.

Like many European immigrants, Thomas great-grandfather Augustino DiTomasso, changed his name at Ellis Island. He became Gus Thomas. He was a ceramic tile painter who immigrated here by himself on a boat in 1913 at age 11. I did foreign studies in the town of Bugnara in Abruzzo, where my family came from, Thomas said. I was taken to the oldest man in town, 89. His last name was also DiTomasso. A man took me down a hill and said, 'This is your great-grandfather's brother's house.' That was 2008. A lady who was my grandfather's first cousin said she could see the family resemblance in my face.

Currently, Thomas teaches foundations about materials and techniques both privately and at local institutions. He consistently publishes artistic and educational content on his YouTube channel, the Oil and Earth Studio. His work has been showcased and collected in the U.S. and Europe, and he regularly exhibits his work.

For more information, visit oilandearthstudio.com. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com

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New to the NW, he's painting 100 Chestnut Hill scenes - Chestnut Hill Local

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Face painting is a delightful, all-ages activity that demands the best supplies to create beautiful designs. In this article, we explore the most popular and effective face painting supplies available today. These supplies come in several forms, including paints, brushes, stencils, and sponges. To determine the top-ranking face painting supplies, we analyzed various critical criteria, such as the quality of the paint, variety of colors available, durability of brushes, and ease of application. Our top-rated supplies are perfect for a range of events, including birthday parties, festivals, and professional events. With our researched and tested products, you can achieve stunning designs that are safe, vibrant, and long-lasting.

Custom Body Art 8-oz Royal Blue Water Based Airbrush Body Art & Face Paint 8-Ounce Royal Blue is a high-quality paint that is perfect for creating stunning body art designs. This water-based paint is easy to apply and dries quickly, ensuring your designs stay put for hours. The 8-ounce size is perfect for creating multiple designs, and the royal blue color is bold and vibrant. Whether you're a professional artist or a beginner, this paint is perfect for creating beautiful body art for any occasion.

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Custom Body Art 1oz 8 Color Secondary Airbrush Water Based Face and Body Paint Set is the perfect choice for anyone looking to create stunning body art. These water-based paints are easy to use and provide a smooth, even finish for a flawless look. The set includes eight vibrant colors that can be mixed to create endless possibilities. Whether you're a professional artist or just starting out, this set is ideal for creating eye-catching designs on both the face and body. Plus, the 1oz bottles are the perfect size for on-the-go use. Don't settle for less when it comes to your body art choose Custom Body Art for a professional-quality finish every time.

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The Paint Brushes Set is a must-have for any artist, whether you're a professional or just starting out. With 20 brushes included, you'll have a brush for every need when it comes to acrylic, oil, and watercolor painting. These brushes are perfect for any project, from painting on canvas to creating body art. The ergonomic handles provide a comfortable grip, making it easy to create detailed and precise strokes. The bristles are made of high-quality material, ensuring that they will last for a long time. This set is an excellent value for the price and is perfect for kids and adults alike who enjoy drawing and painting.

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Blue Squid Face Paint Crayons are perfect for kids who love to express themselves through art. With 36 XL makeup crayons in both metallic and classic colors, these crayons are perfect for any occasion, whether it's a birthday party or Halloween. They are safe for sensitive skin and easy to use, making them ideal for parents and children alike. These face paint crayons are a great way to encourage creativity and imagination in kids, and they are sure to provide hours of fun.

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36 colors, safe for sensitive skin, easy to apply

The ESRICH Acrylic Paint Brushes Set includes 80 brushes with nylon brush heads that are suitable for various types of painting, including acrylic, oil, and watercolor. These brushes are versatile and can be used for painting on different surfaces such as rocks, bodies, faces, nails, and more. They are perfect for artists of all levels, including kids and adults. The set comes in a convenient package, making it easy to organize and transport. Get ready to create stunning works of art with this set, which is the perfect gift for any art lover.

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UCANBE Face Body Paint Set-Athena Painting Palette is a versatile and high-quality set that is perfect for Halloween, cosplay, parties, SFX, and stage makeup. The set includes 10 professional artist brushes and a large deep pan, providing ample space for mixing and creating. The paint is easy to apply and dries quickly, with vivid and long-lasting colors that won't fade or smudge. The set is made with safe and non-toxic materials, making it suitable for all skin types. Whether you're a professional artist or a beginner, this set is an excellent choice for all your face and body painting needs.

Rated 8.2 based on 10

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10 professional artist brushes, large deep pan for ample paint, ideal for Halloween and cosplay

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may require multiple layers

The Face Painting Kit for Kids Party is a must-have for any parent looking to entertain their children. With 20 water-based, non-toxic, and sensitive skin paints, 3 glitters, 2 hair chalks, combs, 3 paint brushes, 40 stencils, and 2 tattoo sheets, this kit provides endless creativity and fun. The paints are easy to apply and remove, making it perfect for kids' parties or playtime. Parents can rest assured that their children will be safe while having a blast with this kit.

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The 42PCS Face and Body Paint Crayons set is the perfect addition to any party or festival. These safe and non-toxic crayons come in a variety of colors, including 14 metallic shades, making them ideal for birthday parties and other special occasions. Kids and adults alike will love using these easy-to-apply crayons to create unique and colorful designs on their faces and bodies. Plus, the compact size and convenient carrying case make them easy to bring along to any event. Overall, this face painting kit is a must-have for anyone looking to add some fun and creativity to their next gathering.

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Safe and non-toxic, 42 different colors, Suitable for face and body

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The Soucolor Acrylic Paint Brushes Set includes 20 round pointed tip artist paintbrushes, perfect for acrylic painting, oil painting, watercolor painting, and more. These brushes are great for canvas boards, rocks, body painting, face painting, nail art, and ceramic crafts supplies. Made with high-quality materials, these brushes are durable and easy to clean. With a variety of sizes, this set is perfect for both beginners and professionals alike.

Rated 7.5 based on 10

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20 different brushes for variety, Suitable for various painting mediums, Multipurpose for different art forms

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The Yellow Oval 24 Pcs Face Paint Sponge Petal is a high-density face painting sponge that is perfect for both kids and adults. Made from high-quality materials, these sponges will provide you with a smooth and even application every time. Whether you are using them for art work, Halloween makeup, or body paint, these sponges are the perfect tool for the job. The yellow color is bright and cheerful, making them a fun addition to any painting session. With 24 sponges included in each pack, you'll have plenty to last you through multiple projects.

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Q: What are some essential face painting supplies?

A: The most important face painting supplies include face paint, brushes, sponges, and water. You'll also need a mirror, wipes, and a towel. Be sure to choose high-quality paint that is non-toxic and specifically made for use on the face.

Q: How do I choose the right type of face paint?

A: When selecting face paint, look for a brand that is specifically designed for use on the face and is non-toxic. You should also consider the color range, as well as the consistency of the paint. Some people prefer creamy paints, while others prefer more liquid formulas. It's also important to choose colors that are bright and vibrant.

Q: How do I clean my face painting supplies?

A: To clean your face painting supplies, start by rinsing your brushes and sponges with warm water. Then, use a mild soap or shampoo to cleanse them thoroughly. Be sure to rinse them well and squeeze out any excess water. Allow your brushes and sponges to air dry completely before using them again. You should also wipe down any other tools or surfaces with a disinfectant wipe to prevent the spread of germs.

After conducting extensive research on a variety of face painting supplies, it's safe to say that there are a multitude of options available for individuals looking to create stunning designs on their skin. From airbrush paints to face painting sponges, the variety of products available cater to both beginner and professional artists alike. It's important to consider the type of event or occasion you'll be using the supplies for, as well as your level of skill and experience when selecting the best products. Ultimately, the right face painting supplies can help bring your artistic vision to life and leave a lasting impression on those around you. So whether you're looking to create intricate designs for a Halloween party or simply experiment with body art, there's a product out there that can help you achieve your desired look.

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10 Best Face Painting Supplies for 2023 - The Jerusalem Post