Monday, November 28, 2011

Moon Atlas Paintings

In truth, I did not expect to sell my hand-painted book, Moon Atlas, in the Zeitgeist show; but it sold and because there were certain things I very much wanted to retain for myself, I created some paintings as an extension of the book.

Moon Pie 18" h x 24" w mixed media on board

Moon Calendar 01 18" h x 24" w mixed media on board

Moon Calendar 02 18"h x 24"w mixed media on board

Moon Shark 24" h x 18" w mixed media on board


I Am the Orange Man 18" h x 24" w mixed media on board





Smiling Crescent Moon 24" h x 18" w mixed media on board

This Mortal Coil 18" h x 24" w mixed media on board








Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The Collage Show | Jack Fischer Gallery | San Francisco

Jack Fischer has put together a show of collage, including two of mine, Doorway and Rothko, from the series I'm currently showing at Ivan Karp's O K Harris Gallery in New York.  There are twenty-two artists in Jack's exhibition, among them, Dennis Parlante, Val Britton, Deborah Barrett, Alejandro Chavetta, John Hundt, David King, Catie O'Leary and Matt Gonzalez.

Doorway, 10" h x 6" w, mixed media collage


Rothko, 10" h x 6" w, mixed media collage


You are invited to the opening, Saturday, 26 November, 2011, 4-6pm
Jack Fischer Gallery | 49 Geary, Suite 418 | San Francisco, CA 94108








Saturday, November 12, 2011

Zeitgeist Opening | Nashville | Geography Lessons




With Susan Knowles

With Manuel Zeitlin

Lain York

With Anna Zeitlin

Collector Mancil Ezell

With Chief Curator Mark Scala of the Frist Center for the Visual Arts

With Sylvie Fortin of Art Papers
With Ellen Meyer, president of Watkins College of Art, Design and Film






Writer/artist Denise Sanabria

Friday, November 11, 2011

Opening Party | O K Harris | Identity Papers


Despite a snow storm (with lightning and thunder, no less) we had a terrific turnout for the opening at O K Harris, and we thank all who made it through the slush and cold to attend.


With gallerist Ivan Karp





















 
Writer Sophie-Anne Delhomme and writer/illustrator Jean-Philippe Delhomme
















New Yorker cover artist Jorge Colombo


Photographer Lori Barra and designer James Reyman

Illustrators Jillian Tamaki and Sam Weber


With artist Manuel Schmettau

Illustraotr Susan Hunt Yule



Illustrator Katherine Streeter


Bruce Block, artist Vivienne Flesher, and friends




Illustrator Jean-Philippe Delhomme and Peggy Roalf of DART

Designers Pamela Geismar and Pete Friederich

Designer Joseph Caserto

Designer J J Wilmoth and friend

Leslie and Satchel Harding

Sam Weber and Chris Silas Neal

Campbell Harding

With writer Pam Ivinski

George Hambrecht

Illustrator Chris Silas Neal and Jed Nebalsky


Leslie Harding and illustrator Alexa Grace

Katherine Streeter's pup

Everyone's a critic





Transformative Text by Denise Stewart-Sanabria

This is a review of my current show, lifted from Art Now Nashville:

Transformative Text

Geography Lessons at Zeitgeist Gallery

Ward Schumaker has been interpreting text into visual narrative for most of his working life. Though he started out in fine art over 40 years ago, he evolved into an internationally recognized illustrator for most of his career and is still heavily involved in the business. His illustrational style uses text as an integral part of the drawing to identify his clients and their products.  Eleven years ago, he journeyed back into his mind to create for himself.























Geography Lessons, his second exhibit at Zeitgeist Gallery, is imagery contained within, or detached from, the construct of the codex. Three artist books join nine isolated framed pages in a richly tactile and absorbing show. Schumaker’s process begins with morning meditation. The random words and streams of consciousness that evolve during these sessions – and also from his dreams – form the narratives of his various series. He seeks to be a kind of visual medium, searching to process ideas that are larger than he is. The results are confined to, but seem to expand from, the pages of his hand-bound books.

Ironically, his choice of media is mainly book paste. Wielding it like paint, and indeed often mixing it with acrylic, it is brushed and scraped on in layers that cover his surfaces like the detritus of time. The text, both stenciled and cut, joins random clippings often sourced from vintage French magazines and newspapers. French companies still make up the majority of Schumaker’s commercial clientele, and he has no shortage of media brought back from his regular trips to the country.
(note: French clients made up the majority of my illustration work in 2011, not in general.)

















In Moon Atlas, a 56-page book, Schumaker’s poetic and minimalist rendering of the awareness of planetary movement translate the concept into a mysterious science that might be confused with mythology. He has utilized magazine clippings of France’s original coverage of the American moon landing, which lends an additional disorientation to the discourse. Pages of monochromatic moon-mapping images are jarred by the intrusion of intense color, as when day follows night.























The nine framed pages reference geographic regions that are united in a general sense of remoteness. They are heavily atmospheric, and contain visual abstractions that along with the text seem to describe mood, or fleetingly remembered details of place. In The Himalayas, burnt orange smears of what could be blood or dirt are overlaid with the white of cracked, dirty ice. The Carpathians is darker, and dramatic. The faded text of its name is ominously surrounded by dark cloud forms and slashing vertical lines of pigment.























In Zaragoza, the text “Puente” (bridge) is stenciled along the top and underlined with a broad stroke of black, bringing to mind Zaragoza Puente which spans the Rio Grande and connects El Paso, Texas to Juarez, Mexico. Though it might be a bit of a literal translation on my part, the colors underlying Schumaker’s pale gray smears of pure book paste reflect the earth tones of the semi-arid geographic area. The tone of the unpigmented paste is the constant throughout Geography Lessons. It grounds the work in a solid organic base that connects to much of the source material that we are familiar with, in our pursuit of how we document geography: from old maps, plaster reliefs, low contrast interstellar satellite photographs, to the negative space of the book page.























Geography Lessons will be at Zeitgeist Gallery, 1819 21st Ave., Nashville, Tenn. from Nov. 3 through Dec. 17, 2011


Denise Stewart-Sanabria is an artist and a frequent contributor to Art Papers and Number.