The Academy Blog

Whether it is making friends at cafes, seeing historical structures, visiting museums and galleries, or creating art at Mimar Sinan, the residency here in Istanbul has created a source of inspiration in me that could last a lifetime. 

Inspiration is right around the door from my studio here at the Central Academy of Fine Art. I’ve spent a good deal of time walking around the CAFA Art Museum looking at the current exhibition. I find myself amazed by the wide variety of student work displaying the best of each department here at CAFA. I hope to go back once more before heading home to New York, because it’s very inspirational to view the work of other students. This show definitely sets the bar high and gets me excited for my class’ graduation show next summer.

Our time here in Moscow has been quite a trip! It seems only a couple weeks ago that we arrived in this mysteriously orthodox city. Our days have been filled with plenty of sight-seeing. Stunning architecture, such as the “onion domed” churches, seems to lie around every corner. And centuries old palaces like the one at Kolomenskoye, where President Putin spent his childhood summers.

In addition to this amazing architecture, we’ve also been exposed to some great art at museums like the Pushkin Museum and Tetryakov Gallery, where we’ve discovered some great works of Russian art.

But with so many sights, it’s important to take a break and relax a bit like the locals. Yes, we’ve had a few drinks here in Moscow. On one evening, our hosts took us to a rooftop party with pyrotechnics, kindly celebrating American Independence Day, which happened earlier this month.

Another popular pastime in Russia is ping pong—what fun!

Contrary to popular belief, Muscovites are really very warm and friendly people.

Moscow is a very beautiful city and the people, extremely kind and welcoming. Our guides Sonia and Masha have been extraordinary, introducing us to their many friends and revealing the special places in Moscow that they love. We’re so grateful for their hospitality and for host Nikolay Koshelev for arranging our stay and studio accommodations. Spasibo!

Greetings! July has been good to us. On the 15th we had our Summer Show followed by a visit from the illustrious Margaret McCann, who whisked us off to Dresden.

A shot from the show.

The ‘Zwinger’ in Dresden is so incredibly beautiful that I was actually misty eyed, overwhelmed by the scale of its enveloping intricacy against hastening storm clouds.

Notice the white bells hanging on either side of the clock that add musical magic as well.

The city of Dresden was carefully reconstructed after a devastating firestorm in WWII, using as much as the original black-charred masonry as possible in a patchwork with new, sand-colored stone.

Back in the studio… A visitor to the Spinnerei happened to catch me at work.

Lastly, a ballpoint drawing and future print. This will be part of a folio that Vlado and Maria Ondrej are putting together. And after the prints are finished (hopefully) by this Friday, we will be leaving Leipzig for lone travels and ultimately back to NY. Hope you are all well and see you soon!

I will keep this blog rather short as I am more concerned with showcasing the work I have created over the final duration of my stay in Moscow. During this time, I spent my early mornings in the studio and my afternoons wandering the streets trying local coffee shops and absorbing the atmosphere of the city. I must confess, I also did my fair share of shopping. These 5 pieces are introspective works. After painting my colleague, I opted to express my self through self-portraiture. I decided this would be most direct.

Untitled, acrylic on watercolor paper, 24 x 36 inches, 2015

Untitled, acrylic on watercolor paper, 20 x 36 inches, 2015

Untitled, acrylic on watercolor paper, 20 x 36 inches, 2015

Untitled, acrylic on watercolor paper, 24 x 36 inches, 2015

Untitled, acrylic on watercolor paper, 24 x 36 inches, 2015

Welcome to Wangjing.

A district of Beijing, primarily inhabited by Koreans, bustles with the latest western style malls and taxis lining the streets. Situated along the north east section of the Fourth Ring of concentric circles that make up Beijing, this district is home to the Central Academy of Fine Art and is where we would be spending the next six weeks.

With the first week I aimed to suspend any judgment. I tried to feel that culture shock that I was anticipating considering it was my first time leaving my home country, to probably the most foreign place I could end up. A full twelve hour difference on the exact opposite side of the globe, but for some reason it still felt familiar. Sure all the signs were in a different language and it was unquestionably more difficult to communicate, but I felt a similar underwhelming sense when I first came to New York. For me, major metropolitan cities feel pretty homogenous, and despite some minor adjustments you never really have to leave your baseline of modern comforts.

I passed the feeling off as bleak cynicism for the time, but I was still optimistic that China had something to show me. Our amazing CAFA contemporaries that we would be sharing a studio with in order to create an exhibition had shown us a street just behind the major art store next to campus.

This was the first glimpse I had at something I hadn’t seen before anywhere in the US. This small street shared by family run stores, street food and apartments alike showed me something unexpected about Beijing. As a foreigner, you would never have found these stores, since the art store around the corner on the main road would have everything you need. It was here that I first started to think about my first painting teacher, Zhimin Guan, a native to southern China who often painted what I learned were called hutongs. I wasn’t sure at first why this was important to me, as this street certainly wasn’t a hutong, but it recalled a similar feeling and aesthetic that I gathered from his paintings.

As the second week came around I continued to carry on doing the small plein air paintings I had intended on doing before I left, still unsure what was going to drive my imagery for the exhibition. I knew I didn’t want to paint the usual subjects, based on superficial understandings of a place I would only barely scratch the surface of. I, for some reason, thought heading to the old city at the center of town would guide me toward something uniquely Chinese. So I made my way to Tiananmen Square near the Forbidden City, a place that is supposed to have historic architecture and an important place in Chinese history.

And there it was, I had just rubbed salt into the wound. Hordes of crowds, selfies as far as the eye can see, and more foreigners than I had seen in my all of my time in Beijing put together. I had accidentally walked myself into the Times Square of Beijing, a place no average citizen would go on a normal day by choice.

I turned around and little bit of my inner punk died, seeing a place that was a teenage symbol of revolution and anti-militarism turned into a shrine of tourism made me cringe. Thankfully my old teacher’s paintings kept coming back to my mind. A local I had talked to mentioned that there were hutongs near the square. I felt I needed to try and find my own version of what he saw, and luckily the guards were reasonably accommodating. They pointed me in the direction of a small area just south of Tiananmen, and what I found was a whole different world.

I found a place where there were no crowds, no taxis, and even some quiet solitude. There was no rush here, no glamour, or competition. The markets had great-looking produce and everyone seemed to know each other. Obviously I stuck out like a sore thumb, and almost got into a fight with a stray dog, but this was a place unlike what you imagine a modern city to be. This was where the culture must have really come from. Not in the fancy western façade that is being displayed to the world, but in the back alleys, hutongs and family owned shops. These are the places where people aren’t trying to become something different, and where the only important aspects of life seem to be adapting to survive and finding happiness within a community.

If there’s anything that will lead me back to china, it’s these small areas with honest working people just getting by, not the newest shopping malls.