Expansion/Renovations: Future Opening
Mike Smith, Operations Manager at the Academy, shows the future opening to the new spaces at the Academy and gives a brief update about the new Library.
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A True New Englander Artist Whispers in my Ear…
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| Seth gazes out over a spectacular vista (wishing he could have hiked his easel and canvas up to the summit!) |
Seth Ruggles Hiler is an artist and arts educator from Boonton, NJ. He received a BFA from Syracuse University in 2002 and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2005. He is a portrait painter at heart, but landscape is his mistress. Grab your French easel and enjoy the ride!
Out of the Studio and into the Light
DAY ONE – New England Painting Tour
by Seth Ruggles Hiler (MFA 2005)
I traditionally am a studio painter, working from my own digital photography of people and places. My daily life-drawing and painting at the New York Academy of Art has packed my toolbox with anatomical knowledge and an understanding of light that only the naked eye can teach. The memory of such life-lessons inform my daily studio practice, but refreshing unfiltered observation makes all the difference in the world.
My last landscape series, “EarthScapes,” is comprised of several small and medium-sized oil paintings which I completed at the Vermont Studio Center and in my own NJ barn studio this winter. There is a vast difference in process between painting inside and out. Painting indoors is comfortable, temperature and lighting-controlled. Reference photos safely provide the information with which I paint. Plein-air painting is a whole other animal all together. Weathering the elements, which burn the artist’s skin and constantly topple his or her canvas, is a minor problem compared to the overwhelming panorama provided by Mother Nature. But in this frenzy comes calm and SO many more possibilities.
My instructor for the week, Jon Imber, encourages the openness forced upon us by such monumental vistas. There is no view-finder, locking our eyes into one limited composition. So this challenge excited and inspired me on my first day out. Our group of twelve unloaded our supply-packed vehicles on the side of the road, in front of a lily pond on Deer Isle. Paints laid out, turps wafting in the breeze, I pondered my composition. A tree stump in tones of pink grew at the bottom left quadrant of my 30 x 30 inch canvas and would remain there throughout the phases of the day.
The rest of the painted scene, however would be a clumsy evolution. When not satisfied with the image as a whole, I broke for lunch. Upon my return, I decided to rotate my easel 45 degrees to the right.
This is the great thing about plein-air painting, explained Jon, you can take a branch from here, a beaver dam from there, and perhaps move the split rock over a bit. Well, I followed such sage advice and continued reconstructing my composition to a point with which I would be satisfied. Ironically, I will need to finish my painting back in my studio from a combination of memory, digital snap-shots and invention. But, I would not have felt the freedom of composition and the expansive color opportunities, from which to choose if I had not exited the sliding glass doors of my studio, into the light.
PEACE AND CREATIVITY,
Seth Ruggles Hiler
www.sethruggleshiler.com
Seth Ruggles Hiler is an artist and arts educator from Boonton, NJ. He received a BFA from Syracuse University in 2002 and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2005. He is a portrait painter at heart, but landscape is his mistress. Grab your French easel and enjoy the ride!
For all of you video artists…
For more information click here.
Expansion/Renovations: Lighting
Follow our blog and see regular updates on the project! See our Flickr page for more photos.
Please click here to contribute to the project.
Aus Deutschland: Critiques
by Aliene De Souza Howell (MFA 2011)
We have been fortunate to receive an esteemed line of artists and guests during our time with LIA. Christiane Baumgartner, largescale woodcut artist, was the first to visit our studios in early July for a critique in addition to graciously taking us into and showing us around her own studio.
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| Christiane Baumgartner (second from left) speaks with Tyler Vouros (green shirt) about his art. |
Baumgartner’s impressive woodcuts, as big as 102 x 138 in. are printed manually, entirely by her own hand. Her work combines the historical technique of woodcut with the contemporary medium of video. Her subject matter is derived from her own video footage taken from cars, trains and media. This enables her the idea of motion, a central theme in her pieces.
Two members from the Mayor’s Department of Leipzig came, excited to foster international relations and extend a gracious hello from the City with free symphony tickets. Reaching from even farther lands, Nishiraj Baruah, Associate Head Editor of India’s most widely circulated newspaper with a team of support and Leipzig officials, interviewed us about our work and experiences here.
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| David Schnell contemplates Ian Cao’s new work. |
David Schnell, famed Leipzig School painter, was the most recent to call on the LIA studios. His dynamic work tows the line between abstraction and representation, painterly and precise, with perspectival explosions bursting with color. His critques were incredibly insightful and considered to suit each person’s work.
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| Schnell talks with Rabecca Signoriello about her paintings. |
His feedback was crucially timed at the end of our visit, allowing him to see our creative development here. He left us in contemplative discussion and will certainly prove advantageous for our Thesis work in September.
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| Schnell gives me (Aliene) some feedback about my work. |
With a day to process the last critique we are now in the throes of preparing price lists, titles and the like for our exhibition marking the final days in Leipzig and the pieces we’ve worked so hard creating here.
Expansion/Renovations: Studio Spaces
Mike Smith, Operations Manager at the Academy, takes us through what will be the new studio spaces on the second floor at the Academy.
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Please click here to contribute to the project.
Direct from Deutschland: The Work!
by Aliene De Souza Howell (MFA 2011)
Ian has brought a sculptural sensibility to new media and has branched out into photography and video projection. He is transforming the feeling of trepidation he had upon moving to a more fringe New York neighborhood. Always sentient to his surroundings, Ian would look people in the eye to measure their intentions. He is manifesting this into a new series by taking ultra close up photos of people’s eyes from all walks of life to see what the viewer can judge from their eyes.
Tyler is continuing two series already in progress at the Academy. His first series focuses on blown up and cropped images of dead flowers. These pieces are executed in velvety black and white charcoal challenging the ideas of macro and micro. His second series explores group portraiture and the palpable relationships between the figures themselves and theirs to the viewer.
Rabecca is also continuing with a series that found its beginnings at the Academy. She is working on large-scale multi-figure parochial nudes and small-scale paintings of buildings around Leipzig.
I am attempting something new which I have wanted to explore for some time and feel spurred on by the Leipzig school. I follow the news daily and am mournful for people across the world affected by the numerous recent natural disasters and have a strong desire to help but am bound to my own financial and professional obligations. So I am trying to convey this sense of disconnect from quotidian activities to these catastrophes.
Expansion/Renovations: Overview 3
Mike Smith, Operations Manager at the Academy, finishes up the Overview with a look into a new classroom space in our new addition.
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Please click here to contribute to the project.
Heat Busters
A Review by Maria Kozak (MFA 2011)
Summer is a great time go see art. Galleries and museums not only show work outside of their usual programming but offer the ultra cooling power of central air.
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Catherine Howe, “Proserpina (Pinks)â€
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A multitude of NYAA alumni, faculty and friends are currently on view at Danese Gallery in The Other as Animal, curated by April Gornik, and also at Sloan Fine Art in Nice to Meet You. Afterwards while in the Lower East Side, you can do a gallery crawl of Lush Life, an homage to Richard Price’s latest book. It that takes place at nine different spaces each corresponding to a chapter in the gritty New York novel. Galleries participating include Salon 94Collette Blanchard Gallery, and Lehmann Maupin
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| Luo Qiuguang, “Spring Breeze” |
In Soho, there is a group show at Eli Klein Fine Art called Do Not Disturb featuring some of China’s emerging figurative painters. Also check out The Hole, Kathy Grayson’s new venture. The former gallery director of Deitch, along with Meghan Coleman, recently opened her first show in a temporary space entitled Not Quite Open for Business, a selection of unfinished work in an unfinished space with an installation by Taylor McKimens.
Speaking of Jeffrey Deitch (see Martha Mayer Erlebacher’s “Lightning Rod” question, his first show at MOCA in LA opened last weekend and is a retrospective of works by the late Dennis Hopper. You can also see Jeffrey on the July 22 episode of “General Hospital” in a performance piece by James Franco. As for Franco, his first NYC solo show is up at the Clocktower right now and he’ll be representing the US at the American pavilion at the Venice Biennale next year.
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| Rackstraw Downes, “Cast Hall (Lawrence & Josephine C. Wilkinson Hall) N. Y. Academy of Art |
In Chelsea there is a drawing of the Academy’s Wilkinson Hall exhibition space by Rackstraw Downes in his show at Betty Cunningham. Mary Boone has a selection of David Salle’s paintings from the 80’s. A retrospective of Roy Lichtenstein’s Still Lifes is at Gagosian, who continues to mount museum quality shows. He did say he was holding out for the Louvre.
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| Charles Burchfield, “An April Mood” |
As far as actual museums go, The New Museum is hosting a block party at Sara D. Roosevelt Park on Saturday, July 24 and it will include free admission for the day. There are P.S.1 parties every Saturday if you haven’t seen the Greater New York show. The Whitney has a summer concert series on Friday nights and an amazing Charles Burchfield exhibition. For a more relaxing afternoon, enjoy the view from the roof of the Met and the bamboo installations by Doug and Mike Starn. The Picasso show is also particularly cool.