I explain why I banished Old Holland from my palette in this post. Even though I rate Old Holland’s oil paint the best in my Oil Paint Reference, their prices are so absurdly high that I refuse to use them. Besides, there is plenty of reasonably-priced vendors out there, such as RGH and Blue Ridge.…
Category: Thumbs-Up-Down
materials, Reviews, Shop Talk, Thumbs-Up-Down, Uncategorized
Review: Utrecht oils
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•It’s hard for me to understand this but until this week I never used Utrecht brand oils. I’m not sure why this is. I’ve visited their shops in NYC and Cleveland and ordered plenty of other things from them. True, I was disappointed with the easel I bought from them, but that was recent and doesn’t explain…
Books, Reviews, Thumbs-Up-Down
Book review: Heorot Series vol. 1 & 2
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•Artists, Cleveland, Galleries, Reviews, Thumbs-Up-Down, Uncategorized
Quick review: Brinsley Tyrrell at Busta Gallery
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•At first sight, I was underwhelmed by Brinsley Tyrrell’s show, Ohio Lands Forever, at Busta. The large-format pieces with their electric colors and ropey splatters struck me as gimmicky and shrill. Tyrrell’s enamel on steel technique threatened to skid out of control–obsession with process has shipwrecked many artists. But after a couple of processions around…
Cleveland, Galleries, Reviews, Thumbs-Up-Down, Uncategorized
Review: Truppe Fledermaus and the Carnival at the End of the World
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•The collaborative team of Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick recently filled the Galleries at Cleveland State U. with posters, postcards, and photos from their magical world of speculative fiction and false history–Truppe Fledermaus and the Carnival at the End of the World. While Kahn and Selesnick’s magic realism reminds me of artists like Magritte, or…
Art Museums, Artists, Paintings, Reviews, Thumbs-Up-Down
Thumbs Down: Sargent; Thumbs Up: Bouguereau
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•John Singer Sargent and William-Adolphe Bouguereau are not normally considered together, yet their careers overlapped for several decades. In the ‘Undergrad’s Giant Book of Art History’ Sargent is counted among the progressives, while Bouguereau is thrown in with the anti-progressives–history’s losers (according to the Giant Book). Indeed, in many fables in the ‘Undergrad’s Giant Book of…
Bio, Reviews, Thumbs-Up-Down
Non Reviews
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•I was going to title this post ‘negative reviews’ referring to non-reviews—shows I’ve visited that did not speak to me, and so no reviews were forthcoming. Silence as a review, so to speak. But, of course, readers have no way of knowing what exhibitions I attend and pass by without comment. Visiting an exhibition without…
Artists, Cleveland, Galleries, Paintings, Reviews, Thumbs-Up-Down, Uncategorized
The 42nd Student Show at The Galleries at CSU
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•I enjoy student shows and attend them whenever I’ve a chance. While most student shows are filled with, well, student-grade work, I almost always find a gem or two. So I wasn’t disappointed when the bill of fare for this exhibition at the Galleries at Cleveland State U. proved to be bog-standard stuff, which is to say most pieces…