Eric Daigh

Eric Daigh

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Russell Young

(Magnificent Seven)

F.AM.E. NYC Magazine: A History of Violence

Before the art world beckoned, Russell past incarnations included celebrity photography and directing music videos. A History of Violence examines the connection this country has to violence through iconic imagery and eye popping color. I’m sure Russell’s background in photography aided in his selections of photos, which were stunning and told individual stories that help to contribute to the entire visual narrative.

Hollywood has always had a fascination with the Wild West; in fact movies depicting boisterous stories from that time help to save Hollywood and television. Shows like Wagon Training, The Rifleman and Maverick taught generations of kids about the rough frontier existence, morality and how violence is sometimes a necessary part of living. No movie sums these lessons up better than The Magnificent Seven. The movie was just as majestic as the soundtrack. To see Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and company astride their steeds, ready to save the day, all in pink plays with the ideas of masculinity, vigilantism and heroism. 

(Brando On Bike)

What makes bad boys so appealing? It is a question that has perplexed parents and their daughters since the beginning of time. Russell chose one of the ultimate bad boys to make his statement about the allure of a man who lives outside of the law, makes his own rules and still has a heart –Marlon Brando in The Wild One. Painted boldly in red, Brando in his biker gear and looking defiant as ever in dark shades shows exactly why the bad boy is so tantalizing – there is nothing more intoxicating than the idea of a man being able to protect a woman from peril and no one messes with a bad boy.

(Marilyn Crying)

Beauty, at times can be tragic, like a moon plant that dies in the face of dawn. The photo of Marilyn Monroe trying to shield her face as she suffers is the epitome of tragic, fragile beauty. This photo shows that sometimes the violence can come from within and is inflicted on ourselves.

The Dali Lama stated, “It is my belief that whereas the twentieth century has been a century of war and untold suffering, the twenty-first century should be one of peace and dialogue. As the continued advances in information technology make our world a truly global village, I believe there will come a time when war and armed conflict will be considered an outdated method of settling differences among nations.” 

Russell Young | FAME+SHAME

Marilyn Crying, 2009, 34x26 inches, screen print with diamond dust on linen (black+white series)

Russell Young photographed celebrities for more than 20 years, among them George Michael, Morrissey, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. He also directed hundreds of music videos. Looking for direction at one point, Young said, he went to Tuscany, sat on a hill and thought about what he wanted to do with his life. "At age 4, I wanted to be an artist, a clown or a space man. I've been a clown most of my life and if I own enough money I can go off into space, so I thought: Let's be an artist." He first thought he would create abstract art, but decades of looking at lights, darks, shades, negatives and silkscreen paintings of images from history and pop culture ended up shaping his style.

Young keeps his process of creating the diamond dust screen-prints secret, but revealed that his works are hand-pulled on the sister press used by Andy Warhol. "Some of the screens I used were like Warhol's old screens," he said. The diamond dust part came when he found a bag of diamond dust in his Brooklyn studio.

"We worked our magic and it worked. We don't throw the diamond dust on: Tinker Bell does it," he said. "We close the studio at night, leave it out for her, come in the morning, and there you have diamond dust paintings."

-Palm Beach Daily News, 2010

PIG PORTRAIT: Elvis, 62x48 inches, screen print on linen, atomic silver+black series

Elizabeth Taylor, 2009, 34x26 inches, screen print with diamond dust on linen

PIG PORTRAIT: Jimi Hendrix, 62x48 inches, screen print on linen, speedball silver series

Please make plans to join us on March 11th, 2010 for Russell Young's FAME+SHAME opening from 6-8pm. Show continues through 04.03.10. 

Rob Douglas | Thatch Series VI

25x32 inches, acrylic and pigment on panel 

Rob Douglas’ abstract paintings are a balance between non-representation and reality. His expressive, geometric forms, pencil marks and scratches are juxtaposed against subtle layers of earthen-toned washes. When combined, these elements create a majestic pictorial equilibrium. Expansive rhythms of rich textures and hues are inspired by the New Mexico desert and are combined with forms that evoke a more urban environment. Douglas’ paintings are a masterful expression of the harmony that exists between nature and our man-made world. 

Every inch of Douglas’ surface is saturated with intricate details obtained by his complex process of controlled dripping, hand-made tools (made of found objects in nature) and a mastery of the acrylic medium with which he combines raw pigments (imported from around the world), marble dust, chalk and charcoal. 

To learn more about this featured Aberson Exhibits artist, please contact us via e-mail. 

Elise Wagner | KJRH Channel 2 Interview

Thank you to KJRH Channel 2!

Elise Wagner | Encaustic Artist

L.A. Runway, 2009, 12x12 inches, encaustic on birch

Elipse, 2010, 8x8 inches, encaustic on birch

Air Traffic, 2010, 8x8 inches, encaustic on birch

Night Time Sparks, 2010, 8x8 inches, encaustic on birch

(shown as a vignette)

Encaustic, a time honored method of painting using molten wax, is seeing new futures. Historically, encaustic has its roots in ancient Greece but is experiencing a modern renaissance. Meaning, to burn in, encaustic is an ancient painting medium practiced by Greek artists as far back as the 5th century B.C. The oldest known pigment binder, encaustic combines molten beeswax with dry pigment and resin. Encaustic is impervious to moisture. In ancient Greece, this main preservation property of encaustic was instrumental for weatherproofing Greek warships. Pigmenting the wax also gave rise to decorating warships with iconography. After the fall of the Roman empire, encaustic fell into obscurity. Tempera, due to its ease of use and low cost to produce, became encaustic's successor. The 20th century saw a major resurgence of encaustic with the work of Jasper Johns and Diego Rivera among many others.

To inquire about availability of Elise Wagner's work, please contact us via email or by telephone: 918.740.1054. 

Adam Shaw

California Love, 66"x60", oil on canvas

Aberson Exhibits is pleased to announce our representation of Adam Shaw. 

Please find below an excerpt from Santa Fe Focus Magazine regarding Adam's work. 

CONVERGING INFLUENCES

by Hiro Miyamoto

In Adam Shaw's paintings Western tradition meets Eastern sensibilities. Adam Shaw's work combines abstract tradition with a sensibility to the present moment that is the result of an affinity for Eastern spiritual teachings. " It is no coincidence that Eastern philosophy and art came to the West at the same time that abstract painting was deconstructing the visual terrain which had characterized Western painting for centuries," says Shaw.

His paintings have lush surfaces built up over the course of 3 to 5 years or more, and a luminous tension that evokes a deep emotional response in the viewer. "I want to make paintings that are as compelling from six inches away as they are from 25 feet," says the artist , a native New Yorker who has lived in Northern California for 25 years. The work has a strong narrative component, related, perhaps, to the fact that Shaw spent many years writing and translating poetry from Greek, Latin, Russian and Italian. He also spent 15 years as a chiropractor, and working with his hands in that way has loaned itself to the sensual, textural nature of his paintings.

Tales of Brave Ulysses

Although he has a strong affinity for abstraction, in no way does he dismiss so called traditional painting. "I'm obsessed with the history of painting," he says , "and always in question as to the possibilities for the future of painting. If you're serious about your work you have to bring to it a sense of responsibility, a striving to be part of a tradition." This is nowhere more evident in his oeuvre than in his latest body of work at Patricia Carlisle. Many of the paintings are strongly evocative of landscape, of trees, of water, of fire.

Shaw's work is constantly evolving, refining and redefining itself. "It is tempting once you arrive at a style or an image in your work to stop there and spend the next 20 years making the same painting, but for me that would be an artistic death,' he says. "The work always has to be somehow ahead of me. Once a viewer can wrap his mind around a painting it dies. For a work to succeed it must always be a mystery, no matter how much time you spend with it."

Journey

These are paintings characterized by bold application of paint. The artist uses brushes, sticks, hands, rags and "anything else I can think of" to get the paint onto the canvas, The works are made on the easel, on the floor, inside the studio and outside where the paint is allowed to bake in the sun.

Despite the labor intensive process involved in making his paintings for Shaw the most crucial aspect of their construction is the state of attention which can sometimes be reached after hours in the studio. "It's a state that occurs outside of time. That's where the real magic is."

For more information regarding Adam's work, please contact us via email or by telephone (918.740.1054). 

James Minden | Paradigm Shift

Inverse, 36"x36", acrylic on canvas, $3800

Paradigm Shift

A paradigm shift denotes “a change in how a given society goes about organizing and understanding reality”. 

For several years now I have been drawn to exploring the relationships between the nonvisible levels of subatomic reality and making visual art. I am not sure how this interest began, as there have been elements in my paintings for years that I now see as part of a pattern of which I was mostly unaware. My focus has evolved over time but what surfaces right now is the notion that I am involved, in my own personal way, with trying to construct visualizations that are suggestive of, but do not actually attempt to illustrate, concepts found within quantum physics. Those include the concepts of uncertainty, complimentarily, wave-particle duality, the observer effect and non-locality. To me these are fascinating concepts, which stretch my imagination as I attempt to apply them to visual art and painting in particular. 

- James Minden, 2010

Transcend, 36"x36", acrylic on canvas, $3800

Wassily Kandinsky is reported to have said, “A scientific event cleared my way of one of the greatest impediments. This was the further division of the atom. The crumbling of the atom was to my soul like the crumbling of the whole world”.  Abstract art emerged from the paradigm shift that occurred in the early 1900’s and we are left to imagine what will emerge from the next one.

Paradigm, 33"x33", acrylic on paper, $1800

Paradigm Shift will be exhibited until February 6th, 2010.

For more information regarding James Minden, please contact us via e-mail or my telephone. 

Elise Wagner | Studio Visit

Contact us via e-mail for more information regarding Elise Wagner's work.