photos by Boyd Ogle II

Galeria Álvaro Alcázar (Madrid) showed work by Juan Garaizabal at Expo Chicago 2016. Garaizabal is a Spanish artist whose work is often monumental in scale. Some of these pieces are small scale versions of a soon to be erected large scale piece, Havana's Balcony.

The two Havana's Balcony pieces here are steel mounted on concrete. Pattern Vase Des Tuileries IV is steel on wood and concrete.

During Miami's Art Week Garaizabal will unveil a 69 foot high version of Havana Balcony in Museum Park (Miami). A second, corresponding, structure will be erected in the Malecón of Havana in 2017. The two structures will face each other. The Miami structure will be lit by the throwing of a switch in Cuba.

Keep an eye out for more on this project and Garaizabal soon.

 Herphotos by Boyd Ogle II

The Hole (New York) showed work by Vanessa Prager at Expo Chicago 2016. Prager lives and works in Los Angeles. Her work was the only art shown at Expo by The Hole.

These expressive pieces use lots of paint but their depth comes from the color as much as the volume of paint. These pieces seem alive, the roil on the canvas (in different ways with these two pieces). Both Lost Inside and Double are oil on canvas. You can find out more at www.vprager.com.

photos by Boyd Ogle II

Gallery MOMO (Johannesburg/Cape Town) showed work by Florine Demosthene at Expo Chicago 2016.

Demosthene is an  American artist born in New York and raised in New York City and Port Au Prince. She lives and works between New York, Accra and Johannesburg.

Her work is also difficult to translate into photographs! These pieces are both ink, charcoal and oil bar on canvas. And you might at first glance think them pure abstraction but look close and you will see figures and more figures in these complicated cerebral pieces. You can find out, and see, more at florinedemosthene.com.

photos by Boyd Ogle II

Diane Rosenstein Gallery (Los Angeles) showed work by Aaron Fowler at Expo Chicago 2016.

Fowler, a native of St. Louis, now lives and works in Harlem.

These pieces were created using white wooden doors, canvas and acrylic. The middle piece also includes aluminum cans, screws and latex paint. These are large scale mixed media pieces

Fowler is a graduate of Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

photo by Boyd Ogle II

Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe (New York) showed this piece, Dominion, by Bo Bartlett at Expo Chicago 2016. It is a remarkable piece.

It flirts with hyper-realism but when you look at the iceberg or the sea it doesn't seem quite so realistic as surrealistic. It reminds of a claymation film or a dream. Then there is the bear. It has an almost human look on its face, a look of supernatural seeming defiance.

Bartlett was educated at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. You can find out more at www.bobartlett.com.

photos by Boyd Ogle II

Cernuda Arte (Coral Gables) showed new work by Cuban Artist Dayron Gonzalez at Expo Chicago 2016. Gonzalez' work has appeared here on many other occasions.  His work has changed over the several years we've been aware of it.

Keep an eye for more when we cover Art Week in Miami.

 photos by Boyd Ogle II

Richard Norton Gallery (Chicago) showed work by Harold Hayden, Eugene Dana, Francis Chapin and Macena Barton at Expo Chicago 2016. The gallery often show artists with connections to Chicago. These are no exception.

Haydon, originally from Canada, moved to Chicago with his family as a youngster.  He attended the University of Chicago and eventually received a MA in philosophy. He also took courses at the School of the Art Institute. He wound up a teacher for George Williams College, University of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute. More famously, he was the art critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1975 to 1981.

Dana was also a teacher. His long career saw him with visiting positions at Drake University, Brooklyn College, Pratt Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University.  His positions of longest duration were in Illinois at Illinois Institute of Technology (947-1963) and University of Illinois at Chicago (1966-1985). His work shows his background in design.

Along with his friend/colleague, Glenn Allen, Dana established the Dana-Allen Dissertation Fellowship in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Dana's estate benefits the university.

Chapin, born in Ohio, graduated from Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania and after attended the School of the Art Institute. He also taught for the school and exhibited there over 30 times. Barton was a Michigan native who moved to Chicago at the age of 20 to attend the School of the Art Institute. She graduated and did a year of post grad work, collecting awards along the way.

Like most artists she wound up getting a day job--she was a proofreader for RR Donnelly. Like many women artists of the era she sometimes wasn't taken seriously but she, apparently, wasn't having that (click the link above).

photos by Boyd Ogle II

Hackett/Mill (San Francisco) showed work by David Beck and Jess (Collins) at Expo Chicago 2016. 

Beck is a mixed media artist whose work often included meticulous carvings and intricate surface detail. His work borrows from cabinet makers as much as from fine artists. The elephant here uses four different types of wood, gouache and brass. This piece has definite whimsy. 

Lest you think his use of these exotic woods is environmentally unsound Beck uses found materials in his work. Not all his work is small in scale. His 2006 piece, MVSEVM, was featured at the reopening of the Smithshonian American Museum of Art. The piece is a five foot by five foot sculpture that has small painted portraits, drawers for little artifacts, cabinets showing curiosities and odds and ends dangling from the ceiling.

Collins studied science and was drafted into the army and worked on the Manhattan Project. This inside look at the potential for devastation had an effect on the young man. He had a premonition of impending nuclear war, quit his job and became a full time artist. He studied at the California School of Fine Arts (later the San Francisco Art Institute).

Petals of Paint is an amalgamation of figurative painting and abstract expressionism. We see these are flowers but they are not a direct representation of any flowers of the real world. This piece is based on a haiku by an 18th century Japanese poet.

photos by Boyd Ogle II

McCormick Gallery (Chicago) and Vallarino Fine Art (New York) showed work by Jack Tworkov and Perle Fine at Expo Chicago 2016.

Tworkov, a founding member of the New York School. He was born in Poland and came to the United States at the age of 13. He was, and is, an important part of the Abstract Expressionist movement. He apparently initially wanted to be a writer, and indeed studied English at Columbia University, but was inspired by the work of Impressionist artists and turned to painting. You can find a great deal more out at jacktworkov.com.

Fine is another important Abstract Expressionist painter. As a woman she had a higher bar--actually an insurmountable bar--to be considered, in her time, as an equal to male painters. She studied at the Art Students League and joined Hans Hoffman's school. It was a rare thing for a major museum to promote a woman artist but the Guggenheim did so for Fine. She was sponsored by Willem de Kooning and accepted as one of the first women to be a member of the 8th Street Club (Tworkov was also a member). You can find out more about her at perlefine.com.