Chelsea Gallery Tour Part I

THANK YOU all for my get well wishes! I'm anxious to de-throne the bronchitis and get back to my art-full life, so lets get started!

We took a group of our seniors on a Chelsea gallery tour as we do every year. However this trip was an exceptional one for me, some of my favorite artists were on exhibit and some new ones (at least for me) that I am so excited to introduce you all to in the next few posts.

One of my all-time favorite painters for the last five years, Mark Ryden is currently having an exhibit in the Paul Kasmin, Chelsea NY gallery, entitled The Gay 90's: Olde Tyme Art Show.

The gallery is on 293 Tenth Avenue and the show is on exhibit from April 29 to June 5, 2010.

The central theme of The Gay 90s: Old Tyme Art Show references the idealism of the 1890s while addressing the role of kitsch and nostalgia in our current culture.

Josephine, 2010, graphite on paper with watercolor washes

This will be Ryden's first significant solo show in New York since 2003, as well as his first with the gallery. In his hauntingly beautiful and masterfully executed oil paintings, Ryden creates his own contemporary mythologies whose archetypes include fairy tale creatures, historical figures, and pop cultural icons. Seamlessly juxtaposing macabre motifs like meat grinders and disembodied presidents with eye-pleasing ingénues and seductive landscapes, the artist produces a vision of society in which menace and comfort are inseparably interwoven. These labor-intensive canvasses deftly rework centuries of art history, combining the grandeur of Spanish and Italian religious painting with the decorative richness of Old Master compositions and the lush textures of French Neo-Classicism.

-Paul Kasmin Gallery

The Grinder (#95) study/drawing, 2010The Grinder (#95), 2010 "Virgin and Child" (#93), 2010 oil on canvas drawing study for the Incarnation (#100), 2009 Incarnation (#100), 2009 Incarnation (#100), 2009

-Ciao Amarettogirl