Saturday, May 29, 2021

I'm BACK!

 Hello everyone! Just discovered the Google has brought back the blog I had here for several years and I am going to be posting here again! 

I posted about art and artists I've known or written about and I'm excited to be back. Watch for updates and thanks to my friends who followed my postings on Facebook and welcome, new friends for continuing to watch for my articles. I assure you all that you will see interesting articles and great photos PLUS little known facts.

Thanks again,

Your Mad About Art and Artists Friend,

Carolee Ross


Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Margaret Tsirantonakis Exhibition at Prince Street Gallery

In the Purple Studio by
Margaret Tsirantonakis
Story by Carolee Ross
In a recent statement, Margaret Tsirantonakis, whose exhibition, Recent Paintings, closes on March 23 at the Prince Street Gallery, wrote about her work:
 
"My paintings reflect both what I see around me and visual memories of what I have seen. I'm interested in the interplay between the object and its surrounding environment. Color plays a major role in my painting. I have tried to synthesize the influence of Matisse and Bonnard. I've also been inspired by the light of Chania, Crete (my birthplace) where I have made many on site intimate watercolor/gouaches.
I knew I wanted to be an artist from a young age. "

Very much like one of her influences, Margaret Tsirantonakis' work reminds viewers that her work is also "an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter - a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue," (as stated a century ago by fauve painter and master colorist, Henri Matisse).





 
Margaret Tsirantonakis
in her studio


The artist is known for her intense use of color, especially via areas built with small brushmarks and close values. Her often complex compositions—typically of sunlit interiors of rooms bathed in manipulated light, form and focus to create color-strewn scenes of everyday life. The result is both an opening up of perspective space and a bringing forward of the more coloristic background to the picture plane.
 
 
  
   Margaret Tsirantonakis, Returning from Chania, still life II., 18" x 18", 2012  
 
Tsirantonakis' works bear a well-ordered sense of space and solidity. Their authoritative evocation of color and structure give her a reputation for being a master of the contemplative.
 
The Prince Street Gallery is located at 530 West 25th Street 4th Floor,  New York, NY 10001,Phone: 646.230.0246. Hours for the closing reception are from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm.
 

PRINCE STREET GALLERY represents contemporary figurative and abstract artists.  The gallery first opened its doors on Prince Street in SoHo in 1970. Prince Street Gallery originally emerged out of the Alliance of Figurative Artists and continues to broaden from its roots.  During its founding years the gallery received encouragement from The New York State Council on the Arts in the form of grants, supporting exhibitions, and a catalogue.  In 1980, the gallery moved to Wooster Street where it remained until 2001 when it reopened at 530 West 25th Street in Chelsea.

Margaret Tsirantonakis' work has been included in numerous exhibitions throughout the Northeast. Her paintings were included in the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, MA exhibition "Off the Beaten Track: Contemporary Mindscapes" as well as in "The Elements Earth" exhibition in the Gallery of ContemporaryArt, Sacred Heart University, CT. She has had solo exhibitions at the Rich Forum's Richard & Hinda Rosenthal Gallery, Stamford, CT; the Stamford Museum, and H. Pelham Curtis Gallery in the New Canaan Library, CT. Her art has been selected for the Silvermine Guild Arts Center's :Art of the Northeast, CT"; the Stamford Museum's "New Art Annual", the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT"; "Icons of the 21st Century, LAB Gallery, NYC, and New York University's "Small Works Show", NYC. She has been awarded the "Winsor & Newton" Prize at the "Annual Faber Birren Color Show". Her work is represented in corporate and private collections in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Margaret was born in Crete, Greece. She is a graduate of the High School of Art& Design, NYC, and Parsons School of Design, NYC where she received her BFA. In 2007 she participated in the New York Studio School's "Drawing Marathon" in NYC.


 
 


Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Carolee Ross' Art Scene: Carolee Ross' Art Scene

Carolee Ross' Art Scene: Carolee Ross' Art Scene: An Important Artistic Update by Carolee Ross. Arts Writer Time and Tide by Francine Funke Although I haven't posted to this blog...

Carolee Ross' Art Scene

An Important Artistic Update
by Carolee Ross.
Arts Writer


Time and Tide
by
Francine Funke

Although I haven't posted to this blog for a while, I recently came across a painting, "Time and Tide," that renowned artist Francine Funke of Shelton, Connecticut had done for a solo exhibition in New York City at the Barbara Braathen Gallery. It is a powerful work and bespeaks of the maelstrom of turbulence that Hurricane Sandy wrought upon the NorthEastern coastal cities last week.
 
It might inspire you to reflect upon the force and power that has come with climate change -- or just feel the work visually, as the masterpiece that it is, measuring approximately seven feet by seven feet. The work belongs in a revered arts institution or in the spacious home of a knowledgeable collector. If it inspires you to donate to helping victims of Hurricane Sandy recover, then the work has served its purporse; to inspire. 
 
For further information on Francine Funke's extensive body of work, contact: http://www.franartstudio.com/Welcome.html
 
 
 
 
 





Monday, June 11, 2012

Troubled Waters: An Exhibition and Gallery Talk


Artist Anne Seelbach at Stamford’s PMW Gallery


By Carolee Ross

Troubled Waters
by
Anne Seelbach
oil on canvas, 26x26" framed
             Anne Seelbach’s new series of works, “Troubled Waters,” on exhibit at PMW Gallery, Stamford, Connecticut, are a protest against the despoiling of the environment. It’s not the typical protest art, brewed tough and bitter and aggressively obvious in the execution. Instead, Seelbach’s work whispers her message in subtle colors and textures and at first, the viewer is enchanted by the multiplicity of the venues within the works.

What is, and always has been, the function of art and artist? Perhaps art’s deepest impulses are rooted in a desire to clarify and reflect the historical space in which we exist. These artists are mirrors of their society and their times; they express the anxieties of their age in a world beset by more ills than Job could have envisioned.

The artist writes in a clarifying statement: “My work addresses the pollution that is in many of our water systems. Toxic chemicals and industrial waste contaminate streams, lakes, bays and oceans. The “Troubled Waters” paintings reflect this conflict between the laws of nature and artificial attempts to control the environment. Gaskets and other mechanical shapes are incorporated into the paintings, representing human presence and industrial waste. Debris crowds the waters. Fish mutate into imaginary forms. A change is taking place as nature reacts to this disruption.”

Troubled Waters #13
by Anne Seelbach
oil on canvas
26 x26 Framed


Inherent in the rhythmic beauty of Anne Seelbach’s piece are some interesting contradictions. Wresting textural effects from the ringed loops that not only hold six-packs of beer and soda together but choke sea creatures to death, she assigns them new life as sculptural forms, dissociating them from their original context and consecrating  them as art.


Troubled Waters #8
by
Anne Seelbach
oil on canvas,
36x40" framed




Seelbach continues: “I am interested in the tension between representation and abstraction; perspective drawing versus free-form washes and geometric shapes versus atmospheric color fields. I use these oppositions to create a tension between three-dimensional illusion and a flattening of space. Gestural brushwork and rich colors are dominant. Layered paint creates subtle colors and textures.”










The Artist’s Background

                Anne Seelbach received a BA from New York University and an MFA from Hunter College, City University of New York. She was a Painting Fellow at the Radcliffe (Bunting) Institute, Harvard University. She has developed her work at the MacDowell Colony, Triangle Artists’ Workshop, the Griffis Art Center, New London, Connecticut and I-Park, East Haddam, Connecticut. International art residencies include the Centrum Frans Masereel, Kasterlee, Belgium, Frauenmuseum, Bonn, Germany, and the Griffis-Orpheus Foundations’ artist exchange program in Sofia, Bulgaria.

              Her work is included in the permanent collections of The Newark Museum NJ, Lyman Allyn Museum CT and the Frauenmuseum, Bonn, Germany. She is also represented in many corporate collections including: Pfizer Inc., Prudential Insurance and XTO Energy as well as private collections in the United States and Europe.
Artist’s Walk and Talk

                Anne Seelbach will give an artist’s Walk and Talk Sunday, June 17 at noon at PMW Gallery, 530 Roxbury Road, Stamford, Connecticut, 06902. Call 203 322 5427. There is no fee, but it is suggested that you call ahead to confirm your attendance.
Trouble Waters series:
Cut-out #7 26.75 x 16.25 unframed, tempera on paper


                To learn more about Anne Seelbach’s artworks, visit her website at www.anneseelbach.com.


Friday, May 18, 2012

My Night with Buster Poindexter

alias ``But Ricky, I want to be in Show Business"


by Carolee Ross
Carolee Ross
Dancing onstage at 18 years of age
Originally written in 1993 and published in Times-Mirror Newspaper Syndicate


My elegant, aristocratic, Russian-born father wanted me to be a university art professor. My mother, born into a poor, conservative family, thought that either a good secretarial or an accounting course would be more practical.

Me -- well, being a child of the Hollywood musical fifties, my head was full of other dreams. I wanted to float like a feather with Fred Astaire as my partner, heat up the stage alongside Rita Moreno in ``West Side Story,'' play the timbales with salsa bandleader Tito Puente, rock along with Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane, belt out a tune with Bette Midler. I became, in due course, an adjunct art professor at Hofstra University, a manager of several art galleries, and an office temp during some particularly hard times. Ultimately, I found myself in the most interesting, exasperating, frustrating and gratifying of all professions. I became a freelance arts writer and did corporate newsletters to support my arts addiction.

There's an old expression which goes something like, ``If you wish for something hard enough, you just might get it. My dreams were fulfilled, out in ski country, last weekend, (back in February, 1993) in Snowbird, Utah, while on assignment, writing a daily newsletter for one of Fairfield County's largest corporations.

Contrary to common belief, corporate trips are non-stop grueling assignments. They do have their up side; lots of food and drink, combined with some pretty wild nighttime entertainment which is always kept a secret, up to the last minute.

Last Thursday evening, the lights dimmed in the resort's theatre and there was our evening's surprise. Straight from the bayou country of Louisiana and the streets of New York, was Buster Poindexter and his band. Buster proceeded to rock us, titillate us with his raunchy, bar room style humor, and amuse us with the mobile contortions of his marvelously silly face; somewhat of a cross between the Stone's bad boy, Mick Jagger and comedian Joe E. Lewis of ``Some Like it Hot'' fame. But wait, folks there's more.
Buster Poindexter
aka David Johannsen
courtesy, Google Photos
In the improvisational, anything-goes spirit of the evening, the band's drummer, Tony, jumped off the stage, bringing his drumsticks into the audience and cajoling a beat out of anything he could get his hands on -- bottles, glasses, tabletops, even a spare pate or two.

Along with the rest of the audience, I was caught up in the rhythm, rockin' and clappin' along with the beat, temporarily forgetting that I was in the presence of about 500 of my client's employees, including the CEO, Chairman of the Board, and several vice presidents. That's what watching Poindexter and group can do to you.

Suddenly, the spotlight was on me. Tony the drummer was grabbing my hand, leading me in a sensuous tango, whispering that I was an exceptionally good sport.

That's when I lost it. Buster and crew started playing a burlesque bump and grind and with Tony egging me on, there I was, performing to the music. Almost immediately, Buster came downstage and claimed me as his partner, leading a conga line to the tune of `Hot! Hot! Hot!' that went round the house. The last thing I remember was grabbing several upper management people and leading them in the line.

Well, Buster is coming to Stamford, Connecticut, folks. And I've been invited to be his guest at the Terrace Club this weekend. I've also had a request to do a command, repeat performance. I guess I'd better take him up on his offer. After last week's display, my writing days may soon be at an end.

Thank goodness for those secretarial courses.

Francine Funke, An American National Treasure

by Carolee Ross
This feature article is copyrighted and may not be used without express permission of the author.

Francine Funke in her former Stamford Studio
photo by Carolee Ross

In reviewing the work of artist Francine Funke, I am reminded of the words of Dr. Meyer Shapiro at Columbia University, my art history mentor, who explained the difference between a competent technical artist and an artist who is a gifted genius.

He said, "In addition to the artistic skills and creative imagination that are the foundation of the work of art, the superbly gifted artist possesses an innate intelligence combined with an endless curiosity to try to make sense of the world he or she inhabits."

Throughout the more than twenty years we’ve known one another --Francine Funke's work has never disappointed me or fallen short of that definition. Hopefully, one day soon I’ll be writing about her retrospective exhibition and inclusion in the permanent collections at NYC’s Three Greats, The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art and the Guggenheim.

For Francine Funke has a multitude of skills, whether it be the creation of fine art, her expressive writing (Her book, “ON FIRE, poem and paintings”, is in the library collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the National Museum of Women in the Arts Library, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas, and the Cleveland Museum of Art). Add to that her innate problem-solving skills and ever-present curiosity and you’ve got an artist who will be celebrated in the annals of art history.

The Beginnings

            I first met Francine Funke at a Loft Artists party in downtown Stamford, Connecticut. Petite in stature, she was dressed as a ninja, ready for battle against any nemesis. She invited me to her studio to see her newest works and because I was always on the lookout for new artists to profile, I accepted. There, large sculptural wall pieces, sketches, appointment books and plans for new work filled almost every room, including an attic workshop/studio.

            Then, I was also told an intriguing secret. Rock music was playing everywhere and the petite artist started to dance. She looked at my expression of surprise and told me, “The connection between my art and dancing is simple. When I work, I play music, usually high energy rock. When I hear rock music, I must dance to it. So, I dance while I am working. Hopefully, the energy is transferred to the canvas or whatever else I am working on. I like to do art because I like to dance.”


            As we explored her wide range of work, she recalled a childhood filled with paints and pencils, and knew instinctively that she was an artist. Her work developed in a step-by-step evolution that began with her studies at Cornell University, where she studied with famed painters, Jim Dine and Robert Rauschenberg, received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts. She later completed her M.F.A. at Hunter College, working under the auspices of another group of New York greats – Tony Smith, Ray Parker and Robert Morris.
     
Lockwood Mansion
by Francine Funke
On view were her former series of chair paintings in all sizes, shapes and varieties, a theme she had explored for ten years. When she looked at a chair, she realized it was perfect because of her predilection for folding or “pop-up” pieces. “The distance between the fold, the length of the legs and the geometric planes lent themselves to the pop-up format,” she explained.

 Eventually the chairs metamorphosed into an entry piece for Rutgers National Sculpture Competition, a Christmas exhibit at the Vanderwoude Tananbaum Gallery in New York and group exhibitions including the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield and the Bruce Museum in Greenwich. There was also the excitement of having her work displayed in Tiffany’s window, although Ms. Funke insists that doing the work is always more of a thrill than showing it. Awards were plentiful for the artist and her cacophony of chairs, including the award for sculpture at the Hudson River Museum’s 68th Annual Competition and inclusion in the Connecticut Commission on the Arts “Artists’ Showcase,” by Alan Chastick, then director of the Yale University Art Gallery.



Fireworks Explode
The Kuwaiti "Plume" Series
Part of the Fireworks Series
by Francine Funke
Photo by Carolee Ross


            With all this success, why did Francine Funke start creating fireworks?  The space at the Barbara Braathen Gallery where she was having a show was “humongous, making everything look tiny,” said Funke. “Most of the pieces were in black and white. They needed some color.” So, striations of red and orange were added in a spontaneous gesture. Combining with the vortex created by the swirling moment of the special Oriental paper she used, the color had an incendiary effect and fire was born.

            “At the same time I started to add flames to my work, things started happening,” Funke added. “The war in Kuwait, the explosions, the fun fire, inspired me to do the “Plume” series, a reaction to Hussein’s destruction of the Kuwaiti oil fields.” In the Plume works, the backgrounds became ominous, dark maroon-red as fire mushrooms against the sky. “I learned about the fingers of fire, explosions and the renewal that fire gives, the purging which creates new life and new growth,” explained Funke.

            In creating the sculptured paintings from strips of Oriental rice paper, the artist fractures and reshapes the forms into richly textured planes that overlap and intertwine against a background of velvety blacks and grays. Treating the works as abstract explorations, they become the quintessence of fire.

            Her installation, “Plumes,” traveled to the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the Scottsdale Center for the Arts in Scottsdale, Arizona, the Discovery Museum in Bridgeport and the Russell Senate Rotunda on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, where her exhibition was sponsored by Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. “The colors in these works jump off the canvas,” said the Senator. “I feel as though I am there, in the midst of destruction.”


The Lost and Found Series - Acrylic and Analine Dye on Canvas
Midnight Bouquet #2
by Francine Funke


Francine Funke writes:

“These works deal with the emptiness left by fire and destruction
and the process of rebirth that inevitably follows.
Emerging from the ashes, the loss, and the despair,
the human spirit must find nature and beauty in order to survive
In the Lost and Found Series, as in nature,
botanical forms are the first to emerge from obscurity.

These paintings are symbols of the persistence of life in its most elemental form

in a world sometimes filled with tragedy and darkness.”

       The name Lost and Found came from the process involved in the creation of the artwork.

       Writes Funke in her Lost and Found artist’s statement: “I laid down many colors on the canvas, and then covered the entire canvas with an overlay of deep sepia color. Then I used a solvent to remove that wash and reveal the color underneath. I removed the color, thinking of a botanical motif. It was a rather child-like process, as, when we were kids, we put down scribbles of colored crayons, then covered the whole thing with black crayon--and then used a pencil to draw. The multi-colored lines underneath were always a surprise. I wanted a very old world deep feeling--like a Rembrandt painting.

Solar Bouquet
by Francine Funke






















The Mechanical Botanical Series

Fran says, “After the Epiphany--the flood gates opened wide! I started taking photographs and scans of every flower, weed, branch, leaf that I could find. These botanical ingredients were the "raw materials" for composing my mutated bouquets. Because I was manipulating everything on the computer (flipping, turning elongating, duplicating) -- whatever I envisioned in my mind, I could create immediately on the computer screen, at record speed. It was instant gratification!



         Sometimes, I did not even know the exact progression of the work, or remember what I actually did-- because it was going so fast.

         And, with every click of my mouse, I was amazed at the intricacies and other worldliness of the fruits of my labor.


        I was on a wild visual, kaleidoscopic ride in which the combinations and manipulations

of my new creations were limited only by the limits of my imagination





Artist’s Statement about the Mechanical Botanical Series

By Francine Funke

The Flower of Notre Dame
by Francine Funke
        The “Mechanical Botanical” Series, deals with the effects of Technology on Nature. This new work combines photography, traditional subject matter, digital technology, and my personal artistic vision.

        The Mechanical Botanical Series builds upon my recent interest in the persistence and rejuvenation of plant life. All aspects of existence on earth are inter-dependent, and continually developing, changing, and mutating. Based on that premise, how will advances in modern science alter organic forms? And how will that phenomenon ultimately be manifested?

        As an artist, all my skills and experiences ultimately influence my artwork—and in this case, it was my knowledge of photography and the computer that led me on an exciting journey of transforming beautiful botanical forms into a “weird science” composed of strangely exquisite “techno-mutations”.

        The discovery of the “Mechanical Botanical” Series was an epiphany, and the process of creating this work is intensely cerebral. In my mind, I can manipulate and alter form and shape—and the computer will magically render it visually. My collaboration with the camera and the computer never fails to surprise and amaze me in some way—and I am perpetually learning from the results of our efforts.

        In the end, the “Mechanical Botanical” Series hopefully provides the viewer with a new and startling way of looking at the world we now inhabit—and perhaps even a glimpse into the hybrid universe of tomorrow.
Francine Funke's Mechanical Botanical #3 will appear at The Creative Arts Workshop, 80 Audubon Street, New Haven, CT 06510,  (203) 562-4927 creativeartsworkshop.org  - opening tonight, May 18, 2012 and runs through June 22:  Boundless: New Works in Contemporary Printmaking,  A National Exhibition with Juror Anne Coffin  ,
Opening Reception: Friday, May 18, 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Free and open to the public