Portraits … shopping carts … portraits. Hm, strangely, an incredibly beautiful combination! Yep, it’s more work from the show at The Fig House:

Oh. I absolutely love these portraits by Bay Area printmaker Ellen Heck. They’re from a series called Forty Fridas… and yes, the other thirty-eight are just as fantastic! A quick break from portraits so that we can see these collage/mixed media shopping carts:

You should see these in person. Stunning!!! They’re the large-scale mixed media work of San Francisco based artist Amy Wilson Faville. I wrote about these two years ago, but seeing them in person – I almost cried a tiny bit. Ok… AND we’re back to portraits:

The only NOT California based artist in the whole show, although she is on the West coast of Canada, Vancouver’s Zoe Pawlak. You might recognize that last shot because we used it as the invite to the opening party. That aqua wall, that pink couch, and Zoe’s lovely lady with a bird on her head… magic! Ok, one more day of sneak peeks to come tomorrow, and then it’s time to party! *Again, all of this work will be for sale at The Fig House – and this is just a snippet of the work, just to tease you!

Ok, another day and a few more artists whose work is hanging at The Fig House for Thursday’s opening! These are the abstract pieces in the group. First Up… the tangly drawings, and bold paintings of San Diego based artist Jaime Derringer:

Love, love, love! Next – colorful canvases covered in bold shapes and striking colors. The work of LA painter, Emily Rickard:

Ah, a lovely compliment to the dark teal walls! And finally, these abstracts are not drawings or paintings. Nope, they’re the colorful, flowing, thread pieces of LA based artist Nike Schroeder:

That first piece is actually an instagram that Emily Henderson took after Nike’s work was installed. GORGEOUS. Ok, three more of our Fig artists coming at you early tomorrow morning {and then I board the plane for LA!!!}

*Note: Not all of the pieces shown here are hanging at Fig… some of them were created especially for the space and haven’t been photographed by the artist yet. Oooh, fresh art!

So, after months of construction, a whole bunch of insanely beautiful interior design/styling by Emily Henderson, and some art curation by me, I’m finally off to LA this week for the opening of The Fig House {my fancy shoes are already packed!} Here are two of the artists whose work is hanging on the turquoise walls as we speak: American artists Kai Samuels Davis, and Clare Elsaesser. They are both such talented painters… oh, and they just happened to be married to eachother!

So good! I’ll be showing the work of all ten artists for the rest of the week, leading up to the opening on Thursday – if I’m not too partied out I’ll put up a recap/instagram post on Friday!

I feel sad. It’s amazing that a few simple brushstrokes, and a bunch of brilliant color choices can evoke so much emotion. These are the gorgeous portraits of American artist Tyler D. Graffam. He is currently in the third year of his BFA. Wait… what?! Yep, he’s still a student. Well, I for one cannot wait to see what the future holds for him. Good luck, Tyler… although I don’t think you’ll need it.

Sigh…so many rosy cheeks… I’m feeling a little flushed myself!

This is the third time that I’ve written about Toronto based artist Kris Knight. His work is just so hauntingly beautiful that I literally cannot help myself. When I saw this body of work, titled Secrets Are Things We Grow, I was blown away. His color choices are stunning, and his subjects are so, so beautifully painted… and those delicate florals… gorgeous! Here is the description of this series:

With “Secrets Are The Things We Grow” Canadian artist Kris Knight paints a cast of characters who consciously conceal aspects of themselves from those around them. They hide truths of who they are, where they come from and whom they love. They fear shame, rejection, gossip and embarrassment. They whisper stories but never want the story to be about them. Secrets have roots, they have currency, they accumulate and grow with time; some are short lived, while others haunt generations. Knight’s character’s front, they put on airs, and they pass; some bluff while others reveal their confessions without saying a word.

This is the gorgeous work of LA based artist Dave Muller. The paintings shown here are my favorite pieces {acrylic on paper} from his show “Death Disco”, that was exhibited at The Approach in London last winter. I honestly don’t know what I love most… the drums, the stacks of CDs, the disco ball… or maybe it’s the amazing combination of images, not to mention the scale of it all! Ok. It’s the disco ball. So, that covers the “Disco” part of “Death Disco”… here’s where the “Death” comes in:

“Death Disco expands upon several familiar and more recent threads of the artist’s musically obsessed and multivalent art practice, namely death and celebration. Muller addresses feelings of loss and excess, reveling in a sort of joyful morbidity. Through depictions of personal yet emblematic objects, from unoccupied drum sets and stacks of CDs by famous musicians (recently deceased) to his own family photographs, Muller commemorates subjects who are conspicuous in their absence. Though social at his core, Muller avoids direct portrayal of people, choosing instead to direct our attention to the objects and ephemera left in their wake. Tracing elements of humanity through the unique stamp we each leave on the material world, he constructs an intricate multi-faceted portrait of both individuals and society as whole.”

{via Artsy Forager on Pinterest}

Houses, and wooden chairs, being taken over by geometric, glass-like crystal formations? I’m in. These are the watercolor drawings of Los Carpinteros, a collective {Marco Antonio Castillo Valdés and Dagoberto Rodriguez Sanchez} that live and work between Madrid and Havana. Their portfolio is full, and I mean FULL of fantastic things! In fact, I found them on Booooooom yesterday, through an entirely different body of work. Naturally, I popped over to their site for a closer look… and found piece after piece after piece after piece that I LOVED! Of course, what with my soft-spot for houses, this was the work that I had to show.

{via Booooooom}

Ahhh! I can almost feel the warm, sweet, tropical breezes wafting over me {ok, that might be the space heater blowing from under my desk, but a girl can dream}. These are the strange and magical landscapes of South African artist Kirsten Sims. I am completely enamored with all of the lush plants, not to mention the sweet little houses & tents… but what truly takes my breath away… the skies. Oh, the night-time skies! Gorgeous.

Whoa. That’s acrylic paint on linen. A lot of acrylic paint on linen! I think anyone who has ever used acrylic knows, and loves, that feeling when the paint on your palette dries into lumps, blobs, and waves that you can peel off in plastic-ish chunks… well, Spanish artist {Berlin-based} Yago Hortal took that to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL! I don’t actually know how he made these, but I do know that I want to touch them. A lot.

{via ARTNAU}

Happy Halloween! Granted, these paintings by Netherlands based artist Tamara Muller are more disturbing than scary… but I thought they might get you in the mood for a strange, creepy, but totally amazing night! I’ve written about Tamara before, and I just keep coming back for more of her bizarre girls. And it’s not a coincidence that they all look like they’re related… all of her eery girls are in fact, her… amazingly beautiful/creepy, stylized self-portraits. Love.

ps. If you’re in Europe, Tamara has two shows opening this fall/winter:

Galerie VCR Antwerpen

7-11- 2013 / 22-12-2013
Opening 7 november 19:30

Leopold de Waelplaats 24A
2000 Antwerpen
www.galerievcr.be

…….

Galerie Bart Amsterdam
21-12-2013 / 1-2-2014
Opening 21 december 16:00

Galerie Bart
Elandsgracht 16
1016TW Amsterdam
www.galeriebart.nl