May 18th, 2012
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Steven Charles has a show of new work up now at Stux Gallery in Chelsea.  Although he was friendly meeting Steven for the first time was a little unsettling.  It felt a little like I imagine spiritual seekers felt like when they met the Maharijji in the 1960s’, like meeting some strange saint.  I met him through Aaron Johnson who told me Steven was one of his favorite painters.

During the studio visit Steven and I talked about how he was working as a janitor, but just a couple of years ago he was selling paintings for six-figure sums.  He was another victim of 2008, but he didn’t seem bummed out.  In fact, he was just going along, and to use another Maharajji idea, he seemed very present.  His painting method involves creating something to react to: a painting could start by splashing paint on a surface or by gluing a kid’s sock to a board.  Click read more to see his work in progress.

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March 2nd, 2012

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Rebecca Manson, one of the current sculptors in residence at Cal State University Long Bech [CSULB], told me I had to drive out to the campus to see what Christopher Miller was working on in his studio. So, with my full trust in her hands, I took the hour long and then some drive from Los Angeles to Long Beach to scope it out. And when I got to Miller’s studio I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. It was a painting machine, but one made out of organic materials like bamboo instead of steel, with markers hanging from strings stretched 5 ft high. The whole thing was powered by several fans that would cause the pens to sway back and forth across a massive sheet of paper, which was taped to the ground. Christopher then had various obstacles placed around his painting surface that the pen could work around. For instance, there was one sculpture composed of about 50 triangles that restricted the motion of the pen as well as one of Rebecca’s ceramic pieces that blocked out certain areas of the paper to create an ever -evolving, uniquely beautiful, and chaotic masterpiece.  I especially love how you can really feel the heart of Christopher’s piece when you see it in person, since every single element is either hand painted or constructed. Even the strings that are holding the pens have little paper accessories attached to them, which remind me of tie-died Mondrian mobiles. Christopher is still working on this particular sculpture and can always use donations of various painting supplies like inks and markers to help progress the work. If you’re interested in helping him out, you can send him a direct email at Chrismmiller[at]hotmail[dot]com. Watch a video of the piece in action after the jump.

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January 17th, 2012

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The Site Unscene is one of only a handful of new businesses radically changing the landscape of the art world for the better. JB Jones and Wil Atkinson, who founded The Site Unscene [TSUS], are two of the greatest people around – so it’s no wonder that artists as diverse as Gregory Siff and XVALA treat them like family and often drop in to their headquarters from time to time just to say hello. However, one of the most unique aspects to their HQ, besides the art and artists themselves, is that TSUS have a massive garage space where the artists they represent, as well as their friends, are able to come in and paint for however long they need to – which is crucially important, especially to those who work with spray paint and don’t have the space to do so where they live. They even have lockers for all the artists to store their supplies in! I guess you’re wondering what exactly TSUS does and the only way I can explain it is to repeat their mantra of “We help make art happen” – since they really do it all, from putting on pop-up shows to helping an artists realize an ambitious project. In fact, I love TSUS so much that I frequently ask JB and Wil if I can do many of my interviews with artists at their space because everyone instantly feels right at home with the vibe they’ve set up for it. In the future I hope that we will begin to see the downfall of snooty gallerists who are rude to young collectors and the rise of organizations like The Site Unscene who open their arms welcomely to anyone who loves art – whether or not they have a Phd or a zillion bucks.

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January 9th, 2012

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David Ball creates the kind of art you need to see in person, so you can get right up close to every piece and fully immerse yourself into the fine details of his fantastic fantasy worlds. I’m forever in awe of his mixed-media collages and I’m always trying to figure out how he makes all his works look like paintings, even though I thoroughly know that they’re assembled from thousands of magazine clippings. At least some of the photos below by Shaun Roberts give a rare glimpse into David’s unique and beautiful process, that makes my brain simply explode with joy. And right now, I’m just super jealous of every art fiend living San Francisco, since David will be featured in the group exhibit “Harum Scarum” at 111 Minna Gallery that opens on February 2nd and runs until February 25th.

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November 7th, 2011
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Eddie Martinez invited Beautiful/Decay over to his sunny Brooklyn studio to check out his new body of work.  The next day the show was headed to Berlin, so it was excellent to get to talk to Eddie before the work shipped.  I was able to take pics for over an hour while Martinez came in and out of the studio space.  Martinez had shelves built to hold the work at nice heights, making it easier to get up close and examine the paintings.  The reason I like Martinez’s work is that it doesn’t try to mimic reality, but instead the work represents reality.  It works sort of the way a great story functions: there is a language which uncovers something hidden or reveals something new about the world.  As far as we know, human beings are the only creatures which live with a sense of time.  Because we are bound to our own time, each generation needs people who show us back to ourselves, which in turn allows us to conceptualize ourselves and the world.  I think this is what Martinez is doing, and without a doubt his work does that for me.  The show, Seeker, opens November 11th at Peres Projects Mitte, Berlin.

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October 14th, 2011
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I’ve been following the work of Kristin Baker for over a decade watching the work go from explosive paintings of race cars to the complex and layered abstract explosions of color that she’s working on currently. Last night I visited her personal site and was pleasantly surprised by the high level of documentation. Not only does the site have all her work broken down by year but there’s also time lapse process shots of many of the newer pieces as well as gorgeous photos of her studio which looks better than most NYC galleries.

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September 15th, 2011
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When I dropped by his sunlit Brooklyn studio Aaron Johnson was busy preparing for his show at Stux Gallery in Chelsea, which opens Thursday September 15th.  In this new body of work Johnson invites us to chow down on a writhing smorgasbord of Americana: severed heads, demonic Uncle Sams, sausage crucifixes, fried eagles, mashed guts, f-burgers, camel roast, and mutant sea creatures sucking down oil oozing fresh from the rig.  His new work is opulent and glitters like jewel-encrusted Faberge eggs despite picturing disturbingly grotesque and violent imagery – totally Beautiful/Decay!

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September 7th, 2011
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I headed over to Brooklyn to check out what Ryan Schneider had cooking after not seeing his work for a year.  He was painting when I got there; mixing a fleshly color on the big glass palette in the center of the room.  Canvases lined the walls, some were finished and some were in progress.  He paints all the nouns: people, places and things; and does so in a thoughtful way that reflects life.  Still lifes which range from bathtubs to bookshelves, and landscapes which seem to suggest an alternate, more romantic reality.

The paintings are populated with figures, and he had interesting things to say about figure painting.  In person, the paintings are very obviously physical.  They combine juicy paint, carved-in-words, bold colors, and a funky sense of space.  This makes for paintings which flip between pattern and illusion.  His new paintings were confident, and maybe even more colorful and spatially complex than his previous work.  Schneider recently left Priska C Juschka, his gallery of several years.  Besides being a painter, Schneider is also a curator and has organized high profile group shows in locations near and far, and he was at it again.  He is behind a show which just opened in Austin, at Champion Contemporary, called “Wild Beasts.”   He included a group of artists who share a love of color and admiration for Matisse and the French Fauves.  Read some of our discussion after the jump.

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