Alex Hubbard

Untitled (SOP # 3), 2008
One shot sign paint and enamel on aluminum panel
62 x 47 x 1.125 inches

This layering of opposites may be reminiscent of the table tops from so many of his earlier video works, but is more specifically conditioned by an interest in the opposition between fictive depth ("optical") and factual depth ("thickness") in painting and how this will allow for a collapse of the relationship between fore- and background. It also exposes a greater concern with Hubbard's production: the aim at constructing an index or the appearance of empirical research, while also clearly exposing his aim at tension through the construction of a structure of oppositions.

That's an extract from Standard Oslo's website.

Not sure what this does for positive change on a wider scale, but in terms of painting it is very interesting. His other work adds a different dimension to painting - the videos, C prints and altered screenprints take the paintings from academic dryness to irreverent and exciting new territory.

something completely different

Esther Pearl Watson
Before the landlord finds us
Acrylic, enamel & silver leaf on panel 48 x 48 inches

This is a large painting, given its outsider flavor. It has blown me away. Why?

It seems to connect with real life, and has a freedom about its expression that touches a chord in me. Esther Pearl has lived (apparently) life with an oddball family (Daddy built spaceships in the garage) and does not hesitate, riddled with doubt about her worthiness or worry about it being ridiculous to tell her story. There it is, in glorious home-made detail...but connecting a real sense of atmosphere and beauty (the sky is lavish, the fields stretch into the distant evening, and the dirt yard meltingly soft and beautiful) with the quirky childishness of folk art. Yet its about serious shit going on. I mean, running out on the rent...there is an urgency and a terribleness about it. Its not cosy, not safe, not pretty. We all understand the implications, and that is what gives this work its strength somehow. It is real, it connects to humans. On that note, I have to post another painting here...

Out of gas
acrylic on panel
8 x 10 inches

Here's (Dad?) racing across the highway with the (tiny) pint of gas that'll get them all out of there. The kids stand with their hair blowing as the cars whip by. Grit on the shoulder, exhaust, slip roads... and then that wonderful skyline and cloudscape. While all that is going on, someone (the artist - the artist in all of us) is looking around, seeing the world in all its fullness. It has the attention to seemingly irrelevant but telling detail that folk art has, and a lack of theorizing and paring down that in its directness, enriches the image.

Way to go Esther.

jewel-like richness

A change back to more conventional work - well, sorta. Paintings that combine folk art, Russian lacquer work and fairy tales all updated with pills and leaves and resin. Beautiful - I want to rush out and stick stuff on black shiny surfaces! There's a need for magic in all of us - isn't it about the wonder of it all? Clear nights under the starry dome etc.
























FRED TOMASELLI
Migrant Fruit Thugs, 2006
Photocollage, leaves, acrylic, gouache and resin on wood panel
78 X 96 inches



















FRED TOMASELLI
Hang Over, 2005
Leaves, pills, acrylic, resin on wood panel
84 X 120 inches

http://www.jamescohan.com/artists/fred-tomaselli/#