State of the Union / State of Mind

From the State of the Union side, from left to right, two large canvases by Ken Mabrey, a sculpture by Anne Oldach and a painting by Lauren Peters

I was participant in a recent show at the Delaware Contemporary, formerly the DCCA or Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts. It has a simple premise, artists sometimes reflect on the outside world and sometimes on the inside. The exhibit took place in two rooms, one entitled the "State of the Union" which was a more direct representation of artists grappling with current events. The other room was called "State of Mind" which was more inwardly focused, where the artists take comfort or solace in their work. This group show, was comprised of the work of 17 artists, all of whom are residents of the Delaware Contemporary studios.  The show hopes to give a peek into how different artists use their art to communicate ideas. It ends Sunday July 16th 2017 but I have some installation shots of the show so you can relive the experience again and again. The photos are courtesy of me, in case you don't know I photograph exhibitions and artwork for artists and museums.

State of the Union, from left to right Ruth Ansel, Hugh Atkins and Caroline Chen

As you can probably imagine some artists are quite political and others, not so much. One interesting aspect of the show figuring out which was which. The State of the Union side of the show purportedly contained the more overtly political work but the State of the Mind also had plenty to think about, with political overtones to much of the work.

State of the union, from left to right, two wall pieces by Jenna Lucente, a sculpture by Karoline Wileczek, an installation by Jennifer Borders and a wall piece Karoline Wileczek.

My own contribution to the show was a collaborative work I did with Don Bethman. Two photographs of styrofoam constructions. We were excited by the idea of found minimalist sculpture that suggest architectural forms. We were trying to make the connection between the optimism of  of modernism and growth and the hidden environmental impact behind the gleaming forms, made obvious by the throw-away material.

State of mInd: from left to right, Haeley Kyong, my collaborative works with Don Bethman and Carson Zullinger

This was a fun exhibit and I hope it is just the beginning of more shows in the future. It was somewhat new for the museum to offer a show to the studio artists on this scale. But I am proud of how well the whole thing came together. The Delaware Contemporary deserve a big thanks for making this happen as well as the studio artists for coming up with such compelling work, many of the works tailor-made for this exhibition.

Three works by Verna Hart flank an installation by Max Levenson in the State of Mind room.

Do you find solace and comfort in art or is it an outlet that lets you have an impact on the world around you?

From right to left: Max Levenson, Verna Hart and Caroline Chen

Graham Dougherty on the left and Seong Boyce on the right in the State of Mind

Carson Zullinger's work partially obscuring Max Levenson's installation in State of Mind.

Two portraits by Lauren Peters, an assemblage by Graham Dougherty and two works by Ruth Ansel.

Jello Molds: painting in progress

I have recently been having fun revisiting a theme. I have done a number of Jello Mold paintings over the years and I imagine I will do a few more beforeI quit. The combination of the shiny metal and the architectural forms just beg to be painted. I think before long I have to start painting jell-o outside of the molds. The translucency and color should be a great subject.

This is the painting after one coat, it is drawn in fairly accurately but there are still a bunch of adjustments to be made, I also left out a bunch of the detail to speed things along since I will just be covering it later with other layers.

Here is where I left it today, everything is a bit more filled in. The colors are richer because I have begun layering. I am starting to be a bit happier with some of the sloppy drawing as I fix it. As is usual for me the painting starts out somewhat coarse and gets more refined as time goes on. The drawing will get better the color will get richer and more  nuanced and value relationships will change for the sake of increasing the illusion of depth. I would guess I am nearing the halfway point in terms of time. This is when the painting is really fun, all of the changes have a big impact on the final work and I really start to get an idea of how the painting will turn out. 

New Website Design - Same Great Address

Finally, a new website design! Still at www.danieljacksonart.com. This one is much easier to manage and keep up to date. This new design is not hugely different but the images are much bigger, I figure that kind of thing is important for an art website. It should be a little easier to find on the search sites as well, though it wasn't all that difficult before. Hope you like it, and if this is your first time visiting and you would like to be added to my mailing list, send me an e-mail on my contacts page. And if you were looking for my photography site you can find that here.

Twiddlebug 30"x30"

Pileup 48"x60"

I just recently sent this painting out to my gallery in San Francisco, it was big enough that it had to be crated and sent by freight which is somewhat terrifying. On big paintings like this I often will shoot several images and stitch them together in photoshop using photo  merge. The images here are all from a really large 180mb image so I can get super close and still retain a lot of detail. I have started a few more paintings along these lines and I am excited about how it is going.