Utopian Art Blog: Painting Père Lachaise, Discovering Cecily Brown, and How to Ship Sold Work

Green Paintings

This week has gone by quickly! I have kept on with my green paintings, and here they are:

 

I was inspired to paint ‘Victor Noir’ because first, I love painting sculpture, second, I love cemeteries, and third, this was a very weird creepy thing to encounter on my visit to Père Lachaise – It seemed a story to tell. I love the folds of cloth, the artful poses, and the signs of aging that sculptures offer to the painter. Just plainly super fun to paint. This figure is laid out on a tomb, and weirdly, it serves as fertility and/or a find-you-a-husband charm. Apparently if you kiss his lips and rub his crotch you get the goods. Placing flowers in his top hat is optional. Victor Noir is a sad story, and now it seems disrespectful how he is treated, but it is apparently a time honored tradition for women looking for a husband, or trying for a baby, to ask poor Victor Noir for help. The story as told on Wikipedia, is quite fascinating – of his life, politically volatile death, and subsequent patronage: Victor Noir

I do love cemeteries, and took lots of pictures, made sketches, and took color notes for future use when I went to Père Lachaise on that beautiful day. I did the next painting inspired by the long column of tombs and the leafy green trees behind. I was interested in the challenge of taking all that information and tackling it a relatively small painting. I found myself thinking of Cezanne as I broke up the space, accommodating shifting angles of vision, and shifting light, and simplified everything with an aim to creating a lyrical composition. Thanks Cezanne! Here is a super interesting video about what he does, optically speaking: Paul Cezanne and his Revolutionary Optics

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Great Woman Artist

I investigated the first GREAT woman artist on my list, Cecily Brown.

 

I am starting this regular feature weekly, on my weekly Blog, to introduce myself and others to GREAT women artists, alive and working today. I want to debunk the myth that you have to be an old lady to have the love of the Art World – not that the love of the art world is so desirable, and certainly it is ridiculous how underrepresented great women artists are, occupying only about 10% of the artists on the top 500 hammer price list – there should be way more. Cecily Brown is evidence for my cause.

Born in 1969, she is a painter who got representation at age 29, by Gagosian Gallery in New York. She designates herself a figurative painter. I listened to a couple of great interviews on youtube, pictured via screen shots above, that you can go to and learn more. She talks about the importance of the figure in her work, describing how without it, she feels her paintings would be merely decorative. I thought that was very interesting. Also, she takes Old Master paintings as a starting point, which I love. I am so glad to be introduced to this excellent artist! I had seen her work before, but did not know too much about it. I thought it was mainly people having sex and therefore the artworld let her in… not so! I loved hearing her articulate why she does what she does, and all about her practice. She is 28 on the list of top hammer prices paid in 2017, with a painting selling for over 7,000,000. Here are the links I used: Cecily Brown Interview: Take No Prisoners (2015) and An evening with Cecily Brown – Contemporary Talks Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien (2018) Also, through the latter interview, I got onto her instagram, and now happily am a follower and a fan @dellyrose.

Next week I am going to feature an artist I have never heard of at all, and even mistook  her for male the first glance down the list because her name was unfamiliar to me: Njideka Akunyili Crosby (b. 1983). On a quick glance of her images, I am super excited to be introduced. More on that next week!

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How to Ship a Painting

I entered into a new project that now I must stream line: Shipping sold paintings. A happy problem! here is what I learned on that.

 

 

How to ship a sold, framed, oil painting (no glass):

1. wrap in glassine, create  corners to protect from damage
2. wrap in bubble wrap, have the bubbles facing outward so they won’t leave an imprint on the painting
3. put the wrapped painting between two appropriately sized foam core boards, tape together, create cardboard corners to make it a neat protected package
4. wrap like a gift, with clear plastic wrap, to keep out any moisture
5. place wrapped work in a box, label it fragile
6. take it to the post office and you are done!

Here is the best link I have found to show how it is done How to package a framed painting (no glass) for shipping. I feel very lucky to be supported by my newest collector, and AMAZING artist herself.