Images from Eyeporium Gallery

"About Face" exhibition

I know this is short notice, but this Friday is the opening reception of a two-person exhibition I will be in. Alan Brunettin (another portrait artist) and I will have our work displayed at Eyeporium Gallery from Ocotber 1st through November 3rd. The opening reception is this Friday, October 1st, from 6-9pm.

Eyeporium Gallery is located at:
1543 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60622
One block from the “Damen” Blue Line El stop in the heart of Wicker Park.

Here is the gallery website, although it presently isn't up to date. And here is the press release:

Eyeporium Gallery presents “About Face”
portraits by Virginia Broersma and Alan Brunettin
Opening Night is Friday, October 1st from 6pm to 9pm

Eyeporium Gallery presents a group show of eerily engaging as well as amusing portraits by Virginia Broersma and Alan Brunettin. Virginia works in acrylic paints and has been using portraiture as her primary subject matter for the past few years. The lush application of paint and larger-than-life scale of her work draw you into the almost palpable conversations of her double portraits. Alan shows us how the world is made up of fragments that come together only when processed through the filter of personal perspective. Brunettin seeks to construct portraits that, when viewed from afar, bear keen resemblance to the subject — while a closer examination reveals the faceted planes of the image, forged by brushstrokes that are intentionally sculptural.

WHEN:
Opening Reception (public invited): Friday, October 1, 2010 from 6pm to 9pm
Exhibition Viewing: Through Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Regular Hours: Monday to Friday 12pm to 7pm; Saturday 12pm to 5pm

WHERE:
Eyeporium Gallery
1431 N Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60622
Phone: 773-782-1744
Two blocks from the “Damen” Blue Line El stop in the heart of Wicker Park.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Virginia Broersma received her BFA in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design. In 2010 she had a solo show at Fermilab Gallery in Batavia, IL and received grants from the Puffin Foundation and the City of Chicago. She has also exhibited in the ArtSeen Auction for AIDS research in Los Angeles and participated in group and two-person exhibitions throughout the US. Virginia currently lives and works in Chicago, IL.

A native of Chicago and a graduate of the American Academy of Art and Northern Illinois University, Alan Brunettin's work took shape out of the surrealist and expressionist movements, as well as the influence of his father, a classically trained sculptor. He has exhibited extensively, particularly in the past ten years following a career in commercial illustration. Concentrating on portraiture and urban landscapes, Brunettin's signature is his geometric division of the work space and his use of an extremely limited palette on each painting.

ABOUT EYEPORIUM GALLERY:
Annette Sollars, creator of Chicago's fine eyewear icon, Eye Want, also launched Eyeporium, a fine art gallery in Wicker Park. Representing exceptional artists of regional and national prominence, Eyeporium Gallery features contemporary creators of paint, print, photographic and sculptural works from the realistic to the surreal to the abstract. With the location of Eyeporium inside Eye Want, Annette has created a single destination for you to procure fine eyewear and fine art “for your face and your space”.

Stretching Canvas

Time in: 9:30 am

Today I need to stretch canvas on some new frames that I just built. I finally have enough space in my studio- I've had less room in here because they were painting my back porch, which meant that all the furniture I had out there had to moved into my studio space for almost 6 weeks. It's nice to have the room again...

To Do:
Stretch canvas on new stretchers
Photograph at the lake
Print new references
Go to library
Get paint at Blick

Playlist:
Beethoven's Piano Concertos
Janis Joplin
Joan Armatrading
The Clientele

Plant Studies

About a month ago, I found these beautiful pieces of wood in the dumpster behind my apartment building. I think someone had broken down an old cabinet or something. They were so nice that I took a few pieces and painted on them. I've been doing a variety of things to get back into oil painting, and this was one of them- just having fun painting some luscious leaves on these beautiful panels.

Post Studio Visit

Time in: 10:00 am

This week I had a studio visit with Linda Warren of Linda Warren Gallery. Wesley Kimler had connected me with her for her to come and take a look at my work. As you can see in the picture, I devised a hanging system to get some of my drying paper studies up off the floor- they're clipped to a string that runs along the top of the wall.

Linda came over and looked at pieces from all my series and was very positive about my work. We talked about my work, her gallery and a bit about the Chicago art scene. I know she has an enormous list if gallery artists so my intention in having her over wasn't really to become one of her artists. She may have people in mind that might be interested in some of my work though. She was generous enough to suggest a collector I should contact who is really interested in portraits/figurative work, primarily of women.

It was really great to get someone in the studio who is a professional in the field. It makes me feel like being an artist is more of a reality, in a way. I've been wanting to be around other art professionals for so long, it can feel like you're so isolated and like you're working towards something so vague when you're all alone in your studio, producing and producing.

This week I also finished my application for a grant from the Chenven Foundation. I'm still waiting to hear about the CAAP Grant from Chicago- I emailed them to see what was going on (they said notifications would be sent in May) and they said that they are waiting to see if they're going to get money from the State or City to award grants, so it could take a while yet.

To Do:
Email women about photo shoot
Put away Duplex paintings
Email HT
disc of images/materials for Linda
Email artists for WPG shows
Photograph plant pieces

Playlist:
Barbara Kingsolver on Speaking of Faith
Tom Waits
Joan Armatrading
The Private Patient by PD James

Missing space

I think I'm pretty good at adapting to space restrictions when it comes to my studio. I've had to adapt to a variety of spaces, all with benefits and disadvantages. Right now, my studio bleeds over into the dining room (it's the same room, sort of divided in half, really the dining room table becomes my desk, so I guess the dining room is my studio). It's enough room to work in, it's just not quite big enough to spread out all the pieces I'm working on at once without feeling like I am constantly shuffling things around.

I need to come up with a system for hanging my studies on paper while they're drying, rather than laying them all across the floor. I think with some clever organizing I can make the most of the space I have, I just have to figure out how to do that. I'm planning on hanging some wire/string across the ceiling to clip the papers to. That will at least get them off the floor.

I also need to find a way to easily present my work for viewing. I have a studio visit this week with a gallery owner and wish I had a better way to display my paintings. This will also take some clever organizing of space.

To Do:
Hang paintings to dry
Unwrap paintings and hang what I can
Gesso paper
Hands on head portrait- fix ear
clean brushes

Perceptions, plus

I mentioned in my last post that I had some work included in the latest issue of Perceptions, which is a magazine for the arts put out by Mt. Hood Community College. If you'd like to purchase a copy, you can send either a check or money order to the following address:

Mt. Hood Community College

Humanities Division c/o Megan Jones

26000 SE Stark Street

Gresham, OR 97080

Copies are $15 apiece and you can make checks payable to "Perceptions".

I'm continuing to work on quick studies on paper of facial expressions of women exercising. I'm thinking of them almost like gesture drawings, trying to quickly capture the expression. I'm playing around with both realistic and gestural/expressive portrayals and trying to vary my color palette. I'm thinking of this as a chance to just try out a lot of things without a preconceived idea what I'm trying to achieve as far as a "look".

I'm taking some time to see what happens with regularly working on these. I'm working on cheap paper that I gesso which allows me to make a lot of these. I usually do a few a day- some I work on for just one session, and some I am going back into to work on for multiple sessions.

Sometimes I like what I make, sometimes it changes- I'll like it at first and then not like it and want to paint over it. I need to get some women together to photograph- I am really looking forward to have some new references to work from and new faces to paint.

To Do:
Work on Chenven Foundation grant application
Gesso more paper
3 Sketches
Re-work previous studies
Organize women for exercise photo session

Playlist:
This American Life and Re:Sound
Joan Armatrading
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
Eddi Reader- Simple Soul
Van Morrison

Sketches on Paper

I want to be able to be doing many quick studies while I'm getting into my new subject matter, so I've been gessoing sheets of brown paper- the type you wrap packages with, which is an incredibly cheap way to have lots of paper to work on. Of course it's not very sturdy stuff, but it works great for studies.

So far, I've photographed just myself so I can get started and start seeing where I want to go with this idea that I'm working with. I went out on a nice hot day and ran a couple miles and then had someone photograph me once I was good and tired. It takes a little getting used to to be photographed honestly when not necessarily at your best.


Anyway, some of the expressions I think are really interesting and I can't wait to get some more women's faces to work with which is my next step- having some photo shoots with women.

Puffin Foundation and Perceptions

Some exciting news since my last post: I received a grant from the Puffin Foundation!

This is the first grant I've received and it is so wonderful to have my work funded and to be able to go and buy materials. This is especially needed since I'm getting back into oil paint. I'm taking some time to familiarize myself with it once again since it's been a while since I've really painted with it.

I've been doing a lot of quick studies, also portraits, to get used to the paint and to start to play around with the subject matter. My next series which I received the grant for includes three specific portrait groupings. The first that I am starting to play around with involves women's faces after exercising. Women working hard, straining, sweaty, flushed faces and running make-up- I'm thinking about how this reflects how women push themselves for their physical appearance and/or health. It's a view of women not typically represented (think of the pictures you've seen of women working out, usually in advertisements or magazines- they are smiling and fully made up, usually looking beautiful and at ease). I've been interested in seeing what it would look like to portray women how they really look while working out- I think the expressions could be really interesting to work with.

I also just received my contributor copy of Perceptions- a Journal for the Arts from Mt. Hood Community College. I was not expecting such a high quality publication. It's a beautiful publication including fiction, poetry, visual art and a DVD of film and additional images and a CD of music. My piece "You think I'm Joking?" was included in the printed journal and "Swipe" was included on one of the discs including the film pieces and a slideshow of additional images.

Ed Winkleman - Apprenticeships

I also forgot to mention that Ed Winkleman recently posted about apprenticeships here and started an interesting conversation on his blog. This was of course really interesting to me since a lot of what he and others started talking about, about the needs of artists early in their careers, were things I am hoping to address by being a studio assistant, and in a way, sort of an apprentice.