Flashback Friday- Tampa Art Shows- “Living Color: The Art of the Highwaymen” at Tampa Museum of Art

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Florida Art Shows, History, Painting / Painters, Pinellas County, St. Pete, Tampa
Sep 082023
 

Mary Ann Carroll (1940-2019), “Untitled (Backcountry Twilight)”, n.d., Oil on Masonite board

Harold Newton (1934-1991), “Untitled (Painting of the Indian River)”, c. 1958, Oil on Upson board; Alfred Hair (1941-1970), “Untitled (Marshland with palm), c. 1958, Oil on Upson board

James Gibson (1938-2017) “Untitled (Moonlit palms)”, n.d., Oil on Upson board

In early 2021, Tampa Museum of Art presented the work of Florida’s famous Highwaymen painters in the exhibition Living Color: The Art of the Highwaymen.

From the museum-

The Highwaymen are a group of African American artists celebrated for their distinctive paintings of Florida’s natural environment. Working in and around the Fort Pierce area beginning in the 1950s, these self-taught artists depicted the state’s scenic coastline and wild backcountry, often in dazzling combinations of color and tone. Brilliant tropical sunsets, windblown palms, towering sunlit clouds, and blooming poinciana trees are among the many subjects that have become iconic images of Florida in part because of the paintings that the Highwaymen created. In the state’s postwar boom years their paintings found an enthusiastic audience among a growing population of new residents and visitors. Unrecognized by the region’s art establishment of galleries and museums, the Highwaymen by necessity catered directly to their patrons, selling their paintings door-to-door along such thoroughfares as Route 1. It was from this practice that the name “Highwaymen” was later coined.

The popularity of Highwaymen paintings waned in the 1980s as the vision of Florida was reimagined by an ever-increasing population and once-pristine landscapes were lost to development. Then in the mid-1990s a new generation of collectors, with fresh eyes, rediscovered the paintings and began to assemble significant collections. These collectors saw the art of the Highwaymen as an important artistic legacy and together with several writers, scholars, and enthusiasts began the process of establishing the historical context and reevaluation of their work. Books and articles followed, bringing a new level of recognition for the achievements of these artists and, with that, growing popular acclaim. The contribution of the Highwaymen to the cultural life of Florida was formally recognized in 2004 when the group of 26 artists was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.

Living Color: The Art of the Highwaymen brings together 60 paintings by a core group of the Highwaymen including Al Black, Mary Ann Carroll, Willie Daniels, Johnny Daniels, James Gibson, Alfred Hair, Roy McLendon, Harold Newton, Sam Newton, Willie Reagan, and Livingston Roberts.

Focusing on work produced from the 1950s to the 1980s, the exhibition is an in-depth examination of the group’s initial period of success when their groundbreaking style of fast painting was being developed. Fast painting is a hallmark and essential innovation of the Highwaymen. Facing limitations imposed by the racial prejudice of their time, they had little or no access to formal training or to conventional art markets. To overcome these obstacles, they produced large numbers of works which could be sold at very affordable prices. Some estimates of the group’s overall production during their heyday exceed 200,000 paintings, with certain artists creating dozens of paintings per day. Their creative response to the racism they confronted resulted in an original artistic practice.

Opening at The Woodson African American Museum of Florida in St. Pete this Saturday, 9/9/23, is Florida Highwaymen: The Next Generation – The Legacy Continues, an exhibition of work by Ray McLendon, son of Highwayman Roy McLendon, who creates Florida landscapes in the same iconic style his father used.

Florida Murals- Hyland Mather aka The Lost Object in Melbourne, Florida

 Art, Artists, Digital Art, Florida Street Art, Melbourne, Mixed Media, Printmaking, Public Art, Sculptors / Sculpture, Street Art
Aug 252023
 

This mural was created by Hyland Mather, aka The Lost Object, in 2017 for Anti Gravity Project and The Foosaner Art Museum in the Eau Gallie Arts District in Melbourne, Florida. The museum, sadly, closed in 2021.

Flashback- Tony Rodrigues at Heiress Gallery in St. Pete, Florida

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Drawing, Florida Art Shows, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Pinellas County, St. Pete
Aug 182023
 

Car Smash Requiem, 2023 by Tony Rodrigues was part of the recently closed exhibition CMND/CTRL at Heiress Gallery in St. Pete, Florida.

 

Flashback- Alex Sewell at TOTAH in NYC

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Music, Musicians / Bands, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Spotify Playlist
Aug 112023
 

The painting above, Wave of Mutilation, is from Alex Sewell’s February 2023 exhibition Dad? at TOTAH in NYC.

Wave of Mutilation is also a song by the band Pixies, off their 1989 album Doolittle.

Flashback Friday- Josh Kline at Various Small Fires in 2015

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Conceptual Art, Installation Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, New York Art Shows, Sculptors / Sculpture
Jul 212023
 

“You’re Fired”, 2015, Concrete, grill, shredded office documents, charcoal

This sculpture by Josh Kline was located in the Various Small Fires Los Angeles courtyard in 2015.

From the press release-

In the warm breeze of Southern California’s endless summer, the 20th Century dream of life in the early evening after work: a large backyard covered in concrete and grass, a hammock or a lawn chair, cold beer, and a blazing grill. Ground meat sizzling above a glowing bed of charcoal soaked in lighter fluid. Underneath the avocado tree. Or the oak tree. Or the whatever tree. Putting the last 8-10 hours of your day out of your mind and enjoying your “free” time. A nuclear family fantasy repeated across hundreds of millions of suburban and semi-suburban homes and half a century of North American lives.

Pattern recognition is the primordial ooze from out of which living consciousness and intelligence crawled into the minds of animals. The ability to recognize repetitive relationships and recurring phenomena. The habits of food, the faces of your loved ones, and the sounds of human language. From automobile factory assembly line and the discount drug store cash register today to the taxi cab’s driver seat and patent lawyer’s office tomorrow: unconscious software is slowly and not-so- slowly aping the abilities of the living mind.

Reading without eyes. Recognizing without consciousness. The outsourcing of understanding. You’re Fired!

The first U.S. museum survey of his work, Josh Kline: Project for a New American Century, is currently on view at the Whitney Museum in NYC.

 

NYC Art Shows- Navot Miller at Yossi Milo

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters
Jun 302023
 

“Amalfi Coast”, 2022, Oil on Canvas

“Terraza”, 2022, Oil on canvas

Above are two of the colorful paintings from Navot Miller’s exhibition, Eurovision, at Yossi Milo, in February of 2023.

From the press release-

With his distinctively vibrant palette, Navot Miller (b. 1991; Israel) draws from the flow of moments and memories in his own life, presenting the landscapes, architecture, and people he sees with fresh, inquisitive eyes. Growing up in a rural Israeli village, Miller found it difficult to express himself and his identity as a young gay person. Upon relocating to Berlin as an adult, he found a community of creatives who opened up new possibilities for self-expression. Among them were curator Joel Mu, who introduced Miller to Berlin’s alternative art scene, and instructors Michael von Erlenbach and Kathrin Ruhlig, who became his most significant mentors. Today, Miller’s bold, colorful palette has become a means of expressing the parts of himself that remained hidden during his childhood. The new body of work in Eurovision presents the artist’s past year living in Berlin and traveling through Europe. Nodding to the hit international singing competition of the same name, Eurovision encapsulates Miller’s experiences while journeying across a continent, collecting memories and forging relationships along the way.

The series of paintings presented in Eurovision focuses on those precious memories gathered during travel and the quiet yet meaningful moments of the everyday, offering colorful, candid snapshots from the artist’s life as he sees it. To capture these moments, Miller takes hundreds of photos as they pass, revisiting them later as the source material for his paintings. Amalfi Coast (2022) is painted from one such snapshot, depicting a group of vacationers as they lounge on a cliff by the Mediterranean Sea. Beyond the water’s edge, the complex topography of the rocky shore is simplified into flat planes of color. At the scene’s foreground, a man peers over the cliff’s edge, ensuring the waters below are safe for diving. Miller identifies the man as a father who, out of concern for his son out of view, scans the scene for any potential danger. Foregoing the climactic moment of the dive itself, Miller zooms in on this moment of preparation, quietly celebrating the familial love and the protective care between father and son.

A similar glimpse into the subtleties of intimacy is granted in Terraza (2022), which depicts a gathering of six men lounging on a Berlin terrace. Totally at ease, the men converse, cuddle, and convene in this scene of uninhibited repose. The commanding colors of Miller’s vibrant palette amplify what seems to be a hot summer day, as evidenced by the semi-nude men gathered outdoors. In terms of the painting’s composition, their bodies are the only portions of the work that the artist has blended. They consequently take on a depth and dimensionality that is absent from the rest of the rendering, bringing them into sharp relief against the flattened forms of their background. In this painting, Miller brings focus to the men who gather on this sunny terrace as a celebration of the simple pleasure of gathering on a summer’s day, and the joy of letting an evening’s events unfold as they may.

 

Carlsbad California Murals- Bryan Snyder

 Art, Artists, California Street Art, Carlsbad Street Art, Drawing, Painting / Painters, Public Art, Street Art
Dec 162022
 

For more work by Bryan Snyder, check out his website. It has a large amount of information about the artist and his history.

During his time in Carlsbad, he has done a lot of work to create an artistic community- including founding both the Carlsbad Crawl, a website which focuses on art happenings around town; and the Carlsbad Art Wall, which rotates new art murals every two months, alternating between visiting artists and local artists.

Finally check out his Instagram for up to date content- today he posted a video segment his students made on his as a skateboarding teacher.

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