Recent Realism Paintings Of Fabricated American Landscapes By Alex Roulette.

above: Alex Roulette, Airborne, Oil on Panel, 26"x 37", 2010

I first noticed Alex Roulette's impressive realism with his 2008 painting, Summer (shown below), which caught my eye because I have a thing for pool paintings.


above: Summer, Oil on Panel, 36"x48", 2008

This past year, Alex had a solo exhibition called Fabricated Realism at the George Billis Gallery in New York in which the 2010 paintings in this post were shown. His work continues to have great aesthetic appeal and in 2010, Alex played more with unusual light sources and effects in his work. Sun flares, reflections, snowflakes and other natural and fabricated lighting replaces the strong shadows prevalent in his 2007-2008 work.

At Swim, Oil on Panel, 28"x 42", 2010:

At the Lake, Oil on Panel, 20"x 21", 2010

Badlands, Oil on Panel, 30"x 38", 2010:

Chopping Wood, Oil on Panel, 24"x 34", 2010:

Jump, Oil on Panel, 24"x 38", 2010:

Swing Set, Oil on Panel, 15"x 15", 2010:

Parking Lot, Oil on Panel, 20"x 21":

Windmill, Oil on Panel, 30"x 44", 2010:

Unknown Lights, Oil on Panel, 45"x 36", 2010:


The above paintings are represented by George Billis Gallery, New York

The artists statement about his recent work: "Fabricated Realism"

My current series of paintings depict fabricated American landscapes. The invented landscapes arise from archetypal citations of past and present cultural influences. Placing figures into these landscapes is an attempt to take advantage of the viewer’s natural ability to extrapolate narratives. By creating the paintings using a conjuncture of various photographic references, I continue to explore the distinctions between photographic and painted space. The disjointed nature of the source images, contrasting with the way they are realistically unified, take on a contingent sense of reality.

Inventing landscapes allow memories of places and events to be fictionalized. Coalescing unrelated photographs is done in a way comparable to the process in which the mind synthesizes images when recollecting memories or imagining new images. As opposed to culling images from an abstract memory bank, I utilized tangible sources, many of which come from the vast image resources our contemporary culture offers. The current expanding abundance of accessible images is allowing the imagination to expand the ability to visualize unseen places.


gallery@georgebillis.com

Born in 1986, in Columbus, Ohio, Alex Roulette now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. To see his fabulous work from 2009 and before, visit his website

Paul Davies' Paintings Combine Modern Architecture, Pools and Palms

above: Empty Pool, Modern Home and Palms by Paul Davies

I've recently come across an artist whose subjects align with more than one of my personal art fetishes. Combining modern architecture, trees and swimming pools - even empty swimming pools to boot (I have a thing for paintings of pools, both empty and full, see here), Paul Davies' work really speaks to me.

I just love the juxtaposition of the strong long low horizontals of the modern architecture with the soaring verticals of the trees (Palms and Aspens).


above: Modern Home, Red Aspens and Snow, Paul Davies, 2008

Apparently, I'm not alone.... his work speaks to many people since all the paintings in his upcoming show- which opens today, have already sold. No, I'm not kidding.

Paul Davies, New Paintings 2009, 28 April - 17 May Tim Olsen Gallery

Sydney artist Paul Davies (not to be confused with another talented Paul Davies) has a new exhibit of his 2009 'new paintings' at the Tim Olsen Gallery, beginning today through May 17 in Australia. Prices range from $7,700.00 to $24,000.00 USD.

His work, which is acrylic on canvas or linen, combines modernist facades with bold washes of color. He cites David Hockney and David Schnell as some of his inspirations, I also see a little Diebenkorn. Rather than describe them, take a look for yourself.

Empty Pool, Sunset:

Two Palms, Aqua and Orange:

Black and Blue, abstract pool:

Modern Home, Pool and Cream Sky:

Night Aspens and Modern Home:

Burnt Aspens and Modern Home:

Night sky, South coast Palms and Modern Home:

Peach Sky and Modern Home:

Snow Trees and Modern Home (diptych):

Bilgola House:

Orange/Blue Seidler:

Centenary Pool, Brisbane:


Paul Davies - ABOUT THE ARTIST


above photo by Benjamin Ong

(Bio from timolsongallery.com)

Sydney based artist Paul Davies has been exhibiting with Australian and international galleries for the past five years.

Raised in Gosford, NSW, Davies learned traditionalist painting techniques from local landscape painter Kell Connell. He then studied toward a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts from the University of New South Wales (College of Fine Arts), majoring in Sculpture.

Davies then travelled to Asia, Africa, Europe and North America; and spent several months developing his paintings in England. It was in London that Davies held his first solo exhibition at DK Gallery in Russell Square. At this time he was also awarded a prize from London’s TNT Magazine for excellence in photography.

Returning to Sydney in 2001, Davies held consistent and original solo exhibits with Space3, Knot Gallery and Firstdraft Gallery. His 2005 solo show at 'blank_space' in Sydney was the first sell out exhibition for the gallery.

Largely working with Australian and international modernist architectural facades and interiors, Paul Davies work features the use of delicate hand-cut paper stencils, that provide a perspective, content and detail within a painterly abstract environment. These stencils are created using both Davies’ own and researched photographs.

The buildings in Davies paintings remain vacant of people to reinforce the original idea of its architect, allowing the viewer to experience an “open plan living” ideal. Davies work looks at both the restored and forgotten modernist buildings in a way relevant to today rather than isolating them in their time. In creating this unique style of landscape painting, Paul Davies sights inspiration from some of the world's greatest living artists such as Peter Doig, David Hockney and David Schnell.

Davies' work appears in private and corporate collections both here and overseas and has been commissioned to create works for a diverse range of companies including; Historic Houses Trust, Stockland and BYL Companies Philadelphia. Recent publications include Art & Australia, Art World, Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Belle, Wish, Inside Out, Urbis, and Yen magazine as part of the China Heights Collective.

See more of his work at Tim Olsen Gallery here.

Artists Take The Plunge: Swimming Pool As Subject

I got such a wonderful response to my post about varying artists' freeway and overpass paintings, that I thought I'd do the same with one of my other favorite subjects; the swimming pool.

Years ago, I bought one of my favorite paintings, an empty swimming pool painted by Christy Botkin Reeves of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, a nasty subletter stole the painting upon being evicted from my apt...so if you see it, let me know (seriously...).

Perhaps it's the stillness of pools when no one is in them, or the beckoning of an empty pool, that appeals to me. But either way, I'm clearly not the only one who finds beauty in them.


Above: My now stolen pool painting by Christy Botkin Reeves, 48" x 72"

When it came time to replace it, I was craving one of Glenn Ness' photo realism pool paintings, but couldn't afford an original the size I wanted.

Here are a few of his that I've coveted:

Above: Glenn Ness' Should I have Stayed?


Above: After The Lie, 12" x 18", Glenn Ness


Above: A Mysterious Childhood by Glenn Ness


Above: Fading Of June by Glenn Ness


Above: Maintenance by Glenn Ness

Upon realizing I'd never have the huge Glenn Ness original of my dreams, nor would I get my Christy Botkin Reeves' back, I actually began looking for pool paintings. This became a labor of love, not to mention enlightening.

Anyone familiar with David Hockney is aware of his fabulous pool paintings and images of pools done with paper pulp and printed as monotypes. For those who aren't, let me show you:


Above: David Hockney's "A Bigger Splash"


Above: David Hockney's "Pool With 2 Figures"


Above: Hockney's painting "Peter getting out of of Nick Wilder's Pool"

As I said, he not only painted pools, he used paper pulp to create monotypes of pools, now very collectible. The one below went for over $5,000 at Sotheby's in 2000 and would easily fetch over double that now:



Well, by now I was hung up on the photo realism thing after Glenn Ness, so this led me to find several contemporary realists who knew their way around a pool, so to speak.

There were so many talented artists who paint pools.
Empty Pools.
Still pools.
Pools at Night.

I'm going to break this article into three posts.
Today's is just paintings of POOLS, next week will be paintings of PEOPLE SWIMMING IN POOLS, so be sure to come back.
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Johannes Schramm and his photo-realistic pools:






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And one of my other absolute most coveted artists, Patricia Chidlaw:


Above: Whites Motel

Above: Still Pool

Above: Pool and Birds of Paradise

Above: Patricia Chidlaw's White Chairs
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I've always been a fan of Rick Monzon's work and was happy to see that he, too, painted a pool!


Above: Rick Monzon's Florida Pool
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Above is Cindy Stapper's Vernal Invitation
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Above: Sharilyn Neidhardt's Lazy pool
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Above: James P. Kimack's Pool
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Above: My Houses (Pool with Waterfalls) by Julia Jacquette
available here from Pace Prints.
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Below: Jane Freilicher's The Pool:

Available at the Tibor De Nagy Gallery
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For today, I will leave you with another one of Glenn Ness's works and be sure to see the upcoming post about swimming in pools, it's almost twice as long!


Above: ... finally, Glen Ness' Long Thoughts


Be sure to see the amazing pool paintings in the following posts:

Part II: Paintings of People Swimming

Part III: More People Swimming Paintings