Friday, January 30, 2009

Art Papers 10th Annual Auction

On Saturday, February 7th, Art Papers will hold its 10th Annual Art Auction at Mason Murer in Atlanta, Georgia. This is stellar showcase of work by over 300 famed and emerging artists from around the world. I have donated the painting, "Concurrent II",  for this event and hope that you all will be able to come out to enjoy and help show your support!  Please follow this link to purchase your tickets and to find out more information about absentee bidding and/or other details. Thanks so much for your support!! 

"Concurrent II"
15"x 48" x 2"
Mixed Media Painting on Wood Panel
© Jennifer J L Jones
Value: $2600.
Minimum Bid: $260.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Fay Gold Gallery Opening: Feb. 13th, 7-9pm

My bad! So I just found out that my show at Fay Gold Gallery is actually on Friday, February 13th from 7-9pm (not Feb. 11th). Sorry for any confusion!
I hope to see you there!!
~Jennifer


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Veronica Kessenich, Director
veronica@faygoldgallery.com; 404.233.3843

Terri Hallman
Jennifer J L Jones
Anthony Liggins
Ferdinand Rosa


"I feel more like a tunnel, a channel, a conduit passing through a variety of thoughts and emotions through the world itself which I transform and which metamorphosis me in turn"
- Anselm Kiefer


WHAT: Four Artists to Watch
WHO: Terri Hallman, Jennifer J L Jones, Anthony Liggins, Ferdinand Rosa
WHEN: February 13 - March 28
Opening Reception: Friday, February 13 from 7 to 9 pm
WHERE: Fay Gold Gallery, 764 Miami Circle

Atlanta, GA – The question that curators, collectors, critics and art dealer ponder is: How do you predict which artists of our time will be well-known 100 years from now? Who will be embraced by the museums in the next century?

In selecting Terri Hallman, Jennifer J L Jones, Anthony Liggins, and Ferdinand Rosa we looked for accessibility, humor, and influence on other artists, conceptual breakthrough and spirituality. Their art is rich and full of surprises and they have explored a wide variety of media. Hopefully, their new intellectual weight will attribute to the longevity of their work.


TERRI HALLMAN

Hallman's primitive abstract faces at first seem simple, but on closer observation, her laborious technique creates unusual layers of depth. Her colors are super-saturated and the surfaces have a textural quality. Hallman begins by laying out dry pigments on paper. She sprays clear acrylic then using tape, she masks off areas. She repeats this process several times while applying pressure with her hands. No brushes are used. She scrapes or tears away selected areas, revealing layers of color underneath. The next step is to apply oil paint washes on the surface. The work is in constant transformation until it "reaches maturity". This procedure lessens the color field ground while highlighting the importance of the faces or figures. Her work combines strange anthropomorphic creatures and comic version of personages from master paintings. With their bright colors and mildly cynical figuration, the painting engages is a delicate balancing act which is overcome by exquisite tension and delight.


JENNIFER J L JONES

Through her intuitive painting process, Atlanta artist Jennifer Jones wants people to understand her work within their own way own thinking, their own history. In a way, each viewer "finished" her painting with their own vision. She wants them to see something within them that she has never thought of herself.

Jones has reduced natural forms to iconic, silhouetted shapes in compositions that make landscapes the occasion for an extremely refined treatment of materials and painting surface. She investigates relations of dimension, proportion and shape. Her use of high gloss varnish as well as her meticulous stylization of branches and leaves slacken the tension between image and abstraction. Her compositions appear to be strongly influenced by Japanese prints. Her reason to paint is to "transform" something that possesses her. An apparition becomes asymmetry. She draws on the mysterious sources of inspiration and inventiveness to define her individuality in this world.


ANTHONY LIGGINS

Anthony Liggins nominally monochromatic paintings are full of quiet dappled light. Interwoven with hatch marks, Liggins paintings are grid-based compositions staccato frenzies of colorful under painting overlaid with fragments as the result of a long series of controlled steps. He slowly builds up opaque but luminous areas of color. He creates a fluttering sensation with his irregular dots pressed on canvas and wood. He adds chopsticks wrapped in multicolor thread into fabric stitching which seem to knit together on the paintings surface. The patterned marks summon up aspects of Japanese textile design such as those used in children's kimonos. It suggests a more unified composition closer to an activated surface of chromatic variety.



FERDINAND ROSA

Atlanta artist Ferdinand Rosa's new work dealing with allegorical abstraction is a sincere and humble submission to a spiritual experience he had in the Southwest. In moving away from representation, Rosa offers us a means of solace and uplift. His work is exemplary of freedom and spontaneity. It is influenced by American Indian culture and southwestern sunsets. He gives a new perspective to space and fills his canvases with symbols of a cultural moment in time. This new body of work has become a lot more complicated than it used to be. Composed of fuzzy passages of tomato and brick red, creams and dark green earth tones, the paintings are reminiscent of early American Indian tapestries. Rosa's airy allover painting is woven from the canvas's edges to the center or intrudes from the corners. In many works, nature's elements - sky, mountains, sun, light and reflection - are cast as abstract patches of vivid color.


Veronica Kessenich

Fay Gold Gallery
764 Miami Circle
Atlanta GA 30324

404.233.3843 o
404.365.8633 f

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Scattered, Smothered & Covered




So far this year has been anything but dull. I keep promising I will update everyone, but I am very behind on many things and admittedly a bit creatively scattered. Even with the help of my wonderful new assistant... somehow time eludes me. For the most part I've been in the new studio working hard to complete my latest paintings that will be featured in the show coming up at Fay Gold Gallery on February 11th. Invites will be sent out soon, but mark your calendars today so you can save the date!! 


Posted here are a few snapshots of the new studio and works in progress... (My new studio is located near downtown Decatur, in Avondale Estates, GA, just behind the very first Waffle House ... which I think is pretty keen.) 


Also, I wanted to share a quote someone sent me today that I love:

"You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past.
You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy or any of your time, or any of your space."

~Johnny Cash

It's a nice reminder to look ahead and so was the inspiration that hit me yesterday ... I thought about commenting on President Obama's Inaugural address... stepping up and taking responsibility and all really hit home... but then I realized he already said it and there really isn't anything else I need to add, so my only comment is "...yeah, what he said...."  :)


So, there is definitely MUCH more to come... the Art Papers Auction is coming up SOON (February 7th!) and my Fay Gold Gallery opening is but a few weeks away!!!! That's all I can blog about for now ... just wanted to let you all know I'm alive and well and working hard. 
I'd better get back to it!

Cheers and hopes that this quick post finds you all well!!


Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Year


I blinked and it was 2009!  Unbelievable that time moves so quickly... and to think so much goes in to each day, week, and month... all to make up a year.  I'm grateful for all the ups and downs of 2008... and have my hopes set high for 2009 and am looking straight ahead. Thanks to all of you who have continued to support my artwork... you have no idea how much it means to me...  Over the next twelve months I'm looking forward to producing my best work yet and sharing it with all of you. 

My warmest and most heartfelt wishes go out to everyone with the hopes that this year will be the best for all by far.  May you reach your goals and be blessed with endless peace, good health, happiness, and love.  Happy New Year!!!