Tag Archives: environmental art

05/6/12

Whitney Center Show

12 pieces of my new and recent art work are now on display in the Sexton Gallery at the Whitney Center, 1527 Northway Dr., St. Cloud, Minnesota.  This show was installed on May 1st and is on exhibit through June 30th.  This work consists of 12 new and recent paintings in watercolor and acrylic collage, with fantasy, futuristic, and illustrative themes.  You can visit the Whitney Center from 8:00 am through 5:00 pm, M-F.  If you go:  The Sexton Gallery is past the reception area and to the left, around the corner by the piano.  Here are some photos from the shows. (Photos taken by Shelly L.)

My other current art show is currently at the Women’s Building in St. Paul, 550 Rice Street. It is a 2-person show featuring 18 of my paintings, sponsored by WARM.  Find out more at Leitworks — Events

Upcoming show: May 18, 19 and 20: Art A Whirl sponsored by NEMAA.org. I’ll be at Fitness Crossroad in the St. Anthony mall, which is an official AAW location — new this year.  Stop by and say hello!  This is a 3-day only event.

 

02/19/12

Oil and Dolphins


This is called No Way Out… for Dolphins and other Living Things. (Sorry about the low image quality as I took this with my phone, despite the fact that I own some great cameras.). This painting is small, 10″ x 10″, and part of my Endangered series. Next up: Canadian Lynx, Orangutans, and Grey Wolves. This series does not limit itself to officially endangered animals either, as the dolphin is not currently endangered. I’m also working on endangered man and woman paintings because even though there are a lot of us (7 billion, in fact) we may be endangered at some not too distant future time, too.

11/30/11

Planet Earth Art Exhibit

The local arts organization sponsored several themed juried art exhibits this year, and the last on the list is the Planet Earth exhibit. My painting “Erosion” (which you can see here) was juried into this show, which you can read more about in that previous post too.

Below are more photos from the exhibit.

I hope everyone in the central Minnesota area can make it to see this show. Studio C is in the lower level of the Paramount building, which is directly downtown near the Falcon Bank. You can’t miss it. It’s an unusually strong show, in my opinion, and not because of my painting but because of the other artwork in it. There are some very unique pieces and I’m very happy to see St. Cloud art shows branching out into accepting more mixed media and collage and unusual things in general.

11/20/11

Erosion for Planet Earth

This is my painting  Erosion that I did both for my environmental series, and for the St. Cloud Paramount ‘s “Planet Earth” juried art show. This painting was picked for this show by a juror who is a potter, or ceramic artist, and I’m not sure what to think of that. I know at least one other artist who believes that 3D artists should not be judging 2D work. As a 2D artist, I know I could not honestly juror 3D art and feel fully qualified, because it would not be the type of art of my choice. But I can’t complain about this particular juror because he liked my painting.

This is a 24″ x 26″ painting done in acrylic on canvas.

Continue reading “Erosion for Planet Earth” »

11/10/11

Climate Change Art

These are photos of some recent work related to my environmental series.  The first, above, is called Hotter Than Usual.  It’s a small painting, 16″ x 12″, showing people living in a warming world, (due to climate change) and it’s for my new series Imbalance.  Imbalance has been renamed from its previous name, Rebalance, due to a recent report from the IEA.  It seems obvious now that the world truly is out of balance, and our window to do anything about climate change is shrinking fast.  In fact, the report states that if carbon emissions are not drastically reduced in a few years, it will be too late to stop devastating climate change.  Worst-case climate change would be a tragedy not just for people but for animals and plants, and there will be mass migrations of people due to droughts in some areas and flooding in others.

Below is the recently completely painting Exodus, which depicts people on the move due to violent weather and the resulting unbearable living conditions — the blue suggests the conditions are flooding.  (I did another painting last year called Waterworld which depicts people in a flooding situation.)

Continue reading “Climate Change Art” »

10/6/11

Starting a Series


This is the beginning of another experiment, but this time, it’s something I’ve done before, with various degrees of success. In fact, I first starting doing interesting backgrounds and putting people cut-outs, traced or glued or otherwise manipulated, on these backgrounds, about six years ago. It never turned into a series, but this time I want that to happen.

It seems like an eventual show would be better with a cohesive theme, which is why I’d like to do a series.  In fact, since arriving in my new studio I have been doing a big mishmash of things, with no real ties between them.  (Except maybe “places people would like to be”, as someone told me).

Painting whatever comes to mind is a good way to explore things I want to do, sure. For example, I have been doing bold abstracts in bright colors, sci-fi watercolors in more pastel colors, and some darker, more colorful landscape-y watercolors. And more. Nothing is tied together.  To the public, this appears haphazard and unfocused, and it is. It’s the way my mind (often) works. I try things and then quickly get a better idea and move on. This confuses people!  I found this out at the Women’s Showcase last weekend, when I keep pointing to paintings that were mine and people would express surprise, because it would not look like anything else there that I had done.

Continue reading “Starting a Series” »

03/12/11

All-American War Monger

This painting is of a man who doesn’t need any introduction, and I started it back when I still admired him. Things have changed, due to a lack of promises kept, and my view of him has morphed in a downwards direction, unfortunately. Well, what leader in American doesn’t ultimately become reduced to warmonger? After all, it’s a business that drives our economy. Much of my work is political and two issues make me more “motivated” than others: war for disaster capitalism; and the willful destruction of the environment. Often these things make me too angry to paint with any anything but these gaudy and dismal colors more suitable for an episode of The Tudors than anything else.

What a disappointment.

It’s called “All American Warmonger” and you can also see it featured at Antiwar Artists, another one of my sites. Anyone who does anti-war or environmental artwork is more than welcome to have a gallery there, just contact me and it’ll be done.