Mixed Media Archives – Page 4 of 23

The Art Market: Art Auctions

May 31, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

If you’ve got four minutes to spare, check out this great video—part one (Auctions) of a four-part series on Artsy.net. How did the art auction business become a multi-billion-dollar industry? This video is a quick review of the complex history of auctions, with specific attention to the last 20 years. It features record-breaking sales, like Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting Untitled (1982), selling at $51 million, and anomalies such as Ai Weiwei’s Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds) (2010), which pop up at auction in countless different quantities, making the connection between the auction price and the market value of art.

The series is produced in collaboration with UBS and directed by Oscar Boyson.

Director: Oscar Boyson
Editor: Nate DeYoung
Producer: Sean Barth
Produced By: Neighborhood Watch Films
Assistant Editor: Erin DeWitt
Sound: Colin Alexander
Music: Jay Wadley of Found Objects Music Production
Colour: Irving Harvey

James Oberschlake: Painting / Mixed Media

May 25, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

After some attention as a book illustrator in the late nineties, Ohio-based artist James Oberschlake returned to school and received his MFA from the University of Cincinnati in 2011. He is the founder and director of an online resource for American figurative art called Figure50, which features one artist from every state in the U.S. on a rotating basis. His time is currently divided between managing Figure50, painting nearly full time, and exploring the natural surroundings along the Ohio River. James recently returned from an extended visit to his wife’s home country, Thailand, and suspects that the strange sights there will begin to filter into his new work. (Image left: James Oberschlake – Bestial, oil and collage on board, 16 x 12)

Artist Statement:

I nearly always begin an image by drawing loose forms with paint. Very quickly I will start to make associations with those forms and will then begin a lengthy process of continually reexamining and redefining the anatomical and spatial possibilities suggested by previous marks. A large portion of my intent, and a source of much enjoyment, is simply to explore a diverse range of textures and color/value relationships while the realization of subject matter morphs into focus. In utilizing a free association approach, layers of content build as a narrative in conjunction with the physical application of materials. With no initial objective for content, the stories found in the work typically remain ambiguous, allowing for a raw, emotional response and a variety of personal interpretations.

To see more works by James Oberschlake, visit oberschlake.com and connect with him on Instagram.

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 156

May 17, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Your Weekly Mixx – Enjoy! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of nine contemporary artworks and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. Visit the Submissions page for information on how to have your art featured in the Weekly Mixx.

Georges Braque: 1882-1963

May 13, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Born on May 13, 1882 in Argenteuil-sur-Seine, France, Georges Braque was a major painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor of the 20th century. Along with Pablo Picasso, Braque was a key figure in the development of Cubism. He was also responsible for the introduction of many collage techniques including stenciling and combed false wood-grain effects.

Braque grew up in Le Havre and, following in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, trained to be a house painter and decorator. In the evenings, he studied painting at the École des Beaux-Arts from 1897-1899. He studied in Paris under a master decorator and received his craftsman certificate in 1901. He studied painting at the Académie Humbert in Paris from 1902-04.

Braque’s first works were Impressionist, but by 1906 he was painting in a Fauvist style, successfully exhibiting that year in the Salon des Indépendants. Braque met Pablo Picasso in 1907. Both artists were influenced by Paul Cézanne’s use of geometry in depicting his subjects in his work. Cézanne’s paintings greatly impacted the direction of the Paris avant-garde, and soon after, Cubism.

From 1909 Braque and Picasso worked together daily to develop Cubism. By 1911 their styles were extremely similar and during this time, it was virtually impossible to distinguish one from the other. In 1912, the duo began to incorporate elements of collage into their paintings and to experiment with the papier collé (pasted paper) technique. Starting about 1911, Braque began experimenting with other media and techniques, as well as new canvas shapes. He began mixing paint with sand using a house-painter’s comb to introduce areas of imitation wood-grain into his paintings. In 1912, Braque married Marcelle Lapre and rented a house at Sorgues, near Avignon. There, he and Picasso began using pre-existing objects and materials in their paintings.

Braque and Picasso’s artistic collaboration lasted until 1914 when Braque served in the French Army during World War I. He was wounded in the war and temporarily blinded in 1915, but resumed painting in 1916. During his recovery in 1917, Braque began a close friendship with the Spanish artist Juan Gris who was also closely associated with the Cubist movement.

In the 1920s, Braque returned to a more “realistic interpretation of nature, although certain aspects of Cubism always remained present in his work.” He painted landscapes and reintroduced the figure into his work which was characterized by bold colour and textured surfaces. In the mid-1920s Braque also designed the decor for two Sergei Diaghilev ballets.

In 1931 Braque made his first engraved plasters and began to portray mythological subjects. His first retrospective was held in 1933 at the Kunsthalle Basel. In 1937, he won first prize at the Carnegie International, in Pittsburgh.

From about 1936, Braque’s paintings shifted again from the still-life to wider interior views. “Into ornately decorated rooms he introduced impersonal, flattened figures, such as in Woman with Mandolin or The Duet. The new mood suggested by his use of brighter colours was offset, however, by a series of macabre vanitas still-lifes, linked to the theme of the artist’s studio, that he began in 1938, possibly in despair at the approach of World War II. He also built a sculpture studio near his house at Varengeville and began experimenting with sculpture about this time, producing simple and playful, if rather two-dimensional works.

During World War II Braque remained in Paris. He painted mainly still lifes and interiors that were stark and sombre in colour. During this time, Braque also made lithographs, engravings, and sculptures.

In 1954, Braque designed stained-glass windows for the church of Varengeville. During the last few years of his life, Braque’s poor health prevented him taking on any large-scale work, but he continued to paint, make lithographs, and design jewelry.

Georges Braque died on August 31, 1963, in Paris. He is buried in the church cemetery in Saint-Marguerite-sur-Mer, Normandy, France.

Sources: Guggenheim, MoMA

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 155

May 10, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 154

May 3, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Synthetic Nature Part 1 from Andy Thomas on Vimeo.

The latest visual sound art piece from Andy Thomas has been inspired by Australian flora and fauna.
It is nature digitized. Sounds recorded in nature have been run through computers and electronically manipulated.
Computer generated 3D imagery swirls and contorts to the sounds creating semi-abstract interpretations of native plants.

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 153

April 26, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Joan Miró: 1893-1983

April 20, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Born on April 20, 1893 in Barcelona, Joan Miró Ferra was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker and decorative artist and a key figure in the history of abstract art.

Miró studied business at the Escuela de Comercio and art at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios de la Lonja in Barcelona from 1907 to 1910. In 1911, an attack of typhus, as well as nervous depression, enabled him give up his business course and resume his art studies. From 1912-15 he attended Francesc Galí’s Escola d’Art in Barcelona.

Between 1915 and 1918 Miró painted in a style that he described as Fauve, using strong, bright colours. During this period he painted portraits as well as landscapes and views of villages in the province of Tarragona. In 1918 Miró had his first solo exhibition in the Barcelona gallery run by Lluís Dalmau, a key figure in the Catalan avant-garde.

From 1918 to 1922 Miró’s paintings became meticulous and precise with a stylization and flatness akin to the Romanesque paintings that had impressed him in the Museu d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. In 1920, he traveled to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso. From this time on, he divided his time between Paris and Montroig, Spain. In Paris, he associated with the poets Max Jacob, Pierre Reverdy, and Tristan Tzara and participated in Dada activities. Miró had his first solo show in Paris at the Galerie la Licorne in 1921 and his work was included in the Salon d’Automne of 1923.

In 1924, Miró joined the Surrealist group. In 1925, his solo show at the Galerie Pierre in Paris was a major Surrealist event. That same year, Miró was included in the first Surrealist exhibition at the Galerie Pierre. In 1928, he visited the Netherlands and began a series of paintings inspired by Dutch masters. It was during this that that he also produced his first papiers collés and collages.

In 1929, Miró began experimenting with lithography, and his first etchings date from 1933. From 1934 to 1936 Miró produced a series of Wild Paintings, which manifested a violence that had previously been unseen. “Aggression, sexuality and drama here took a deformed and grotesque human form which was emphasized by strange and unexpected materials and surfaces; in some cases paint was mixed with sand and applied to cardboard, while in others he scrawled graffiti on masonite or over paper prepared with tar.”

Miró’s first major museum retrospective was held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1941. That same year, he began working in ceramics with Josep Lloréns y Artigas and started to concentrate on prints. From 1954-58, Miró worked almost exclusively in these two mediums. In 1958, Miró received a Guggenheim International Award for his murals for the UNESCO building in Paris.

In 1960, Miró’s work underwent a dramatic change when he began to use black to outline shapes and to fill them in. This work is “dramatic, even tragic, with colour often suppressed or counteracted by the weight accorded to black. His faith in abstraction was expressed during this period with particular eloquence in large canvases in which broad strokes of colour were set against sensuously painted backgrounds, as in his paintings of the mid-1920s; the simplicity of gesture and boldness of scale and handling make these among his most impressive and influential later works.”

From 1966 onward, Miró worked intensely in sculpture. These works were based mainly on small objects, which he joined in unique ways. Stones, branches and other objects as well as manufactured items, were joined in a Surrealist style but in a way that also revealed his desire for contact with nature and simple things.

A Miró retrospective took place at the Grand Palais, Paris, in 1974. In 1978, the Musée National d’Art Moderne exhibited over 500 works in a major retrospective of his drawings.

Joan Miró died December 25, 1983, in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. His final work, completed after his death, was the large sculpture Woman and Bird, which was installed in the gardens on the former site of the Barcelona abattoir.

Sources: Guggenheim Venice, MoMA,

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 152

April 19, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 151

April 11, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Your Weekly Mixx – Enjoy! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of nine contemporary artworks chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. Visit the Submissions page for information on how to have your art featured in the Weekly Mixx.