artamaze by Katherine Hilden

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2017/03/05/black-black-black/

Art Outside the Box—and With the Box

Posted in abstraction, Achievement, Collage, Composition, inspiration, Technique and Demo, tagged box, mixed midium, rorating canvas, Terry Fohrman on October 29, 2018| 2 Comments »

Here we have a painting (with mixed medium) that feels almost done. Not quite. It needs something, but what? When stuck or undecided, turn the painting in another direction to get a fresh look. I suggested turning it upside down.

Ah! Now the dense “heavy” part is at the top, which means it is unstable, it has a ways to fall: it has energy. So much better. But, still, the painting as a whole needed something.

What to do? The artist snuck out of the studio, walked around the building and came back with a box. Ha! She plopped it down in just the right spot, the spot that had invited “more.” Voila.

I don’t like to say “perfect” about anything. But the way that box nested there and especially how its left flap formed a triangle with the paintings lines, that was too good to be anything but uncanny. It happens.

In the next class the artist integrated the box with some splashed paint. Stay tuned.

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/in-half/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/09/29/popping-out-of-the-frame/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/found-objects/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/shapes-and-light/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/exhibit-at-ethical-humanist-society/

Painting in acrylic with mixed medium by Terry Fohrman, 48”x24”+.

Black-Black-Black

Posted in abstraction, Achievement, Collage, Color, Composition, Technique and Demo, Texture, tagged black, lines, Terry Fohrman on March 5, 2017| 1 Comment »

So elegant, witty, lively! The white lines are scratched into the black, revealing the white under-painting.

Additional texture comes from glued-on fabric, including burlap. The painting manages to have gravitas and levity at the same time.

Terry Fohrman, acrylic on canvas, 24” x 48”

In Half

Posted in abstraction, Achievement, Collage, Color, Composition, inspiration, Roundness, Seeing, Technique and Demo, Texture, tagged amorphous, anchor, circle, Evanston Art Center, Not Black and White, random, Studio Exhibition, Terry Fohrman on January 16, 2017| 1 Comment »

Working with a center line, whether vertical or horizontal, challenges the painter. How do you prevent this thing from becoming static? How do you overcome the invitation to symmetry? How to you create movement?

In this painting the challenge is heightened by the choice of black vs. white. Now look what happens at the dividing line between the two fields. At (2) a large round shape that straddles both fields attracts your attention by virtue of its size, circularity and texture—it’s glued on burlap. At (1) and (3) lines cross the divide. These are powerful because the eye finds lines irresistible and traces them wherever they lead.

The blue line at (3) gracefully sweeps upward towards the right. At the light red dot (4) it traces an orbital path. Because the red rectangles at (6) suggest a stable architectural element (perhaps a window), they add a rational anchor to a universe in which amorphous planes float randomly. At the same time the red dot perches precariously on one corner (4). This becomes the focal point of the painting, deeply satisfying and at the same time restless.

But wait, there’s a twist in the plot. When the artist submitted the painting to the Studio Exhibit she reversed it. Notice that the focal point in this new orientation is one of those amorphous shapes (5). The effect is edgy.

We are deprived of the satisfaction we found previously in the red dot perched on the corner of the red rectangles. In this orientation, the red dot and the red rectangles are resting on the bottom edge, not going anywhere. They’ve settled, they lack drama.

It’s a brilliant painting. Buy it. Hang it, not over your couch, but in front of it. Sit. Look at it in one orientation, then next week turn it over and look again. Allow yourself to be unsettled. Get to know your perceptual quirkiness.

The Studio Exhibit at the Evanston Art Center will be up til January 29.

Terry Fohrman, Not Black and White. Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 48”

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/found-objects/

Popping out of the Frame

Posted in abstraction, Achievement, Collage, Composition, inspiration, Technique and Demo, tagged found objects, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Terry Fohrman on September 29, 2016| 1 Comment »

Are you allowed to do this?

Yes, you’re allowed to do this.

But it’s not done frivolously. There’s surprise and a sense of liberation in the act of attaching found objects to the canvas. It’s done with a sense of history, referencing Rauschenberg and Johns, for example.

Terry Fohrman, mixed media, ~30” 24”

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/shapes-and-light/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/?s=picasso

Found Objects

Posted in abstraction, Achievement, Collage, Color, Composition, Imagination, inspiration, Seeing, Technique and Demo, tagged charcoal, collage. Renaissance, found objects, Georges Braques, Pablo Picasso, sandpaper, Synthetic Cubism, Terry Fohrman on September 28, 2016| 2 Comments »

At a distance you see an engrossing painting in muted complimentary colors, blues and orange-browns. If you move close to this canvas you’ll see that things are glued onto it. At (2) there’s a distressed black rectangle with a yellow band at the bottom that has a zig-zag line on it. At (3) the artist painted a continuation of (2). At (1) we find a rich brown patch that is actually a piece of sand paper. At (4), some pieces of cloth and frayed canvas.

The realization that these banal objects on the canvas [(2) is some rubber that was found on the street] are used so harmoniously in the painting is thrilling to any modernist. This juxtaposition of aesthetics and the mundane marks modernism.

Before 1912 painters did not glue anything onto their drawings or paintings. That summer in 1912, however, Georges Braque saw some fake wood grain wall paper in a store window, bought a roll and pasted strips of it into his charcoal drawings. The audacity! You call that art!? Art was expected to emanate from some higher power and remind us of lofty ideals to live up to. Now this! Even Picasso was shocked. But he immediately understood that collage was another way to subvert the ideals of the Renaissance and so, of course, he was all for it. Thus we have the beginning of Synthetic Cubism, which gave us a new way of staying alert when looking at art and life. Thank you, Braque!

Painting with mixed media by Terry Fohrman, oil on canvas on board, ~20” x 16”

Georges Braque 1881-1963

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/?s=braque

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/exhibit-at-ethical-humanist-society/

Shapes and Light

Posted in abstraction, Achievement, Color, Composition, Landscape, Seeing, Technique and Demo, tagged aesthetic experience, landscape, Terry Fohrman on September 27, 2016| 2 Comments »

That divide between the green and red fields tempts you to see a landscape with a high horizon. It’s a recurring temptation, isn’t it. Feels so nice, ah, a landscape and so you stay with it and think landscapey thoughts.

Then the forms take over. The foremost shapes are the green cross, red rectangle (1) and the two circles (2) (3). Shapes lying flat on the canvas simply destroy the landscape illusion. Good. Now you’re sliding into an aesthetic experience. Shapes and light.

Terry Fohrman, oil on panel, 24” x 30”