{"id":12937,"date":"2012-09-22T13:46:59","date_gmt":"2012-09-22T22:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/?p=12937"},"modified":"2012-09-22T14:37:16","modified_gmt":"2012-09-22T23:07:16","slug":"thomas-deans-friends-of-a-social-network-show-and-two-other-openings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/thomas-deans-friends-of-a-social-network-show-and-two-other-openings\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Deans Friends of a Social Network show and two other openings"},"content":{"rendered":"

“A Web of Artists: Friends of a Social Network”<\/em> is the official title for one of the three openings that I went to last night at Thomas Deans Fine Art<\/a> in Atlanta. Previously on Bennett Street, the gallery has moved to Miami Circle. It’s an intimate space and the gallery did a great job of hanging the artists’ work. Not all artists in the show are represented here, you’ll just have to visit the gallery. The show is up until October 13th.<\/p>\n

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Surprisingly, I knew four of the artists myself; Ken Kewley, Philip Koch, Paul Behnke and Harry Shooshinoff. Some I know from Facebook, others post in various blogs that I follow.<\/p>\n

It was interesting to find a gallery culling from online for an exhibit and whose work the director may have never seen in person beforehand. Many of the artists are connected by residencies or teaching, or because they’ve found each other through social networks like Facebook.<\/p>\n

I met Ken Kewley on Facebook and we share a history of living in Easton, PA. I first discovered his work through the 2010 notes he wrote about color on the blog Painting Perceptions<\/a>. And I especially like that he uses a lot of greens, a color that one gallery director once advised me to change in my own work. He teaches art at PAFA<\/a>, has taught at the\u00c2\u00a0Jerusalem Studio School<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0Certosa program in Siena, Italy,\u00c2\u00a0and gives summer workshops in Michigan. I really enjoy his posts on FB about Braque and other artists. His three small figurative works of women in dressing rooms were just lovely. My camera isn’t so great in low light, so I’m including some work from Deans’ catalog and the artists’ websites as substitutes.<\/p>\n

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Ken Kewley. The Pink Skirt, oil on board, 10 x 5 inches, 2012.<\/p>\n

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Ken Kewley. The Light Gray Wrap, oil on board, 10 x 5 inches.<\/p>\n

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Ken Kewley. The Gray Skirt, oil on board, 10 x 5 inches.<\/p>\n

Several of these artists show quite often, like the abstract colorist\u00c2\u00a0Paul Behnke<\/a>, who is featured this month in Richard Rosenfeld’s august gallery in Philadelphia with a catalog write-up by critic and The Brooklyn Rail<\/a> editor John Yau. I discovered Behnke from Brett Baker’s Painters’ Table<\/a> blog\u00c2\u00a0and have been following his Structure and Imagery<\/a> for a while. I’m impressed with how many exhibits he writes about and appreciate his bold sense of color. He lives in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

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Paul Behnke. Little Je-Je, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 inches.<\/p>\n

The next two paintings weren’t in the show, but Behnke graciously allowed some grabs off his site:<\/p>\n

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Paul Behnke. Vandervoort Place, acrylic on canvas 36 x 38 inches, 2012.<\/p>\n

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Paul Behnke. Orange Rampart, acrylic on canvas 48 x 46 inches, 2011.<\/p>\n

Philip Koch, another painter whose blog<\/a> and Facebook posts interest me, has exhibited widely and is greatly influenced by Edward Hopper. In fact, he’s painted in Hopper’s studio during the 14 residencies he’s spent in the S. Truro, MA residence. He paints from direct observation and memory, rather than from photographs. Koch is also one of the few painters I know, who acknowledges the Canadian Group of Seven<\/a>, specifically Lawren Harris, as influences.<\/p>\n

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Philip Koch. Deep Forest Pool, oil on panel, 30 x 40 inches.<\/p>\n

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Philip Koch. The Birches of Maine, oil on panel, 15 x 20 inches.<\/p>\n

Harry Shooshinoff<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0is an amazingly prolific painter whose work I first discovered online. He lives a couple of hours north of Toronto in Ontario and paints the landscape that surrounds him. I love his small collages and paintings of snow covered fields and icy lakes that remind me of Nova Scotia, where I lived in the early 1970’s.<\/p>\n

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Harry Stooshinoff. Early August Green (Toward Tommy’s), acrylic on paper, 7.5 x 9 inches.<\/p>\n

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Harry Stooshinoff. Hedgerow (Overcast), acrylic on paper, 7.5 x 9.75 inches.<\/p>\n

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Harry Stooshinoff. Edge, torn acrylic collage on Arches paper, 7.75 x 6.25 inches. This was not in the show, I took it from one of his online sites to show his collage work.<\/p>\n

Donald Beal<\/a>, whose work reminds me of the Bay Area Figurative movement from the 1940s to the 1960s, teaches art at Dartmouth and talks about struggling with the figure in this video. Interestingly, he notes that although he’s competent enough to paint an anatomically correct hand, it didn’t work in an abstracted figurative piece – so he changed it. Like Behnke, who says he has no preconceived idea about color or form when he begins a painting, Beal discusses using tension and form to create a figurative work.<\/p>\n