apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

"Virgin Surfboard", 19X19, hand-made driftwood frame. ed 3/7

Introducing Lisa Candela's color-saturated photographs from her Sayulita series. See more luscious images of endless summer below...

The Stone Age, 2006, Acrylic, glitter on canvas. 60x84

Introducing Carrie Moyer
who is interested in, "expanding the gene pool of painting through the introduction of new technologies as well as contemporary social and political concerns." It's her pale silhouettes and shocks of color that grabbed my attention -- and see below... you gotta love all the glitter!

"A Roman Interior": Color woodcut w/chine collé : 37 x 27" : Ed. 30

Introducing Betty Woodman. Maybe you saw her retrospective at the Met 2 years back? Woodman, is a leading -- and exuberant -- ceramic artist who, lucky for those of us with far more modest budgets than museums, also creates prints!

Get in line to look through the blue lenses that reveal the risqué surprise in this painting.
At the Mauger Modern Art booth

Its that time of year again…. The Affordable Art Fair is in town.

It's a great way to access wonderful artists from all over the word for prices between $100 and $10,000. See below the jump for a preview.... show opens today, June 12!

Belief #34 – Red. 2008. Paint on Steel, 20.5 x 21.5 x 3”

Is it destruction? Is it renewal (look at that shiny candy-colored paint!)? Are these just crushed oil drums… or something else?

New Year's Day, 2007. Painted and carved wood.

Introducing Hawley Hussey -- artist, writer, performer and mermaid extraordinaire -- who channels inspiration direct to you from the personalities and mythology of the Coney Island board walk, burlesque and side show performances, and the winter-bathing scene. See more of her work -- and how she managed to transform a dentist office in a hopping art opening -- below...

Primetime Hawaiian Sunrise, 2007, 21 x 21" Fruit stickers and archival tape on paper (detail).

Anyone remember, when you were little, putting the Chiquita banana sticker on your forehead at the breakfast table? Introducing Rachel Perry Welty who has taken the aesthetic possibilities of fruit stickers a whole lot further, as well as baking flour... and take out trays.

Eudora's Kitchen, Jackson, Mississippi, 2007

Photographer Susana Raab’s series “A Sense of Place” invites us into the homes of Southern literary greats – Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner. Take a peek…it’s springtime in Mississippi… (and some of these photos are available for only $35!)

"Rorschach Experiment"- food coloring, water, strobe

Introducing Bill Wadman, an accomplished portrait photographer who is always experimenting with his camera... and loves to share what he learns on his informative blog, On Taking Pictures. That's where I found these posted with the invitation: "Tell me what you see in them. It's a little test."

See more dreamy blue, AND portraits below.

Queer Batman, 2007. Watercolor

Introducing AT's very own Mark Chamberlain -- known and loved for his illuminating column, ColorTherapy... Mark is also known and loved in the art world as the wry, insightful brush behind the sensational watercolor series, Queer Batman. But there's more...

Clarissa Looking Like a Pink Flloyd Groupie. Acrylic Painting.

Introducing Zak Smith who gained notoriety a few years back for illustrating every single page of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow -- a project that was featured in the Whitney Biennial in 2004. (see experimental photo from the book below)

from the Secret Life of the Forest series, Fireflies. oil on canvas. 30" x 20". 2007-08

On this beautiful spring day in NYC, I wanted to share the work of
Rene Lynch -- paintings of young women on the brink of womanhood…the magic and mystery of the forest, the awakening of the natural world into spring and summer. Here’s to curiosity, coming of age, getting outside and day dreaming…

Gold Paintings, installation

A tree grows in Norwood (well, TREES). Introducing artist Jim Denney's precious portraits of trees and other tributes to the great northwest.

During the big nyc art shows a few weeks back, I came across an installation of these small ovals climbing up the walls and onto the ceiling of a hallway in the newish private club, Norwood, housed in a beautiful old townhouse on 14th street.

Exhalation, low angle detail. Acrylic on paper strips and pencil. 122" x 175'" x 5". 2006

Not allowed to paint those white walls? Take a look at the magic that artist Joan Grubin can do with pinned paper and reflected color. She creates a whole lotta color that's there.... but not actually "there". wow!

Allandale Farm Greenhouse, Brookline, MA, 10/03. Digital C-print triptych: 40 x 27” each. Edition 2 of 5. Esther Pullman

Oh I think it is really going to happen.. spring, spring is coming! Here are three artists from The Drawing Room who can help us bring the glory of the outdoors into our wee homes...starting with Esther Pullman's triptychs of greenhouses -- the ultimate "outside in".

Lucky Stripes, 3 panels, 48 x 166, 2008

I was at a terrific benefit on Monday for the Community Word Project that teaches poetry writing and performance in the nyc public schools (rah rah!) and encountered some visual poetry in their art-auction. Introducing Kylie Heidenheimer's atmospheric windows of color and space...take a look.

Suspension 1, watercolor, 17 x 16

Introducing Laurie Reid who has a gift for making the accidental and spontaneous, begin to look organized.

Green #1, 2007, collage on paper, 30 x 22” paper 28 x 20” image

Introducing Andrew Zimmerman who draws with scissors (above) and a saw. Yep, a saw! He is working in that sweet spot between painting and sculpture. Check 'em out below.

Mer, 2007. Mixed media, 62 x 43 cm

Introducing Sejma Prodanovik, a Serbian collage-artiste-extraordinaire I was lucky to come across. Here are a few gems in "standard format" -- but truthfully, it was her miniature worlds in toothbrush packaging that captured my heart (see below).

A Square Is Not A Square 1, Sumi ink on mulberry paper, 8”x 46 x 28”

Introducing Seongmin Ahn, a Korean artist working in Queens. I thought Maxwell, our resident "one-drawing-a-day" artist would appreciate these shapes, their scale, and how they are created with layers and layers of ink, following and repeating the shape like a form of meditation.

But as the title indicates... a square is not always a square... see the surprise below!

Perseus. Etching, 20" x 20"

Have your print... and your plate too. Introducing Beth Weintraub Printmaking. Taking inspiration from the mass produced modular furniture movement in the 50s and 60s, Weintraub creates "modular" mix and match artworks where the owner can design their own unique installations to suit their space. While modular-art is not a new idea, Beth is playfully bending traditional printmaking processes to both scale up production, AND keep each piece unique, AND even make the etched printing plate the work of art.

Wait a minute. Isn't the whole idea that (traditionally) prints aim to be identical? Doesn't the artist keep the printing plates? Huh? Let me explain...

Installation of Lewitt's wall drawings at the Whitney, 2000.

Introducing Sol Lewitt (1928-2007) -- one of the fathers of "conceptual art", a giant, a genius, someone who has inspired leagues of other artists, and a handy guy to know about.

For him, the CONCEPT was the art. He asked, why can't a visual artist work the way an architect, or a composer works? Each are considered artists, and teams of others follow the blueprint or the score to "make" the work. No need to get your hands all painty making the thing.

Air Stream. Gouache on paper. 2007

Introducing Alika Cooper and her reveries on mobile dwellings, desolate landscapes, and women.

"Great band, but wow -- an even better back drop. Who made that?!" ...overheard at a New Year's Eve gathering in Havana...