Contemporary Seascape Painting
Oh how quickly things can change. I like my art to parallel how I am feeling. I would love to get your take on it.
Seascapes. Confession. I love being anywhere near a body of water be it ocean, sound, river, stream or creek. I am not quite sure how I wound up living in the mountains but most of my travels center around being near water, even if it is a view of the Hudson River while I am in NYC. I always try to see as much art as possible on my trips there, catching up on the museum shows, visiting galleries and wandering the big art shows when they are in town. Viewing all that art can be overwhelming at times and I often plan breaks in between viewing unfamiliar artists works to see artists I am familiar with and who’s work I admire. On my most recent trip to NYC, there were two shows I was excited to see. The works really grabbed me and influenced my decision to turn to water and work on some seascapes.
The first show I throughly enjoyed was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They currently have an amazing exhibition, “Winslow Homer-Crosscurrents,” which includes works from his post civil war oil paintings, watercolor paintings from his time in the islands, and incredible oil paintings of the ocean and waves crashing along the rocky coast of Maine. If you are in NYC it is a must see. The show closes July 31st, 2022.
The second exhibition, which sadly has closed, is “Richard Hambleton Beyond the Shadowman.” Hambleton was an amazing Canadian artist who lived in NYC most of his adult life.
He is most famous for his “Shadowman” Sdtreet Art figures that loomed around many a scary corner or dark alley first in Manhattan and then around the world. The Chase Contemporary Gallery in Soho, NY, recently had a marvelous show of his work. The “beyond” bit of the title disclosed his lesser known but equally if not more powerful works. I had never seen any of his seascapes prior to my visit and was blown away by the scale, artistic influences and sheer painterly quality of his works, (mostly in acrylics, by the way). If you want to see more of Hambleton’s influence on my work, check out my Shadow Women: “Patriot” and “Looking into Chaos.” which I painted in 2019. She is my alter ego.
This is an original oil painting on metal is part one of a diptych, stay tuned for the companion piece which is almost complete.