Lasting through the holiday season, 33 Contemporary and the international artists group PoetsArtists, present an online showcase around a unique premise. Show curatr Didi Menendez asked the talented group of artists to paint each other, giving them a chance to “learn about each other’s work and start new friendships,” she says. “This show, [Artists Painting Artists], is about our community.”
Laurence O’Toole, Amy Gibson, oil on embroidered silk, 30 x 20"
For example, artists Amy Gibson and Laurence O’Toole teamed up to create intriguing pieces that capture each other’s essence in their own style. “It was a little nerve-racking painting a fellow artist, especially one that you admire,” Gibson admits. “With him living in Ireland and myself in the states, we both had to rely on each other to take photos of ourselves to work from. We sent ideas to each other of what we were aiming for.”
About her Portrait of Laurence,Gibson says, "[He] exuded a distinct air of contemplation in his references that I wanted to capture. Being from another country, he automatically has a mysterious side to him. After I received the photo references back, I thought he looked like a philosopher or even a monk. I wanted to convey the philosophical essence that he was giving off in his photos and also what he infuses into his artwork.”
Amy Gibson, Portrait of Laurence, oil on cradled wood panel, 12 x 9"
O’Toole shares that he, too, has a great love of Amy Gibson and her work. “Immediately I thought of painting her on some silk fabrics I had just brought back from Spain,” he says. “So, I reached out to her…and happily, she thought it would be a great project.”
The artist had been painting in Spain for months, “mostly to escape the dull and wet Irish winter,” he notes, but also looking for new inspiration. “I was there for the great Festival of Fire in Valencia, with days of dance and burning of effigies and heavy traditional costumes everywhere—pattern and silk, color and bling, everything an aspiring magpie could hope for,” O’Toole says. “I had starting painting on these heavily embroidered silks and was experimenting with isolating the flesh tones on them…This composition of [Amy] came about from my belief that portraiture does not have to be static, but can be animated, dramatic and reminiscent of life itself. So, I asked her for hands and arms in different poses and slowly built it up.”
Deborah Scott, Aliyah, mixed media on canvas, 24 x 18"
In yet another compelling show painting titled Contessa (Portrait of Ellen), depicting the artist Ellen Starr Lyon, we see the intensity behind artist Steven DaLuz. “I would say I am best known for figures, usually women, in an elevated state of being—often traveling in an atmosphere between the physical and the spiritual—between one dimension and another,” he says.
Steven DaLuz, Contessa (Portrait of Ellen), oil and metal leaf on panel, 12 x 16"
“While painted a bit differently than my normal work, in the portrait of Ellen, I tried depicting her as though she was from a distant past. Similar to my normal work, I employed metal leaf into the body of the piece to loosely describe a kind of stylized crown on her head. I had determined in advance that I did not want to paint the subject in a contemporary setting. I decided to paint a woman in a dress from around the time of the Renaissance, totally change the artist’s hair style and color, and place on her head a rough, stylized crown," he continues. "I wanted her gaze to directly engage the viewer, (who I imagined to be the artist), with an intensity one might expect if studying one’s own face in a mirror. While the woman in the painting is from another time, the face belongs to Ellen…”
The entirety of Artists Painting Artists will be on view at www.artsy.net from November 26 through March 2, 2024. —
33 Contemporary Gallery Zhou B Art Center, 4th Floor • 1029 W. 25th Street Chicago, IL 60609 • (708) 837-4534 • www.artsy.net/show/33-contemporary-artists-painting-artists
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