Alumni News

Shane Wolf  has just been awarded (by a unanimous decision from the jury) the prestigeous Taylor Foundation prize for his powerful painting Soumission, which is currently hanging in the Grand Palais in Paris in a show called Art en Capital (artencapital.fr). For a painter to have his/her work in the Grand Palais is a huge honour.

He writes, “… it’s hard to explain to those outside of our ‘world’ how symbolic and meaningful it is for a painter … to enter the halls of the Grand Palais, participate in this salon, and even be decorated with an award. On top of all that, the public’s reaction to my painting has been amazing: all ages (even a 5-year old), men and women alike have stood, admired, returned with friends, returned again, gasped, interrogated [and] praised … the painting.” Many people have commented that it’s THE painting of the show (of more than 2500 works). Bravo, Shane!!

Shane is represented by his Parisian gallery, L’Œil du Prince (www.loeilduprince.com), and 29 of his small-format paintings (all painted in the last month!!!) will be in the show Small is Beautiful (www.loeilduprince.com/la_galerie.html), opening on Dec. 1st.

Shane is American, but has lived in Paris for years now. More of his brilliant paintings can be seen at his website: shane-wolf.com

Shane Wolfe "Soumission"

Another major article has come out on Damir Simic and his work, this time in Art of England magazine. Bravo, Damir!

Damir’s painting With Mandolin is featured in the Christmas Exhibition at the W.H. Patterson Gallery, London. The exhibition runs from the 30th November to the 23rd December 2011.

Damir's paintings and drawings can be seen at his site: damirart.com

Article on Damir Simic in Art of England magazine

Damir Simic "With Mandolin"

 

After graduating from the Angel Academy, Matthew Grabelsky returned to New York for a year, but then returned to live in Europe — first Rome and then Paris. Through his Parisian gallery, Matthew entered a show, Go West, that includes works by 64 artists, half from France and half from Texas (in which Matthew was counted as a French artist!). The show opened last September at the UNESCO world headquarters in Paris and then moved to Houston; it contains works by many big-name artists with work in prestigious collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

Matthew writes, “The piece that I had in the show was bought by an important Houston collector and as a result of the exhibition I was approached by a big contemporary art gallery here called Deborah Colton Gallery (www.deborahcoltongallery.com/2011/content/matthew-grabelsky), which is now representing me. They just introduced me to their collectors this week in a show that featured seven of my recent paintings.”

While in Houston for the opening of Go West, Matthew was invited to lecture to the senior painting class at one of the big universities by the director of their painting programme. He loved Matthew’s work and thought that it would be beneficial to their students to hear about the work and about his training. He gave a slide presentation of his recent paintings and then went through the sequence of projects that he did at the Angel Academy, Florence, and discussed the the skills learned through them. The students were very excited and asked a lot of questions about the work, the technique and about studying with us in Italy.

More of Matthew’s paintings can be seen at his website: www.grabelsky.com

Matthew Grabelsky "Satyr's Glance"

Matthew Grabelsky "Alleyway Masquerade"

 

Nancy Fletcher

Nancy Fletcher is currently working on three full-size portrait commissions, along with several other works, and her painting The Portrait Painter was selected for a finalist award in this year’s annual Art Renewal Center’s Salon Competition.

More of Nancy’s work is visible at www.fletcherfineart.com/Gallery/Gallery.html

Nancy Fletcher updates

Nancy Fletcher updates

 

Angel alumnus Emile Klein is cycling across America, painting portraits to use, as he states it, “…arts and craftsmanship to discover the modern American people.” His basic formula is to spend a week with each carefully chosen subject. During that time he paints a portrait in oils in a style he describes as “Old Masterly naturalism.” At the end of the week, he records an audio interview with his subject. He also gathers lots of information to pass along to his freelance writers to boil down into a 350-word bio on each person.

There are three elements for each subject. These elements will be displayed in two ways—on a website and as an exhibition that will travel around the country in the winter of 2013-14. To make this happen, Emile will borrow back all the portraits he has given to his many hosts.

You can read more about Emile’s unusual project at www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2011/11/itinerant_artist_puts_clinton.html and at www.nj.com/salem/index.ssf/2011/11/artist_emile_klein_pays_a_visi.html and www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2011/11/traveling_portrait_artist_make.html

Emile Klein

Emile Klein painting Ken Nerger

How to Paint Your Own Rembrandt

1. A thin coat of fairly lean oil paint is spread over the white canvas. The colour of this coat of paint is a greyed golden-brown, which was Rembrandt’s preferred field colour (the field colour is the unifying colour that pervades the whole painting, giving it a strong mood). This is left to dry thoroughly.

2. The darks are massed in, using a very dark grey-brown.

3. The lights are impastoed, using a light-value version of the field colour. This creates the basic three-value field-colour underpainting.

4. The darks are now elaborated by wiping-back and by opaque painting. Please note that steps 2 to 4 are done before the drawing stage dries.

5. Once the light shapes in stage 3 have dried thoroughly, the lighter lights are added, using thick paint.

6. When this is all thoroughly dry, the main value notes of the head, hair and white clothing are roughed in, using fairly thick paint; however, the paint is thinner in the transition tones and thin in the shadows. The colour of this roughing-in is the field colour (various values of greyed golden-brown), and the result is a monochrome underpainting, with strong, simplified form. This used to be called the dead-colouring.

7. When step 6 is thoroughly dry, the head and clothing can be painted in full detail using thin paint and full colour. Please note that the painter concentrates on the face and on the light draperies—the dark clothing is left as it was in step 4 (unless some tweaking is needed). A few extra thick highlights can be added here and there in the lights to strengthen the impastoes.

8. Last of all, the background is finished.

Paint your own Rembrandt: step-by-step