Converge, Where Classical and Contemporary Collide

There is a very exciting fine-art exhibition and sale happening this month in NYC at 25CPW Gallery, November 15-27, 2012. Our family business, Matter Deep Publishing had the privilege of publishing the catalog for the show, which is available at the gallery or online.

There is an Opening Reception on Thursday, November 15 from 6 pm to 9 pm that is open to the public, and many of the exhibiting artists will be in attendance. More info is available on the website for the show.


Through their unique skill and vision, these 30 exhibiting artists—and others like them—are breaking barriers between classical and contemporary art, redefining the rules of those respective worlds, and pointing the way toward the art of tomorrow.

~Allison Malafronte, curator

Allison is the former senior editor of American Artist magazine—is an arts writer, editor, columnist, and curator based in New York City and creator of the show.

You may see all the images on the Converge website but I wanted to share a few of my favorites here.

 I'm loving the fantastical quality of this Daniel Bilmes painting.

What's not to love about this Rachel Constantine self portrait. I've seen this painting in person and it is captivating.

 One of my favorite Alia El-Bermani paintings. I'm captured by the symbolic gesture of standing bare in a threshold

Beautiful and mysterious Diane Feissel. There is a soft and delicate quality to Diane's brushwork that makes me sigh.

Wonderful color and composition in this painting by Sandra Flood.

Super graphic quality to this Geoffrey Johnson piece.

Karen Kaapcke using a zinger spot of red in all these neutrals makes for a sparkling composition.

Michael Klein, wow.

Maria Kreyn's painting has it all, dynamic composition, juicy color, captured emotion.

When I found out Jeremy Mann used palette knives and brayers in his work, that explained much about the delectable paint surface. It looks good enough to eat

Adam Miller does the swirling drapery thing so well.

Oh so subtle palette from Gregory Mortensen.

Cool and warm color and pushed values make this piece from Tibor Nagy vibrant.

These shelves and Jordan Sokol are telling a story and I want to listen.

 You may find more about the show at Artists on Art.

Or in the November issue of American Artist Magazine.

Oh, how I wish I could be there in person, but alas, I will simply peruse my catalog, sip a glass of Pinot Grigio and imagine!

Hey, I Know That Place

This is a 3'x4' acrylic painting I did in college, my daughter, Carly, has the painting with her now at college. The painting was inspired by a trip to Florence I took my sophomore year. I just came across an essay she did about it for her Art History class a couple years ago and I'm sharing it with you.

Do you have a piece of art you grew up with and if so how do you feel about it?

 "Florence", 3'x4', acrylic and sand on canvas, 1980, Terry Strickland

Hey, I Know That Place

by: Carly Strickland

     The painting illustrates the Florence cityscape on a 4’ by 3’ canvas.  The buildings are made of pastel geometric shapes, a sharp contrast to the deep navy sky, and there is little in the way of three-dimensional illusion.  They have multi-colored windows and rooftops. They are crammed together properly showing the tight conditions of the city as well as creating an eerie two-dimensional, abstract design.  The artist chose to not use any lines, and instead relied on distinct and sharp color change to distinguish the different structures.
     The city crouches in the bottom half of the canvas, pressed down by the midnight blue sky.  The two pieces, the city and the sky, are anchored together by one dark building front and center.  Only two mathematically precise domes are brave enough to venture into the heavens.  They are the most detailed and the most realistic objects in the composition.  The larger of the two has circular windows around the top, as well as a delicate bell tower peeking out from behind it, identifying it as the Santa Maria del Fiore.
     The radiating chapels are shaded with a zigzag pattern, and not with the mathematical precision of the larger domes.  This confuses the eye, and they cease to be domes, but half circles.  The zigzags are the only organic shape in the paintings and distract from the geometry of the piece.  The acrylic paint used is mixed with sand, for a impressionistic look, but with a fraction of the paint that it would take to achieve the same texture with only paint.  The shadows of the sand create a flurry of movement in a serenely still image. Event the solid blue sky is moving.  The artist’s brushstrokes create a wave like pattern, reminiscent of the ocean.
    This piece properly depicts a city I’ve never been too, but can only imagine. The city is old and settled into place like an elderly man and his worn out, plaid armchair. He’s anchored in, and none of his grandchildren had better try and take his seat, or they’ll get a thump to the head. By no means is it dead, though. There’s still a huge amount of movement between the tourists, art conservationists, and the locals; whom I imagine complain about the other two.
    The painting hangs in my living room.  My mother painted it when she was in college and has been displayed in every home we’ve lived in.  Now it hangs in my college apartment, inspiring me that, yes, some day, maybe I can be great like her.  Maybe I can have a career making the art that I want to make, even if I have to start with a low paying job designing surfing shirts.  It reminds me of the effort I’m going to have to make, and it’s not going to be easy. 
     When I was a child, I didn’t realize it was a landscape.  It didn’t look like any place that I’d ever seen.  I first accepted it as an abstract.  Once my mother tried to explain it to me when I asked, but instead of “Italy,” I simply heard, ”Somewhere that’s not here.”  Images of Arabians, the French, and people in togas flooded the streets in my mind.  It became a made up place, a silly place where nothing was really the way it should be.
     The image of the main oculus has haunted my nightmares.  Its glaring pink eye has always been a source of unease with me.  It looms over my city of many cultures, keeping watch and order.  Did it watch me too?  It wasn’t until I came to college that I fully grasped the location of the piece, even after I had dismissed the Arabs.  I was bombarded with images of Florence.  After a week of being in class, nodding to myself, “I would like to go there someday,” I came home and sat on my couch.  My eyes drifted to the painting, and I said, “Hey, I know that place…” There’s no rush to go there, it’s come to me.
    As long as the sand and paint stick to the canvas, it’s going with me wherever I may settle. It’s my little Italy, and reminds me of everything I believe art stands for: knowledge, spirituality, the classics, love, and beauty.

I've Gone Full Circle

This is the poster I designed in 1981 for my senior show in college, "The Woman's Eye" at Women in Art House, Orlando Florida. It's humorous to me now with it's "Age of Aquarius" feel, and yes, it was actually done with ink and rub-on type, and sent to a print shop for duplication...ah those were the days.

I was a graphic design major at the University of Central FL, and as such was required to only produce a portfolio. I was working on my BFA, also doing a lot of painting and photography so I thought it would be fun to do a show, but being a graphic design major I didn't have access to the gallery on campus.

I had been showing with the "Women in Art" group which was a non-profit that held shows at a house turned gallery space in downtown Orlando. My show was a two person show with sculptor Ellen Gilland, who did life-sized figurative works, she had the floors and I had the walls.

Being in the Women Painting Women Show at Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, SC. and being on Expedition with 11 other women artists brought to mind my senior show. The WPW show was the first gender specific show I've done in 29 years.

It seems I've gone full circle and it seems that women are still talking about some of the same issues we were dealing with in 1981. It surprised me then to hear about sexism and it still does. Back in 1981 most of the artists at Women in Art House were older than me and talked about not being able to get shows in town. They'd started this group as a way to garner attention for the women artists in Central FL.

A few of my male colleagues at school had dubbed the "Women in Art" group "Lesbians in Art", which I just took in stride, just as I did any other nonsense. I didn't have time for that! I was a newlywed with a portfolio to prepare, a show to hang and a career to launch!

Which I did and never looked back, my career and life was in full swing! But... sometimes, as with recent conversations with other artists about their struggle to find their place in the art world, I remember those women in Orlando and I more fully appreciate what they did for me and my generation.

I hope my daughter's generation of artists will experience more equality and that my generation has helped shine a little more light into a few dark corners. Eartha Kitt has good life advice that I think is pertinent to young women artists. 

The river is constantly turning and bending and you never know where it's going to go and where you'll wind up. Following the bend in the river and staying on your own path means that you are on the right track. Don't let anyone deter you from that.  ~Eartha Kitt 

And when you hit a boulder just flow around it.

Analyze Art by looking at Intensity, Complexity and Unity

I was recently contacted by Emily Tenenbaum, a Savannah College of Art & Design painting student because she was doing a paper about my work for her Color and The Painted Image class, analyzing it for "Intensity, Complexity and Unity".  I also enjoyed seeing Emily's work, here is one of her paintings. Nice to meet you Emily-Best wishes for a wonderful painting career! Here is her essay reprinted with permission.

"My Boobs Look Way Too Small in This Dress" by Emily Tenenbaum

Terry Strickland Introduction
by: Emily Tenenbaum
Terry Strickland’s energetic paintings are important additions to Contemporary Art and Realism. Her paintings provide an important female perspective not only with her narrative content, but also by incorporating strong metaphors and symbolism. Her intensity derives not only from her execution, but also by addressing the traditional themes of life, death, and love.   The work has historical ties to literature and also some of the influence of masterful figurative painters such as Titian and Ingres. Strickland’s paintings reinvent subjects like the reclining nude, aspects of magic realism, and even the depiction of superheroes.

Surprisingly, Strickland does not have as much  notoriety as some of her other female contemporaries, yet she continues to excel especially with her upcoming show “Women Painting Women”.  She also has been a part of other feminist painting projects. Sadie Valeri, a San Francisco artist and teacher created the Women Painting Women blog to highlight the work of living, realist women painters who use the female subject in their paintings. They've listed over 300 artists and can now be found on facebook as well.

Are Figure Paintings Ballads?

I was for a moment speechless when a painting student asked "Who buys figurative work?" It was at the conclusion of a slide talk I recently gave about my work. I've been asked this numerous times but usually it's by my optometrist, realtor or someone who admits they're not interested in art.

I've been asked "Why would I want a painting on my wall of someone else's kid...  husband... brother... sister (fill in the blank)?"

I gave my usual response, carefully explaining that my paintings, as well as the work of other figurative artists, are not really portraits. The models are merely actors, sort of "everyman" in a given situation. My paintings involve human universal themes. I'm sharing concerns of human beings- life, death, love, trust, betrayal, humor and melancholy.

But this week as I listened to old Billy Joel music I realized that my paintings are like ballads. We relate to the people whose stories are being told not because we know Brenda and Eddie from "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" but because we remember being like them.

"Well they got an apartment with deep pile carpets

And a couple of paintings from Sears

A big waterbed that they bought with the bread

They had saved for a couple of years

but they started to fight when the money got tight

And they just didn't count on the tears."

We relate to the Plain White T's "Hey there Delilah" because we've experienced a painful long distance relationship.

"A thousand miles seems pretty far

But they've got planes and trains and cars

I'd walk to you if I had no other way"

Simon and Garfunkel resonates with anyone who's ever been lonely and cold in a distant city in "The Boxer".

"Then I'm laying out my winter clothes

And wishing I was gone

Going home

Where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me"

How about The White Stripes, "The Cold Cold Night" singing about loving someone other people don't approve of?

"I hear you walkin' by my front door

I hear the creakin' of the kitchen floor

I don't care what other people say

I'm gonna love you anyway"

These are just a few examples of portrait-like ballads. The human figure is the most natural instrument for me to use for exploring the human condition.

I've had to learn to trust myself and paint what's important to me because chances are if I've felt it someone else has too. It's why my collectors say "Yes, I've felt exactly that way" when they look at a painting that resonates with them.

So from now on I think I'll call myself a balladeer!