Art Tube

Early February 2012 Drawings

2012-02-13T20:53:00.001-08:00

Kash modeled this evening.

End of January 2012 Drawings

2012-02-05T00:08:00.000-08:00

Late January 2012 Drawings

2012-01-28T22:41:00.000-08:00

Had a very productive session Monday evening:

My latest Artist's Statement

2012-01-15T10:04:00.001-08:00

Here's the Artist's Statement I'm submitting for the Williamsburg Show. It may be of interest.

FrankKrasicki
Artist Statement 2011

I have been making art in one form oranother for over fifty years. As a young boy I sketched endlesslyand drew my inspiration from comic books, Saturday morning black andwhite cartoons, and my own imagination.

I majored in art at Doane College andstudied with David Bean, Richard Terrell, and Marcia Goldenstein. After teaching art for a year, I studied with the late RichardTrickey at the University of Nebraska. His influence remains with metoday. During these early years, I was creating art in the mainstreamof modernism. German Expressionism and Abstract Expressionism wereheavy influences.

By the early eighties that paintingperiod ended.

During the eighties my painting waslimited to few watercolors and single acrylic. My attention turnedto micro-fiction, copy-art, song writing, and other experimental artforms that dealt with the effect of machines on imagery andnarrative.

I married and raised a family.

In the nineties, I helped developnumerous internet art projects that were self-published in thedigital version of the Silicon Daze virtual magazine. I createdhyperlink fiction, automatic poetry, and other non-narrativeexperimental forms of artistic rendering.

In the mid-nineties, I began to rethinkmy art and I slowly began to create object art again. I needed tocatch up with the two decades or so of art that had been pacing myown so I began re-examining art history and recalibrating my own artand its relation to the artistic currents of the now.

Today I see much of my artisticendeavor as post-modern and outside the modernist historicaltrajectory. Today, there are a number of inertias that a given piecemay follow:

Meta-modern
Ready-myth
Post-modern
Experimental
Recombinant Ab-Ex
Commissioned
or some combinatorial of the above

I continue to write prolifically aboutall these genres on my website (arttube.blogspot.com) and on numerousinternet art forums. I find great inspiration and satisfaction indrawing.

My pieces are often wrinkled canvas,disarmingly naive, unapologetically unorthodox, sloppy looking, oddlyhumorous, academically unacceptable, oreverything-that's-wrong-with-art. I intensely study art andfeel confident that the art I'm producing is significant and worthy.

Early January 2012 Drawings

2012-01-14T12:22:00.000-08:00

Monday evening's crop of drawings:

The WAH Salon show is Coming

2012-01-08T18:03:00.000-08:00

Stamford Art Assn - Faces and Figures

2012-01-06T20:22:00.000-08:00

I'm submitting Spanking Jesus for this year's show:

Final Drawings of 2011

2011-12-26T20:50:00.000-08:00

The final drawings of 2011 - a lazy drawing session during Christmas week.

Contact Information

2011-12-17T14:45:00.000-08:00

To buy art or correspond with the artist:

krasicki@gmail.com

Mid-December 2011 Drawings

2011-12-13T21:13:00.000-08:00

I only had three sheets of paper and went through them rather quickly. Short evening, but productive.

Early December Collaborative Drawings

2011-12-10T22:37:00.001-08:00

This week Darryl Oates and I exchanged a drawing apiece to experiment with the collaborative form.


		December 2011 Krasicki on Oates collaborative drawing

I will add Darryl's drawing over mine when it becomes available.

Update: Here's Darryl's drawing:

Early December 2011 Drawings

2011-12-10T22:27:00.001-08:00

Monday night we had an excellent model and I got a couple of decent drawings out of the session.

Bull Market (Pinnochio on Wall St)

2011-12-04T20:24:00.001-08:00

I re-purposed the stretcher from Apocalypse New York to stretch the Wall St painting. My space is limited and so recycling material like stretchers is critical to saving money and space.

Anyway, Bull Market is ready for the Salon show at the WAH center in Williamsburg come January.

This is a Readymyth and a meta-modern piece. You will recognise modern techniques made famous by Frankenthaler, Picasso (Pinocchio's embedded form), the color field painters, and a few others.

November 2011 Collaboration Drawings

2011-12-03T20:36:00.001-08:00

I was sufficiently disturbed by the quality of the drawing session Monday evening that I took it upon myself to ask Tim Reilly, a fellow artist at the drawing session to finish a drawing I started that was his to keep. He later exchanged on of his drawings that I worked into.

These are the first two of what I hope becomes an exercise that is repeated with different artists each week.

My foreground over Tim's ink ground

Tim's ink drawing over my pastel ground

End of November 2011 Drawings

2011-12-03T20:31:00.001-08:00

I was having a difficult time getting into a groove Monday so I experimented oddly.

Late November 2011 drawings

2011-11-24T19:15:00.001-08:00

I managed but two drawings this week. A middle-aged female model who had a bit of a twenties hairdo.

Godot Searches For His Lost Keys

2011-11-20T17:34:00.001-08:00

Today, I finished Godot Searches for his Lost Keys, a companion piece to Zarathustra Clears His Throat. This, like the other, is a meta-modern piece and a ReadyMyth that refers to Beckett's philosophical meme.

Here you'll see Rothko's technique complemented by a touch of Raushenberg, Frankenthaler, and a few others. Meta-modernism is the recombinant use of the modernist's intellectual palette toward the creation of post-modernist art.

Godot Searches for his Lost Keys

Zarathustra Clears His Throat

2011-11-20T17:26:00.001-08:00

I completed Zarathustra Clears His Throat today. This is a meta-modern piece AND a ReadyMyth. To the point of the former, look no further than Rothko, Newman, and the color field painters as reference.

The intent is recombinant modernism applied to Nietzche's imprint on the collective imagination.

Zarathustra Clears His Throat

Mid-November 2011 Drawings

2011-11-16T20:12:00.001-08:00

Samantha, an excellent model, worked the drawing session. I got three solid drawings out of the session.

The 2011 Willimantic Co-op Show and other news

2011-11-05T23:19:00.000-07:00

The recent spate of debilitating storms caused me to hastily put together a show for this year's Willimantic Co-op event. As a result, this is a bit of an eclectic set of material - all of which is for sale at reasonable and approachable prices.

The New Britain Art League's Carriage House Show has been extended another week or so as well giving those who missed it due to storm conditions an additional opportunity to visit.

Late October 2011 Drawings

2011-10-25T14:59:00.000-07:00

Monday night we had one of our better models and the following four drawings are the result of a couple of hours of drawing.

Recombinant AbEx #1

2011-10-22T13:57:00.000-07:00

Today i completed the first new Abstract Expressionist experiment in about thirty years. It a meta-modern in concept. That is that I am attempting to re-imagine my own Abstract Expressionist legacy through new eyes and application of techniques. I believe I'm succeeding.

In the past year or so I have been experimenting with using Anglo flesh tones outside the context of representational painting and into more abstract pieces. Here, the color and tactile quality of paint application within a more traditional color field ground is disruptive, it acts as if it doesn't belong.

As with Abstract Expressionist pieces I painted in the seventies, I was looking to capture many of those same colors, tendencies, and habits. But in this piece the under ground began as a reverse "zip" painting in which I ran paint down and across the raw canvas and let it set. In later weeks, I used palette knife techniques across this surface and the under ground zip strips maintained their presence. This was a bit of a pleasant surprise.

Other differences from then to now include the both horizontal and vertical application of paint (I used to paint pieces such as these strictly on the floor - now on a picnic table outside). And these new paintings have brush, palette knife and other drawing techniques evident - my previous paintings were far more constrained in technique.

Mid-October 2011 Drawings

2011-10-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

Monday evening we had a duet of models; one male, one female. Uncharacteristically, I only completed two drawings for the evening although I was there for over two hours. The first drawing is the result of many, many short poses and then I went into it and abstracted that result.

More Early October 2011 Drawings

2011-10-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

I had a very productive drawing session Monday evening that included a pen and ink drawing.

Carriage House Show 2011, Art League of New Britain

2011-10-12T19:25:00.000-07:00

The ALNB's Carriage House Show opens Friday evening, October 14 and runs for about a month.

I submitted two paintings. For the first time in nearly thirty years, The Day John Lennon Died, an acrylic painting from 1981 will be on display. About two years ago, this painting was used in a postcard for the original A Book About Death collection and show in Soho. Since that show, the postcard as part of that body of work has been collected by numerous international museums and collections.

The Day John Lennon Died

The second painting, Spanking Jesus, is more recent and has only been shown at the Orbit gallery this past summer in New Haven. Spanking Jesus is a ReadyMyth based on the Christ-child's relationship with Mary and Joseph that is an inquiry into corporal punishment and the upbringing of the very human Jesus child. Was Jesus good because of destiny, nurture, DNA, or something else? For that matter, was Jesus well-behaved and does his upbringing instruct today's Christians in matters of discipline?

Spanking Jesus

Untitled Abstract #1 2011

2011-10-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

I completed a 6x9" abstract painting this weekend. I spent most of my time fighting a head cold and painting the outside of our house than doing any real art although I managed to finish an acrylic called Bill's Mermaid for Bill Leuze who I pester at work to complete my licensing purchases.

Untitled Abstraction #1 2011

Early October 2011 Drawings

2011-10-04T20:09:00.000-07:00

Monday night was rainy, the drawing session was crowded, and I left a bit early. i managed to produce three drawings;

End of September 2011 Dawings

2011-09-27T19:09:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to get back to a larger drawing paper and had a great time with my pastels and occasional graphite stick.

Late September 2011 Pastel Drawings

2011-09-21T19:51:00.000-07:00

I was late for the drawing session this week and we had a sparse turnout. I managed to create three crayon pastels while I was there. I'm working with smaller watercolor paper that makes detail work that much more dificult. Nice results nonetheless.

Landscapes and Still Lifes At Artwell

2011-09-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

Today I delivered an older Readymyth to Artwell gallery for a Landscapes and Still Lifes show that shows September 24-October 16, 2011and has a Reception on Saturday 9/24 6-8pm.

Breath of God (Symbiotics)

This piece (one of a few) represents the Genesis. And by Genesis I mean virtually any origin story of man. Here the representation is a juxtaposition of what might be considered a representational landscape whose content foreground is marked by the symbiosis. These marks are proxies for the a priori intelligence that transformed the purely material earth into a living planet.
Life lives on information.

Early September 2011 Drawings

2011-09-17T18:07:00.000-07:00

Monday evening I worked again with soft wax pastels and managed to finish but two drawings both of which I like. A third sits orphaned until I can get back to it maybe in this coming week.

The Harlequin's Daughter

2011-09-04T20:19:00.000-07:00

This painting has been in process for most of the summer and has consumed more energy than I care to think about. I have been reading John Richardson's biography of Picasso and this painting is a first attempt at Creating a ReadyMyth that illustrates a composite female nude by applying a number of meta-modern techniques to an abstracted Picasso form to the composition. The decorative cross hatching, the use of a lounge chair as an object of constraint and the ruthless invasion of sheer abstract painterly color fields throughout the models I think creates a post-modern response to a modern master.

Mid August 2011 Oil Pastels

2011-08-16T20:28:00.000-07:00

Monday evening, I switched to oil pastels for the drawing session. These are hand rubbed (blisters to prove it) drawings.

Early August 2011 Drawings

2011-08-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting around to publishing Monday evening's drawings.

publish

Stretched "...Fear Itself"

2011-08-13T22:35:00.000-07:00

I spent Saturday building a stretcher and frame for "...Fear Itself". Once I got it stretched, I performed some artistic surgery on it as I was not really satisfied with the way it popped. I think the modifications will make it a stronger piece.

First of August 2011 Drawings

2011-08-02T20:14:00.000-07:00

Monday evening I managed five drawings that attempted to convey the more lifeless aspects of the model.

Fear Itself

2011-07-31T15:08:00.000-07:00

I finally completed this painting. I started it at the beginning of the summer and the weather and a minor medical emergency operation intervened to make this an unproductive summer for my acrylics.

This one's a Readymyth that asks the viewer to re-examine our international love affair with fear.

...Fear Itself

Late July 2011 Drawings

2011-07-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

Monday night Samantha modeled and I got three beautiful complex drawings from the session.

Mid-July 2011 Pastel Drawing

2011-07-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

This drawing represents two hours of drawings and multiple model poses. Some weeks are harder work than others. This week I was trying very much to transform the shape and purpose of the model.

Early July 2011 Drawings

2011-07-14T20:27:00.000-07:00

Created a few good drawings this week after a few weeks off.

Reframed Two 1980 Watercolors

2011-07-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

I have very little artwork left from my early career. The drawings are all gone and the watercolors were distributed to friends a long time ago.

I had two watercolors that had been framed but the frames and mats had been damaged. I finally got around to restoring them.

Mid June 2011 Drawings

2011-06-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

I had an emergency surgery last Wednesday to remove my appendix. In any case, I'm on the mend and just getting around to publishing last week's drawings. Due to the recovery cycle, I have none this week.

Bull Market - Pinocchio on Wall St.

2011-06-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

Kathy and I spent the better part of the weekend visiting part of the Iannucci clan.We saw a wonderful show at the Jewish museum that was a showing of a small part of the Cone sister's collections. Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Gaughan, and a few others. Wonderful.

I managed to get home in time to finish my first large acrylic of the year, Bull Market [Pinocchio on Wall St.]. This backyard photo has sunlight streaming across it but you get the idea.

More Double Dates, Double Date Shards, and a New Pastel

2011-06-14T20:52:00.000-07:00

Small crowd at drawing this week but some decent output.

DoubleDate #1

Double Date Shard #1

Double Date Shard #2

Double Date Shard #3

New Pastel

Double Date#2

Double Date Shard #4

Spanking Jesus on Display

2011-06-11T17:18:00.000-07:00

I delivered Spanking Jesus today. I drove down to New Haven's IdeaT Village Gallery site at 118 Court St and was fortunate enough to get there and get a great wall spot to put the painting in. wall space gets quickly eroded in these free for all venues.

In any case the piece is being premiered down there for the next two weeks.

I stopped around the corner to check out the music as well but unlike last year ran into no one I knew so I took in the Yale Museum of Art and sat an skimmed Picasso and the Allure of Language by Fisher. I have a reminder to myself to look up the poetry of Robert Desnos.

publish

Spanking Jesus (left)

Music in the parcade

Double Dates

2011-06-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

This week I recycled some older drawings I didn't particularly like by adding new drawings over the originals. Secondly, I forgot my pastels bag and wound up borrowing some charcoal sticks from Darryl.

Here's the result - something I call double dates because they are signed and dated twice.

Theater-goers Watercolors

2011-05-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

A few months ago Kathy and I attended a Hartford Stage production of "This" which was excellent.

Before the play started I created eight very quick sketches of the audience. These are largely moving models captured in less than two minutes (along the lines of the Gamblers series from Las Vegas). Today I had the opportunity to apply watercolors to them.

The Tree of Life (Desire)

2011-05-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

This is a painting I started last summer and the continuously poor weekend weather has prevented e from completing it Over the past tow or three weeks I finally managed to get it done.

Technically it is a composite of a number of Monday evening model studies. It combines two of the patterns I've been working with; the Meta-modern and Readymyths. You'll recognise (at least) techniques of the color field painters, a hybrid Mondrian exercise and a salute to Andy Warhol .

Late May 2011 Pastels

2011-05-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

Kasha modeled Monday evening. The experiment with a Modernist meta-palette continues;

More Mid May 2011 Drawings

2011-05-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

Had a fairly productive drawing seesion Monday evening;

Mid May 2011 Drawings

2011-05-10T20:24:00.000-07:00

Monday was a fairly productive session:

Queer Art Invitational Submission

2011-05-08T08:34:00.000-07:00

The Green Street Arts Center in Middletown, CT had a call for artists that ended Friday. So, as it sometimes comes to pass, I submitted some work late. maybe they'll let me slide through the deadline.


Rod Serling's Last Dream

New York Apocalypse

Picasso and Marie Therese Show Review

2011-05-03T19:56:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday, Kathy and I had the opportunity to attend the Picasso and Marie-Therese exhibit at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea NYC.

I must admit that I am a fan of Picasso's work and I've seen a lot of his work over the years in different venues. The Gagosian show is far and away the most interesting and surprising in my experience. The scope and richness of the work is breath-taking. It ranges from paintings to drawings to a fabric wall hanging that is not only a rarity but a master work as well.

The fact of the matter is that this show contains numerous masterpieces that I had never seen before. Abstract paintings and sculpture, a successful experiment with pointillism, numerous simply gorgeous paintings of his lover in both domestic and erotic representations.

This is the best show in New York at the moment.

Early May 2011 Drawings

2011-05-02T21:12:00.000-07:00

Three from this evening:

End of April 2011 Drawings

2011-04-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

I arrived late to the drawing session because I was shipping a painting to NY for a show there Thursday. However I managed to create three fairly nice peices.

Late April Drawings 2011

2011-04-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

Monday evening's drawings:

Our Silent Canvas Art Submission

2011-04-14T18:57:00.000-07:00

Our Silent Canvas, a NY City based arts group is having a juried exhibit called Echo the Elements. I submitted an older canvas (due to size restrictions) called Sunspots.

Update: This was accepted and will hang during the performance.

Mid-April Drawings 2011

2011-04-13T19:13:00.000-07:00

Had a fairly productive Monday evening drawing session:

Two New Dead Roses Paintings

2011-04-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

I finally completed a couple of Dead Roses paintings this weekend.I'm looking for a rhthm in the images that I still haven't nailed down but these are getting closer.

Roses 1 and 2:

Two New Gouche Experiments

2011-04-10T08:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning I stuck around at the Alnb open figure painting session and played around with Gouche paint. I created two paintings on Fabriano watercolor paper that exercise gouche in a spontaneous way. I'm experimenting with creating very quickly rendered paintings that capture not the realism but the very raw image the paint pushes out.

Woman with Feather Earring 1 & 2:

ALNB 2011 Juried Show Submission

2011-04-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning I delivered the Meta-modernist piece, Veteran's Day, down to the Art League of New Britain for consideration of their annual Juried Show.

Update: The piece was accepted for the show.

A New Stream Sculpture

2011-04-10T07:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I did some yard work and restored an older sculpture that the birds have a tendency to destroy routinely during the warmer weather but that, during winter, usually succumbs to the weather alone.

Here's a late day photo that I like for its evening atmospherics;

During the clean-up I fished out a small tree trunk that had drifted downstream and positioned it along the bank and added a new stone sculpture. Again, this is, what I think, is an interesting atmospheric photo of that sculpture;

A Couple of Small, Untitled Paintings

2011-04-08T19:09:00.000-07:00

I worked on four paintings Thursday evening and finished two:

Early April 2011 Drawings

2011-04-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

The results of Monday's drawing session:

A Review of "Man of Flesh and Cardboard (Pfc. Manning & Truth)"

2011-04-02T23:10:00.000-07:00

Last night, Kathy and I met up with a long-time friend Sasha Gardner and her husband Jim at the Nate Katter Theatre on the UConn campus in Storrs, CT. The Lubberland Dance Company, a branch of the Bread and Puppet Theatre introduced a performance piece called "Man of Flesh and Cardboard (Pfc. Manning and Truth)". It is a work in progress that deals with the solitary confinement and torture of Bradley Manning who has yet to be tried. He is accused of leaking war crime and other data to Wikileaks.

Peter Schumann who directed the performance mentioned that the performance was put together in two and one half hours and had yet to be refined. The performance that followed was a minor masterpiece.

The entire set was draped in the indifferent monochrome of black and white. The material sof production, little more than painted sheets, cardboard cutout people, and a some light or two. The first part of the performance precisely reenacts the killing of foreign civiliams unaware of the danger and incapable of doing anything about their fate. Performers dresed all in black and wearing the puppeteer burkas blow into long tubes making the sound of missles firing over and over again. Others become the victims, the ghosts of victims, and the victims to be Yet others become the amorphous remote controllers who instruct and supervise the death machines.

Intermittently Schumann points at a battlefield and cackles incoherently - death is alive and well. At the end of it all a child is identified as having been shot. A triggerman questions the wisdom of bringing children into war zones.

Part two, describes the fate of Bradley Manning, a soldier accused and credited with bringing this information to light. Bradley's treatment is a passion play more abusive than any crucifixion narrative. Bradley is put into solitary confinement, a 6' x 12' cell, required to respond every five minutes that he is 'okay', stripped of sheets, pillow and even underwear, forbidden to exercise, and forced to wait for a trial to determine if he has done anything wrong. The performers enact dances of support that are as empty as the Human Rights granted Bradley. The dancers are politically dysfunctional. Dressed all in white, wearing their Christian righteousness, yet incapable of exercising a coherent moral indignation of Bradley's condition. They stutter step, bump into each other, and follow one another in circles that go nowhere, threaten no politician, and and ring as hollow as the missile tubes whose payload is doing damage elsewhere. Another group of performers white wash the objections to Manning's treatment as being torture. Semantics are such funny things.

In this second act, Bradley is tortured by the parade of American barbarism whose lockstep cadence is crushing all human dignities and pretences of freedom. Hope has been reduced to politically expedient dross. The act's final dance is a dance of hope. The performers do flaccid bunny hops,they stumble, they gather, and ineffectually stammer their way through the motions that give an impression of doing "something" even if it is little more than a bunny hop.

By the very end we are told that Manning will either be hung or be declared a hero. In an America that no longer dreams about an American Dream it is hard to imagine that Manning is anything more than another sacrifice at the altar of eternal war and relentless fear.

The performance as a whole is emotionally engaging. The stark and ambivalent responses of the performance to war crime against foreign civilians and war crime against American civilian is not only truthful but painful as well. Our moral outrage is gone. What remains are rule of law deficit disorders and spastic social denial.

Manning's Treatment declared "Fair and Respectful"

Schumann and white-washers waiting for Act II

Dehumanization of Manning

Solitary Confinement

Dance of Hope (Hop)

End of March 2011 Drawings

2011-04-02T11:24:00.000-07:00

Completed two complex drawings Monday evening.

The Souchek Abstractions

2011-03-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

Over thirty five years ago, I was using the University of Nebraska art studios to paint in. I took a painting class that was cheaper than trying to rent a real studio and was fortunate enough to have Richard Trickey supervise the activity. We became great friends for a semester or two.

During that period, I became friends with Ron Anderson a grad student at the time who I have not been able to track down ever since. In any case. Ron and I began painting like a tag team. I was working in a muffler factory and doing odd jobs so that my schedule really didn't fit the University's ideas. I was there on weekends and when I wasn't tired or otherwise indisposed. That seemed to co-incide with Ron's painting regiment as well.

Trickey loved our work. I had come out of Doane (Richard Trickey and Marcia Goldenstein's influence), taught art for a year, crashed and burned a relationship or two, and was ready (or thought so) to take on the world.

I painted canvases on the floor and the rest of the easel bound created an encampment around me. I had never painted that way before but it sufficiently changed what I had been doing before to satisfy my need for the next level of sophistication.

Ron's work, on the other hand was larger and painted vertically against a wall in an adjoining studio. My work was far more spontaneous than Ron's. Ron's deliberation at drawing some paint onto a palette knife and taking ages to apply tiny color patches was a performance that amused me to no end.

During painting breaks we would critique each other's work, hang out, and laugh.

These two paintings are from the earlier period of working in the now demolished electrical building that housed the art dept. studios there.

Financially, I was perpetually strapped for cash. And my former college room mate and fraternity brother (APE), Russell Souchek's dad stepped in. Russ' dad was an attorney in Seward Nebraska who either became a fan of my work or took pity on my sad soul. In any case he asked to buy some paintings from me and so he picked out the two shown here and a watercolor that is still MIA.

Russ' dad died a number of years ago and recently his mom died. Since then Russ and his family have decided to return the paintings back to me. I'm just stunned to see and have them back.

A lot of my work is in good hands out there somewhere but a lot of it simply disappeared over years of moving and having someone or another abscond the stuff.

I welcome these back with gratitude and have decided to name them The Souchek Abstractions in honor of the Souchek family.

Late March Drawings 2011

2011-03-22T20:38:00.000-07:00

We had a great model Monday eve. Here's my takeaway:

Mid-March 2011 Drawings

2011-03-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

I created a couple of very complex and very interesting drawings of Bill on Monday evening.

The Roses

2011-03-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

I started five new paintings and I have one that is waiting to be finished. This one, The Roses (12 x 12"), is done except for signing i have two more in this series that are undone and I'm experimenting with a couple of landscapes.


The Roses

This is a spent bouquet of roses I brought home from New York for Kathy a few weeks ago. I like the dejected nature of these flowers once their time has past. Here I'm looking to uniquely capture that essence.

An ALNB Patrick Drawing

2011-03-12T17:34:00.000-08:00

Patrick posed today for the Art League of New Britain open drawing workshop. I arrived much later than usual. One drawing;

Art League of New Britain Watercolor and Drawings Early March 2011

2011-03-05T13:26:00.000-08:00

Got in a nice drawing session with Samantha as our model;

conte and pastel drawing

Samantha Reading

Quick Charcoal Sketch

End of February Drawings 2011

2011-03-02T20:22:00.000-08:00

This week's Monday evening drawings:

SnowSpots 1 and 2

2011-02-27T16:50:00.000-08:00

Last Night's snowfall and subsequent shoveling exercise inspired som ephotographic experimentation: Enjoy these two digital photos of every so random raindrops in snow.

ALNB Watercolor and Drawings Feb 2011

2011-02-26T13:17:00.000-08:00

Finally got my watercolors organized and went down to the ALNB open portrait session.

Late February 2011 Drawings

2011-02-22T16:08:00.000-08:00

ALNB Darwings, Mid-February 2011

2011-02-20T16:39:00.000-08:00

I stopped by to see the At League of New Britain Figuration's show - it's really good this year. Stayed to draw. Here's the result:

Mid-February 2011 Drawings

2011-02-14T20:59:00.000-08:00

Self-Portrait

2011-02-13T07:27:00.000-08:00

Update: REJECTED!

Today I submitted my self-portrait called The Artist Who Can't Paint To Save His Likeness to the Renaissance Center in Tennessee. We'll see if they like it enough to accept it.

This painting came about when someone left a used canvas at my doorstep that I think was an oil painting. Being that I paint exclusively in watercolors or acrylics this posed a problem. But after thinking about it after a while I decided that I'd paint a self-portrait over it that if it degradated would take on the Dorian Gray myth. Anyway we'll see if they like it.

Early February 2011 Drawings

2011-02-09T20:32:00.000-08:00

There are fewer drawings this week because I went back to my technique of creating complex drawings that incorporate more than one pose on a single drawing.

I think these become far more interesting from both the design standpoint as well as for the viewer.

Art League of New Britain Figurations 2011 Show

2011-02-04T20:56:00.000-08:00

Last night I repurposed a frame for a 2009 watercolor that was painted from a model during a Staurday morning open drawing session at the Art League of New Britain gallery.

I cal the piece 'Envy'.

End of January 2011 Drawings

2011-01-31T21:21:00.000-08:00

Kim modelled last night;

Late January 2011 Drawings

2011-01-27T16:53:00.000-08:00

I drove out to HAS Monday night despite the cold - sparse crowd, Bill was modelling and provides that classic look;

An Exchange with Sol Lewitt

2011-01-21T15:32:00.000-08:00

The Cabinet Magazine folks just published the venues for the Sol Lewitt Exchange show. There have always been two locations, MOCA up in Massachusetts and the Cabinet in Brooklyn.

My piece, Waste Not, Want Not will be shown at The Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn NY 11217.

On one hand I'm disappointed because my friends in Pittsfield have missed an opportunity to see my work locally, on the other Brooklyn is the location that will see more traffic and art is about being seen.

I have no idea what this show will eventually look like in either location. On a personal level, so many art shows are constraining the size of work that I believe it's affecting what the public may think is typical fare. And for artists such as myself who work in much more medium sizes, there is less opportunity to have that shown.

WAH 12th Annual Salon Show Update

2011-01-16T09:22:00.000-08:00

I delivered the paintings down to Brooklyn yesterday and Kathy and I attended the reception which was quite crowded. My nephew Michael and his wife Mint stopped by as did my long time friend Peter Karp and his friend Mari.

I snapped a couple of photos of the setting up that was still taking place Saturday early afternnon.

WAH 12th Annual Salon Show

2011-01-14T22:08:00.000-08:00

I'm dropping off New York Apocalypse and The Last Peace March later today.

Here's the Artist's statement:

About Frank Krasicki's Art

I have been making art in one form or another for over fifty years. As a young boy I sketched endlessly and drew my inspiration from comic books, Saturday morning black and white cartoons, and my own imagination.

I majored in art at Doane College and studied with David Bean, Richard Terrell, and Marcia Goldenstein. After teaching art for a year, I studied with the late Richard Trickey at the University of Nebraska. His influence remains with me today. During these early years, I was creating art in the mainstream of modernism. By the early eighties that painting period ended.

In the early eighties I was one of a handful of developers who worked to create an interactive interface for Synthavision, the graphics software used to create Disney's original TRON movie.

In the nineties, I helped develop numerous Internet art projects that were self-published in the digital version of the Silicon Daze virtual magazine. I created hyper-link fiction, automatic poetry, and other non-narrative experimental forms of information rendering.

In the mid-nineties, I began to rethink my art and I slowly began to work again. These days my art has evolved into a post-modern phase of development. The work you see in the 2011 WAH Salon show includes Meta-modern, ReadyMyths, and Post-modern pieces.

Yes, the work introduces unconventional themes and presentations and can be challenging. I am not looking to paint perfect symmetries, sweet colors, or predictable expectations. These objects of art are proxies for mythic expressionism. Rather than fill a gallery with objects transformed by the artist's artistic intent, I fill a traditional painting (object) with a mythic narrative that is no more in context in an object than a manufactured (found or chosen) object might be in an art gallery. And in my work, mythic expressionism is a painting exercise that mashes up “Modern Art” dogma. What you may recognize is less “artistic influence” and more accurately an intentional reflective disruption of everything that came before – an experiment of meta-modern assumptions.

Usually, what may make you uncomfortable about the pieces is intentional on my part.

And yes, I think the work is thoughtful and significant. I hope you enjoy it.

Frank Krasicki

First Drawings of 2011

2011-01-11T20:39:00.000-08:00

Here are this week's drawings - excellent model:

Un-Art in Hartford

2011-01-09T17:11:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I dropped of The Old Man Who Died Too Soon at the Hartford Artspace Gallery. They are holding an UnArt art show to aid the homeless shelter in Hartford. It's a good cause and looks to be a nice show. Open the month of January 2011.


The Old Man Who Died Too Soon

It's located on the far wall by the window:

Coincidentally, I ran into neighbour Johnny Walker and his daughter who were submitting one of Johnny's fine crafts, hand-made boxes. It can be seen in the lower left hand corner of this picture:

And it can be seen in the lower right hand corner of this picture:

Here are some phone camera shots from the rest of the show as of Sunday afternoon:

Faces and Figures Entry

2011-01-08T15:26:00.000-08:00

I dropped Shakespeare and Hamlet [share a cubicle] of at the Stamford Art Association today. It's a juried show so I won't know for a while whether it will be showing.

Update: It was accepted into the juried show!

Spring Bull Gallery Celebrations Show

2010-12-31T12:24:00.000-08:00

Today I did some multi-tasking in Rhode Island. I picked up a number of pieces left at the Bristol Gallery and then made my way down to Newport and picked up a watercolor and dropped off two acrylics; Melting Sky and Sunspots.

Late December 2010 Drawings

2010-12-21T20:53:00.000-08:00

Got to the open drawing session late this week and left early - holiday fatigue setting in already.

Three nice drawings though:

Another Show Rejection

2010-12-17T20:47:00.000-08:00

I submitted some work toward the Brattleboro Museum of Art's Spring Show and received a rejection letter today. They were kind enough to enclose a couple of free museum tickets though which is a very nice gesture.

Mid-December 2010 Drawings

2010-12-15T20:26:00.000-08:00

Had a productive drawing session on Monday:

My Zazzle Merchandise

2010-12-11T20:47:00.000-08:00

In order to support my art habit, I've created some commercial merchandise based on my artwork.

create & buy custom products at Zazzle

Early December 2010 Drawings

2010-12-09T21:02:00.000-08:00

Patrick was our model this week flush with stories of Florence, Italy. I was feeling very experimental because I was using smaller paper. A few of these are pastel/charcoal and the others pen and ink or brush and ink.

The Rescue Shelter Show

2010-12-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

I've put up a number of smaller pieces for sale at the Bristol Galley in Bristol, RI in a show that will donate 25% of its proceeds toward "Friends of the Bristol Animal Shelter".

I'm offering two watercolors and four acrylics (Sunspots is deeply discounted). a number of these are older recent pieces that simply need a good home (because mine is getting crowded with newer work).

Here are the two pieces; Seed a large watercolor and Melting Sky which is a smaller acrylic:

Seed - 2000

Melting Sky - 2008

End of November 2010 Drawings

2010-11-30T20:28:00.000-08:00

I worked with brush and ink, pen and ink, and with pastels to create this week's drawings. After two weeks off I was surprised at how productive this modelling session actually was.

publish

Spring Bull Petites Show

2010-11-28T13:53:00.000-08:00

I dropped off a watercolor called Morning Glow (2001) at the Spring Bull Gallery in Newport, RI. It's an excellent older piece that is a bit of a rarity in that I didn't paint that many watercolors during that time.

Las Vegas Drawings

2010-11-25T19:44:00.000-08:00

I went on a business trip to Las Vegas about a week ago and in the short time I was there managed to do some very quick (<15 second) sketches of people passing through the town, playing slots in the casinos, and a few street scenes. These are all the 3.5 x 5.5" drawings that I added watercolor to today.

More Early November 2010 Drawings

2010-11-09T20:29:00.000-08:00

Great modelling session last night - six decent drawings: