#oil-painting

#oil-painting

It's not surprising that there are two sets of lush arrangements in Mason Pott 's Chicago studio. Photographing live bouquets of bright sunflowers, daisies, and waxy apples or magenta orchids at their peak is the first step in the artist's layered process. Post photoshoot, he translates these floral bunches into hyperrealistic paintings, with particular care in accurately capturing their textures and the interplay of light and shadow.

"Ataraxia" is an ancient Greek philosophical term for a state of tranquility that is achieved by detaching from external desires and concentrating attention on inner peace. While these paintings project a sense of calm, there is also a feeling of disquiet. The normal and anomalous overlap and become difficult to tell apart. That tension animates these peculiar images, in which figures and shadows, flatness and space, are equally important.

PRELUDIO follows the line begun with the Vestigio series, in which the artist Aryz - Octavi Arrizabalaga (2x cover artist) engages in a dialogue with some of the creators who have influenced him throughout his career. On this occasion, he presents a series of large-format oil paintings conceived as small visual dialogues with the great masters of painting. Each work is a tribute to the classical pictorial tradition and some of its fundamental themes.

They push back against the sloshes of pale color as a visual analogue for how her music works. Those reds and browns are like the rhythmic unrest at the heart of her serene songs, where melodies twist and buckle and collapse. And like her frequent collaborator Dean Blunt, Robertson's visual practice bleeds into her music, shaping its tension and motion. She wanders with supple precision across both canvas and song in an improvisatory state, but it's in music that she comes closest to the divine.

Drawing on a natural curiosity cultivated in childhood, Aoki has come full circle on what captures her attention. Aoki says her younger self would be surprised that she's managed to carve out a life as a painter, since it wasn't really considered an option in her family. Sneaking it in as a double major, Aoki graduated from University of the Pacific in Stockton, with a BA in mathematics and studio art.