Artist’s Statement:I started painting in 2017. I had been given a set of oil paints but hadn’t used them until I was at my sister’s cottage that summer and I painted three pictures. I immediately connected with the experience. I took art in high school but hadn’t touched a paintbrush since. I paint mostly to please myself, to set myself challenges. I don’t think I have a lot of finesse but I think I have the ability to capture energy, things happening, and I love colour, lots of it. I like to see what happens with the paint on the canvas, where the painting wants to go as opposed to what I’m trying to insist on. Painting has been a very happy discovery for me. *** Hume Baugh has published work in Queen’s Quarterly, The New Quarterly, and won This Magazine’s…
“Accidental Magic,” An Art Exhibition by Brian White
Artist’s Statement: My work is about embracing the unexpected mistake. It forces me to react in ways that change patterns. I like to think of it as accidental magic. Every so often it appears and feels like a reward for being patient or paying attention. Like you’re inside a mesmerizing piece of music heard for the first time and there is no doubt this is exactly what is supposed to be happening. *** About Brian White: I grew up in Southeastern Virginia, graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art, and live in Livingston, Montana. I enjoy floating the river, printmaking and sign painting. To see more work, visit my website. This is his first feature on The Fictional Café.
Edward Supranowicz — Digital Paintings & Drawings
Artist’s Statement:I do not believe in formal artist statements. Art should speak for itself, and the artist should maintain a respectful distance and silence. I work intuitively and compulsively, probably believing that there are archetypes that are shared among us all, but amenable to being expressed in one’s own individual style. I have been doing digital paintings and drawings for the last 10 or so years. It is a good fit to my personality and nature, being able go forward, then back, then back and forward, and not having to worry about wasted canvas. And digital work allows for sharing work with more than one person rather than just one person “owning” a painting. *** Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has…
What “God” Is: A Philosophical-Scientific Essay by Steve Sangapore
Pictured Above:LIBERATION72″ x 48″ x 1.5″Oil, mirror, and 24k gold leaf on canvas2020 What God Is (WITHOUT THE WOO WOO) Why God is the Pursuit of Meaning The evolution of the concept of God is one of the oldest, deepest and most important developments to ever have risen out of the human psyche. Throughout almost every culture on Earth we have seen evidence of belief in the divine. The idea of God or a creating force has evolved from the earliest known manifestations represented as human-animal hybrids, to pantheons of intervening superhuman gods, to God as man made flesh on Earth, to more contemporary notions of God as the totality of the universe and its contents. Humans in their desire for answers to life’s most pressing questions have creatively reimagined and transformed God over the…
Bill Wolak — Collage Art as a Mirror Image
Image Pictured Above: “When Summer Unlocked All the Doors” The joy of collage is finding the endless connections between seemingly unrelated things. In some collages, the juxtaposition of ordinary with the delirious diversity of dream imagery forces the mind to make contact with the marvelous. Each collage is an invitation to view the world differently. What is most unexpected suddenly becomes as familiar as an old friend’s favorite song. I make collages out of all kinds of materials. Most are made out of paper engravings. Many collages are digitally generated or enhanced. To begin a piece, I select some sources—either color or black and white. If I’m using magazines or prints or old books, I cut out some images or parts of images that interest me. Then I start working on a background or some other sort of chance construction. Much is left to fleeting insights. …
Paulo Navarro — Surrealist Expressionist Paintings
As a university student, Paulo founded his own gallery and art academy. At first it was a children’s art academy (Pintando Ilusiones) and later PHI Gallery, where important established and emerging artists shared the space created by Paulo. This artist also participated in the “Circulo de artistas emergentes,” an emerging group of artists with which he traveled through various Latin American countries representing his nation, and created important exhibitions and artistic cultural projects. Within this group, he exhibited in Costa Rican spaces as well as other destinations like Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba and Japan. He has also exhibited individually at the University of Costa Rica, at the Creative University. In Nicaragua, he has exhibited individually in the city of Granada in the Gallery of the Casa Los Tres Mundos Foundation. In Mexico, in the city of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon presented a sample of his work at the MuZiak Academy…
Fabrice Poussin — Painting the Roses Red
Editor’s Note: This month’s featured artist is Fabrice Poussin, an FC alum from 2018. In this collection, he presents his photography of spray-painted flowers and other objects. But this is no Alice in Wonderland redux. Find out what inspired Fabrice to take on this artistic project. I believe the artist must be like the bright-eyed child. He must seek beauty (what is beauty in his mind) and translate it into his own expression to inspire awe, bewilderment, joy, sadness, endless emotions to the viewer, reader, or listener. If he cannot find it, he must create it. These photos were conceived from a strange gift from a friend. He left me a number of cans of paint. For quite some time I wondered what I may do with those, and it occurred to me, and this…
Former FC Art Barista Steve Sangapore Interview
Today we are sharing an interview with former Fictional Café Visual Art Barista Steve Sangapore. Fountain Street Gallery, located in SOWA the artistic hub of Boston, presents this interview in their series LIVE AT FIVE on Instagram. LIVE AT FIVE features a 30 minute interview of Boston based artist Steve Sangapore who will talk with Tatiana Flis about art, life, and his most recent painting series titled New Eden. You can follow Steve on Instagram at @stevesangapore. INFO:WEDNESDAY, JULY 01, 2020 | 5:00–5:30 PM EasternLIVE AT FIVE w/Fountain Street GalleryJOIN US ON INSTAGRAM LIVE@fountainstreetgallery
Ben Gencarelle: Art’s Irrepressible Strangeness
Artist’s Statement: “We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes.”― Madeleine L’Engle In the wrong place, in the wrong time, in the wrong job. Maybe misunderstood, maybe deluded, maybe both. Afraid. Too raw, too ugly, too real. Too much. Maybe you’re an immigrant. Maybe you’re neurodiverse. Maybe you’re both. Whatever you are or are not, the message is clear: you don’t belong here. So it starts. Masking. Crumpling up corners and sanding off edges. Tearing off the “extra” and pasting the scraps over the transparent places. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes you can fool them,…
Mario Loprete — Urban Paintings on Concrete
Mario Loprete Artist’s Statement: I live in a world that i shape at my liking, throughout a virtual pictorial and sculptural movement, transferring my experiences, photographing reality throughout my filters, refined from years research and experimentation. Painting for me is the first love. An important, pure love. Creating a painting, starting from the spasmodic research of a concept with which I want to send a message to transmit my message, it’s the base of my painting. The sculpture is my lover, my artistic betrayal to the painting. That voluptuous and sensual lover that gives me different emotions, that touches prohibited cords… The new series of works on concrete it’s the one that is giving me more personal and professional satisfactions. How was it born? It was the result of an important investigation of my work, the research of that “quid” that i felt was missing….