I wanted to thank the lot of you who were able to make it to Thursday's opening! It was a great turnout and the installation looked fantastic! The show is up through October 3rd, and if you didn't make it to the opening, I hope you get a chance to see the show between now and then.
I am working diligently from now through the end of the year to finish up the first phase of this project and will be announcing the exact details for what will happen in phase II as I get closer to the transition. Stay tuned!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Words on a Portrait - Sharon A
I am kind of cheating on this one. Sharon Arnold is the subject in "Sharon A". She is also an artist, curator, and all-around good kind of gal (or so we've gleaned after some back and forth emails and mutual "friends"). She threatened to write a post on her Dimensions Variable blog a while back and around the same time my google alert came through today telling me it was up, she sent Matt an email as well (yes - I am a total google nerd and have all sorts of google alerts set up for various things. I am like a google alert collector but we can talk about that another time).
Anyway, back to cheating. I love what she wrote and so instead of asking her to write something specific for this blog, I will link her page and quote her.
My favorite? ..." the New Portraiture. We're invited into the scene, the stories are curious, and the pictures are snapshots of real lives; often drafted by the subject themselves. We want to know more about them, most likely because we are like them. Rather than some lofty idealised representation of culturally enforced perfection, potraiture has become not only an exaggeration of the idea but also a Cinéma vérité, a hipster editorial, a perversion, a study in heightened banality, an idea of excess, a reflection of ourselves; or at it's best, a really fun study of people finding each other in a living web of connectivity."
You can read the rest of her post here.
Anyway, back to cheating. I love what she wrote and so instead of asking her to write something specific for this blog, I will link her page and quote her.
My favorite? ..." the New Portraiture. We're invited into the scene, the stories are curious, and the pictures are snapshots of real lives; often drafted by the subject themselves. We want to know more about them, most likely because we are like them. Rather than some lofty idealised representation of culturally enforced perfection, potraiture has become not only an exaggeration of the idea but also a Cinéma vérité, a hipster editorial, a perversion, a study in heightened banality, an idea of excess, a reflection of ourselves; or at it's best, a really fun study of people finding each other in a living web of connectivity."
You can read the rest of her post here.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Words on a Portrait - Konstantin
I think sometimes the simplest photograph has more power than the complex. The original photo - later to become the portrait "Kontantin" was so simple - a glance caught in such a beautiful environment with such vibrant colors captured Matt right away.
Konstantin sent us a note with a little story behind the photo. Here are his words:
The photo [was] taken on the 1st of January this year in Chamonix, France. To be excact, on top of the Aiguille du Midi, at about 3800 meters. We had had a long night before, starting to celebrate New Year's eve early in the evening. At ten, we had "Happy New Year" for the first time with the Russian group from the apartment next to ours, who were celebrating in Moscow time.
The next day, no one really wanted to go skiing, so we went up every sightseeing point we could reach by cable car or train around Chamonix. It was really cold up there, around -20° C and a lot of wind, so I was happy to have this old down jacket with me.
A last word to the goggles: The goggles have been up the Aiguille du Midi once before, about 30 years ago, when my father was ski mountaineering in Chamonix.
Konstantin sent us a note with a little story behind the photo. Here are his words:
The photo [was] taken on the 1st of January this year in Chamonix, France. To be excact, on top of the Aiguille du Midi, at about 3800 meters. We had had a long night before, starting to celebrate New Year's eve early in the evening. At ten, we had "Happy New Year" for the first time with the Russian group from the apartment next to ours, who were celebrating in Moscow time.
The next day, no one really wanted to go skiing, so we went up every sightseeing point we could reach by cable car or train around Chamonix. It was really cold up there, around -20° C and a lot of wind, so I was happy to have this old down jacket with me.
A last word to the goggles: The goggles have been up the Aiguille du Midi once before, about 30 years ago, when my father was ski mountaineering in Chamonix.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Artist on the radar
I often think of topics for random posts on my way into work in the morning. If I can’t think of something clear and concise I will think of two or three words to drop into google, do news runs on those two or three words and see what comes up. Today, I did just that. I dropped in “portrait painting” to the search bar and clicked the “news” tab and up came a few articles on the Mona Lisa Incident, some other random portrait painting articles and this one.
It somehow seemed familiar, maybe something I should already know about, so I click in and discover it’s about a recent graduate from VCU – Stanley Rayfield. The thing is, I do know of Stanley Rayfield. He sent us an email last week asking if Matt had any advice for a recent fine art graduate. We took a look at his website and all we could say was WOW! The guy can paint! I mean he can really, really paint! What advice could he give him? MOVE TO NEW YORK!
There are very few people in this world that walk out of their undergraduate university – a degree in fine art at hand – that see their future as bright as I hope Stanley realizes his is. I wish him all the best and I hope HOPE to see his work in person very, very soon. Congratulations on the Smithsonian exhibition, Stanley.
It somehow seemed familiar, maybe something I should already know about, so I click in and discover it’s about a recent graduate from VCU – Stanley Rayfield. The thing is, I do know of Stanley Rayfield. He sent us an email last week asking if Matt had any advice for a recent fine art graduate. We took a look at his website and all we could say was WOW! The guy can paint! I mean he can really, really paint! What advice could he give him? MOVE TO NEW YORK!
There are very few people in this world that walk out of their undergraduate university – a degree in fine art at hand – that see their future as bright as I hope Stanley realizes his is. I wish him all the best and I hope HOPE to see his work in person very, very soon. Congratulations on the Smithsonian exhibition, Stanley.
Monday, July 27, 2009
35 Pieces
We had a wonderful studio visit with the gallerists from Denise Bibro Fine Art last week. They went through each piece in the collection so far and chose 35 pieces for the upcoming show at their Platform Project Space. I love the idea for how they are going to hang the show and I think it will be very arresting for viewers.
As such, we have a lot of work to do to get all of them ready for exhibit which means a bit less time for working on new pieces. However, we are diligently pulling fresh photos from member profiles for new paintings and hope to have at least 3-5 posted before the end of August.
"Matt Held: facebook portraits", opening on Thursday, September 10, 2009 from 6:00PM - 9:00PM, will run through October 3, 2009. In the main gallery, "Johnny Madsen: Red, Yellow and the Blues" will be on exhibit.
As such, we have a lot of work to do to get all of them ready for exhibit which means a bit less time for working on new pieces. However, we are diligently pulling fresh photos from member profiles for new paintings and hope to have at least 3-5 posted before the end of August.
"Matt Held: facebook portraits", opening on Thursday, September 10, 2009 from 6:00PM - 9:00PM, will run through October 3, 2009. In the main gallery, "Johnny Madsen: Red, Yellow and the Blues" will be on exhibit.
Monday, July 20, 2009
WIRED!
We are all a-twitter over here at Held Studios for August's WIRED magazine. Not because of Brad Pitt, but because Matt and his fancy pants got a nice little mention in print and online.
I am not sure what else to say but - WOW! If my body could sprout wings and fly around, I would totally let it. Instead, I'll just bounce of the walls for a little bit and say thank you to Sonia Zjawinski for contacting us way back in March, pushing her editors to let her write the story and having a cool photo for Matt to paint (who doesn't love a woman chugging a bottle of wine? Who is ask you? Who?).
Monday went from zero to hero!
I am not sure what else to say but - WOW! If my body could sprout wings and fly around, I would totally let it. Instead, I'll just bounce of the walls for a little bit and say thank you to Sonia Zjawinski for contacting us way back in March, pushing her editors to let her write the story and having a cool photo for Matt to paint (who doesn't love a woman chugging a bottle of wine? Who is ask you? Who?).
Monday went from zero to hero!
Friday, July 17, 2009
Words on a Portrait - Oliver
Oliver Perera is a British UOTC. Here are his words:
"The picture was taken during my recruit training phase with Oxford University Officer Training Corps, one of 19 UOTCs covering the UK (similar to America’s ROTCs). UOTCs have two aims, firstly to develop and train potential Army officers (regular and territorial) alongside their University studies with the aim of them going to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for their officer training. Secondly, UOTCs are unique in that they are comprised of students many of whom have no intention of joining the Army, so they also intend to provide the potential business leaders of tomorrow with valuable insight into what the Army is like. With the hope that in the future they have better understanding of issues facing the Army, and an understanding of what ex-soldiers moving to a civilian life have done were they to one day to employ one or work alongside one in their company.
The photo was taken at the end of a particularly wet and cold Christmas camp on Salisbury Plains. It was actually taken around 10am but a mixture of cloud cover, forest blocks and the photographer using the camera's flash made the photo appear to be taken during the night.
The photo was taken by one of the Sergeant Majors who had brought his camera along to take some photos of us “in action” to put up on the unit's website. After we had finished doing some posed photos I was still aware he was taking photos but I didn’t noticing him taking this one hence I wasn’t posing which I think has led to a good photo, and now and even better painting by Matt."
"The picture was taken during my recruit training phase with Oxford University Officer Training Corps, one of 19 UOTCs covering the UK (similar to America’s ROTCs). UOTCs have two aims, firstly to develop and train potential Army officers (regular and territorial) alongside their University studies with the aim of them going to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for their officer training. Secondly, UOTCs are unique in that they are comprised of students many of whom have no intention of joining the Army, so they also intend to provide the potential business leaders of tomorrow with valuable insight into what the Army is like. With the hope that in the future they have better understanding of issues facing the Army, and an understanding of what ex-soldiers moving to a civilian life have done were they to one day to employ one or work alongside one in their company.
The photo was taken at the end of a particularly wet and cold Christmas camp on Salisbury Plains. It was actually taken around 10am but a mixture of cloud cover, forest blocks and the photographer using the camera's flash made the photo appear to be taken during the night.
The photo was taken by one of the Sergeant Majors who had brought his camera along to take some photos of us “in action” to put up on the unit's website. After we had finished doing some posed photos I was still aware he was taking photos but I didn’t noticing him taking this one hence I wasn’t posing which I think has led to a good photo, and now and even better painting by Matt."
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