Location: Unknown
JoAnne Artman Gallery presents vibrant and eclectic exhibitions by award-winning artists in Laguna Beach.
Her roster of artists is rooted in her obvious passion for the artist’s individual voice and mastery of technique. All artists are award-winning, and their works have been shown and collected in museums and private collections around the country and internationally.
America Martin is a Colombian-American fine artist based in Los Angeles. She is a traveler between mediums, insouciant in the conquest of new terrain. Martin’s favorite landscape is that of the human form, her work is distinguished by a command of line and color, making playful reference to both classic and indigenous art forms. About her work, Martin says, “The artist cannot be idle. It is only duty, love and discipline that make art. Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working. The artist is gluttonous, constantly devouring life in order to translate all that she sees, smells, lives or breathes into her own language. Why, and for what? For the blistering personal joy that comes when one is doing something of and about truth. There is no choosing this life. An artist paints because she must.”
“Over the last year, I have been driving my paintings in an innovative new direction that is really beginning to show who I want to become as an artist. After months of research and experimentation, I have found myself drawn to the age-old idea of portraiture, but with a twist: I am still intrigued by the idea of omitting the eyes in my paintings, something I started in my early work and have continued to carry with me as I evolve. I love the anonymity this creates for the viewer and the subject alike. People will leave the piece with different ideas and feelings and I like having that kind of flexibility in my work.
My strongest inspirations are fashion and design, so I dove into the idea of creating portraits of stylized women disguised by avant-garde, floral-inspired hats. Body language becomes very important in my work because I don’t rely on facial expression to convey emotion like most figurative artists do. Instead I rely on gesture, clothing, and color. The new pieces allow me to convey texture, design and abstraction with a freedom I have never known until now. I have fallen in love with the expression, mystery and disguise the pieces create. Costume has the ability to be empowering and beautiful, allowing us to become someone new. The nature of fashion is all about change and experimentation and I am thrilled to see where this will take me,” -Anna Kincaide
“My work is an attempt to capture the complexity of emotions that are conveyed in the human face. I’ve been painting portraits since I was a child, continually drawing closer to the face and eyes in order to explore the emotions they contain. There’s a story behind every face; my paintings are an attempt to tell these stories by capturing delicate facial expressions and juxtaposing them with vibrant color and the dramatic interplay of shadow and light that both inform my subjects and maintain their enigmatic aura. I’m constantly delighted by the various interpretations my work receives. For some, a subject may be pensive, while to others it may be seductive or confrontational. Part of the viewing experience is for a viewer to attach his or her own emotional meaning to a work.”
– Anja Van Herle
Drawing from the diverse cultural and geographic makeup of his Californian roots, Greg Miller explores his relationship with the space he inhabits to communicate a particular urban experience. Working with both paint and collage, he constructs and deconstructs exploring the contradiction, ambiguity, and truth between urban streetscape and history. Miller’s art is clever and cool. His abstracted backgrounds of drips, patterns, and phrases and the peeling back of layers provide a study in the impermanence of the things that surround us.
His large-scale paintings and installations aim to make the most fleeting parts of American culture tangible. They grab us nostalgically, rousing us to enjoy the momentary beauty found in the impermanent parts of our lives. There is a fragile heroicness conveyed within the temporary nature of it all, especially within his construction of paper, wood, and natural materials, that gives Miller’s work liveliness and depth.
GREG MILLER (b. 1951, Sacramento, California) spends his time between New York and Los Angeles.
“Woman By The Sea At Low Tide”
“Woman Pick Fruit”
“Don't Look Down”
“Make Believe”
“Fly High Butterfly”
“Beautiful”
