For the past 30 years I’ve been fascinated by figurative paintings. My early art history classes required viewing the faded slides of art history labs where images clicked on the screen and the size, scale, color and details were profoundly altered from the originals which were housed in museums and galleries not yet accessible to me. In fact, as I remember seeing the originals for the first time, the grand masterworks of Titian, Renoir, Goya, el Greco and countless others – they seemed to be the copies – the colors too bright and the surfaces too smooth from my beloved first impressions. As long as I can remember, I wanted to make these pastel and faded images my own.  I wanted to be able to “step inside” their soft, amber colored worlds or have unlimited entry into their site locations. My intent was to share my vision, through this vista, with others who might neither have access to the originals nor interest in the (“original”) warm faded copies. In my early work the figures were large and isolated and haunting. But they were solidly present and stood their ground as if anchored in each frame, as monoliths extolling their presence. The figures, I brought in from the outside and placed firmly inside the frame allowed me to see through their eyes, eyes that could act as permanent intermediaries for mine.

All the while I realized that I was not only positioning the figures I painted I was also positioning the viewer. Together we were place amongst the statues and museum worthy icons of cultures and heritages that were mine – and not theirs or theirs and not mine.

We could share a common disconnect with the grandeur and intimidation of the location – a location that I could finally own by painting it for myself.

Now, I spend my days in the worlds of both ancient and contemporary images, bringing them together with the same breath, the same affection and the same respect. There is no longer such a need but rather a love for these “marriages of arrangement”.

And in opening my world to the viewer for these moments we share an interruption and integration of the common and the sublime, where time and space stop and shift.

Here, punks with body art and classical icons of Western civilization stand on the same ground, hand in hand together, as does the viewer and the artist Wendy Coad.

Visiting the ArtCenter/South Florida is a perfect opportunity to see my work. The studio is open year round. Come visit Wendy Coad Art when you’re in the area. However, just in case you are unable to physically stop by, below is the link for the guides video tour.

Thanks for visiting www.wendycoad.com.

One of my favorites, at least this season, is…

Francis Picabia

The french painter Francis Picabia is best known as an early pioneer of the Dada movement.

Childhood: Picabia was born in Paris, January 22, 1879, the son of a Cuban diplomat father, and a French mother. From 1895-1897 he studied art at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

Picabia studied under Fernand Cormon who took him into his academy at 104 boulevard de Clichy.

Early in his career he was a successful painter of Impressionist landscapes. He was also a very strong aphorist, which shows the influence of Nietzsche, the only writer he read with anything approaching real seriousness. He was influenced by the impressionist painting of Alfred Sisley.

As a painter, he considered himself a rival to Picasso, and when he couldn’t paint, he wrote poems, aphorisms, manifestos and diatribes.

His style: He painted his first abstract work in 1912. He visited New York in 1913 for the Cubist pictures in the Armory show, and Alfred Stieglitz gave him a solo exhibition at his gallery 291.

Later, in 1916, he started his well-known Dada periodical 391 with Barcelona Marie Laurencin and Robert and Sonia Delaunay.

Apart from his contributions to avant-garde magazines, Picabia published various pamphlets and wrote poetry.

Before breaking away from it after developing an interest in Surrealist art, Picabia continued his involvement in the Dada movement through 1919 in Zürich and Paris.

He found inspiration in the works of Henri Matisse and changed his manner of painting to Fauvism.

Exhibitions: Picabia travelled to New York City several times and took active part in the avant-garde movements. Some credit him with introducing modern art to America. These years can be characterized as Picabia’s proto-Dada period, consisting mainly of his portraits mécaniques, published in “291″.

With his brilliant reputation firmly established after the exhibition at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1909, Picabia abandons the past.

In 1940, he produced a series of paintings based on the nude glamour photos in French “girlie” magazines like “Paris Sex-Appeal”, in a garish style which appears to subvert traditional, academic nude painting. The work of American artists, John Currin and Lisa Yuskavage are contemporary threads to his work from this period.

Here’s a bit of trivia – in addition to artistic activities, Picabia was a significant collector of automobiles (way before Jay Leno).

In recent years, a Picabia painting has sold for as much as $1.6 million.

Towards the end: He returned to Paris where he resumed abstract painting and writing poetry. A large retrospective of his work was held at the Galerie René Drouin in Paris in the spring of 1949. Francis Picabia died in Paris in 1953 and was interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre.

The reason I admire Picabia’s work is not just because of the stylistic range. However, because of that, it’s easy to find work to like from an artist who explored or created so many styles in his career.

In addition to these various periods of work he wholeheartedly embraced, his later overlay work seems so fresh today – even though this work was painted more than a half a century ago.

I continue to admire and love his work. Hopefully there will be a good retrospective soon so Picabia can be seen once again amongst his peers.

©Wendy Coad, 2009

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