Bubble Up

12 x 9", acrylic on mounted gessoed aluminium panel

painting #276, 2019

The Bubble Up brand was created one hundred years ago in 1919 by the Sweet Valley Products Co of Sandusky, Ohio. The introductory flavor was grape juice. In 1938, the soda pop would permanently switch flavor to lemon-lime. It is currently manufactured by the Dad's Root Beer Company.

I vaguely remember Bubble Up while growing up, since it is rather rare to find some here in Atlantic Canada.  I bought these at Winners (TJ Maxx chain) here in Moncton, but it's a US product since a bilingual sticker of ingredients was affixed to the caddy after production so it could be sold here. When I spotted this foursome in the store, I just got a nostalgic visceral response since I hadn't seen these since the 1970's. I got seduced by the graphics and knew I had to paint them.

Trivia- A bottle of Bubble Up appears on a piano in the Ariana Grande's music video, Die in your arms cover ( Justin Bieber).  

Watch here. 

Exhibited in a group show entitled- Not a Creature was stirring.... Artworks to Deck the Halls - Dec. 2019 and Under Summer Sky- June 18 to July 10. 

Fog Forest Gallery

14 Bridge Street, Sackville,

New Brunswick, Canada, E4L 3N5

Phone (506) 536-9000

e-mail: janet@fogforstgallery.ca

-SOLD

Barbie at 60, a Fashion Icon

Acrylic on gessoed mounted aluminium panel, 12 x 12"

painting #275, 2019

On March 9 of this year, Barbie Millicent Roberts celebrated her 60th birthday. The following week, it was my wife Suzanne's turn to become a sexagenarian. This is my third Barbie painting. The first two were done when Barbie turned 50 and 55. This latest incarnation is a sister painting to the previous that also featured one of the two sewing patterns issued by Advance in 1961. The sewing pattern was the instigator that inspired the imagery and composition. It falls in the timeline when Pop Art became an art movement which drew inspiration from advertising among it's influences.

To view my two previous Barbie paintings - click on this LINK.

With the passage of time, Barbie keeps re-inventing herself and empowering the image of what it means to be a woman in 2019.  Mattel has just released multi-race (in four skin tones) ''Judge Barbie'' - LINK. Part of Mattel's agenda has been to inspire girls to be anything that can dream of, and to break the glass ceiling. Even if at times some of their choices have been controversial over the decades.

Both Barbie and my wife share another commonality....at 60 years of age, they both still look Fabulous! 

Currently on exhibition in a group show entitled- "Not a Creature was stirring.... Artworks to Deck the Halls" at the Fog Forest Gallery in Sackville, NB. from Nov. 21 - Dec. 31, 2019.

To acquire this painting please contact:

Fog Forest Gallery

14 Bridge Street, Sackville,

New Brunswick, Canada, E4L 3N5

Phone (506) 536-9000

e-mail: janet@fogforstgallery.ca

-SOLD

Hibiscus in a Campbell's Soup Can, an homage to Andy Warhol

16 x 12", acrylic on mounted gessoed aluminium panel

painting #274, 2019

I first became aware of Andy Warhol's ''Flowers'' serigraph prints during the late 1980's when one of the many variations was featured predominately on the set of the CBS sitcom, Murphy Brown, starring Candice Bergan. 

After acquiring this Andy Warhol art book from the Taschen's Basic Art Series 2.0, I became curious about the backstory behind the image. Warhol would draw inspiration from a photograph of hibiscus flowers by Patricia Caulfield that appeared in a 1964 issue of Modern Photography. He was later sued in 1966 for the first time by the photographer for copyright infringement. Warhol was a very prolific artist. With the help of a few workers inside of "The Factory" (his studio), in one day, he could produce as many as 80 of these flowers silkscreens, printed in various sizes.  

L- photography of hibiscus by Patricia Caulfield

R- serigraph print of "Flowers" by Andy Warhol

For at least the past decade or so, we've been buying a hibiscus plant every spring for the veranda in front of our house. For the most part, the blooms only last one day or two, but it has several blooming cycles during the summer. This spring while stepping into our local Home Depot, they had a variety of dwarf hibiscus that is more of a potted flower than a potted plant. By the time I got back home, the concept for this painting came to me. I then acquired a Campbell's soup can on eBay from a US listing since here in Canada, the label was modernized more than a decade ago. I had initially intended to just do black background. Once it was done, the idea of using a modified version of Marilyn Monroe from Warhol's reversal series was introduced. I repeated the image as if it was wallpaper like Warhol did with Cows in 1966. 

This past July, after my wife Suzanne gave me the green light, I headed for Europe for three weeks to do some backpacking with our son Jean-Luc. This was his graduation gift for completing a bachelor's degree in business administration at the Université de Moncton. At the very beginning of the trip, we spent three days in Barcelona, Spain. As luck would have it, we were fortunate enough to view a serigraph print exhibition of Andy Warhol. The whole collection was owned by one individual, and was comprised mostly of many variations of Marilyn Monroe, Campbell's Soup Cans, Flowers and Mao Tse Tung. Click HERE for link. 

Painting to be shown this weekend at Art Toronto with Galerie de Bellefeuille (Booth A12)

Opening Night Gala: Thursday, October 24, 2019: 6:30 PM – 10:00 PM
Fair Hours: Friday, October 25, 2019: 12AM – 8:00PM
Saturday, October 26, 2019: 11:00AM – 8:00PM
Sunday, October 27, 2019: 11:00AM – 6:00PM

Location
Metro Toronto Convention Centre, North Building
255 Front Street West, Toronto

-SOLD

Évangéline

14 x 12'', acrylic on mounted gessoed aluminium panel

painting #273, 2019

Since 1994, le Congrès mondial acadien (World Acadian Congress) has been held every five years. This summer, southeast New Brunswick and several municipalities on Prince Edward Island hosted the event from August 10 to 24. National Acadian Day is held annually on August 15. This year, I attended the festivities with my wife in Dieppe, N.B. Our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau along several dignitaries kicked off the Grand Tintamarre that was followed by a free show/concert featuring a who's who of Acadian singers that was attended by 20,000 people. 

The whole event inspired me to undertake a sister painting for ''Evangeline, an homage to Longfellow" that was completed in 2017.  Please click on this LINK for the backstory behind both paintings. The photo study for Évangéline was done during the same session at Fort Beauséjour, NB in late August of 2017. For the first study, the viewer is looking west in the direction of Grand-Pré, NS. For this latest painting, the viewer is looking south, towards the Missaguash River located on the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border. Fort Lawrence which was occupied by British troops once stood on the other side of the river from Fort Beauséjour at the time of the deportation of Acadians in 1755. 

This painting was submitted to the Annual Juried Exhibition held at the Moncton Gallery. The show runs from September 9 until the end of October.

Moncton Gallery is located at City Hall, 655 Main St., Moncton, NB
Hours: Monday to Friday: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

During the jury process, the City of Moncton decided to acquire the painting for their permanent art collection. For this, I am forever grateful to live in such a vibrant and inclusive city.

-Collection - City of Moncton

Cosmos & Coke

12 x 10'', acrylic on gessoed mounted aluminium panel

painting#271, 2019

The windowsill photo study used for this painting was taken in our kitchen about 8-10 years ago. In the background was an enormous cherry tree that has since been removed because of illness. The crop of cherries was always bountiful. Black birds and robins always enjoyed the fruits on the top branches.

When I spotted this green tinted drinking glass on a store shelf, its shape alone reminded me of a flower vase. Growing up in Cap-Lumière, NB, my mother and grand-mother always planted Cosmos flowers every spring. After the blooms were gone, they would collect the seeds for the following year.

To acquire this painting please contact:
To be exhibited in a summer group show starting later next week.

Fog Forest Gallery

14 Bridge Street, Sackville,

New Brunswick, Canada, E4L 3N5

Phone (506) 536-9000

e-mail: janet@fogforstgallery.ca

-SOLD 

Stop for Gas, an homage to Edward Hopper

Acrylic on gessoed aluminum panel (mounted), 12 x 10''

painting #272, 2019

During the late 1980's, artist Gottfried Helnwein re-invented the famous Edward Hopper painting NIghthawks, by replacing the figures in the painting with Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Elvis Presley and Humphrey Bogart. I remember quite vividly that it became widely popular and was displayed in every print shops, and in many restaurants and night clubs. Helnwein's Boulevard of Broken Dreams would also inspire the Green Day song of the same name. Nightwawks is probably the first Hopper painting that I became aware of. 

The conception for this painting just happened by happenstance. The background for the painting featuring my rendition of "Gas" was printed on a small box that once held 20 note cards w/ envelopes. The box is dated 2000 on the back. I remember buying it at the turn of the new millennium.  It was a derivative product made for the Museum of Modern Art that was probably sold in their museum store. All the cards are now long gone but I couldn't part with the box. It now stores some rubber stamps.  Earlier this year, I took out the box from a drawer to use a rubber ink stamp to embellish a birthday card. The small Matchbox - 1957 GMC side-step pick-up die-cast was already on my desk. When I saw them side by side.....the whole narrative came to me. The composition is resting on an Edward Hopper art book that was gifted to me by my wife, 20 years ago. A detailed image of "Gas" appears on the glossy cover of the book entitled "Edward Hopper, A Modern Master", written by Ita G. Berkow and published by Todtri in 1996.   

unedited photo study

I've been an admirer of the artwork of Edward Hopper since my early adulthood and have had the opportunity to view many of his paintings up-close in various museums in Europe but especially in the United States.

To acquire this painting, please contact: 

Galerie de Bellefeuille

1367 avenue Greene, 

Montreal, Quebec H3Z 2A8 

Tel: 514.933.4406

e-mail- art@debellefeuille.com

website 

-SOLD

Bowl of Fruits for Mary, an homage

16 x 16", acrylic on gessoed aluminium panel

Painting #269, 2018-19

I completed my first acrylic painting 32 years ago. With the passage of time and having many outside influences that informs my art, I can attest without any doubt, that Mary Pratt as been the most influential artist/painter of my artistic career.

Sadly, Mrs Pratt passed away on August 14, 2018 at the age of 83. 

In 1987, when I moved to Moncton, NB, it was not long before I started to frequently visit the Owens Art Gallery at Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB. It was here that I was introduced to her art. Some of the first paintings of hers that I saw were "Romancing the Casserole", 1985 and "Hollowed Eggs for Easter", 1983. I can vividly recall being awestruck by them and was enamored by her ability to transform a fleeting moment of her own domestic life into art. The way she frames the images, her ability to capture light and shadows, her unique bold colour palette are but some of the signature characteristics that drew me in from the start. 

Mary Pratt - Hollowed Eggs for Easter, 1983

30 x 36", oil on gessoed masonite panel

Acadia University, Wolfville, NS

Since the beginning of the millennium, I've done several paintings that were generally inspired from her oeuvre, others were homages to her while using some of her art books to anchor a still life composition.  

My homage painting “Made in Canada” (2014) was recently published in the book, “Central European Journal of Canadian Studies”, volume 12 / 13 (2018). It appeared in an article entitled “The Book Cover as an Artistic Statement and a Cultural Phenomenon - A Canadian Example” written by Nikola Tutek. The article surveys the interrelations between the writer and the artist, in this case - three of Alice Munro’s books featuring Mary Pratt’s artwork. This book was published by Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. I felt extremely honored to be included in the same breath of these two Canadian icons.

For bio notes on Mary Pratt please refer to a previous post - Made in Canada, Oct. 20, 2014.

The inspiration for this current homage painting, "A Bowl of Fruits for Mary", was sparked when I saw a cook book while browsing on eBay last summer. I was not aware of it's existence until then. "Across the Table, An Indulgent Look at Food in Canada" was published in 1985 by Prentice-Hall. It was a collaboration between Cynthia Wine and Mary Pratt, chronicling regional culinary specialties found on the back-burners of stoves in homes across the country. Cynthia Wine is a critically acclaim Canadian writer born in Winnipeg. Mrs Wine was a restaurant critic at the Toronto Star for 25 years and a food editor at Homemaker's Magazine. Mary Pratt created three dozen watercolour paintings and 5 drawings especially for the book. All of these images were new to me. Many of them are watercolour sketches, some are presented in form of a story board while others are very elaborate, polished and masterfully painted like "Live lobsters with claw bands", "Corn in a Polish dishcloth" and "Tea tray with Florentine". 

Mary Pratt was a very prolific painter. She has stated in interviews that she made many sacrifices including not having an active social life in order to paint, to stay focused and to dedicate her life to art. It would be very interesting to see the catalogue raisonné for the totality of her artwork. Her most famous paintings have been published in art books or shown in retrospective exhibitions, but many are unpublished.  

Since her recent passing, her artwork has garnered immediate consideration and attention. Last fall, her oil painting Preserving Summer - Black Currant Jam, came up for auction with an estimated value between $30,000 - $40,000. When the hammer fell at the Heffel Auction House in Toronto, the painting sold for $133,250 (including buyer's premium), more than doubling her previous record price of $59,000 Can. 

Mary Pratt
Preserving Summer - Black Currant Jam
24 x 30 in, oil on canvas, 1998

Mrs Pratt was one of the driving voices in establishing The Rooms, the provincial art gallery and archives in St John's, NL where she had lived since 1992. In addition to painting, Mrs Pratt was also a writer. Her book, A Personal Calligraphy, published in 2000, contained more than 30 works of art done during the 1990's along with her writings from speeches, published articles, essays and journal entries.  

Bowl of Fruits for Mary, an homage was completed in early February. Yesterday, I drove to Sackville, NB to deliver the painting at the Fog Forest Gallery. Unbeknownst to me, the Owens Art Gallery would be hosting the exhibition- Mary Pratt: The Floating World from March 1 to May 17.

This exhibition celebrates the intricate, dazzling, and sometimes unsettling artistic vision of Mary Pratt. Featuring a selection of works from our permanent collection, the exhibition spotlights a series of woodblock prints Pratt created in collaboration with Japanese master printmaker Masato Arikushi. This nine-year creative exchange, one of the most important of Pratt’s career, produced a breathtaking suite of carefully observed, spectacularly lush meditations on still life as an expression of the transitory nature of life. On the occasion of her solo exhibition Simple Bliss (2004), Pratt wrote, “The most unexpected delight has been my association with Masato Arikushi in the making of the series of prints we call Transformations. I found an artisan who understood my ideas so well that he needed little input from me once he had studied the paintings I provided. Gradually his own ideas melded with my original images, and I detected his own imagery inserting itself into my own. I liked that. It all fit.”

This exhibition has been organized in memory of Mary Pratt, who was a graduate of Mount Allison University’s Fine Arts Department (Class of ’57). She passed away in August 2018 at the age of 83. 

Curated by Emily Falvey  (1.)

I had written a few letters of appreciation to Mrs Pratt, especially after viewing a few of her retrospective exhibitions. To my delight, she always graciously replied. Sharing a bit of her insight and giving me words of encouragements. I appreciated a lot of her philosophies of life. I will always remember Mary Pratt as the beacon of light that she was, in life and through her art.

Part of a group exhibition at the Fog Forest Gallery
OPEN BORDERS
May 9-26, 2019

To acquire this painting please contact:

Fog Forest Gallery

14 Bridge Street, Sackville,

New Brunswick, Canada, E4L 3N5

Phone (506) 536-9000

e-mail: janet@fogforstgallery.ca

___________

1.- excerpt from the website "exhibitions" page of Owens Art Gallery

31ST ANNUAL RNS ART SHOW AND SALE

Title- A WORLD IN NEED OF MORE SUPERHEROS

Acrylic on mounted gessobord, 11 x 14"

Painting # 220, ©-2014

(black wooden floater frame)

Each spring, the Rothesay Netherwood School holds its annual art show fundraiser to help raise much-needed funds to support programming and capital projects that benefit the students – 2019 will mark the school’s 31st annual art show and sale fundraiser. The school which was established in 1877, is an independent/private boarding and day school for grades 6-12 in Rothesay, NB.

This show features the work of local and regional professional and emerging artists.

Funds raised during this year’s event will be used to fund priority projects to enhance the school’s campus and enrich the learning environment for our students.

I was contacted by the school earlier this year to submit a piece. "A World in need of more Superheros" will be exhibited and up for sale during the event.

On Friday, May 10^th, 2019, RNS will bring art lovers, collectors, and artists together for an evening of fine art, great food, music, and fundraising. The show will continue throughout the day on Saturday, May 11^th. 

The list of artists with a preview of the works to be shown, can be found on this LINK.

For more information, please call Nic Carhart, the School Office at 506.848.0861 or email artshow@rns.cc.

My Blog post for this painting is at this LINK

-SOLD

Victory Kisses in Times Square, an homage to Alfred Eisenstaedt

16 x 8", acrylic on gessoed mounted aluminum panel

Painting #270, 2019

This is my third painting of what is turning so far into a mini Hershey's Kisses series. These larger chocolate Kisses are seasonal and are only available from Christmas through Valentine's Day. For my third instalment, I chose the iconic photo taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt while on assignment for Life magazine. The picture entitled VJ Day in Times Square, VJ Day or The Kiss was taken on August 14, 1945, at the announcement of the end of the war with Japan. 

The persons who were later identified in the photograph are Navy sailor George Mendonsa  (b. 1923) and dental hygienist Greta Zimmer Friedman (b. 1924- d. 2016). Many articles were published from the point of view of the photographer and both parties involved who did not know each other when the photo was taken. The spontaneous kiss was explained by George Mendonsa as a general thank you to all nurses for their indispensable service during war time.   

That afternoon, George Mendonsa was coming out of Radio City Music Hall with his girlfriend Rita, when victory over Japan was announced. In the photograph, Rita can be seen peeking over his right upper arm. In 2018, George and Rita had been married for 71 years.

I used a Special Edition of Life Magazine, Fall 1990, acquired on eBay as the photo study for the painting. It is one of the magazine's most famous pictures in print. Rita is circled in red. 

Update-February 18, 2019 - It was announced today that George Mendosa died yesterday at an assisted living facility in Middleton, R.I. He would have turned 96 tomorrow. Rest in peace Mr. Mendosa. Condolences to his wife, family & friends.  

To acquire this painting, please contact: 

Galerie de Bellefeuille

1367 avenue Greene, 

Montreal, Quebec H3Z 2A8 Tel: 514.933.4406

e-mail- art@debellefeuille.com

website 

-SOLD