Tag: The Air is Thick

Opening Night of Seth Armstrong and Erik Jones

It was a packed house the opening night of Seth Armstrong’s “The Air Is Thick” and Erik Jones’ “Color|Full“. Robert Williams even paid Thinkspace a visit after a full day of book signings up at LAMAG. Both exhibits remain on view through April 18th, so please swing on by if you missed the opening reception. The shows really demand in person viewing to best appreciate them, from the numerous hidden details in Armstrong’s paintings to the three-dimensional aspects in Jones’ new works. Visit our Flickr account  for full coverage of opening night and below are a few of our favorite shots.

Left to Right: Seth Armstrong, Robert Williams, Suzanne Williams

crowd at seth armstrong and eric jones show

eric jones and andrew hosner chatting about art

seth armstrong, eric jones, and ken

 

Don’t miss our next opening Beautanica and group exhibition Gumbo, Saturday April 25. Beautanica will be showing new works by Australian artist Bec Winnel. Gumbo will be displaying the work of artists Alex Yanes, James Bullough, Matthew Grabelsky, Ryan Hewett, Sergio Garcia, Troy Coulterman, and Troy Lovegates. Visit the Thinkspace Gallery website for more details.

Interview with Seth Armstrong for The Air Is Thick

Seth Armstrong Studio Visit

photo courtesy of Robin Redd from Art Nerd studio visit.

Interview with Seth Armstrong for “The Air is Thick” on view a at Thinkspace Gallery  March 28 – April 18, 2015. Seth Armstrong will be present at the opening night March 28, 6-9pm.

Warm-up Questions:
SH: coffee or tea?
SA: Coffee
SH: background noise: music or tv show?
SA: Music
SH: snacks: savory or sweet?
SA: both
SH: dogs or cats?
SA: Dogs

SH: When do you get the most painting done? Morning, Noon, Night, Middle of the Night/Morning?
SA: I’d say late afternoon/evening/night-time.

SH: What inspired the direction of your work for the upcoming show?
SA: I started out with a common narrative in mind for the show, but I quickly got interested in other stuff, and now rather than a common thread that ties all the paintings together, the paintings seem to be more sequential. One relates to the next, but each may not belong with all the others. The city of LA had a big influence on the paintings, as in the architecture and the light. Also growing up in a town saturated by the movie industry, a lot of the paintings have a filmic quality to them.

Seth Armstrong

SH: Have you ever accidentally drank or was about to drink the dirty ‘paint’ water?
SA: I have accidentally put turpentine to my lips, but I’ve never swallowed it.

SH: What other artists work are you a fan of right now?
SA: I’ve always been a huge fan of my friend Chris Russell’s paintings. They are epic and colorful and amazing. I’ve got more of his paintings at my house than any other artist’s. (chrisrussellart.com)

SH: What brand of paint so you use? What’s your favorite color and brush right now?
SA: I like Gamblin oil paint right now. Favorite color is between yellow ochre or cobalt teal. Favorite brush is currently Princeton Art and Brush Co’s. They’ve got a nice flow and firmness, but they are shitty enough where I don’t have to worry too much about destroying them. Which I do.

Seth(march)

SH: How long does it take to complete a single piece? Do you work on multiple pieces at one time?
SA: Depends on the painting. There are paintings in this show that took more than a month, and there are paintings that took less than an hour.
I generally work on one painting at a time, but lately I’ve taken paintings to the point where they are very nearly done, then spend weeks on the finishing touches as I work on others.

SH: What motivated you to choose the life/career of an artist?
SA: My parents have always been very supportive. They both moved to LA to become actors, so they understand the whole “do what you love” mentality. I’ve always been drawing and painting, so as I was finishing high school, there wasn’t any kind of deciding moment, it just seemed like the natural next step.

SH: What do you know now, that you wish you would have known when first embarking on your artistic career?
SA: I still don’t know shit, so don’t worry about it.

thewrestlers

SH: What creative person; artist, musician, director, family member etc… has had the most influence or inspired your own artistic voice?
SA: One of the most significant people to influence me at a younger age was probably my high school art teacher, Mealiffe. She was the best. Incredibly supportive. A lot of kids from her class went on to careers in the arts.

SH: If your could invite 5 people dead or alive to a dinner party, who would be on your guest list and what’s on the menu?
SA: Ben Franklin, Elvis Presley, Leonardo Da Vinci, Brigitte Bardot, and Teddy Roosevelt. Spaghetti with meat sauce.

thefalconer

New work by Seth Armstrong in “The Air is Thick”

Seth Armstrong The Air is Thick Postcard

New work by Seth Armstrong in “The Air is Thick” on view March 28, 2015 to April 18, 2015.
Opening Reception with artists on hand:
Saturday, March 28th 6-9PM

 

Thinkspace is pleased to present The Air is Thick featuring new works by Los Angeles based artist Seth Armstrong. Armstrong’s paintings self-consciously capture a sense of looking, arresting moments with cinematic detail and voyeuristic curiosity. Varying in scale, the paintings offer views that are alternately intimate and vast, moving expertly between the monumental and the minute. Laden with detail and suggestion, each piece offers a moment in the trajectory of a larger narrative, and the viewer is compelled to realign the fractures of these inconclusive moments. Hanging the works on suggestion rather than on the overt, Armstrong builds tension and excitement in every painting with the possibility and expectation of action. Surfeited with this palpable sense of permanent anticipation and arrest, the air is indeed thick enough to cut.

Originally from Los Angeles, Armstrong studied painting in Northern Holland and completed a BFA at San Francisco’s California College of the Arts. His deft handling of oil paint clearly demonstrates a facility inspired by traditional painting techniques, and a material aptitude for the dense capture of light and color. The intense realism of his style is often tempered by a looser, more painterly approach, and by a stylized handling of light and dimension. With viscous luminosity and substantive flesh, qualities achieved with a seamlessly clean application, his works feel heavy with tactility and dense with tangible space and body. Armstrong’s use of stark saturated contrasts is offset by a tendency towards stylized hyper-color, creating both depth and edge that exceeds the muted tones of the real. These contrasts achieve a sense of brooding visual tension that manages to evoke both nostalgia and strangeness simultaneously.

In The Air is Thick, Armstrong continues to explore themes that have consistently fascinated his output: the intrigue of illicit looking, and the fine line between intimacy and trespass. Just as cinema manages to satisfy our innate love of voyeuristic access, so too do the paintings offer us views onto private lives that both frustrate and satisfy. The suggestion of constant narrative pervades even the stillest and least active views, as Armstrong reminds us of the secret recesses behind all closed doors and all quiet faces.

Seth Armstrong The Air Is Thick

Seth Armstrong – “The Air is Thick”