Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Angela Malchionno

.
Angela Malchionno makes the most subtle works on and from paper, fabric and other unexpected materials. They are complex. Her statement on her web site says:

My current body of work explores the developed and undeveloped landscape as a metaphor for shifting personal identitiy. I am concerned with increasingly routinized interactions between people and what architect Sanford Kwinter describes as a neo-fordist world in which the unpredictable forces of human nature are boxed up, walled off and disregarded.

I must confess that I had never heard the term fordist, neo or otherwise, until I read this text. So I looked it up - see here. In any event, her web site has many illustrations of her work. The objects in the foreground of the photo are similar to these. They are made of bits of paint color sample cards, each pinned to a core. One can look at them for a long time.

Thursday Arch Series

.
Back to the new Arch and downtown overlook in East St. Louis, Illinois. The image across the bottom is not a Photoshop trick. The railing at the end of the overlook has this picture in the metal (I don't know how it's done) labeling the major features across the Mississippi.

I like how this turned out. It's an HDR with much messing around with levels, contrast and sharpness. It looks a bit like an etching.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Paul Young

.
I shoot everything in color. If I want to go to black and white, I use a B&W adjustment layer in Photoshop. My first edit of this picture was in color (you can see it here). However, the more I thought about it, Paul Young and his work have such seriousness of purpose that monochrome might be more appropriate.

Young makes exquisitely detailed reproductions of old rural buildings. These are not just models; they carry the spirit of a place. A photograph cannot do justice to the craftsmanship and, I think, love involved in making them. Some of the work is so fine he has to use dental tools. You just have to see it for yourself.

TOMORROW: Thursday Arch Series

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Jennifer Hayes

.
Jennifer Hayes' painting is confrontational. Large scale, in-your face color, heavy texture; female figures never showing the face, semi-nude, clad only in minimal underwear. She's had some real success in the art market. SLeeK, the high-end steak house in the Lumiere Place casino complex, decorated the walls with her pictures. So, it's not without reason that she looks self-confident. You can see more of hew work on her web site.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Jay Babcock

.
Jay Babcock makes art that has something to say. The installation on the wall is in the shape of our state, made up of losing Missouri Lottery tickets. We talked about what this might communicate. Who buys lottery tickets, and why? A cynic once described lotteries as a tax on the stupid but it's much more complex than that. Lottery tickets buy big dreams for little money - unless you get hooked on them. You might purchase them if you have debts, little money and a lot of dissatisfaction. It is sometimes said that the chances of winning a lottery in the U.S. are less than those of being hit my lightning. Babcock asks us to contemplate this.

There is a new Arch photo

today on GATEWAY.

Concerto For The Right Hand

.
Maurice Ravel wrote a Piano Concerto For the Left Hand. I spotted the opposite effect during Open Studios weekend while was leaving an exhibit space on funky Cherokee Street, a strip that contains our town's (very) Little Mexico, art galleries and a socialist bakery cooperative. This impromptu sculpture was pressed into a corner. You had to play your own concert in your head.

The artists' portraits series will return tomorrow.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Paula Lincoln

.
Paula Lincoln produced some of the most unusual art I saw at Open Studios Weekend. A large white wall was covered with cut-out silhouettes, mostly black but with wood tones in the foliage at the bottom. A crow flies away from a larger-than-life man wearing a top hat. Plants cover the ground; Lincoln pointed out to me that one was foxglove. I think the plant at the left is a thistle. Like a Rorschach test, the meaning is left to the viewer's imagination. The piece reminds me of the work of Kara Walker.

TOMORROW: a musical interlude in the artists' portrait series.