For the last two weeks I’ve had the benefit of learning from Carlos San Millan. He is a generous painter. What took a while for me to grasp at first is now coming into form, and soon will be a V. Note. In the meantime, I wanted to send out some new painters. In the workshop, San Millan listed “Velázquez, Turner, Vermeer, Hammersöi, Edward Hopper” as his influential painters for interiors, and “Antonio López García, Lucian Freud, Euan Uglow” as masters of ‘diaphanous painting’ – for the way they portray surfaces and representation of matter.
“Definition of diaphanous. 1 : characterized by such fineness of texture as to permit seeing through. 2 : characterized by extreme delicacy of form : ethereal painted diaphanous landscapes. 3 : insubstantial, vague.” – Merriam Webster
Although I appreciated the list, I was hoping for a little something more, so I asked him for a list of painters who were a little less famous. He responded enthusiastically, and sent me 12 less well known, fabulous and challenging artists to learn about.
These are not the painters who shaped San Millan’s paintings as they are today. These are the painters that give him ideas for where he might like to go next. These are painters who do things that make San Millan dizzy with admiration. These are painters who abstract matter, flatten it into color shapes. They’re doing things that he would like to reach towards.
Green Planks
As luck would have it, the first on San Millan’s list of favorites is an artist I had just recently learned about, and was getting all swoony over. I’d already started a V. Note for him. The local painter Amy Scherer had showed me his work last week, and I fell instantly in love. He’s clearly from a realist background, with formalized processes of measuring and color theory, but he’s using the process to abstraction, moving farther and farther away from realism.
Notice the fragments from earlier layers, the flatness of color shapes, and the pencil sketch on the wall. I am infatuated with the process illustrated in this painting.
For those of you who are in my Thursday class this quarter, you might notice some of the techniques and effects we’ve been talking about regarding how he records changes in a painting over time, and how he leaves some fragments from drawing and measuring; a trail of breadcrumbs for us to follow the path of his process.
I’ll note that most of these works are from Majumdar’s earlier series, and he’s gone more abstract since. Good for him. And also, damn.
WTF The quote from Gerhard Richter about looking for boring and irrelevant photo materials is from the upcoming lecture on Portraiture After Photography – part of our ongoing WTF Art History Lecture series with Suzanne Walker (BA, MA, PhD, BFD). These lectures are one of a kind, and not recorded. Don’t miss Suzanne Walker’s latest spitfire! …
Writing process Dr Martin Luther King Jr wrote about 450 speeches a year, and delivered somewhere around 2,000 speeches in his lifetime. His most famous works took form over countless iterations and inter-weaving with previous sermons and writings, as well as integrated pieces of feedback from his friends and advisors. Preparations On August 27, 1963, …
Isn’t this a lovely colored pencil drawing? Klimt made more drawings, but they deserve their own room. They’re mostly nude women with their crotches on display. Take your colored pencils anywhere!
Hey there. I wanted to send out a little personal thank you about V. Notes, this unusual and personal blog series of thoughts and ideas related to art. Initially started as a way to give my painting students more information outside of class, V. Notes now has over 1,000 readers. Many subscribers are part of …
Sangram Majumdar
For the last two weeks I’ve had the benefit of learning from Carlos San Millan. He is a generous painter. What took a while for me to grasp at first is now coming into form, and soon will be a V. Note. In the meantime, I wanted to send out some new painters. In the workshop, San Millan listed “Velázquez, Turner, Vermeer, Hammersöi, Edward Hopper” as his influential painters for interiors, and “Antonio López García, Lucian Freud, Euan Uglow” as masters of ‘diaphanous painting’ – for the way they portray surfaces and representation of matter.
“Definition of diaphanous. 1 : characterized by such fineness of texture as to permit seeing through. 2 : characterized by extreme delicacy of form : ethereal painted diaphanous landscapes. 3 : insubstantial, vague.” – Merriam Webster
Although I appreciated the list, I was hoping for a little something more, so I asked him for a list of painters who were a little less famous. He responded enthusiastically, and sent me 12 less well known, fabulous and challenging artists to learn about.
These are not the painters who shaped San Millan’s paintings as they are today. These are the painters that give him ideas for where he might like to go next. These are painters who do things that make San Millan dizzy with admiration. These are painters who abstract matter, flatten it into color shapes. They’re doing things that he would like to reach towards.
As luck would have it, the first on San Millan’s list of favorites is an artist I had just recently learned about, and was getting all swoony over. I’d already started a V. Note for him. The local painter Amy Scherer had showed me his work last week, and I fell instantly in love. He’s clearly from a realist background, with formalized processes of measuring and color theory, but he’s using the process to abstraction, moving farther and farther away from realism.
For those of you who are in my Thursday class this quarter, you might notice some of the techniques and effects we’ve been talking about regarding how he records changes in a painting over time, and how he leaves some fragments from drawing and measuring; a trail of breadcrumbs for us to follow the path of his process.
I’ll note that most of these works are from Majumdar’s earlier series, and he’s gone more abstract since. Good for him. And also, damn.
Related Posts
WTF? Gerhard Richter’s goal for photo references
WTF The quote from Gerhard Richter about looking for boring and irrelevant photo materials is from the upcoming lecture on Portraiture After Photography – part of our ongoing WTF Art History Lecture series with Suzanne Walker (BA, MA, PhD, BFD). These lectures are one of a kind, and not recorded. Don’t miss Suzanne Walker’s latest spitfire! …
30SAL Challenge: Rhythm and Repetition
Writing process Dr Martin Luther King Jr wrote about 450 speeches a year, and delivered somewhere around 2,000 speeches in his lifetime. His most famous works took form over countless iterations and inter-weaving with previous sermons and writings, as well as integrated pieces of feedback from his friends and advisors. Preparations On August 27, 1963, …
Colored Pencil Drawings by Klimt
Isn’t this a lovely colored pencil drawing? Klimt made more drawings, but they deserve their own room. They’re mostly nude women with their crotches on display. Take your colored pencils anywhere!
A note about V. Notes
Hey there. I wanted to send out a little personal thank you about V. Notes, this unusual and personal blog series of thoughts and ideas related to art. Initially started as a way to give my painting students more information outside of class, V. Notes now has over 1,000 readers. Many subscribers are part of …