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.
The following is text from my interview of Fran O’Neill, Oct 6, 2020. I asked Fran to share some of the historical artworks she regards as masterworks. She talked about what she sees as the magic of transcriptions. “There’s a whole mystery that is incredible about works from the past, and unlocking some of that …
Take a look at the rainbow above. Notice anything about the colors? There’s an extra blue! This rainbow follows the ROYGBIV (Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet) system. You’ve probably seen it, but if someone asked you to paint a rainbow, you probably wouldn’t paint it this way. You’d probably leave out the Indigo. …
[image_with_animation image_url=”9597″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] For this unfinished painting, the artist did not die. The sitter did. [image_with_animation image_url=”9598″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] In 1945, Elizabeth Shoumatoff was commissioned to paint a portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. At noon on April 12, Shaumatoff began her work. That afternoon Roosevelt said, “I have a terrific …
Shelters are seeing record adoptions during the quarantine, evidently, but that’s not why I got my puppy. After a lifetime of living with cats, my doctor said no more. My doctor said “get a poodle.” Lendy said “get a poodle.” I said I would never get a poodle. I got my poodle on March 6th, …
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.
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