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Well, I like small paintings, they often have a certain ephemeral lightness. They are a kind of finger exercise by the artist for larger works. Because they suffer less from compositional constraints than large paintings, they seem more spontaneous. This small picture is called "Me by Claudia's Pool", its colors are wonderful, the light in Los Angeles, it is painted from a perspective that anyone who has ever lain in a hammock knows. That moment when you look at your own legs as if they have an independent life of their own.
PS~ The painting is in Paris in Yanma's studio and it is not yet sold. It costs less than USD 500, if you are interested, I will put you in touch with Yanma.
Apr 3, 2024
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Milton Avery, Bathers, Coney Island, 1934, oil on canvas
the first time i saw this painting in the Portland art museum, walking through the American art section with my free student ticket, i think i hated it a little. it was weird and the colors were queasy and i probably could have painted it myself.
well, i guess it grew on me over the next dozen of visits, because now i have to pay $20 to enter the museum and this is one of my favorite paintings ever. there’s something so unconsciously skillful about it to me, and extremely funny, as if the painter put me in on a joke. i even bought a museum postcard of it from eBay and framed it on my wall. on a particularly bad day in San Francisco i found myself in the de Young museum in Golden Gate Park, and the sight of another Milton Avery painting brought me to tears like i had encountered a close friend. Avery lived a fairly quiet life; he didn’t find success as a painter until later in life. when he did, he wasn’t particularly financially successful. but he created art every day and taught his daughter to do the same, he used color and shape in strange and oddly transformative ways, and he had a friendship with Mark Rothko, a fellow Portland native who i admire very much, that consisted of long nights of tea and talking.
how does any of this relate to how much i love this painting? maybe i just saw it enough times during a transformative period of my life. but i love it for its vague impressions of hot dog vendors, and tough but tender hearted italian dudes, and a working class new-york dream, and imperfect people enjoying themselves at the beach regardless of the queasiness and horrors of everyday life, regardless of strange shadows and monkey people. i love it for being so weird and progressive for 1930 and kind of goth and surreal. i hope you love strange paintings too, but if you don’t, that’s alright.
Jan 30, 2025
I was taken by this piece at Franck Elbaz at the opening of "Host" last night. I began a piece a couple nights ago, on a large swath of unprimed canvas that I taped to my wall. After sketching on it, out of classic Zahra impatience, I began on it in passionate oil pastel sticks and then reprimanded myself for not waiting to gesso it. But then I would miss the skin-feel of the fabric... After seeing this painting below, I decided to let the laws go to shit and just make a grand fucking mess, and let it do the one thing it should do: sing to me.
Feb 4, 2024
Top Recs from @Fishsauce
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Understanding that mostly we are ignorant about many things leads to a state of mental bliss.
Apr 3, 2024
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They are kind of ridiculous. The epitome of a small dog. If you were to tell a child to draw a dog the drawing would most likely look like a tiny dachshund. They look better in your arm than most handbags. Nobody is afraid of them. You can’t really take them serious - which is an ideal to recommended to any Homo Sapiens. Yet they have a lot of character and are smarter than the turd who wants to become president again. And they get quiet old without going to Equinox or using nutrition supplement or detox and all that shit.
May 7, 2024
By Angelos Merges. It’s technically beautifully painted and slightly uncanny. The last remaining human beings gather after a apocalypse to discuss the questio: what should we do now?
Mar 7, 2024