Guest Picks: Scenes of Summer
I feel like this roundup needed a showing from an essentially non-coastal landscape. London-based artist Tom Edwards is the creator of this collage, which features mountains and bird-speckled glaciers in addition to ocean waves. The types of terrain move smoothly, one to the next, communicating a perforated but unified scene.
This is a simultaneously straightforward and skewed scene in which an almost unruly pine juts into the frame of a vibrant and clear blue oceanscape. I love the colors, the simplicity and the natural beauty of the scene.
Here’s another example of an isolated, and definitely moodier female figure at the edge of an ocean. This is print of an painting from Clare Elsaesser, who lives and works in a Pacific hillside town in California. In addition to the dramatic sea and contemplative pose, I love the woman’s pale skin, dark red hair and striped swimsuit.
I’m often drawn to isolated figures in a landscape. I love the flat rendering of the woman here and the tall skinny trees by the edge of the sand. It’s an oil on canvas by German artist Axel Krause, who also does pared-down interiors with figures that I like.
I’d love to be at the Louvre in Paris in summertime. This is another piece I’ve had my eye on for a while. Brooklyn-based photographer Bryan Solarski’s miniature scenes are captured using “tilt-shift” style photography, so the people and places seem quite small. The fact that the scenes he photographs, like the Louvre, Grand Central Station or a baseball stadium, are grand and dense makes the juxtaposition that much more intense.
UK artist Jack Addis deems camping a signature subject. I love the technicolor smear of color (which he calls his “glitching technique") across what is normally a verdant scene. Camping is not my thing — but perhaps if it were this vibrant, exciting and colorful … Addis comments that the depiction is partly an environmental commentary of nature fractured by the unnatural presence of the campers.
I was first exposed to Chicago-based photographer Julie Blackmon’s work at the apartment of a Boston collector who has one of her pieces. Blackmon is inspired by 17th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings of domestic life, and her images are meticulously orchestrated tableaus that feature members of her own family. This one is part of her “Domestic Vacations” series and captures a suburban scene in exaggerated crispness.
This abandoned summer camp scene pictures Lake Anza in Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley, California. The photographer, Geoffrey Ansel Argon, is inspired by the “uneasy coexistence between human populations and the natural world,” which is apparent here. I like it’s haunting stillness. In my mind, I can see the activity that went on before everyone went home.
It's glitter art! Yes, look closely, tiny specks of glitter. The composition of these variegated blues swooshing up on the background evokes an ocean wave. I once framed glitter works I made with my kids. Perhaps I should pull them out of hiding and prop them back up on the mantelpiece.
I have a bit of a girl-crush on designer and artist Lulu deKwiatkowski, whose company Lulu DK designs textiles and home furnishings. I work with her on occasion, so I am lucky enough to chat with her a few times during year. She is the ultimate cool girl. This painting pictures the pool in her backyard in Los Angeles. I love the Palm Springs/Palm Beach vibe.
Nancy Bergen Gillmer captured this minty, aqua image the morning after a summer storm, while the ocean was glistening as the sun began to peak out from the clouds. Like its creator, I too love the “dreamy essence” of a dewy summer morning on the beach. I should try to awaken early enough to enjoy it at least one day before returning to the city for fall.
I’ve admired this photo for a long time. I love blurred subjects and images obscured by sun or rain. It’s by New York City–based photographer Matthew Tischler, who says he uses grids and barriers in order to dissect, pixelate, filter his landscapes. He shoots with a 35mm camera, but uses video technology and traditional paint as a reference point.
This photo by photographer L. Daniel, a self-described “simple guy,” evokes exactly what it is — a backyard just before sunset, decorated for the homeowners’ wedding ceremony. It inspires me to hang similar lights that I bought long ago, and perhaps throw a summer patio party.
Paul Octavious is a photographer based in Chicago, and he often visits this park that he calls “the hill.” On this day, he estimates over 200 kites were being flown. I love this scene of urbanites catching a moment of idyllic summer life, however fleeting.
Photographer Tom Kondrat travelled to Iceland, a childhood dream, to capture its inhabitants’ emotions during the country’s coldest, gloomiest time, when the sun is up for less than five and a half hours a day. Instead, he was struck by the beautiful, bleak, raw and simple landscapes. This gloomy ocean could be anywhere. It’s the moodiness that speaks to me, and the dark colorations, I think, echo Rothko.
No matter how often I stare at the ocean (and believe me, I do quite a lot, even if I never get away from my computer long enough to get out there and touch it), it’s never enough. These beach photos by Christian Chaize (a self-taught artist who lives and works in Lyon, France) are taken with medium- and large-format cameras. The sharp, jagged rock formations tell me it’s a European beach, which holds an exotic allure — I’ve never been to the European sea.
As a New Englander, I think nothing says summer like a blue and white striped nautical shirt. How fun is it against this pared-down beach backdrop with a voluminous mountain of a cloud? It’s oil on canvas, painted by Jan Sowarby, who started out in advertising. She has a whole series of these appealing snippets of summer lift. Clearly the beach got the best of her.
Japanese-born, New York-based photographer Chikara Umihara likens photography to poetry. This image, which he took shortly after the gray clouds of a downpour cleared, makes that concept easy to understand. He says, “Suddenly, the brightest sun showed up and its light glittered on the surface of the water.” He may actually have a future as a writer too. When I first looked at the image, I though the sparkling water was falling rain. I love the tricks this photo plays on the eyes, while remaining absolutely beautiful.
I’ve long admired this print by Philadelphia area photographer Tina Crespo, who takes photos infused with a yesteryear sort of sensibility. And it’s cropped in a perfect circle, rendering it modern and fresh. It’s like looking at the ocean through a porthole, without any trace of nautical kitsch. I’m thinking of purchasing one to add to the gallery wall in my sons’ room in the Florida condo. Or, come to think of it, I might also need one for the mudroom bathroom on the Cape, in which the mirror reflects the ocean. It would make a great pillow as well.
Summer in the city: hot, sweaty, lonely, abandoned. That’s what this photograph of an empty urban schoolyard basketball court relays to me. The artist, Franck Bohbot, created an entire series of such public school schoolyards, in palettes ranging from pretty pastels to subdued and almost spooky.Next: 9 Decorating Projects for Lazy Summer Days
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