ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: MARK KNOERZER ON DISPLAY AT M FINE ARTS GALERIE

Featured works by Mark Knoerzer on display now at M Fine Arts Galerie.

Mark Knoerzer is an American artist born in Cronwall, New York who is currently living in Brooklyn. He creates glossy, glass like pieces which reference a spectrum of things ranging from humans to animals to landscapes and atmospheres. All of this is done through the use of abstract geometric shapes and silhouette like forms.

Knoerzer’s unusual works are brought to fruition through an extensive and meticulous layering process. He first hand draws his designs, then outlines the shapes with acrylics and fills them in with oils – sometimes he uses up to 15 layers of paint depending on the intended effect. Afterwards, Knoerzer coats his paintings with 3 layers of epoxy to achieve the shiny, glass-like finish. His work has become representative of his uniquely personal visual language.

The artist’s unique technique is the result of his experimentation with various mediums from an early age and his experience with 3D light installations. Indeed, Knoerzer was interested in art since childhood and his parents supported his talents by enrolling him in several art classes. Learning to use various mediums, including ceramics, oil paints and carpentry, Knoerzer knew he wanted to pursue a career in the arts.

Knoerzer received an Associates of Fine Arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology and a BFA from Parsons School of Design where he was awarded an undergraduate Deans Scholarship and a BFA Scholarship.  He studied theater backdrop painting at the Studio and Forum of Scenic Arts in his hometown of Cornwall, NY.

It was while being enrolled in Parsons in 2006, that he began to move away from figural representations and began working with lights. When he returned to painting, his style was heavily influenced by the experiences he had while working with installations and his art became abstract. These unique light installations and abstract works are what he is most known for today. In 2010 he was even approached by Ironbound Films to have his art included in their new documentary Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie. The film won an official selection at the Tribeca Film Festival and was released in 2012 by Magnolia Pictures. Knoerzer’s work was included in Webster Hall’s Quarterly Art Soirée and “Light up Brooklyn” at the Brooklyn Morgan.

Mark Knoerzer's work is now being shown at M Fine Arts Galerie located in Boston’s SOWA Gallery District

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: QUENTIN GAREL'S MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS

Quentin Garel’s sculptures are currently being exhibited in two museums. Closest to home, the family-friendly exhibition “ArtZoo” is on view at the Berkshire Museum until May 1st. Garel’s breathtaking rhinoceros is one of the centerpieces of the exhibit. The artist first begins with an intricate charcoal drawing which he then translates into a wooden sculpture.  From there, he makes a mold to cast the piece in bronze. The result is a beautifully realistic shining skull of a bird, dolphin or gorilla.

His perfectly scaled work is also being featured in the gardens of the Muséume National d’histoire Naturel of Paris, as well as in the Galleries of Comparative Anatomy and Paleontology at the museum from March 16th to September 12th, 2016. The collection was made specifically for the museum and builds a bridge between the disciplines of science and art.

If you don’t have plans to travel to Paris this spring, come down to M Fine Arts Galerie in SoWa to see these spectacular sculptures here in Boston!

Art Critic, Francis Meyer | Critique : BENOIT TRIMBORN

To the question "why do you paint landscapes nonstop? " in 1970, Gerhard Richter replied that he took pleasure in painting something beautiful." Benoit Trimborn says the same thing by offering mediating landscapes towards aesthetic contemplation.

We are far from the exaggerations of some contemporary art scenes where the outrageous visual solicitation rivals with trendy fashions and trends; it is fortunate that some artists hold a different course, assuming with integrity and perseverance their aesthetic convictions. The Strasbourg native Benoit Trimborn is one of them: he brings together the authentic artist and the viewers whom he addresses with generosity.

Trimborn thus offers the viewer the chance of going on an immobile voyage, a tribute to slowness and silence that encourages a meditative contemplation through the use of unique and irreplaceable images, the fruits of his frank and visionary gaze as well as his unparalleled craftsmanship.

To paint

To paint the four elements

To paint the four seasons

To paint space and time by captivating the vibration of the atmosphere, the humming of the air, the chills of the water ruffled by the wind, the heat of the sun and the fog covering the folds and creases of the Earth

To paint the absence of man, cautiously confined to the space off the canvas, only present through his agricultural achievements

To paint the grooves, fields and roads as marks on the skin of the Earth

Diving in color which describes the space of time, reflecting a happy achrony, the delectation of a moment in time. The artist could make Barnett Newman’s motto his own: "painting is when I paint." He would not deny the gracious auspices of Gaston Bachelard, a man so sensitive to poetry’s powerful elements, generator of dreams and fantasies while not necessarily adhering to the metaphorical and narrative arsenal of the famous philosopher. For Benoit Trimborn, no fiction, let alone self-fiction, no philosophical or allegorical messages, nothing but time and space planted in the pigment and canvas.

The critic impressed by such rigor and modesty, can not help but point out two important dimensions in the painter who based his work on his architectural training and practice of music. Analysis of the paintings whose titles are neither pithy nor laconic but simply neutral to preserve any pathos or emotion, shows a clever and mastered construction where lines, planes and volumes to meet, allowing the geometric-architect to become the surveying painter of the piece of nature he has chosen to mark. Their musical dimension is evident, given the rhythmic arrangement that runs through the grounds as well as changes and weather fluctuations punctuated by silence.

The artist, secret modesty and concerned about the respect and freedom of the beholder, does not engage in any gloss on his creative process; despite his reluctance, he lets in some valuable insights on the methods of his approach. First of all, using his camera he turns himself into a hunter of which he later reframes the views in his workshop. Then he transfers on the canvas a quick sketch once the pattern is chosen. Finally begins the slow process of painting, still in the workshop and never outdoors.

The regular practice of landscape, ambitious confrontation with reality, appears as a soothing counterpoint to the madness and violence of men. Benoit Trimborn protects himself from the surrounding uproar and spectacularly visible obscenity because by seeing too much our society no longer knows how to look. He takes refuge in his canvas not to escape but to concentrate on the peaceful exploration of reality. The microcosm thus obtained, a concrete and intimate truth, allows access to the universal by becoming the watchful mediator between nature and culture.

The artist paints a non-calendar time and shares with us the music of a perhaps worried soul, anxious to achieve Uhrlicht, original light, so dear to Gustav Mahler. Relentless pursuit of beauty to dismiss the anxiety in the margins of the frame. Benoit Trimborn offers us a work of classic but never academic taste: a free representation of all the trends in fashion and formal dictates of the institutions. His paradoxical modernity and contemporaneity undoubtedly reside in the "bias of things" that adopts like the poet Francis Ponge.

The indolent mystery of nature, the impassive power of his presence, in some word his given beauty, sometimes suggests to me a harmonious and timeless fraternity of the artist with songs from Democritus and Virgil.

The work of Benoit Trimborn is deserving: it’s serene and soothing appearance requires attention and patience to decipher its preciousness, sometimes fantasy like and the undeniable elegiac dimension.

Without knowing why

I love this world

Where we come to die

Natsume Soseki

-Francis Meyer, September 2015

Translated by Andrea Garcia

Stratus Nebulosus, oil on canvas 43 3/4" x 63"

FABIENNE DELACROIX'S INFLUENCES

One look at Fabienne Delacroix's joyful pastoral landscapes and cityscape's of Belle Epoque France and we are instantly reminded of her farther, renowned master of the naif, Michel Delacroix. Take a closer look and Fabienne's precise training and her natural talent distinguishes her as an artist with a sophisticated grasp of art history that nurtured her unique style of painting.

We asked Fabienne about those influences and what inspired her latest series,
"Les 12 Vues de la Tour Eiffel"

FABIENNE DELACROIX:

“I have always been very much influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

One of my favorite master is of course, Hokusai (1760–1849). When I visited the large retrospective exhibition of his work at the Grand Palais in Paris, I was amazed by a series he had created : The

Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji. It is a series of landscape prints that depict Mount Fuji from different locations and in various seasons and weather conditions.

Actually another artist that I admire very much, was as well fascinated before me : Henri Rivière (1864 – 1951). He was a French artist and designer best known for his creation of a form of shadow play at the Chat Noir cabaret, and for his post-impressionist illustrations of Breton landscapes and Parisian scenes. Like many others, he was influenced by the vogue for Japonism right before the turn of the century, and modernised the famous prints by Hokusai of 36 Views of Mount Fuji and created the 36 views of the Eiffel Tower.

After comtemplating over and over those series, I thought my turn had come to create a series that I decided to limit to 12 pieces for the 12 months of the year.

The series « Les 12 vues de la Tour Eiffel » is about spending a year in Paris never too far from the Iron Lady.”

Hokusai's, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa"