represent

Santelli’s inner visions

Flash Instant, acrylic on canvas on aluminum panel

When Bill Santelli was seven years old, in 1960, he discovered Jackson Pollock in Life magazine, and it changed his life.  He walked up to his mother and said, “I’m going to France to become an artist.” On his way to France, he didn’t make it past his mother, nor did he get there to study art when he was older, though he flew to Paris during his honeymoon with his wife partly on a mission to see Pollock’s The Deep at the Pompidou Center. When he came of age, he went to live and work in L.A.

During his talk for his new solo exhibition’s opening at SUNY/Finger Lakes Community College, he said, “Along the way, it was necessary to earn money to keep painting, and so began shadow-careers in education and arts-related businesses. I forged an independent lifestyle that way. I’ve held positions as a high school art teacher; archival picture framer; manager of the largest antique print gallery on the west coast in LA; sales person and book buyer for an art supply company.” Eventually, in 1991, he was able to make a living as a painter without any side hustles partly by learning to market his work himself in an era when it was easier to work with agents to promote work. “In art, survival is success.”

He’s done far more than survive. As Barron Naegel, the gallery’s director, pointed out in his introduction to Santelli’s talk, he has combined his MORE

Precognitions of a recurrent past

Alberto Ortega, Community Watch, oil on panel

Some Arcadia Contemporary painters produce work so rapidly, I wonder how many hours of sleep they’re able to get during an average year. It feels like Alberto Ortega’s last solo show at Arcadia Contemporary was a few months ago.  You can see a tranche of his new paintings at Arcadia until Dec. 1. His visions feel paradoxically like precognitions of a past (circa 40s, 50s, maybe early 60s) we are destined to relive alone together. They are achingly haunting. They have the quality Bachelard called “oneiric” in The Poetics of Space, halfway between waking and sleep. He builds original dioramas and then stages twilight or night scenes that feel like intimate, antique precursors of Gregory Crewdon’s cinematic scenarios and then paints from views of these constructions. I’m eager to see the work on a visit to the city in a couple weeks.

New work, Bill Santelli

A show of new work from Bill Santelli opens next week at Gallery 34, Finger Lakes Community College. I’m eager to see the actual work after seeing his posts on Instagram the past few years. Santelli has struggled with health issues and chronic pain that haven’t seemed to hinder his output except to reduce the amount of time he spends each day in the studio. The reception and artist’s talk will be on Nov. 14.

Matt Klos, Old and New

Going to schedule a side trip to talk with Matt about his new show in a couple week, after a visit to NYC. I’m interested in how Klos evolved from the Lopez Garcia style of realism he mastered in college to his approach now as a perceptual painter and also how he defines this school of painters. I had a quick conversation with him recently about how Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts is shutting down its degree program and he agreed that there may be a sea change coming in higher education, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I hope to pass along his thoughts here after I see him in person.

The Stephens continuum

Eager to see new work from these two innovators who are continuously experimenting with materials and methods.