Burk Frey reviews Aaron Tilley

     Aaron Tilley is a still life photographer hailing from Great Britain, famed for his pristine (and often humorous) still life editorial commissions for companies such as Google and Ford. His work does veer heavily to the commercial side, but it's clear that a strong conceptual / metaphorical thread pervades; Tilley found his own way to make a living on his commissions and maintain personal authorship.

     Tilley's biographical information is as sparse and manicured as his images. There is not much available online or in art journals other than "works internationally" and "is British." If his art is anything to go on, I suspect this is intentional curation by Tilley rather than mere happenstance.

     Much of his output is commission-based, but the image below represents an example of a personal series.

 

Pneumatic Anatomy (2014)

     I find his work truly contemporary, if not in subject matter than in craft: the impossible precision of his subjects, surfaces, color balance, light, and shadow could only be achieved via skilled digital post processing. Perhaps that's a banal observation, but occasionally execution can go so far over the top of "expected" or "normal" as to become an attraction unto itself.

Savory - Bread (for Kinfolk)

 

 

 

 

 

Future Relic 1

 

 

Burk Frey reviews Casey Williams

     Casey Williams (1947-2013) was a Texas-based photographer and professor famous for his "found abstractions," or close-up color field photographs, particularly those he made late in life of the water and ships in the Houston ship channel.

     He was actively producing artwork at the ship channel until 2008, when new Department of Homeland Security regulations prohibited photography from onboard the M/V Sam Houston, the only public-accessible boat allowed in the channel. Williams was not able to secure an exemption, and his work at the ship channel ceased out of necessity.

     His abstracted images of channel water and rusted ship hulls were so inspired by color field art that journalist Lisa Gray described them as "Mark Rothko[s] wrung from Houston's industrial underbelly." She wasn't the only one to make the comparison, and even Williams' 2013 funeral was held, fittingly, at Houston's famed Rothko Chapel.

     I would have liked to have met Williams. Though his "found abstractions" are not always compelling, I deeply respect him for searching for (and often finding) beauty in the ignored decay and for pushing back against governmental overreach and encroachment on art making.

Quote source: http://www.chron.com/entertainment/article/Beauty-and-the-bureacrats-1776193.php

Burk Frey reviews Felice Varini

     Felice Varini (born 1952) is a Franco-Swiss installationist (though he prefers the term “painter”) famous for his perspective-based geometric work. Varini chooses an existing indoor or outdoor space, usually with varied geometry of its own, before making a series of sketches and photos from eye level to begin to understand the location. He then laser projects a design onto the surface so that it can be accurately filled in with acrylic paint, latex, chalk, or resin.

Unite d'habitation (on vantage)

Unite d'habitation (off vantage)

     The end result is that a fragmented series of geometric shapes and lines can be seen from “off vantage” perspectives, while Varini’s design can only be seen from the selected vantage point (see above). Conceptually, we might guess that knowing the selected vantage point would be the most important view to understand his work, but Varini claims this is not the case.

     "No, I am not worried about [the right vantage point]. Everyone knows how a circle or a square looks like. My concern is what happens outside the vantage point of view. Where is the painting then? Where is the painter? The painter is obviously out of the work, and so the painting is alone and totally abstract, made of many shapes. The painting exists as a whole, with its complete shape as well as the fragments; it is not born to create specific shapes that need to satisfy the viewer.”

     I'm not sure I can take Varini's claim at face value. The act of selecting a vantage point implies authorial intent and priority over other, unselected vantage points. Supporting this, Varini states in a different interview, "For me a viewpoint is a point in the space that I choose carefully: it is usually situated at my eye level and preferably located in a key passageway, for example where one room leads to another, a landing." [Emphasis mine]

     Varini cites Italian Spacialist Lucio Fontana’s slashed canvases as an early inspiration, but Varini’s geometric work seems directly linked to John Pfahl (photographer covered previously). In turn, Varini preceded French photographer Georges Rousse (below).

Montferrand - Georges Rousse (2012)

     What I take from Varini, Pfahl, and Rousse is their ability to introduce a novel frame of reference, dismantling viewers’ preconceived notions on reality and spacial relationships.

     Quote sources: http://www.poeticmind.co.uk/interviews-1/i-am-a-painter/

https://www.dezeen.com/2016/08/05/felice-varini-optical-illusion-le-corbusier-unite-dhabitation-architecture-installation/