Lori Bagneres' Art Blog

The 5's

Five – 5: the number of fingers that make up the hand.“Give me 5” is an idiom used in the English language meaning slap or shake my hand.  Here is how the number 5  has evolved from a primal scribble into our modern glyph.

Growing up in the 60’s I distinctly remember my first whiff of Chanel No. 5 the first perfume launched by Parisian couturiere Coco Chanel. The French government reports that a bottle of Chanel No. 5 is sold every thirty seconds and generates sales of $100 million a year. It is often considered the world's most famous perfume. 

This is Andy Warhol’s Pop Art rendition of the infamous perfume bottle – now considered an icon in the art and fashion world.

 I also remember growing up listening to the cool sounds of Dave Brubeck’s Quartet and his “Take 5”  piece…...

The album cover is an abstract composition itself painted by Neil Fujita and it

reminds me of Robert and Sonia Delaunay’s modernist yet colourful cubist style.

 and  who can’t forget  the even more famous sound of the  Motown band The Jackson 5 (also spelled The Jackson Five, or The Jackson 5ive), later known as The Jacksons and then in the 70’s and 80’s Michael Jackson turned into the famous teen idol and giant pop star.   

Hopping along from the musical Jackson 5 to another Jackson and his famous abstract painting known as No. 5, 1948 … It was a composition Jackson Pollock executed on an 8' × 4' sheet of fiberboard with thick amounts of brown and yellow house paint drizzled on top of it, forming a nest-like appearance. According to a report in The New York Times the painting was sold in 2006 during a private sale for a record price of $140 million. There has been much controversy throughout decades involving Pollock’s abstract art and some may even ask “Is this art at all?” - but remember this: A treasure for some may be trash to another and if my viewpoints of beauty don’t connect to yours that’s all right – so take it easy!

No.5 1948 - Jackson Pollock - American- Abstract Expressionist

I recently came across an article in the GalleriesWest art magazine about a painter named John Koerner from Vancouver. He is 97 and is still going strong with his abstract painting – you gotta love it!  Here is Koerner’s painting named The Fives done in 1988.

The 5's - John Koerner - Acrylic on Paper - 1988

Like Pollock’s painting No.5, I appreciate it's subtle, muted colours and the way the rhythmic shapes lead to the repeated 5’s found in the lower right hand corner of it’s composition. I’m sure his gumption for art has attributed to his longevity!

…So why all the 5’s??? 

Five is an important number in my life right now as I am part of a group of 5 women painters called the 5enses. In choosing our name we decided to fuse the number in with the idea of five senses.  The letter “S” in senses mutated into a number “5”, giving our logo a simple yet distinct style.

The members of our group are Catherine Fields and Therese Joseph, both born in Switzerland, Mena Martini born in Italy and Sara Morison and I were born in Central/Eastern Canada.  Although we come from diverse cultures, we all live on the North Shore of Vancouver now, and we share a one common bond for abstract art. We came together during a course on abstract painting given by the Iranian born painter Nurieh Mozafarri in the beginning of 2008.  Presently, we meet about once a week to critique and support one another’s work and we have also had numerous exhibitions together throughout the past four years.

The month of January has been a very busy time for me and the other members of the 5enses group and 2012 has started off with a bang!  Linda Bachman at The Portico Gallery represents all 5 of us in Squamish and has just had a change around a few weeks ago in her gallery, so be sure to check out some of our new paintings if you are passing through to Whistler sometime soon this winter.

We would also like to invite you to view our exhibitions at 2 very unique venues on the North Shore.  If you are catching a performance at the Centennial Theatre we have our large paintings hanging in the lobby there until June 2012. Also, everyone is welcome to attend our opening this coming Thursday night Feb 9^th at Delany’s Coffee House in Dundarave Village, West Vancouver for an evening of wine and chocolate in honour of Cupid…. and  of course, for the love and appreciation of Art.

Affordable - Original Art.....'Tis the Season

One of my favourite galleries, Cityscape Gallery, in the lower Lonsdale area had their Annual Anonymous Show Opening last night! There were over 700 paintings on display – with 400 art-lovers making an appearance by 8:30 – how wonderful!?  100 paintings were sold in the 1^st hour alone- with all the pieces priced at a very affordable $100 each. This is a huge fundraiser for The North Shore Arts Council with 50% staying there and 50% going to participating artists. The show is on until the 23^rd of December so make sure you drop by the Gallery to check out all the styles painted in various media!

Here are the some of the colourful walls I was able to capture before the buying folly occurred! Just a spectacular site!! Sorry - can't tell which are mine....It's Anonymous ;-)

 

Another show you can catch on until December 16th at Place des Arts in Coquitlam is “Positively Petite”  - Here, all the paintings are small – very small! In fact I didn’t realise I could paint this small!(The size requirement for this show is that all the 2D pieces need to be 12” squared or less)

These are my 3x4 mixed media paintings done on cradle panel  – entitled “Les Petits Nids de Paris”.

For all my friends and family in Ontario – please visit the In2(little)art Show at the In2art Gallery – located downtown Oakville on Church Street.  All the Original Artwork here is $250 or less. Check out their website to view some of my paintings from the Nest series represented there! (or even better drop by if you are in the area!)

The NSAG is having their Annual Fine Arts Sale on Dec 4^th at Parkgate Community Center in North Vancouver.  This show requires quite a large venue since there will be over 800 paintings on exhibition and for sale.  This is a one-day-only event!

Lastly my “Moonstruck” exhibition showing some of my abstract landscapes, is still on at the 4^th Wall Gallery/Presentation House Theatre Gallery until the end of this weekend in conjunction with Hannah Moscovitch’s award winning "Russian Play" and "Mexico City" - I especially appreciated the rivetting performance given by the actress who played the role of "Sonya".....

‘Tis the season of giving – Why not give original art to your loved ones this Christmas and support your local artists?

 

The Colours of Halloween

 I know all of you must be getting into the Halloween spirit right about now, preparing your home for those little ghosts, zombies and witches when they appear at your front door tonight  ………and you’re probably too busy to read this post ……anyway I decided to write about how my colour palette was influenced by the colours of this imminent festivity. These are the colours associated with the warm hues of the harvest contrasted against dramatic shades of black, blue-gray and brown – very appropriate for this time of year. 

 

 

Silver Moon - 12x24 - Mixed Media - 2011- (Available at Bird on a Wire, Vancouver B.C.)

Silver Moon -painted in washes of Carbon Black, Raw Umber, Payne's Gray, Burnt Orange, Raw Sienna, Indian Red and -if you can pronounce this one correctly- Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold- my new favourite! A touch of silver leaf in the Moon and the addition of the solitary crow perched high on the crooked branch evoke just enough mystery to this ethereal, semi- abstract landscape. My final layer on this painting is the addition of acrylic encaustic , a totally different animal than beeswax - however -you can achieve  beautiful transparent and translucent drippy layers that simulate the seductive quality of encaustic without the fumes!

Speaking of "mystery and seduction", as I was driving home the other night, “Witchy Woman” came on the radio, a song by the Eagles I hadn’t heard in a while….It’s a great song that really sets the mood for Halloween and that’s probably what the DJ was trying to do! Strangely enough, I find that these chilling lyrics relate well to my painting Silver Moon... 

Witchy Woman

Raven hair

and ruby lips

Sparks fly from her fingertips

Echoed voices

in the night

She's a restless spirit

on an endless flight

Wooo hooo witchy woman

See how high she flies

Woo hoo witchy woman

She got the moon in her eye

 

 …..I suppose we’ve all met someone like this somewhere down the line.... mysterious.... mystifying...maybe even downright spooky?! 

 Happy and safe Halloween to all!

P.S.… watch out for  those witchy women tonight!  

 

 

Moonstruck?

A visit to my studio recently by my 8 yr old neighbour Evan, got me thinking about this posting......

I was busy working on my new, oversized abstract landscapes and was mounting one of them on canvas....so I asked him what he thought about this painting ….

 

 Evan, in his regular cheerful manner, told me he thought it was a “beautiful sunset over a field (or a pond)”. When I told him I had intended it to be a “Harvest Moon” he looked at me a bit perplexed but answered  with a big smile and said “ That’s so cool Lori, I didn’t think the moon could be that colour!” 

Coincidentally this brought me to a tidbit of info that I'd like to share with you about how Art and Science overlap.  The article spoke about how scientists were able to pinpoint the exact moment when the painting  “Moonrise” by Vincent Van Gogh was achieved.   

 

  Art historians once thought this painting by Vincent van Gogh showed the setting Sun at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. In the July 2003 Sky & Telescope, astronomers demonstrate that the work actually depicts the rising Moon.

 “Using astronomical calculations and good old deductive reasoning, celestial experts provide the answer to a puzzle art historians had been trying to solve for years: the exact moment depicted in Vincent van Gogh's painting Moonrise. The answer: 9:08 p.m. local mean time on July 13, 1889.

 "Dating van Gogh's Moonrise," in the July 2003 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine, Donald W. Olson, a physics and astronomy professor at Southwest Texas State University, and his San Marcos colleagues Russell L. Doescher and Marilynn S. Olson reveal how they journeyed to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, and solved the century-old mystery. Armed with topographic maps, aerial photographs, weather records, and letters written by van Gogh, the researchers were able to pinpoint the timing of the scene. Once thought to show the setting Sun at Saint-Rémy, it is now known to be a rendition of a rising Moon.

Throughout 2003, as special events commemorated the 150th anniversary of van Gogh's birth, there was also an astronomical anniversary. Because of a cosmic synchronicity, the calendar dates of lunar phases in 2003 nearly repeat those of 1889. The 114 years since van Gogh's summer in Saint-Rémy correspond to six 19-year-long lunar Metonic cycles. On July 13th, modern observers during evening twilight saw a nearly full Moon rise in the southeast, much as it did on July 13, 1889, when van Gogh stood among the wheat stacks in a monastery field and captured the scene in his remarkable Moonrise"……How fascinating??

So if you happen to look out your window tonight check out the full moon – which is not the Harvest Moon by the way(that happened in September), but the Hunter’s Moon...Enjoy! 

Flown the Nest

September is here again and almost gone. School has begun, and our sons or daughters have settled into another grade in an elementary or secondary school.  But for some parents in my entourage of family and friends, we are (or soon will be) facing up to the parting from our teenage children who started college or university in another part of our province or country….(Boy I’m starting to feel a little old right about now- remember when?!)

This emotional upheaval can be quite trying on parents, seeing their grown kids “fly the nest”. While some parents seem to cope fairly well with the idea of not having to “pick up” after their kids, and relish in this new–found freedom, others can’t quite seem to be able to resolve to the fact that they are no longer going to be “needed” as often as they have been in the past, and a general feeling of melancholy takes over( a.k.a the “empty nest syndrome”).

So why, should you ask, would I be writing about this in my art blog, and how does this relate to my art?

For the past few years, I have been representing nests in my artwork, mostly ones that I painted on maps of Canada, France and other parts of Europe.  I began painting these nests after I had seen Gordon Smith’s exhibition entitled “Tangles” at the Artist’s For Kids Gallery with some of the my 5 and 6 year old students from the Deep Cove area of North Vancouver.  We were studying wildlife habitats i.e. dens, burrows, lodges and nests, and my mixed media classes with these students became quite involved, with trying to mirror what Smith had done in his paintings.  The work that came from these little hands was quite raw and naive and in turn for me, came inspiration.

In my series, the underlying ”nesting” theme deals with the cyclical or ephemeral nature of creating a home, with the nest symbolizing birth, love, family, building and gathering and maybe even leaving and starting all over again…. in other words, flying the coop…...........

How many of us have done just this in the past? My parents have, I have a number of times, and so too, will my children and their children and so on…….

 

Italian Nest – Mixed media on canvas – 2009

I did this a few years ago; maybe you’ve seen this image on my greeting cards before? Painted on the map of Italy, some of you may not know that I created this piece as a sort of “homage” to my parents (who flew the nest in 1948 and 1949, clutching one solitary suitcase in hopes to make a better life than the one they were leaving behind). The good-byes to their families were probably gut wrenching at the time, knowing they may never see them again….yet they were so courageous to have done so and built their new home in Canada with the support of other landed immigrants……..

The writing on the right side of the composition is a poem I found that related well with the theme of “flying from the nest”.  It is entitled “Casa Mia…My Home”…..  it translates from Italian  to….

Casa Mia (My Home)

 I’m going away

With my furniture, my memories and images

I’m leaving my house at three

The keys are under my tree…

I don’t really know why I talk of you while I’m leaving

What remains of me in these corners?

I hide and ask myself, where?

Where is the spirit?

What will I call my home, my home?

 

“ Vancouver Nest”- Mixed media on canvas - spring of 2011

One last note…this painting was a commission by a couple from Shanghai wanting to commemorate their immigration to Vancouver in 2010.  It is interesting to me that a part of my story has now become a part of their story too.

Lori's New Art Blog!

What I've been up to! (Summer News 2011) 

"Nevermore"  is one of my new mixed media pieces , now showing at the Portico Gallery in Squamish B.C. inspired by the poem with the same title by Edgar Allen Poe!

 

"But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered -

Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before -

On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'

Then the bird said, `Nevermore.'"

 "Raven's Story" ( below) is Nevermore's twin and is also at the Portico Gallery, along with some of my abstract/mixed media landscapes.

I transferred some images of crows that I had taken this winter (alongside my high school art students) ......Everyday hundreds of these intelligent black beings adorn the trees in and around the courtyards of the school, and then fly back to their nesting grounds.........Does anyone know where they go? 

 

Lastly, I'm thrilled be showing "Copper Moon" my latest mixed media work on panel, at Bird on a Wire located at 2535 Main St. near Broadway in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood in Vancouver!

Karen Unger-Strickland, the owner and an artist herself is careful to select local artists within a 100km radius of her new funky Arts and Handmade Crafts boutique. She is also showing seven other of my paintings from the "Nests on maps" series as well as selling some of my greeting cards.