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Sam Gilliam

Day Tripper

1971

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Sam Gilliam (American, 1933 - 2022)

Annie - 2022

@ David Kordansky Gallery - LA, NY

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Sam Gilliam (American, 1933-2022), Like Celadon and Other Color Rhythms, 2000. Acrylic on Plexigas, mounted on wood, 58 1⁄4 x 79 in.

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Protest outside of the US military firing range complex built above the Litekyan area in Northern Guam. This was part of a series of protests in response to the testing of the firing range areas earlier this year.

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I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.

— May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude​ (W.W. Norton & Company, October 17, 1992) (via Make Believe Boutique)

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Nikoleta Sekulovic says: 'Every single woman is different; the way my models pose reflects a part of who they are, expressing their personality. There is no pretence, no trying to act out, they are simply themselves, and that’s great. The way a woman thinks she should look or tries to conform to an ideal of beauty should not hold her back from being who she is.'

Nikoleta Sekulovic creates in the tradition of Odalisque portraiture and yet redefines her subject as both parent and muse. In a muted palette and void of props and distractions, the artist’s intent is to highlight the female form stripped of external expectations and in a state of authenticity, as opposed to more traditional expressions of sexuality.

Nikoleta Sekulovic is an artist and mother, presently living and creating in Madrid. Born in Rome to a German mother and a Serbian father, she has worked in London, Paris and New York, exhibiting across these cities.

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about worms and wormholes and feeling empty

we're all broken in some way. me, i've got holes shot all through me. i've never seen them, but i can feel

the way they tunnel through me, gnaw at my vital signs, leave pockets of air 

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There are tunnels where my mind used to be.

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The Great Bat Awakens by Jeff Soto

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April 13, 2015. When do you start losing control? For me, I think it started just after I turned thirty. A week of fatigue grew into a feverish emergency room  visit. The doctors said it wasn’t meningitis, and I only had to take a bunch of tylenol until the symptoms came down, but I would experience bouts of exhaustion sporadically over the next few years. My mind would just go blank for moments at a time. I would catch myself staring out a window and shake myself back into awareness. Did other people feel like this? I had never felt so detached from the steady roll of my conscious thoughts.

Is control a real thing or just a useful fiction we tell ourselves? I was never good at making things up, at least not things that could bear the weight of my growing, nagging dissatisfaction. Do we ever really “make believe”? It’s almost an oxymoron. If it is a construction we are actualizing in the present tense, then we are by nature accepting that it is not based on objective reality. I guess I never believed in objective reality, though. And what’s a fiction without a shared understanding of the world from which we can then make various leaps of faith?

asdf

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I am drowning in the cold. Electric lights flit like moths and I am a flame of darkness Sputtering in the cold

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Happy darkest day! Keep your hearts aflame and bellies full and may the demons jump voluntarily into the flames of Yule.

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“Spectral” (2016) by American artist Lisa Yuskavage (*1962).

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Lisa Yuskavage, Blonde (detail from Blonde, Brunette and Redhead), 1995, oil on linen

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Luc Tuymans, 'Eternity', oil on canvas, 2021

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“Bonfire”, Lisa Yuskavage, Oil on linen, overall: 208.3 x 337.8 x 3.8 cm, each panel: 208.3 x 168.9 x 3.8 cm, 2013-15.

This diptych, rich in mystical shades of green, features a complex arrangement of figures set in an indistinguishable landscape. The mesmerizing green, menacing tone, and curvaceous create an eerie and intimidating aesthetic. Yuskavage, known for her focus on figurative painting, often exaggerates body contours, like the extended facial features, stomachs, and breasts seen in the two female neo-hippie figures framing the piece. According to Yuskavage, they serve as a mirrored Rorschach image of each other, adding to the artwork's profound psychological impact and the intentional balance between natural and artificial elements. Yuskaveage painting inspires me to use colour to portray figures and atmosphere in oil paintings as my way of using colour and tone is similar to Yuskavage's. The dominant child figure in my watercolour painting is red, filled with blood, with no eyes. In my artwork, the concept of a phantom or a feeling of life absence, along with unsettling pathos (despite the tender treatment of the figure), emerges, culminating in a work of ambiguity.