Through the eyes of the artist (Part 2)

This is Part II of “Through the eyes of the artist” –  If you missed Part I click here

 

If you are interested in Pop Art, you surely know who James Francis Gill is.

I sat down with him at the stand of the Premium Modern Art Gallery at the Zurich art contemporary fair. He was really enjoyable to talk to and looked quite relaxed wearing jeans and of course a cowboy hat like a good Texan.

American artist James Francis Gill with his Pop Art paintings and prints:

When asked which painting gave him the most work, he responds, “hmh well, I can tell you which one made me the most famous!, this one” while pointing to the page of a book and to “Marilyn Triptych”. The painting was made fifty years ago this year and was printed in Life Magazine in 1963.

His fascination for Marilyn Monroe started early. He shares that she died two weeks before he made that famous painting. The two never met, but the memories of Marilyn never left him.

James Franics Gill painted Marilyn before the other Pop Art artist, Andy Warhol had started painting her.

Other of his works include paintings of the Kennedy family, Jackie and John and Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1968). You can see some of his work in the United States at the Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Gallery of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum.

Working at the same time as Warhol, he met him during exhibitions and vernissages, but James says they were from  different crowds.

The gallery, which has most of James’ artworks is Premium Modern Art in Heilbronn, Germany. They have about 400 of my works, he says.

Mr. Gill had come to Zurich from San Angelo (Texas) to sign the prints of some of his paintings such as “No more MM”, “Marilyn in the sky” and “Nude on a Green Balcony”.  All will be limited editions in a 100 x 70 cm  with only 80 prints of each.

For additional information contact Premium Modern Art.

 

Daniela Burkart with her Plexiglas energy saving lights:

Mrs Burkart is fascinated by light and she gets her inspiration looking at what the light, shape and colors do together. She came with 10 of her beautiful colorful lamps painted with acrylic. They cost between  1,700 CHF to 1,800 CHF

She also had lit pictures. She lives and works in Lucerne, where she has an atelier. There in addition you can see some of her photos and vases.

Contact her atelier for more info.

Zhang Dong-Hong from the Galerie Jane Zhang:

Jane, the owner of the gallery came to talk to me while I was admiring the 120×170 cm canvas of one of the most contemporary Chinese artist, Zhang Dong-Hong. It is for sale at 70,000 CHF.

She talks as he was a friend and indeed she knows him quite well. She became friends with him well before he exhibited his art in their gallery. “He inspires the essence of traditional Chinese landscape but made it contemporary.”

He has been published in many magazines such as Vogue, Art Focus and Art Today.

Dong-Hong is a 45 year old Chinese, who has been working as a full time artist since 1995. He is known for his large oil canvases. He gives life to fruits like watermelons, fog and rain and makes many calm sceneries, probably a reflection of his Buddhist lifestyle.

He did a series on flowers and roses (2003 & 2005) and beautiful paintings about his daughter’s face, lips and fingernails. The most famous is probably “Hear no evil” (2007). His “Restless Scenery” (2008) takes its name well as people can only be happy and have no anxiety feeling looking at it.

If you ever hear of an exhibit with Zhang Dong-Hong paintings near you, drop by. You may be surprised how calm you may feel afterwards.

 

Next fairs for Galerie Jane Zhang:

Germany, Cologne Nov. 1 – Nov. 4, 2012

Germany, Frankfurt at Galerie Jane Zhang: until Nov. 29th, 2012

Contact the gallery here .

 

Swiss Artist Rolf Bräm with his mountain paintings and mountain-ghosts:

The stand of Rolf Bräm can’t leave the passerby indifferent. You are right away attracted by the powerful colors of his paintings and his massive wooden mountain-ghosts.

The man from Sargans came to Art International for the first time this year. His specialty for the last seven years has been working with wood. Before that, it was stone, he says. He explains how he started his collection of mountain ghosts, the Berggeister. He saw a long piece of wood somewhere and he got an idea of cutting it in half and shaping it and painting it in various colors. Soon he had a family! He made about 70 of them.

Sculpting with wood is not his only art, he often changes between working with wood or painting, depending on his mood. He loves the mountains and mainly has painted the mountains of Switzerland like in Graubunden but also in Arabia, in Marokko and in Yemen. He sketches quickly mountains everywhere he goes.

The mountains are powerful and suspenseful. He paints them with lots of warm colors like red, pink and purple. The colors come from me, he adds. Pink may not always go well and it may looks different in real, but the colors are how I feel about it.

His work will be exhibited in Zurich Artevista from Dec. 12th – 29th and in St Moritz Kunsthalle from Dec. 9th – Jan. 12th, 2013.

 

Swiss artists One Truth with graffiti artworks:

One Truth is the story of two brothers with Tibetan origins, Dr Drax & Pase, who became street artists and started their own business in Zurich. Pase shows me their work and shares information about graffiti.

In business for 14 years, they have come a long way and have done quite well. Now they have a big atelier near Sihlcity. They paint houses, cars, trucks, walls, benches and so on. “We made the biggest graffiti in Zurich”, he says proudly while showing me the pictures. He continues and points to a picture of the House of Switzerland, done for the Olympics this year in London. They also do work on the Minis.

He and his brother rarely work together, his work is more spray painting numbers and abstract work and his brother doing more figures. They mainly work in Switzerland, where people have  more money to spend for what they do.

“Graffiti work is still something people have to get use to”, he says.
For more information click here

 

French sculptor and painter Vincent Magni with his humanobiles:

A large smile will probably invades your face while seeing the sculptures of Vincent Magni for the first time.

Not too familiar with his work, I ask the artist, thinking on the other side of the stand, when he started doing this. He responds laughing, “it depends when you start counting”. Vincent Magni was already making Humanobiles in 1995, three years after his book “Magni Peintures, sculptures & Humanobiles” was published by the Gallery Mobus in Paris.

But what are humanobiles?

They are full-scale figures put together with metal bars of 3 meter length, which move with air. It takes 2 to 3 days of work to roll up the bars to make a sculpture of about 1m85. They come in various colors and height.

His sculptures have gone with him all over the world from Switzerland, Austria, United States, Canada, Great Britain, Mexico, China to of course France, where is from.

Vincent Magni lives in Burgundy. Find more information here

 

 

 

 

• Andy Warhol
• Art
• contemporary art
• Daniela Burkart
• Donghong
• Featured
• graffiti
• Humanobile
• James Francis Gill
• Life Magazine
• Marilyn Monroe
• Marilyn Tiptych
• mountain ghosts
• One Truth
• Pop Art
• Rolf Bräm
• Sargans
• sculptor
• St Moritz
• Vincent Magni
• Zhang Donghong
• Zurich Artevista