Alexandria Museum of Art - Catalog

Just received the catalog for the show I was in at Alexandria Museum of Art in Louisiana and it looks awesome!

Protean Cosmos - exhibition photos

Protean Cosmos Gallery Talk

Double Sunset and Grand Entrance at the Union League

just before the opening of Protean Cosmos

Grand Entrance

Grand Entrance at the Union League. You can just make out their Monet painting through the staircase. My work is at the top of the stairs. Awesome view with holiday lights peeking in from the background. Show is up until the first week of January.

Protean Cosmos - opening

My solo show Protean Cosmos opens at the Union League Club of Chicago at 65 W Jackson on Thursday December 5th. It's all free and I hope you can join me from 5:30-7. I'll be giving a gallery talk at 6 and this features a wonderful selection of paintings. Let me know if you have any questions. Dress code is business casual.

Ten x Ten Press - When Color Becomes Sound

Check out this great article about the Ten x Ten exhibit at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art written by Philip Hartigan on Hyperallergic.com. It features my image from the collaboration as well as images from the concert.

When Color Becomes Sound (and vice versa)

Renee Robbins, “Deep At Sea” (courtesy Spudnik Press)

The Palomar Ensemble performing the resulting compositions from Ten x Ten (courtesy Spudnik Press)

Protean Cosmos - postcards

Postcards are going out tomorrow for the opening of my solo show 'Protean Cosmos' at the Union League in two weeks. After this I'm disappearing down a rabbit hole.

Ten x Ten collaboration- Deep At Sea

Our collaborative screen print and song “Deep at Sea” uses cool colors and wind instruments to draw inspiration from the waves and movement in the ocean. The visual work responds to the rhythmic direction of the musical layers that gradually pick up tempo from start to finish like the lulling of a wave deep at sea. The “Ten x Ten” artist pairs were divided into warm and cool colors. Strings were assigned to the warm colors pairs and wind for cool colors. The musical compositions were limited to a 3-minute song and they could also incorporate piano and percussion instruments. While we were assigned blue as our one cool color, the other two colors were our choice as long as they fit within a ten x ten inch format. I ended up going with two lighter values of blue as I thought they would work best to describe the nuance in the musical score. The print folio will be released at the concert where all the songs will be performed live. All the prints will be displayed plus and one additional artwork from each visual artist.

 

 

Deep At Sea, 10" x 10" 3-color screenprint, 2013

 

Ten x Ten Press

My partner Seth Boustead was interviewed about our collaborative print/song Deep At Sea for the Ten x Ten exhibit. Check out the article, preview our print, and listen to our song. Thank you Classicalite for the feature! 

www.classicalite.com

Thanks to Jason Foumberg and Chicago Magazine for listing our 'Ten x Ten' event at the Ukrainian Institute as a reason to visit Chicago's Museums this November. We're all super excited for the limited edition portfolio release this Saturday, Nov 16th! We've put together a fabulous collection of prints and music for the show. 

www.chicagomag.com

Love Letter Etchings

My Love Letters Etching Series stems from my deep obsession with diversity of flora and fauna in the natural world, and most specifically from the ocean. I see these new works like deep and intense obsessions with celebrities. I desire to write love letters to all my heroes in the form of small, process driven intaglio prints. I’m interested in the balance between the menacing/beautiful and between the man-made/natural. I seek to both catalog and respond to various natural phenomena and micro to macro relationships in the art making process. How many letters can I write and how many different organisms or sources can I incorporate into my work? Naturalist, biologist, and artist Ernest Haeckel drew over 5,000 species of radiolaria during his lifetime. I seek to incorporate a similar number of flora and fauna into my work during my lifetime. New species are still being discovered every day and we have only explored less than 10% of what is actually in our oceans. While my works are inspired by the natural world, the forms don’t necessarily exist and are created through inventing and adjusting actual references. It’s important that I’m combining a variety of source material in the work and not just documenting different species. My paintings series, The Pocket Pod Series, includes over 250 original works made between 2008-09. My last big series completed in 2012, The Daily Drawing Project, encompasses 52 weekly series with 366 original works. The Love Letter Etchings builds on those ideas and but takes cues from the Census of Marine Life, a 10-year research project that involved 2,700 scientists and 6,000+ potential species.

She's Carnivorous, 5" x 7" etching, soft ground, aquatint, and drypoint, 2013

She’s Carnivorous

She’s Carnivorous, inspired by the newly discovered Carnivorous Harp Sponge, is strikingly beautiful like a harp, but it is also very ominous at same time. The balance between the menacing and the beautiful is exciting to explore in the printmaking process. I’m interested in investigating the duality present in a variety of creatures and environments. 

Icon Star, 5" x 7" etching and aquatint, 2013

Icon Star

Icon Star, inspired by the Iconoclaster Longimanus, has a life span that is similar to humans and their skin looks like a man-made electronic device. Icon Stars grow very slowly and often live in dark deep waters. The balance between the man-made/natural can be ambiguous, and many creatures in the oceans can often seem fictional or synthetic. I see this as a powerful idea, image, and tool to source in the intaglio process.

 

Radiant, 5" x 7" etching and aquatint, 2013

Radiant

My third piece Radiant, draws from the diversity of diatoms or plankton living in the ocean. Diatoms are single celled alga enclosed within an inorganic cell wall composed of silica. The forms are often bilaterally symmetrical and the diversity of form is really fascinating to explore compositionally. Radiant not only emanates light but I also see it as a metaphor for powerful emotions like happiness. While happiness and beauty can be sort of a bad word in the context of the social norms of art world, I see the single cell of the diatom as similar to a single emotion that can influence everything that is around it. Diatoms are single celled but they also exist in groups or colonies and that was something I thought about while making this piece. Drawing from micro to macro relationships remains at the core of my motivation as an artist. 

Ten x Ten: Ten x Ten 2013 Trailer

Ten x Ten: Ten x Ten 2013 Trailer

 The 'Ten x Ten' artist/composer collaboration is moving right along. If you check out this video, you'll even see me working on my new print for the art show and concert at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. Watch the video on the following link:

http://vimeo.com/77356580

Open Studio + Book Release

The Daily Drawing books have finally arrived and the release party is this Sunday, October 20, 2013. I can't wait to see everyone. If you can't make it to the party your can still buy one of the Daily Drawing Books online here.

Ten x Ten: Printing for Ten x Ten

Ten x Ten: Printing for Ten x Ten: It takes 2,000 three-color prints to realize the Ten x Ten project. It's been a lot of work, and a lot of fun! Here are just a couple of sneak peak pics of the work and the process.

Aaron Reneir printing his third color.

Colin Palombi assisting Renee Robbins with her print.

Ten x Ten 2013 Release Concert & Exhibition

Press Release: Ten x Ten 2013

Homeroom, Spudnik Press and Access Contemporary Music

present "Ten x Ten 2013"

Release Concert & Exhibition

Saturday, November 16 at 6 p.m.

at Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art

2320 West Chicago Avenue 

Ten x Ten 2013 provides a unique opportunity for visual artists and music composers to collaborate in a meaningful, shared creation. The product explores how visual and auditory senses can interact artistically while providing documentation of Chicago’s visual art and contemporary music communities.

The project strives to introduce artists and musicians that might not have otherwise crossed paths, and encourages the development of a creative relationship that transcends the typical show poster. The final package consists of ten songs and ten screenprints developed exclusively for the project.

10 Chicago artists are paired with 10 Chicago contemporary (classical) music composers to each produce a work. The artists and composers collaborate on a joint statement of intent describing the similar themes and concept their works will explore. Using the joint statement of intent as a focus, each visual artists has created one 10 inch by 10 inch scale print, published by Spudnik Press Cooperative. And each composer wrote a piece performed and recorded by Palomar Ensemble that is being pressed onto 12” vinyl.

The final package that will be released on Saturday, November 16, 2013 will be a suite of 10 prints and a record with 10 corresponding compositions issued on record. The entire package will be sold for $35 and includes admission to the debut concert and exhibition at Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. 

The partnerships of Ten x Ten 2013 are:

Lilli Carre and Michael Miller
Edie Fake and Andrew Tham
Jo Dery and Jude Mathews
Aaron Renier and Brain Baxter
Chad Kouri and Marjorie Rusche
Craig Hansen and Betsy Start
Aaron Maurer and Tim Corpus
Ann Worthing and Amos Gillespie
Angee Lennard and Randall West
Renee Robbins and Seth Boustead

Homeroom designs artistic projects and programs with two core values: conversation and collaboration. We build programming structures with artists, audiences, curators and venues to create an artistic dialogue with shared and far-reaching impact.

Spudnik Press was founded on the premise that art should be a democratic and empowering medium, Spudnik Press Cooperative is committed to being an approachable and affordable print shop; a space where professional printmakers merge with aspiring students; a space that encourages collaboration and the sharing of ideas.

Access Contemporary Music is a non-profit organization that presents classical music as a living tradition. We perform new works in innovative ways for new audiences, provide community-based education, and collaborate with composers from around the world.

US Diatoms- Artist Feature

A diatom taxonomist classified some of the genera in my paintings. They did a feature on my work on the US Diatoms site at the University of Colorado. They focus on the taxonomy of freshwater species but are working on expanding. Check out some of the diatoms on their site as it's absolutely gorgeous. It's not everyday that my work gets classified by a scientist. This is so cool! They actually said that I illustrate more diatom genera but but they all don't appear on the site. It looks like I have some work to do.

Read about it on the following link.

http://westerndiatoms.colorado.edu/about/projects

Under Pressure, 28" x 28", acrylic on canvas, 2012

Ten x Ten: Mixing Session

Ten x Ten: Mixing Session: Mixing Ten x Ten at Shape Shoppe. Sounding great!! — with Seth Boustead and Nick Broste.

Mixing Ten x Ten at Shape Shoppe. Sounding great!! — with Seth Boustead and Nick Broste.

Open Studio + Book Release

I'm excited to announce the release of my new book The Daily Drawings Project, which includes every image that I made in the project. It features a group view of each week plus one detail of a singular drawing. I designed a book that features every week of the project in 106 full color pages. These are available individually via a print-on-demand company for $45 and with tax and shipping that comes out to $57.15. You can preview and order the book online here.

I'm having a book release party in October and doing one large order of the books. You're invited to my open studio event to celebrate the release. If you pre-order the book from me you can get a signed copy at the open studio. I'm also offering a few other exciting ways to support the project and get some deals on art with the book. I will be doing local deliveries in Chicagoland area for those that cannot make it to the party. Or if you will be seeing me in the next couple of months I can save your copy.

pre-order signed book $57 (includes tax, shipping, and local delivery)


View all the screen prints here. I'm doing the book order on September 23rd so let me know before then if you want a copy.

Chroma Exploda- Postcard

"Chroma Exploda", Southeast Missouri State, Sept. 6 - 26, 2013
Cape Giradeau, Missouri
Opening Reception September 6, 2013
artist talk 4-5 p.m., reception 5-7 p.m., (I'll be attending the reception)
Chroma Exploda, curated by Justin Henry Miller, centers around 5 artists working with abstraction and whose paintings utilize vibrant, arbitrary, and/or synthetic color palettes.
Molly Briggs, Chris Kahler, Martina Nehrling, Renee Robbins, and Jackie Tileston

Alexandria Museum of Art exhibit

Mailing out Hiding Places for an exhibit that runs Sept. 6-Nov. 23 at the Alexandria Museum of Art in Louisiana.

Alexandria Museum of Art
933 Second Street
Alexandria, LA 71301

September 6, 2013 - November 23, 2013
Opening: Friday, September 6, 2013

*catalog available

Hiding Places, 12" x 12", acrylic on board, 2012

Chroma Exploda: Contemporary Paintings

I'm so excited to be included in this exhibit that opens on September 6th. The exhibition is titled: "Chroma Exploda: Contemporary Paintings" and it will feature the artwork of 5 amazing painters including: Molly Briggs, Chris Kahler, Martina Nehrling, Renee Robbins, & Jackie Tileston. I'm currently packing up 10 pieces for pick up this weekend. This show is going to melt some faces off! Thanks to Justin Henry Miller for curating such a exciting show. Check out this teaser image that will be included in the show.

Chroma Exploda: Contemporary Paintings
Southeast Missouri State University
Cape Giradeau, Missouri

Molly Briggs, Chris Kahler, Martina Nehrling,
Renee Robbins & Jackie Tileston

Opening: Friday, September 6th, 5-7 p.m.

August 26 - September 26, 2013

Last Resort, 28" x 28", acrylic on canvas, 2013

 
 

Daily Drawing Book Release

Daily Drawing book release is coming October 2013. I'm excited to share this with all of you. It contains every piece that I made in the series on 106 color pages. I'm self publishing a catalog for my Daily Drawings Project and I just got the proof in the mail today. I'm using a print-on-demand online book source. The catalog will have every image from the Daily Drawing Project and a detail for each of the 52 weeks including 430 color images on 106 pages. Stay tuned as these should be available sometime soon.

 

Daily Drawing Book

 

She's Carnivorous- new etching

She's Carnivorous, 5" x 7", etching, soft-ground, aquatint, and drypoint, edition of 20

My Love Letters Etching Series stems from my deep obsession with diversity of flora and fauna in the natural world, and most specifically from the ocean. I see these new works like deep and intense obsessions with celebrities. I desire to write love letters to all my heroes in the form of small, process driven intaglio prints. I’m interested in the balance between the menacing/beautiful and between the man-made/natural. I seek to both catalog and respond to various natural phenomena and micro to macro relationships in the art making process. How many letters can I write and how many different organisms or sources can I incorporate into my work? Naturalist, biologist, and artist Ernest Haeckel drew over 5,000 species of radiolaria during his lifetime. I seek to incorporate a similar number of flora and fauna into my work during my lifetime. New species are still being discovered every day and we have only explored less than 10% of what is actually in our oceans. While my works are inspired by the natural world, the forms don’t necessarily exist and are created through inventing and adjusting actual references. It’s important that I’m combining a variety of source material in the work and not just documenting different species. My paintings series, The Pocket Pod Series, includes over 250 original works made between 2008-09. My last big series completed in 2012, The Daily Drawing Project, encompasses 52 weekly series with 366 original works. The Love Letter Etchings builds on those ideas and but takes cues from the Census of Marine Life, a 10-year research project that involved 2,700 scientists and 6,000+ potential species.

She’s Carnivorous

She’s Carnivorous, inspired by the newly discovered Carnivorous Harp Sponge, is strikingly beautiful like a harp, but it is also very ominous at same time. The balance between the menacing and the beautiful is exciting to explore in the printmaking process. I’m interested in investigating the duality present in a variety of creatures and environments. 

How do you make an Intaglio Print?

Intaglio is an umbrella term that incorporates etching, aquatint, soft-ground, and drypoint techniques. I wanted to talk about the process because I know many of you may not be familiar with intaglio. I started "She's Carnivorous" by putting a hard ground onto a copper plate. Next I composed a line drawing directly on the plate with metal etching needles. The act of drawing scrapes away the ground and reveals the copper underneath. After creating a line drawing, I drop the plate in acid to etch the line drawing into the plate. All the areas where I scraped away the ground will create grooved lines in the plate. These grooves are perfect for holding ink. After I'm satisfied with the line etch, I can remove the ground and print a proof of the plate. Etching plates are printed by putting ink on with a card and slowly wiping it off by hand. There is a special technique necessary to learn to do this properly and it has absolutely gorgeous effects. This antique art form is very different then digital or offset printing as each print is wiped very slowly by hand. Intaglio printmaking is a very artistic process and requires a great deal of finesse to get each print just right.

Aquatint makes tonal values & Drypoint is drawing without a ground

Next I wanted to add tonal values and texture to the background so I decided to add a soft ground to the plate. I arranged pencil shavings in the top of the print and ribbon pieces in the bottom. With the all the textures on the plate, I ran the plate through the printing press. After the plate came out, I removed all the pencil shavings and ribbon pieces. I was now ready to add aquatint with an airbrush gun; this sprays tiny dots onto the plate and it's a great way to get tone on an etching plate. I then etched the plate two different times. First, I etched the top (pencil shavings) section very quickly as I did not want the value to get very dark. After the plate was etched I took the plate out of the acid and blocked out the top area by painting on more ground. When I put the plate back into the acid the top portion will not etch. Next, I etched only the bottom section of the print (because the top was blocked by ground) for a longer time because I wanted a darker value. I was now ready to remove the ground and print a proof of the plate. After printing and looking at the proof I decided the plate needed a few more lines, so I started drawing directly on the plate without a ground. This technique is called drypoint, and this creates the effect of a glowing halo around the line.

Printing the edition

I printed another proof and decided that I was happy with the image. Each print is wiped delicately by hand and due to the process it has beautiful rich tonal qualities. I started on this print in April so the process has been very slow and deliberate. It's a very different artistic medium than painting and I really enjoy the differences. I've been very excited to work on this process and I'm happy to answer questions you may have.

CoCA Seattle exhibition

Packing up La La Lure for an exhibit that opens on July 18 at the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle.

COCA Collision: Center on Contemporary Art

Artists' Reception:
Thursday, July 18, 5-9pm

CoCA Georgetown Gallery
Seattle Design Center, Suite 258
5701 6th Avenue South, Seattle, WA 98108

*catalog available

July 18, 2013 - September 15, 2013

Packing up La La Lure

The Supermoon is coming!

X Marks the Spot Where I Left My Buried Treasure, 8" x 8", gouache and colored pencil on paper, 2013

The largest moon of the the year is coming and it will be 17% larger and brighter then a normal moon. I've been pretty obsessed with moons and I'm thinking of doing a entire series of drawings of the moons of Jupiter.  This piece is part moon, part cell, and part creature combined with a treasure map. I'm having a lot of fun with this subject.

When Threatened- New piece

When Threatened, gouache on paper, 11" x 8", 2013

This piece is based on the display creatures often create when they are threatened. I'm fascinated by nature and all the wonderful subjects to draw from.  I'm so lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing things.

Bonus Round- New piece

 

Bonus Round, 22.25" x 20", gouache and colored pencil on paper, 2013

This is the largest pinball I've attempted so far and I'm still trying to decide if I plan to make more. I'm feeling pulled in at least 4 different directions in the studio and I'm not sure what I want to focus on. This may be the last pinball piece for awhile as it's time for some decisions. Time for the Bonus Round . . .

Feature as young artist to watch in Chicago

I'm thrilled to be featured as a Chicago young artist to watch in the May-August issue of the Chicago Gallery News. Check out the article on the following link as there is a lovely feature about my work. A monumental thanks to Kevin Nance for the wonderful conversation and a thoughtful look into my paintings. I'm so honored to be included in this feature.  You can find a printed copy in any of the galleries around Chicago and the digital version here.

La Luz De Jesus - The Bus 29 Hooligans from Chitown

from left to right:
Longside, Pinball: Ball 2, Rings of Saturn

I just finished packing up these pieces for the upcoming April 5th show at La Luz De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles. These silkscreens are based on my Daily Drawings Series and should begin transit today. The show is called The Bus: 29 Hooligans from Chitown, curated by Tony Fitzpatrick. I'm excited to have work in the show as it features some amazing Chicago artists.  I'll be attending the opening reception on April 5, 2013 from 8-11 p.m.

Press for Glow at Firecat Projects

I'm thrilled that my exhibit "Glow" got a couple of mentions in the following publications. 

Time Out Chicago, Art and Design, This weekend's late-breaking art events by Lauren Weinberg 1/25/13

Bad at Sports Top 5 Weekend Picks 1/25-1/27

Chicago Magazine, Top Things to Do 1/25/13