Kate Geiger Art

www.kategeiger.com

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Thinking about using these for a new series inspired by an app I've been using called Fragment

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Throwback Thursday

Throw Back Thursday Painting (I know today is Sunday, but I forgot to post this yesterday). 

“Ed” 22" x 28" oil on canvas 2007

This is a portrait of my brother, Ed. There is a 3" wide strip of flat white on the right side of this painting that interrupts and abruptly stops the illusion. I then layered a pale red square on top of the picture plane, covering both the illusion and the flat white area, I began to play around even more with the picture plane, layering graphic imagery on top and within the piece, in my following work. In this series, the figure always seems to be only vaguely aware, if at all, of the intermixing realities going on around it. I’m still trying to sort out what that means, As most artists, I work intuitively, and then strive to find the meaning of what my intuition is coming up with.

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Instagram Paintings

These are a couple 4" x 4" paintings I did of some of my instagram pics.

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News

Sneak preview of my new work to be shown at 3rd Street Gallery in July 2016

Squares of Space

My latest series of paintings features still lifes in a square format.  Im working with the idea of cropping and skewing images so that the viewer feels a slight tension between the relationships of each element of the still life. In doing so, I strive to create an ambiguous space within each painting.  

I consider my paintings to be contemporary realism with a pop art influence.  I have been preoccupied with square compositions since I started using Instagram.  The ease in which we take photos on our phones, crop them, add filters, etc. has been hugely influential in the way I look at imagery.  A square feels comfortable and complete in our digital world.

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Throwback Thursday

"They Glow"  36" x 60" Oil on Canvas  c. 2004

This is one of the most bizarre paintings Ive ever done.  I really have no idea what its about, all I can say about this painting is how I ended up with it.  Its really a mis-match of a few random ideas that were floating around in my head at the time.  My model is my friend Genevieve, who is a dancer and yoga instructor.  I have to credit the pose and overall gesture in this piece, which is probably my favorite aspect of the painting, to her.  The weird and creepy imagery is all me, unfortunately.  

The setting and composition is probably 100% influenced by a retrospective of Bo Bartlett's work at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2004, which was during my first year of graduate school there.  I had come to Pafa intending too be a figurative painter.  To see an entire museum of his paintings across the street from my studio for almost two months pretty much shaped the course of all the work I did during my graduate schooling.

"Bone" 2000 Oil on Linen 86" x 100" c. Bo Bartlett

"Dreamland" 1998 Oil on Linen 84" x 110" c. Bo Bartlett

I was drawn to the scale of these enormous paintings.  I particularly loved the low horizon line in front of a huge expanse of sky and I was trying to capture the same feeling (I actually had a studio visit with Bo Bartlett when he was a visiting critic and we talked about this painting, he was very gracious).  It was very theatrical to me, which ties into the whole "clown" nonsense.  So I went to a pumpkin patch and snapped some reference pics.

The clown thing comes from when I spent a few days in Venice during a summer semester abroad.  There, I learned about the Commedia dell'Arte, which is masked improvisational theatre from the Renaissance through the 18th century.  Basically, its where modern day clown originate from.  So, long story short, I went to Italy and became obsessed with clowns.  

Finally, there's the text hanging around in the air next to Genevieve's head that says, "They Glow!!"  That phrase comes from a box of vintage christmas lights that were shaped like snowmen.  They were probably from the 1960's.  I loved it because it was so retro and the phrase always struck me very funny.  The lights were in my studio when I was working on this piece, so I randomly decided to paint it directly onto the painting.  It was already so weird, so I figured why not.  I copied the typography exactly as it was printed on the box.  

As I stated before, this is one of the most bizarre paintings Ive ever done and I think its because all the elements that led to it are so different, but maybe its because clowns are just that weird.  Technically, its very poorly painted because I was such young painter at the time, but I enjoy it because it reminds me of a time when I took risks and experimented.

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Les Femmes Qui Peintent – January 2015 |

Tonight is the opening reception for "Les Femmes Qui Penitent," a three person show at the Frandy Jean Gallery from 6pm to 8pm.  The show runs until February 3rd.  I have about 10 pieces in the exhibit and Im very pleased and excited with Frandy and his curator, Gina's installation of the show.  

The Frandy Jean Galley is an artist run gallery in Haddon Heights, NJ.  Frandy, a Haitian artist, is a watercolorist, illustrator, and jewelry maker.  I have really enjoyed my experience working with this gallery.  Frandy's own work will be on view in his show at The Theater for the New City in NYC with the opening reception on February 21st, 2015.  

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New Painting: Still Life with Owl

I said I would post every Monday about what I am working on in my studio, but Ive decided that I would rather post when it is most relevant.  This is a new piece that I am working on.  At 18" x 18", it is almost double the size of the still lifes that I have been previously doing.  The owl is a figurine that I bought at Michaels' craft store.  I am always on the lookout for peculiar objects that I might want to paint and this guy seemed pretty humorous to me and he is made from ceramic which will compliment my Bunny painting nicely.  The skull is also from Michaels', he was a Halloween craft item made of cardboard.  The framed pictures are some repeats from  older paintings, but I will discuss those a little later when the painting is finished.  

I am excited to be working a little larger again, but slightly worried that my detail may be lost in larger works.  I started out in grad school doing life size figures and have gradually gotten smaller and smaller as the years have gone by.  Initially, this was a decision made due to the practicality of smaller works--being that they are cheaper to make, easier to store, more likely to sell, etc.--but my heart was always (and still is) in doing huge five by six foot paintings.  Although my last few pieces, 10" x 10", have really surprised me at how much I enjoy how intricate and intimate I can become with my subject matter.  I feel the finished product of these smaller works is much more polished and cohesive than my larger paintings.  I plan to start working on a slightly larger format, but hope to stay consistent with the scale I have been using and see how that turns out.  Perhaps it has not so much to do with the size, as is the natural progression of myself as a painter and artist.  Not really sure yet.

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Monday is Studio Day

Today is Monday.  Every Monday I will document the status and productivity that is going on in my studio.  I moved earlier this month so I am just now getting around to setting up the studio.  Not too exciting as of yet, but I have a window now!

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Throwback Thursday

"Gina with Goldfish" 24" x 36" Oil on Canvas c. 2007

This painting came from an idea I had in a dream.  Up until that point, I was consistently painting full figures in a large scale format just slightly smaller than life size.  I kept the same compositional format in every painting which included a standing or sitting model in front of a low horizon line on a vertical canvas (see previous post).  I never deviated from this format throughout my entire MFA body of work.  After I graduated, I was limited in how large I could continue to work because I was working without a studio.  I started working much smaller as I had to paint in my basement.  

I was cropping my portraits at this point because of the size constraints, but I was still using that same straight on point of view on vertical canvases.  However, one night I had a dream that I was back in my old studio and it was filled with these much larger than life portraits on horizontal surfaces.  These were very interesting paintings to me, as if I was seeing them in a gallery, but never felt they were something that I would do.  But since it came form my sub-conscious, I realized they were paintings I would do, I just wasn't conscious of it until my dream.

I decided to paint this portrait of my niece, Gina, because I wanted to see what happened when I followed through with my dream paintings.  I didn't want to include it in my body of work at the time, I just wanted to do it for "fun," but ironically, it ended up being the first painting I ever sold.  

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Throwback Thursday

This was the first painting I finished that ended up in my MFA thesis exhibition.  It was originally titled “2:37pm”  because that was about the time that the sunlight was creeping through my studio window.  This painting started out as a drawing of just the colored dots with Felix the Cat in the corner.  I was trying to find an alternative environment for the figures I was painting back then (this is a self-portrait) and I decided to take these pop art drawings I has been doing and create murals in my studio to act as a backdrop for my portraits.  I didn’t want any specific, recognizable space, and these bizarre, random, pop art backgrounds served as a way to create an ambiguous and thought provoking setting for these seemingly stoic models.  

    "Kate" 44" x 66" Oil on Canvas c. 2005

I never had a logical reason for not finishing the stool, although it was a conscious choice.  The small still life hanging on the wall was a painting I had recently finished and acted as an homage to “life painting,” which the end result was not (my critics were very unaccepting of the use of photographs).  

The final element of me peeling the clementine was a last minute decision, yet Ive been told it is the most successful part of this painting, conceptually speaking.  It is the only element of action, and acts as the focus of which all other visual elements revolve, or so Ive been told.

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Felix

Im starting my blog with Felix the Cat because he has been the source of innumerable inspirations and musings in the life of myself and artists the world over.  He is by far, the most influential aspect of contemporary art in the western world since post-impressionism.

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