Monday, March 03, 2025

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this mutant trying to rip off artists!

Alexandra - alexandra345654@gmail.com

Hello,

I discovered your artwork on artbuy and I'm impressed by your talent. I'm currently curating pieces for a project and would like to inquire about the availability and pricing of certain works from your portfolio. I eagerly await your response.

Thank you.

Sunday, March 02, 2025

Bryan Jernigan upcoming solo show: “Sound of Line”

Coming to Links Bridge Vineyards:

Arlington abstract painter and instructor Bryan Jernigan came to the DMV from rural Oklahoma more than 35 years ago and his upcoming solo show called “Sound of Line” will debut at Links Bridge Vineyards in Thurmont, MD on Saturday, April 5, 2025.

“When I came to Washington, D.C. to live, it wasn’t my first time, but I had only visited once before,” Jernigan said. “Like most young people, I planned to make my name professionally and move on or move back to where I was raised. But D.C. had other plans for me, I guess. Instead, I saw most of my friends peel off and return home, taking back a little piece of urbanity with them. Unlike them, I absorbed the realities of living here – internalizing the highs and lows, taking in the triumphs and suffering through the realities of living the city life, digging in and getting to learn about cultures separate and apart from my own and enduring the everyday realities of things as mundane as seemingly unending traffic commutes.”

Jernigan said coming from the country but choosing to live a city life shaped how he sees the world and how he responds to it in his art.

“In this series – that comprises more than 50 original works on paper and wood panel – the things I noticed most were lines; how they keep us connected, but at the same time how tenuous they are,” he said. “They are less about real things and more about my responses to the things I see - power lines that carry communications from all who use them or lines in pavement that show the age of some parts of the city. The pieces have a gritty feel to them, which is another aspect of living in the city, this juxtaposition between the dirty and the pristine.”

The pieces that span from 12-inch to 3-feet squares include expanses of vibrating actions, scratchy marks and calm respites of undulating non-colors punctuated by bold vibrancy.

“Living in a city is often chaotic, but we do our best to control that craziness in our daily lives. I want the pieces to feel like the embodiment of city living. An homage, so to speak,” Jernigan said. “I hope they are exciting and make viewers feel something akin to a car crash on an otherwise uneventful commute. They are real and they are palpable, and I hope they will resonate with others who live here. We are all different – different backgrounds, different ethnicities – but we all share the same experience of living here and navigating it and getting by.”

Jernigan’s pieces have already received critical acclaim. One of them was chosen by juror Jeffrey W. Allison, the Paul Mellon Collection Educator and Director, Statewide Programs and Exhibitions at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) for the McGuffey Art Center’s Mid Atlantic Juried Exhibition in Charlottesville.

“I’d say one of the artist’s worst fears is that they will muster up the courage to be vulnerable enough to create a body of work and then it gets a bad reception,” the artist said. “So, I entered a show with one of them who offered a well-regarded juror I knew it would be a good test. Happily, I was rewarded by having him choose my piece to include in the show. That little test helped me realize I was on the right track with this series.”

Links Bridge Vineyards will host an opening reception with an artist talk between 1 and 3PM on Saturday, April 5 and the show runs until Friday, April 27. See all the works online at www.bryanjernigan.com.

Saturday, March 01, 2025

USS Saratoga (CV-60)

Found these old photos -- this is USS Saratoga (CV-60) doing flight ops somewhere in the Med in 1975!

USS Saratoga (CV-60) flight ops in Med in 1975
USS Saratoga (CV-60) flight ops in Med in 1975


Friday, February 28, 2025

Harriet Lesser

Harriet Lesser notes that she "started out as a poet. Slowly the images behind the words and phrases overwhelmed the words themselves, and I became a painter."

She adds that she "lived as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria, where I met artist Uche Okeke and had the great opportunity to understand narrative line.

In India I experienced working with a new palette and met fearless artists.

In Belgium I encountered new outlooks in art history, and in Rwanda I could work and teach in two languages."

Lesser has been a magnetic leader of the DMV art scene for decades - she has not only exhibited her work, but also curated countless exhibitions and notes that for her, "curating is another form of composing. It is producing artwork of another genre."

Behold "Sugar Cane", a wondrous mixed media work that allows Lesser to showcase her artistic super powers - it will be part of the Women Artists of the DMV survey show coming to eight venues around the DMV this Fall!"

"Sugar Cane" by Harriet Lesser - Mixed medi work 20x16

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

From Instagram to art world darling: The meteoric rise of Danielle Mckinney

From CNN:

Danielle Mckinney’s ladies are in a permanent state of relaxation.

They lounge alone on couches or in bed. They sleep. Some are playful — toying with a butterfly or eying a praying mantis. Others are naked and seemingly unaware of the viewer, cigarettes in hand and gazes soft.

The 44-year-old artist has been painting these women her whole life, she said. As a little girl, she painted little girls, too, but her subjects have aged as she has. In conversation, Mckinney refers to them singularly as her “lady,” and, taken together, the moody portraits reflect intimate moments of solitude and repose.

For years, however, these works were private endeavors by an artist who formally trained as a photographer and only painted on the side. They were never meant to see the world.

Now, a little over four years after first publicly posting her portraits on social media, Mckinney has become one of the art world’s buzziest painters. 

Read the full article here.

For the record: "prints" of a painting are "reproductions", not "prints" - cough... cough...

Saturday, February 22, 2025

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of the below asswipe trying to rip off artists!

From: Lisa Martinez -- martinezlisa269@gmail.com --

Hello,

I discovered your artwork on artbuy  and I'm impressed by your talent. I'm currently curating pieces for a project and would like to inquire about the availability and pricing of certain works from your portfolio. I eagerly await your response.

Thank you.

Friday, February 21, 2025

Art Scam Alert!

 Beware of this asswipe trying to rip off artists:

From: ministerpeg@mail.com

​Hello there.

I came across some  of your art piece online and I feel in love with your work and talent. You deserve to be seen and known on a global level, and I can help your with that.

But first i would love to purchase some of your art work on behalf of my clients. I have notable art lovers and collectors like Steve Cohen on my clients list.

My clients are always willing to pay a fortune for an art piece that resonate with them and some of your art work fit into the kind of art work my client likes.

So kindly send some of your available art work or a link to a website so I can see more of your work and have them sent to my clients.

kindly reach me with the details below

Email: art_piece@collector.org

Phone: +13105644618(text only)

I will be looking forward to a response from you.

Best regards.