“Holbein: Capturing Character” is up at the Morgan Library, and notwithstanding the reductive title, the show is a testament to the age of European humanism, and specifically to Hans Holbein’s role in painting its most prominent personalities.
I like to attack the canvas head on, work with it, not on it, and draw meanings from materials in the process. It’s alchemy.
The Incas in South America believe in Pachamama as the great creator. Mother Nature is the underrated artist to us human beings, especially to me. She is like all the artists and common artisans who quietly work, inspiring others.
Lessons from a figure drawing by Edmund F. Ward, a student of George B. Bridgman.
Q: What is the longest time you went without creating art?
A: Never.
Art has great potential and risk. I believe, as I am an immigrant, that risk and hope are part of my DNA.
Three recent exhibitions of note
I don’t think I will ever achieve everything that I want because, after I achieve one goal, I always find a new one.
To say “my practice” implies a continuum that may be of an ordinary routine. For me, art is not that. It is not a day job. It goes beyond that, and the art produced should, too.
The most important quality in an artist is a willingness to risk identity and give distinctive, formal expression to it.
The quality I most admire in an artist is the ability to be emotionally open in what can be a cruel, dismissive world.
The best thing about art in the era of social media is that art will outlast the era of social media.