Bo Bartlett, an American realist graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and has a certificate in film from NYU. He has had many one person exhibitions and has had retrospectives at the Columbus Museum in Georgia in 2003 which traveled to the Greenville County Museum of Art in South Carolina, the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in California and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Pennsylvania.
Everything about Bo Bartlett’s paintings reminds me of Edward Hopper. The landscapes, the architecture and the people he paints definitely remind me of Hopper’s work. In this exhibition, he depicts scenes from his childhood home in Columbus, Georgia, where he has recently made a studio and seasonal home.He has been working on these series of personal and universal paintings for the past few years. He breaks it down that home is not just a specific place or a house or a yard but its rather a town, region and state of mind. In his painting’s he conveys history, both enclosed and re-imagined, some are portraits of notable residents of the artist’s hometown and some include objects from his past. His work depicts the beauty of everyday life.
The reason I find Bo Bartlett interesting is because he is a personal artist and his art reflects is own life. He paints what he knows best and to me that makes the paintings a lot more valuable and obviously more meaningful. For example he has a dual portrait of his aged parents, also the largest work, entitle “Home” which shows Bartlett’s life condensed in time through a scene played out in his childhood home’s back yard. I like when art is meaningful and Bartlett’s focus in his art is to be meaningful. He tells a narrative description of his life but also keeps it open to the public, allowing it to become universal from personal.
His most current solo exhibition is called “Paintings of Home” is taking place at P.P.O.W gallery at 511 W 25th Street at 10th Avenue, New York, NY from October 14th – November 13th 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment