Recent Realism Paintings Of Fabricated American Landscapes By Alex Roulette.

above: Alex Roulette, Airborne, Oil on Panel, 26"x 37", 2010

I first noticed Alex Roulette's impressive realism with his 2008 painting, Summer (shown below), which caught my eye because I have a thing for pool paintings.


above: Summer, Oil on Panel, 36"x48", 2008

This past year, Alex had a solo exhibition called Fabricated Realism at the George Billis Gallery in New York in which the 2010 paintings in this post were shown. His work continues to have great aesthetic appeal and in 2010, Alex played more with unusual light sources and effects in his work. Sun flares, reflections, snowflakes and other natural and fabricated lighting replaces the strong shadows prevalent in his 2007-2008 work.

At Swim, Oil on Panel, 28"x 42", 2010:

At the Lake, Oil on Panel, 20"x 21", 2010

Badlands, Oil on Panel, 30"x 38", 2010:

Chopping Wood, Oil on Panel, 24"x 34", 2010:

Jump, Oil on Panel, 24"x 38", 2010:

Swing Set, Oil on Panel, 15"x 15", 2010:

Parking Lot, Oil on Panel, 20"x 21":

Windmill, Oil on Panel, 30"x 44", 2010:

Unknown Lights, Oil on Panel, 45"x 36", 2010:


The above paintings are represented by George Billis Gallery, New York

The artists statement about his recent work: "Fabricated Realism"

My current series of paintings depict fabricated American landscapes. The invented landscapes arise from archetypal citations of past and present cultural influences. Placing figures into these landscapes is an attempt to take advantage of the viewer’s natural ability to extrapolate narratives. By creating the paintings using a conjuncture of various photographic references, I continue to explore the distinctions between photographic and painted space. The disjointed nature of the source images, contrasting with the way they are realistically unified, take on a contingent sense of reality.

Inventing landscapes allow memories of places and events to be fictionalized. Coalescing unrelated photographs is done in a way comparable to the process in which the mind synthesizes images when recollecting memories or imagining new images. As opposed to culling images from an abstract memory bank, I utilized tangible sources, many of which come from the vast image resources our contemporary culture offers. The current expanding abundance of accessible images is allowing the imagination to expand the ability to visualize unseen places.


gallery@georgebillis.com

Born in 1986, in Columbus, Ohio, Alex Roulette now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. To see his fabulous work from 2009 and before, visit his website

Artists Take The Plunge: Swimming Pool As Subject

I got such a wonderful response to my post about varying artists' freeway and overpass paintings, that I thought I'd do the same with one of my other favorite subjects; the swimming pool.

Years ago, I bought one of my favorite paintings, an empty swimming pool painted by Christy Botkin Reeves of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, a nasty subletter stole the painting upon being evicted from my apt...so if you see it, let me know (seriously...).

Perhaps it's the stillness of pools when no one is in them, or the beckoning of an empty pool, that appeals to me. But either way, I'm clearly not the only one who finds beauty in them.


Above: My now stolen pool painting by Christy Botkin Reeves, 48" x 72"

When it came time to replace it, I was craving one of Glenn Ness' photo realism pool paintings, but couldn't afford an original the size I wanted.

Here are a few of his that I've coveted:

Above: Glenn Ness' Should I have Stayed?


Above: After The Lie, 12" x 18", Glenn Ness


Above: A Mysterious Childhood by Glenn Ness


Above: Fading Of June by Glenn Ness


Above: Maintenance by Glenn Ness

Upon realizing I'd never have the huge Glenn Ness original of my dreams, nor would I get my Christy Botkin Reeves' back, I actually began looking for pool paintings. This became a labor of love, not to mention enlightening.

Anyone familiar with David Hockney is aware of his fabulous pool paintings and images of pools done with paper pulp and printed as monotypes. For those who aren't, let me show you:


Above: David Hockney's "A Bigger Splash"


Above: David Hockney's "Pool With 2 Figures"


Above: Hockney's painting "Peter getting out of of Nick Wilder's Pool"

As I said, he not only painted pools, he used paper pulp to create monotypes of pools, now very collectible. The one below went for over $5,000 at Sotheby's in 2000 and would easily fetch over double that now:



Well, by now I was hung up on the photo realism thing after Glenn Ness, so this led me to find several contemporary realists who knew their way around a pool, so to speak.

There were so many talented artists who paint pools.
Empty Pools.
Still pools.
Pools at Night.

I'm going to break this article into three posts.
Today's is just paintings of POOLS, next week will be paintings of PEOPLE SWIMMING IN POOLS, so be sure to come back.
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Johannes Schramm and his photo-realistic pools:






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And one of my other absolute most coveted artists, Patricia Chidlaw:


Above: Whites Motel

Above: Still Pool

Above: Pool and Birds of Paradise

Above: Patricia Chidlaw's White Chairs
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I've always been a fan of Rick Monzon's work and was happy to see that he, too, painted a pool!


Above: Rick Monzon's Florida Pool
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Above is Cindy Stapper's Vernal Invitation
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Above: Sharilyn Neidhardt's Lazy pool
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Above: James P. Kimack's Pool
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Above: My Houses (Pool with Waterfalls) by Julia Jacquette
available here from Pace Prints.
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Below: Jane Freilicher's The Pool:

Available at the Tibor De Nagy Gallery
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For today, I will leave you with another one of Glenn Ness's works and be sure to see the upcoming post about swimming in pools, it's almost twice as long!


Above: ... finally, Glen Ness' Long Thoughts


Be sure to see the amazing pool paintings in the following posts:

Part II: Paintings of People Swimming

Part III: More People Swimming Paintings