CMYK NYC is the culmination of an energy that was building inside of me for a few weeks. When I started this painting I was incredibly inspired to paint at this scale and ready to bridge together several ideas i’ve been working on.
CMYK NYC is in my painting exhibition at RL Fine Arts that is open until November 12th, 2011, in New York City.
For the process video I was lucky enough to work with multi-faceted grammy award winning artist Tony Black of Tony Black Productions & Orange Key. He wrote, performed, and produced “if i told you” – (The Ari Mix), while referencing the process video for inspiration. I feel this song intensifies the richness of the viewing experience by literally expressing a musical quality of the abstract painting. Because he did such an amazing job I am going to let the music and the video do most of the talking.
Lets take a look…
It starts with a white acrylic ground on cotton
I was working a lot with pink and black leading up to this painting, so I started with them.
Turning the organic more geometric.
Back to organic, perhaps utilitarian.
The entire space has been commented on and all of the colors are now present, CMYK.
Opening the space on the left, and closing it on the right.
It’s getting lighter in color and atmosphere.
Archetecture changes the way we live by altering our spatial awareness.
I was considering this state the final piece. It has the feeling of NYC, but it was too literal.
By altering landscape references, I change the feeling of gravity. The relationship of one form to another becomes more informative.
CMYK NYC | 48 x 60 inches | acrylic on canvas | 2011.
Click image for larger version.
You can see this painting right now at RL Fine Arts in Chelsea, see below for directions and images of the other works in the show.
Click here to preview the other paintings from my solo exhibition, “Windows of Self,” at RL Fine Arts Gallery until November 12th
Located in the heart of Flatiron/Chelsea:
RL Fine Arts
39 West 19 Street, Suite 612 (between 5 and 6 avenues)
New York NY 10011
tel: 212 645 6401
email:info@rlfinearts.com
gallery hours:
Tuesday to Saturday 11.00 to 6.30pm, Sunday 12.00 to 4.00pm
This is the first painting I made after taking a few consecutive days off from painting. I decided to put hardcore painting on ice for a few days while I was busy working on some other projects.
Immediately after getting home from the Clipped reception after party I started painting. It felt so good to be back at it.
This painting is full of raw energy and excitement, some would even call it joy.
I call it Roarrr.
Let’s take a look at some of the stages and you can decide for yourself…
Diving in with pink, oh how I love pink. It’s almost like a guilty pleasure. Here I’m painting with brushes and fingers.
Introducing some primary colors with a strong linear quality. When I look at a line I experience a sensation of movement from one point to another. The type of line suggests the type of movement. I think it’s safe to say these lines are capricious in nature.
Utilizing the edge of the canvas I flatten the imagery with the picture plane.
New colors and new mark making breathe different life into the painting.
Around this time I’m starting to understand the life of this particular painting.
It’s crucial to harness this life power but not misuse it. That remind’s me of this anonymous quote: “Some say it takes two people to do a painting, one to do the painting and the other to tell you when to stop.”
Roarrr | acrylic and oil on canvas | 30 x 40 inches | 2011
Anything is possible with teamwork. One person made this painting, and the same person knew exactly when to stop. This painting is alive.
Click the painting for a larger image and watch the process video in HD.
I love helping a worthwhile cause and I love painting in front of an audience. On the night of the highly anticipated Broadway Bares: Las Vegas 2 Hot performance at Planet Hollywood, Borbay and I painted live in front of 1,000 people.
Here’s how we got involved…
I met Sheila at the sign back on day one. She and her friend Veronica came over to see what I was working on and then requested a painted tattoo. She was friendly so I gladly offered my skills. While I was finishing her “I <3 NV” tattoo Sheila invited us to Broadway Bares. A one night all-star charity event she was choreographing and performing in. Very cool. Even better, I offered our painting services. The next day we received a call from organizer and performer Paula Caselton. She saw our work online and wanted us to join the show.
Las Vegas, NV – April 20 – 28th, 2011 — Time Out New York’s Most Creative New Yorker, Location Artist Borbay, and Contemporary Artist Ari Lankin, will be painting live, on the Las Vegas strip from April 20 – 28th. Based in the Luxor and financed by a private collector, Borbay and Lankin will spend their days and nights behind the easel.
Borbay was in Vegas this past December to celebrate his fianceé’s birthday, and scout locations. “I love Vegas. In fact, I ran my one and only marathonhere in 2005… Being back in Vegas 5 years later, to-the-day, made me realize I had to paint The Strip. This trip is about capturing the magic of Vegas on canvas, sharing the adventure, gambling big and zeroing-in on what Hunter S. Thompson described as ‘The American Dream, In Action’.”
Borbay’s projected painting locations will include the Welcome to Las Vegassign, Caesars Palace and the soon-to-be-closed Sahara, one of the last refugees of the Rat Pack era.
Lankin was in Vegas last April for a bachelor party. While there he took advantage of the 24/7 lifestyle he so expertly stradles. His friends gambled as he roamed the streets and casinos with camera in hand. There is no separation between living and creating. Lankin is no stranger to painting on location. ”I can’t wait to paint the eye candy that I experienced last year. Borbay and I have a great time meeting people while we paint, and the people of Vegas will no doubt be a special blend.” He is looking forward to painting the Welcome to Las Vegas sign, and a nightscape.
About Borbay
Upper East Side artist Borbay has painted edgy portraits and famed locations around the world, including The Guggenheim, TriBeCa Grand,Woolworth Building, Elaine’s, Chrysler Building, Hancock Tower (Chicago),Runaway Bay (Jamaica) and San Marco Cathedral (Milan). His architectural impressionist collage paintings have been featured in Time Out New York ,Wall Street Journal Japan, New York Post, Whitewall, The Huffington Post, The Source and more.
About Ari Lankin
Lankin creates bodies of work in different visual styles ranging from conceptually based abstraction to photorealism. There is nothing he can’t paint. Lankin worked at The Guggenheim, produced a shoe with adidas, and has collaborated in a wide variety of media. He is now a full-time artist painting works in a variety of media and styles. “Life is my muse. We make things with tools and ideas. The show travels with us wherever we go.” He lives and works in Manhattan.
Press and Acquisition
Please contact Lankin for press or acquisition inquiries.
Bloom, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches. Ari Lankin 2010
Walking the streets of New York City is like jumping into a sensory abyss. Every sense is activated. Liberation or oppression is for you to decide. People are surrounded by man made things.
I make eye contact all day on the streets. This is how the humans that graze the concrete jungle anonymously connect. The moment eyes lock is a tremendous experience. These streets serve up encounters with strangers, potential lovers, celebrities, radiant children, and old friends. This is the biggest littlest city you’ve ever seen.
I am the guy that wonders the length of the subway platform late at night looking at the debris in the tracks, the graffiti, the travelers, the architecture, and the years of wear and tear. When I notice you on the street I’m going to look you in the eyes and acknowledge your presence.
I am also the guy that invents imaginary worlds. I do this to better understand the world we live in. Our world is full of energies that are larger than the physical self. This painting is a space inspired by the greatness that we all share from a divine source of love.
Speaking of love, I’d like to thank Das Racist for their track “Rappin 2 U” off of their fresh FREE mixtape Sit Down, Man. I was inspired to use this song after seeing them the other night at their sold out show at Highline Ballroom. They are tearing it up right now, touring all over the place. Catch them when they come to your town before they blow up and only play mega stadiums. Also keep an ear out for their new album dropping this summer.
And to the process…
Starting with a blank canvas on the first sitting. Very early it had a web structure but by the end of the day it was an eye. See the next picture for a close up of the texture. I love wet into wet, and I kept this painting wet for its entire creation.
Close up detail of the left side of the eye.
The subject of the eye begins to turn into a world of the seen.
A world visible on the outside and the inside.
Simplifying the space. Activating the surface with color, texture, and patterning.
Eye contact.
Building up space around a central figure who stares back at the viewer.
Heading towards more abstraction.
Or wait, this figure has a chance, but why is it here?
That’s what I’m here to find out.
Another face immerges behind the central figure.
Too much blue. Navigating the foreground.
A feeling and a potentiality philosophy overtake singular moments of representation.
A deep feeling that has been growing inside of me for years.
A universal human spirit.
A space for things to grow amongst one another.
Place your hands in the earth.
Unlimited growth.
Starting to change the landscape feeling into something more like an architectural portrait.
Time to fuse the different feelings.
Urban, nature, science, metaphor, experience, love, budding growth… the act of painting.
Composition is starting to solidify.
Changing points of access.
Bloom is about sowing the seeds of your life. Nurture them and feel them grow. Fill your garden with love and dedication. Smell the flowers, taste the fruit, and quench your thirst. There’s plenty to go around so feed the family.
The Making of Feathered Edge from MOCA on Vimeo.
There is nothing like bringing together great minds to form something truly amazing. The Bauhaus was a school in Germany that brought together creative people from all backgrounds. The result was a creative synergy that reverberated through art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography. Students and faculty worked together sharing their expertise eliminating any hierarchy in the arts.
That was a very minimal introduction to the Bauhaus. My point of writing this blog entry is to hear from the international community. Do you know of any modern day Bauhaus’ like situations? They do exist, but for the most part not at an institutional level. Please take a few minutes to share with us any places you may know around the world. Whether it be a university, a warehouse in New York, the streets of Berlin… let us know.
I think the structure of the Bauhaus would be an extremely fertile environment for creative professionals. Think of a school that crosses disciplines like architecture, fashion, new media, science/technology, and the arts.
Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues came together to form an ambitious collaboration called Ball-Nogues Studio. A group of people working together in art, architecture and industrial design. According to their website the studio consists of these ten individuals: Benjamin Ball, Martina Dolejsova, Benjamin Jenett, James Jones, Ayodh Kamath, Jonathan Kitchens, Alison Kung, Deborah Lehman, Gaston Nogues, Rachel Shillander. (Please excuse me if any of these links are to the wrong person, I did not have time to verify each link.)
The studio also collaborates with outside professionals to customize production and process for specific projects. Take a look at Feathered Edge, an installation exploring digital technology and craft at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Click on the title of the piece and explore the project with photographic stills, and a great 7 minute video.
Here is the amazing project description in their own words:
Feathered Edge was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The project explores the convergence of digital technology and craft. It is one in a series of installations curated by Brooke Hodge and Alma Ruiz. Integrating complex digital computation, mechanization, and printing with traditional handcrafted production techniques, Feathered Edge explores our desire to alter a space with fluid architectural forms that require a minimal use of material while utilizing a new proprietary technique that yields the effect of three dimensional spatial constructs “printed” to resemble objects hovering in space.
Feathered Edge is comprised of 3604 individual lengths of twine, totaling 21 miles, that have been dyed, cut, and then suspended from mesh scrims installed on the walls and ceiling of the gallery. With the aid of the “Insta-llator 1 with the Variable-Information Atomizing Module,” a machine designed and manufactured by Ball-Nogues Studio especially for this installation, the strings were precisely saturated with solvent-based inks, created by a chemist for the project, using four digitally controlled airbrushes and then cut to varying lengths. Using specialized parametric software developed with a software programmer, we generated a map that was printed onto the scrim to establish the proper locations and lengths of the twine in the space. Each piece was attached to the mesh scrim, and then knotted by hand in a technique similar to that used to make latch-hook rugs. The weight of the string creates a complex system of overlapping catenary curves on which cyan, magenta, yellow, and black segments were “printed” to yield the effect of ghostly three dimensional objects. Sometimes the objects are visible, at other times they blur to resemble a fluid-like vapor that floats and hovers in the gallery space.
The software used to develop the parameters of the resulting ephemeral spatial condition can yield nearly infinite possible design configurations. While the environment is defined by the string formations and printed “objects,” it is also constructed from the negative space found within the array of catenaries, which allows sight to extend into and throughout the spatial structure. The space is activated by people, movement, and light, creating a continually changing experience.
Computers are great at quickly analyzing large amounts of information, then generating data used for fabrication, but they can’t yet produce fully realized works of architecture. At best they can produce highly accurate components and spatial mappings or systems, this is where hand craft comes in. We use our hands and our knowledge of material as a filter for the digital possibilities and to achieve the final “built” environment; in effect, we use the prowess of the computer to push the limits of the hand.
Feathered Edge is the third in a series of projects we refer to as “Suspensions.” Unseen Current (2008), exhibited at Extension Gallery for Architecture, Chicago, featured 2,500 suspended string catenaries, and Echoes Converge, exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2008 used string to create intricate patterns inspired by the baroque ceilings of the city’s buildings. These softly structural, open-air spaces encouraged social interaction, enveloping rather than obstructing viewers.
Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Project Management: Andrew Lyon
Project Team: Chris Ball, Tatiana Barhar, Seda Brown, Patricia Burns, Paul Clemente, Sergio d’Almeida, Jesse Duclos, Matt Harmon, Karlie Harstad, Ayodh Kamath, Jonathan Kitchens, Andrew Lyon, Lina Park, Tim Peeters, Sarah Riedmann, Joem Elias Sanez, Geoff Sedillo, Norma Silva, Caroline Smogorzewski, Beverly Tang, Blaze Zewnicki, Sasha Zubieta, and the preparatory staff of MOCA.
Feathered Edge was on view July 26-November 15, 2009
Rigging: Kelly Jones of Jax Logistics
Custom Software Development: Pylon Technical
Live Video: Peter West
- Burst, 2010, 30 x 40 inches, oil on canvas.
I will be showing some paintings, including this new one at a wine and cheese reception at The Ohm lounge next Wednesday the 17th, from 7-9pm. If you are interested in attending please RSVP by email with your name and the event. Look forward to seeing all of you.
The Ohm
312 11th Avenue (at 30th Street)
New York City
November 17th, 7-9PM, RSVP Required
Also on view -
Analog Fix (Cassette), 2010, 30 x 40 inches, oil on canvas. Ari Lankin
Emotional Architecture I (Untitled), 2009, 30 x 40 inches. acrylic and oil on canvas. Ari Lankin
After you check this out, or even before you check this out, watch the video I posted yesterday at 9pm, this is the video 13 hours later. If I had more mixed paint I would still be painting.
SUPERNATURAL EVENT: PAINTING RISES FROM THE GRAVE ON MAY 22, 2010
NEW YORK, NY–Many listless art critics have glibly declared: “painting is dead.” Another offered $10,000 for proof of expiration. On Saturday, May 22, 2010, BORBAY, Jeremy Penn and Ari Lankin offer evidence to the contrary. Opening for one-night-only in TriBeCa, Painting Resurrected will exhume eighteen contrasting paintings, supernaturally confirming – the demise of painting has been greatly exaggerated. Myths will be shattered, precedents will be set and cocktails will be served.
Find out more on the official event site, and RSVP on Facebook.
Location: 393 Broadway, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10013 | TriBeCa
Date: Opening Gala: Saturday, May 22nd, 2010 | 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM; Private Viewings by Appointment: Sunday May 23rd, 2010 – Tuesday May 25th, 2010
Admittance: Open to the public
About Jeremy Penn
Jeremy Penn was born in 1979 in New York and studied Fine Art at both the University of Maryland and Pratt Institute. Penn’s paintings are best known for using color to elicit an emotional response. His works have been exhibited internationally and have gained acclaim from curators at museums such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In 2009, Penn was honored as the “Featured Artist” for New York’s first Freedom Week. In 2010, Penn’s art was awarded both ASFD’s Pinnacle Award and the ADEX Gold Medal. His works have been prized by notable collectors, including the Crown Prince of Dubai. Energized by the caprices of popular culture, Penn’s recent work explores the evolution of celebrity.
About Ari Lankin
Ari Lankin was born in the suburbs of Philadelphia in 1980. He received his BFA in Painting and Economics from Brandies University. Although a wide traveler and avid road tripper, it is Manhattan that has been his home and inspiration as an artist, fueling his investigative and intuitive approach to painting. His concerns with systems, dreams, chaos and order, realities, and relational flow can be read in his work. The flux of these influences affords multiple interpretations, and allow for both moments of recognition and uncertainty. Ultimately he is concerned with risk taking, wisdom, process and chance rather than emulating a preconceived final image.
About BORBAY
Voted Time Out New York’s Most Creative New Yorker in 2009, Upper East Side artist BORBAY has painted famed landmarks around the world. On display will be BORBAY’s collage paintings, comprised of New York Post headlines and layer upon layer of acrylic paint. Driven to capture the actuality of society, this series visually displays the paradox of love, lust, murder, sex, sports, betrayal, triumph, religion, rape and politics in one place… concepts any person reading a daily newspaper will see juxtaposed without a second thought. His works have been acquired for private and corporate collections around the world.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Contact: Jason Borbay | info@paintingsresurrected.com | Phone Number Provided Via Email
I will be performing in this on Monday, April 19th. A concept from the mind of Rory Scholl, ARTPROV combines creativity from varying disciplines into one big show. Join me and the crew of Artprov this upcoming Monday for a night of improv hilarity, live music, and yours truly painting. I will be wildin’ out on the canvas for the duration of the show. When the improv stops, I stop. The interesting part is they will be doing improv skits based on my paintings that they have never seen before, and I will be painting something inspired by their improv.
From the creator of Artprov:
Artprov brings artists from different mediums together to inspire each other to create new works of art. On Monday, April 19, the improv troupe Creative Outlets (with MAC award winning comics from Broadways Next Hit Musical, BTK Band and Chicago City Limits) will perform scenes based around artist Ari Lankin’s pieces. In turn, Ari will paint a new piece based on the scenes based on his paintings. Circle of life sort of thing…
Guest Artist: Ari Lankin
Cast: Debbie Rabbai, Jeff Scherer, Rory Scholl, Ann Scobie, Greg Triggs
Pianist: Eric March
Date:
Monday, April 19, 2010
Time:
8:00pm – 9:00pm
Location:
The Peoples Improv Theater
Street:
154 w 29th Click here for map
