Introductory Post

Strokes of Nature

The Strokes of Nature gallery is located at 5545 Art Street in Yucaipa, CA. This Art Exhibit will be on display through the month of May and June. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 9-5pm.

Donald Nelson and his family runs the Strokes of Nature art gallery, established May 2012.

You can find realistic wildlife paintings and nature artwork by the artists in our galleries. Tour these wildlife artists' online studios to see their original paintings of nature and wildlife art in progress. See the latest wildlife art newsletter as well as the artists' online scrapbook of wildlife art events, shows, and exhibits. Miniature art, original watercolor paintings, giclée canvas and paper art prints, and sculptures.

Exhibit Introduction

Strokes of Nature

The Strokes of Nature Gallery presents“Artistic by Nature” an art exhibit featuring ten of the worlds’ best artists who each retrieve inspiration from experiences they find in nature. The gallery will host a reception on May 20th, 2012 from 5-9pm. The Strokes of Nature gallery is located at 5545 Art Street in Yucaipa, CA. This Art Exhibit will be on display through the month of May and June. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 9-5pm.

Nature has inspired artists – including painters and sculptors – from every corner of the worl. This exhibit is a reflection of that inspiration bringing together the works of ten artists –The amazing and very talented  artists that are being featured in today’s art gallery are as follows, Lorenzo Quinn and his sculpture “Force of Nature”, Sayaka Ganz and her sculpture “Emergence”, the late Thomas Kinkade and his truly amazing painting “It Doesn’t Get Much Better”, Nigel Bird and his abstract charcoal painting “Field”, Walter Mason and his photo “Land Art”, Claude Monet and his painting “Water Lily Pond Symphony In Rose”, also the great Joseph Warren and his sculpture “Steel Stag”, Cornelia Konrads and her outdoor sculpture titled “Passages” , also featured is the sculpture “Urban Nature” created by Naoka Ito, and last but not least “Born”, by Kiki Smith.

The connections between each different piece found in the gallery are simple; items that are found out in nature or that have been created by nature. Each piece gives off the shock and awe factor and will cause the viewers to think. I find that each painting or sculpture are very different and yet very similar. I chose these pieces after much research because they are the ones that simply stuck with me. They are the ones that ‘spoke’ to me, they are the ones that were worth remembering to me.

Force Of Nature-Lorenzo Quinn

Force of Nature

The Force of Nature II

Lorenzo Quinn
Bronze, Stainless Steel, Iron
220 x 421 x 150 cm
Edition of 8 plus 3 AP

2010

  

     "Grab the reins, keep your wits Life is fleeting, moments fly. Blind the eye, feel the way. Throw off heed and just believe."--Lorenzo Quinn.

      Lorenzo Quinn studied at the American Academy of Fine Arts in New York and subsequently in workshops and foundries across the United States and Europe. Starting out as a painter in 1982, he soon discovered that a dimension was missing from his works and that he could not offer anything that had not already been offered by other artists before him. Turning to sculpture because of a deep-rooted need to create, he found this medium allowed him to convey his innermost feelings to the viewer; it is, in fact, this direct communication which Lorenzo constantly seeks. He says, "It is the viewer that interests me not the art critic...I make art for myself and the people who wish to come along for a ride through my dreams." He is inspired by the great masters such as Michelangelo, Bernini, Carpaux and Rodin, and he frequently returns to Italy to gain inspiration and knowledge.

     Lorenzo's work is included in many impressive private collections throughout the world, which has lead to a prodigious amount of commissioned work. This includes being commissioned by the Vatican to sculpt the likeness of Saint Anthony, in commemoration of the Eighth Centennial of the Saint's birth. Lorenzo's sculpture was blessed by the Holy Father in Saint Peter's Square before it was placed in the Basilica del Santo in Padua in 1995. He has also been commissioned by the United Nations to produce a stamp for their collection, as well as placing several monumental sculptures throughout the UK and Europe. His ongoing project, 'The Globe Of Life' which represents the hundred most important moments in history, looks set to be his most significant work to date, with five monumental bronze sculptures linking each continent. Other than having exhibited throughout the United States, Lorenzo has shown his work in South America, Europe and Asia. In April 2003, Lorenzo's monumental sculpture, 'Encounters', which has been commissioned by Fundatur and donated to the city of Mallorca, was unveiled opposite the Museum of Modern Art in Palma de Mallorca.

     Each of Lorenzo's sculptures is born first in writing, hence the reason why the artist always displays his 'poems' alongside each sculpture "because they are a whole, one could not exist without the other. I don't believe in purely decorative work. It must transmit emotions, it must say something to me and the people that observe it". He is inspired to sculpt by life's everyday experiences, as well as by poems and literature in general, but especially from observing life's energy. Savoring life to its fullest is very important to Lorenzo, allowing him to "enjoy the many different aspects of existence." As a result, each of his works represents a period, an emotion, a symbol.

     Lorenzo has managed to absorb and combine all his diverse talents, thus enabling him to develop his own unique artistic style. His work reflects the clear, true vision of an artist who has matured far beyond his years in a stimulating, intellectual environment. It has been said many times that life imitates art; the achievements of Lorenzo Quinn certainly lend credence to this belief.

     "We humans think of ourselves as supreme beings, above all others and in absolute control of our destiny and our surroundings. We live with a false sense of security, only to be awakened by Mother Nature’s fury, almost as if she needs to remind us of her presence and our responsibility towards her child (the Earth). After having seen the ravaged coast of Thailand and the hurricane that affected the Southern States, I decided to create a sculpture dedicated to Mother Nature. This would be reminiscent of the early statues made as peace offerings to the gods in the hope of quenching their anger. In essence, people are not very different today from the people who lived thousands of years ago. We still devote ourselves to symbols in order to escape our destiny."--Lorenzo Quinn.

     “The Force of Nature II” by contemporary sculptor Lorenzo Quinn is installed in Berkeley Square by Halcyon Gallery on February 10, 2011 in London, England. The sculpture is the final piece to be installed in the Halcyon Gallery's London Sculpture Trail comprising of six monumental sculptures on public display in central London.

     This piece fits in perfectly into this gallery because it shows you how truly amazing nature can be. This sculpture give you that shock and awe moment. 

     

 

Emergence-Sayaka Ganz

 Emergence

Emergence, 

Year: 2008, 

Two pieces installation: Night, Reclaimed (mostly black and clear plastic) objects, 

72” x 50” x 17”, 

Wind, Reclaimed (mostly white and clear plastic) objects, 

63” x 78” x 26”

     Sayaka Ganz was born in Yokohama, Japan and grew up living in Japan, Brazil, and Hong Kong. She has been living and working in Indiana for 15 years. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Indiana University Bloomington and continued to create welded sculptures of animal forms independently. In 2008 she received a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in Bowling Green, Ohio. Currently she teaches design and drawing courses at Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW).

     Using post-consumer plastic objects as her materials, Sayaka’s recent sculptures depict animals in motion with rich colors and energy. Her recent exhibitions include: “Convergence” – solo exhibition in the Visual Arts Gallery, IPFW, “Orchestration” – solo exhibition in the atrium of the Foellinger Freimann Botanical Conservatory, “Finding Freedom”- MFA thesis exhibition at the Dorothy Uber Bryan Gallery, BGSU.

     In March 2009 she was one of the visiting artists for the Foundation for Art and Music in Elementary Education (FAME), showing and speaking about her work to the children at the schools in the greater Fort Wayne area. Currently Sayaka is working on a permanent sculpture for the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. She is also working with two colleagues on a public art project in Toledo, Ohio. She will have a solo exhibition at the Science Central, Fort Wayne in September 2009.

      "My working process is reminiscent of my experiences growing up in several different countries, of being disconnected from the place I was born. Then, I began searching for a new community where I truly belong. I find discarded objects from peoples’ houses and give them a second life, a new home. For my sculptures I use plastic utensils, toys and metal pieces among other things. I only select objects that have been used and discarded. The human history behind these objects gives them life in my eyes.  My goal is for each object to transcend its origins by being integrated into an animal form that seems alive. This process of reclamation and regeneration is liberating to me as an artist.

By building these sculptures I try to understand the human relationships that surround me. It is a way for me to contemplate and remind myself that even if there is conflict right now, there is a way for all the pieces to fit together. That even if some people don’t feel at home here and now, there is a place where they belong and that they will eventually find it." --Sayaka Ganz.
     To create her sculptures, Ganz finds discarded objects including plastic utensils, toys, and metal pieces and gives them a second life and a new home...

    This piece belongs in my gallery because it brings new life to old objects, it take ugly old tossed out trash into something beautiful and amazing to look at. 

It Doesn't Get Much Better-Thomas Kinkade

It Doesn't Get Much Better

Thomas Kinkade

Signature Gallery

Canvas P/P 

25.5"x34" 

2001

     "When you stumble on a breathtaking fishing hole like this on a mist-drenched morning, it hardly matters whether they're biting or not. When, as in this very hopeful canvas, the stately fisherman, properly outfitted in full waders, hooks onto a feisty rainbow trout, it truly doesn't get much better than this."--Thomas Kinkade.

      Born on January 19, 1958 in Sacramento, California, Thomas Kinkade is one of the most widely known American artists of our time. Best known for his picturesque depictions of nature in its most beautiful forms in addition to other spectacular outdoor scenes, Thomas Kinkade is admired around the globe for his stunning ability to capture light and bring it to life on his canvases. 

      Thomas Kinkade's appreciation for art began at a very young age, by simply sketching images of the things around him. In his college years, after spending a summer on a sketching tour that led to the publishing of the best-selling book The Artist's Guide to Sketching, Kinkade was asked to help create art for the animated film Fire and Ice. It was during this period that Thomas Kinkade began to truly discover and explore his extraordinary art. Soon after, he started selling his original pieces in art galleries throughout the state of California. Shortly following marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Nanette, in 1982, the pair officially began to publish Kinkade’s work.

     Having traveled all over the world, Thomas Kinkade has produced striking images of some of the most beautiful places on earth. From quaint tree-lined streets and blossoming gardens to snow-covered lakeside cabins and breath-taking mountain vistas, Thomas Kinkade has a way of capturing the peacefulness and serenity of the world like no one else can—with a warm glowing light seemingly inviting you in to forget the stresses of everyday life and experience this incredible paradise for yourself.

     " Like the great American realist Winslow Homer, I ave a passion for fishing. My best 'catches' are are often the superb vistas I discover on fishing trips, 'It Doesn't Get Much Better' makes this point." -- Thomas Kinkade.

      Thomas Kinkade is recognized as the foremost living painter of light. His masterful use of soft edges and luminous colors give his highly detailed oil paintings a glow all their own. This extraordinary "Kinkade Glow" has created an overwhelming demand for Thomas Kinkade Paintings and lithographs worldwide.

      Thomas Kinkade is America's most collected living artist, and the adventure that he's taken to get there is a fascinating and compelling story. While growing up in the small town of Placerville, California, the young Thomas Kinkade embraced a series of simple life-affirming ideals that later would shape his future and his art. As a devout Christian, Thom uses his artistic gift as a way to communicate and spread the life-affirming values he embraced during his formative years.

      I wanted to add this painting into my gallery as a tribute to the late Thomas Kinkade who recently has passed. His painting fits in perfectly into my gallery because it shows the "magic" found in nature, and it also offers that shock and awe factors, and leaves the viewer with some many different things to look at and enjoy from his art.

Land Art-Walter Mason

Land Art

Walter Mason

Land Art

The Art Of Nature

2009

22.86 x 15.24 x 0.46 centimeters

     German artist Walter Mason has a tendency to tear things apart and then re-join them, only in slightly modified form. Chunks of ice bristle forming a cold wall, elm leaves are sewn and thrown into the stream, picked leaves of birch found a new home on the lily. As a result, it comes quite extraordinary – intriguing, but a temporary organic art, immortalized in pictures only.

     "This organic art is only temporary – a fleeting moment of organization in a seemingly chaotic world."--Walter Mason. 

     Mason often combines leaves into geometric designs, cuts patterns into them or leaves a trail to create a pattern. The photograph then is the only proof of his creation, which is often ruined or destroyed by a gust of wind or the next storm. Water, stones, leaves, needles and grass all play an important role in his designs, which evolve from in-the-moment inspiration.

      As Mason says on his Tumblr page – “Everything I do is an experiment. If the picture I make is good or not is of little importance in comparison to what I have learned. If the experiment ‘works’ I have the feeling of arrival, of completion, I am finished with the idea. If it doesn’t work I often learn far more; it makes me think about why I failed, and often gives me dozens of new ideas.” The Berlin-based artist has a slew of great images of his work on his Flickr page if you want to see more.

     I think that this Land Art piece fit in perfectly into this gallery because it is used of all natural things, comes straight from the earth, it's beautiful and shocking to look at.

Water Lily Pond Symphony In Rose- Claude Monet

Water Lily Pond Symphony In Rose

 

Claude Monet (1840-1926)

French. The Water-Lily Pond—Symphony in Rose, 1899. 

Oil on canvas, 89 × 93.5 cm (34¾ × 36½ in). 

2007 Musée d’Orsay (http://www.musee-orsay.fr/), Paris, France, Lauros/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library.

     Oscar-Claude Monet (1840-1926) is a famous French painter and one of the founders of the Impressionism movement along with his friends Renoir, Sisley and Bazille.
     Monet rejected the traditional approach to landscape painting and instead of copying old masters he had been learning from his friends and the nature itself. Monet observed variations of color and light caused by the daily or seasonal changes. 

     Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840 on the fifth floor of 45 rue Laffitte,in the ninth arrondissement of Paris. He was the second son Claude Adolphe Monet and Louise-Justine Aubree. On the first of April 1851, Monet entered the Le Havre secondary school of the arts. He became known locally for this charcoal caricatures, which he would sell for ten to twenty francs. Monet also undertook his first drawing lessons from Jacques-Francois Ochard, a former student of Jacques-Louis David. On the beaches of Normandy in about 1856/1857 he meet fellow artist Eugéne Boudin who became his mentor and taught him to use oil paints. Boudin taught Monet "en plein air" (outdoor) techniques for painting.

      The Water-Lily Pond—Symphony in Rose (1899) is reminiscent of Hiroshige's drum bridge in his Inside Kameido Tenjin Shrine (1856), but Monet's colors are more striking with water lilies in the foreground and the bridge framed by long vertical willow fronds and their reflections in the water that “penetrate the entire surface and are woven in and out of the horizontal plates of lily pads as if to lock every detail in stillness.”

     This amazing and beautiful painting fits in well in this gallery because it, again, is nature related. The use of bright colors gives the viewer something colorful and brilliant to look at. 

Steel Stag- Joseph Warren

Steel Stag

 

Joseph Warren (American)

Sculptures

Found Object Metal Steel with a rust paint to go outdoors

h: 61 x w: 57 in / h: 154.9 x w: 144.8 cm

2011

 

      Joseph Warren, originally from Boston, Massachusetts, was studying for a creative writing degree when he viewed a brilliant found object sculpture of a centaur at a University of Oregon student art gallery. He became so inspired that he switched his studies to welded sculpture at Portland Community College. His many welded animal sculptures are a direct result of his constant search for old steel tools and scrap steel parts found in defunct mining camps and open scrap yards, resale stores, yard and estate sales. His re-use of steel scraps diverts thousands of pounds of the countless tons of steel odds and ends from our waste stream and arranges them to function anew.

     "There are three distinct strands to my work: abstract imagery, digital photo-montage, and 3D assemblage – as with the butterfly series. I like to make the most of digital technology, but I don’t let it dictate the content of my work."--Joseph Warren, 2011.

     Maryhill Museum of Art has presented exhibitions of outdoor sculpture annually since 1996, providing Pacific Northwest sculptors with opportunities to display large scale works in an outdoor setting. In 2011, several sculptors will exhibit works to complement the 10 that comprise the museum’s permanent collection of outdoor sculpture. The sculptures will be installed throughout the museum’s sculpture garden, including a new addition by Devin Laurence Field. The sculpture garden provides a dramatic backdrop for this unique outdoor art experience. 

      This piece fits perfectly into this gallery because it is unique and has the outdoors brought into the piece.

Passage-Cornelia Konrads

Passage

Cornelia Konrads

Passage
2007
Installation on a forest clearing
Branches, steelrope, iron
4.0 x 2.0 x 0.6 m

      Konrads works in the field of artists such as Andy Goldsworthy and Rob Mullholland, responding to nature by presenting a way for the viewer, or more commonly, visitor, to reexamine their relationship to place through site-specific installations. Gateways feature heavily within Konrads’ work - Passage, installed in a forest clearing in Germany, provides a literal pathway back into nature. Returning cut-down branches to the cleared area, Konrads provides a direct, graceful and yet playful link between our own interventions into nature and the beauty of the nearby untouched wilderness. Crafted from branches mounted upon an iron frame and suspended with steel rope, the installation forms a roughly organized door frame before drifting upwards and outwards, almost camouflaged by the surrounding woodlands.

      Artist Cornelia Konrads creates sculptures that blend with nature and defies gravity. She works with natural materials in a natural environment. Her work is frequently punctuated by the illusion of weightlessness, where stacked objects like logs, fences, and doorways appear to be suspended in mid-air, reinforcing their temporary nature as if the installation is beginning to dissolve before your very eyes.

     "Calm and motion, dissolution and density, the contrastive play with gravity and overcoming it, with reality and simulation—are the stones really flying up into the sky, or are they not perhaps falling down and settling on the pile? Rising or falling - that is the question."--Carnelia Konrads

  Cornelia Konrads is a German artist who focuses on creating site-specific installations in public spaces, sculpture parks as well as private gardens all around the world. She mainly uses materials available at a specific place and time such as rocks, logs or branches, which reinforces the temporary nature of her works. Her land art frequently consists in making mind-boggling installations that appear to be floating mid-air, but also includes permanent sculptures playing with reality.

     I love seeing this work of art because it is truly defying gravity and reality. It fits in well in this gallery because it makes you stop and shake your head on what it truly real or not.