Sub(urbia): Rick Amor

Rick Amor (b. 1948) was a student of the widely-known Australian figurative painter John Brack in Melbourne in the 1960s. Brack was a member of the so-called 'Antipodeans' group, which protested against the dominance of American abstract impressionism in the late 1950s. Maintaining a commitment to figurative representation, Amor has an altogether darker vision of the urban landscape than Howard Arkley or Jeffrey Smart:





Call me crazy, but sometimes I think if I could paint like this, I would stop with this photography caper.

Rick Amor is represented by Niagara Galleries in Melbourne. See more of his work here.

Sub(urbia): Jeffrey Smart

Australian figurative painter Jeffrey Smart (b. 1921), who has lived in Italy since the 1960s, could easily be dismissed as an Edward Hopper knock-off, although I think there are new and more interesting things going on in his work:





This one, called Turn Off to Dandenong Road, looks uncannily like some of Stephen Shore's 1970s and 80s large-format color work (say, for example, this photograph). I'm not too sure of Smart's references, but I have no doubt that he is more than familiar with that era of American photography.

karim hamid

http://karimhamid.com

Alexa Meade

Spectacle

C-Print 2010

Natura Morta

181X24in C-Print 2009

instillations are comprised of acrylic paint on found objects

and the performance of a live model

more work at:www.alexameade.com

Aussie Goodness: Louise Hearman

Next up in the Aussie-fest, Louise Hearman, a painter based in Melbourne. Her themes are dark and mysterious, sometimes sinister and frequently amusing. The inevitable reference to David Lynch often comes up when her work is discussed, but a lot of her images seem to draw on the vernacular mined by much photography - sublime suburban landscapes, moonlit carparks and playing fields.

Here, I've selected images from her work which incorporate some kind of disembodied floating object, one of her favorite tropes.






See a lot more of her work at the websites of her Sydney gallery and her Melbourne gallery (follow the artist links to her name).

Incidentally, Hearman is the partner of Australia's most renowned (and unfortunately, most controversial) photographer, Bill Henson.

alexa meade

alexa meade here

Walton Ford

This is one of my new favorite artists. He is his site and here is a bio from Art:21. If anyone is interested in seeing his fantastic paintings, I have a gigantic Taschen book I can bring in.

Simon Roberts

from the series "We English", 2007-8. uses romantic painting style to show britons at leisure.

more here

Stanford Kay

See more work here.