Art Reflection – Klimt Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was an Austrian artist and a rebel against conservative art sensibilities. This garden painting is a mass of beauty in a random community of blooms. Its scattering seems of natural arrangement and color without human manicuring. This could be seen as a rebel composition against the very formal, curated flower paintings of Klimt’s …

Art Reflection – Ernst Max Ernst (1891–1976) was a German artist of the Dadaism and Surrealism Movements. Dadaism is the “art of the happy accident,” a creation caused, for example, by the dropping of a paint-soaked string on a canvas. Surrealism is defined as images from the unconscious mind. It includes irrational placements and compositions. An interesting fact about Ernst …

Art Reflection – Qi He Qi, Ph.D., is a professor at Nanjing Union Theological Seminary and a tutor at Nanjing University. He has also held an artist residency at Fuller Theological Seminary in California and received many international awards and recognitions. His paintings were once featured each month in the Presbyterian Planning Calendar. He Qi began painting with water and …

Art Reflection – Earley British artist, James Earley, was born in 1972. As a young child, he was interested in the people he saw living on the streets and in a decision that is mysterious to him to this day, he decided he wanted to paint them. James Earley followed this childhood choice and is currently one of the most …

Art Reflection – Holston John Holston was born in 1944. He is a contemporary painter and engraver who focuses on the African American experience. The Elder was recently displayed at the All Stars Exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. John Holston’s body of work falls on a long continuum from realistic and detailed etchings to more abstracted paintings such as our subject …

Art Reflection – Lawrence Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, N.J., in 1917 and moved to Harlem as a youth to live with his mother, a woman dedicated to the education of her children. He attended the Harlem Community Art Center. Jacob Lawrence chronicled the African American cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. It was a time of …

Art Reflection – Savage Augusta Savage (1892-1962) was a celebrated artist of the Harlem Renaissance. She was an artist against so many odds. Her father was a severely pious Methodist minister. He was abusive and discouraged Augusta’s pursuit of art even as a child. He believed her little figures made of clay from their yard to be graven images and …

Art Reflection – Leigh I could not resist sending you two views of Brick House, the 16 foot tall, 9 foot wide, 5900 pound sculpture by African American artist, Simone Leigh. Both are pictured on the Highline, the linear park in New York City, where this sculpture claimed and commanded space from 2019 to 2021. (There are many castings including one …

Art Reflection – Boafo If you are familiar with this artist, you might imagine my difficulty in choosing just one of his pieces for this writing. Amoako Boafo is a profound and prolific current art talent taking on the Black experience in fingerpaint and paper. Amoako was born in Accra, Ghana, in 1984. There he learned of the life and …

Art Reflection – Lichtenstein Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) was a leading figure in the pop art movement. He grew up on the West Side of Manhattan and was educated at Ohio State University. Along this way he found a particular and successful niche in the world of art. Lichtenstein’s style was based on tongue-in-cheek imitation. He was inspired by comic strips …