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The Atelier Gallery is located between the chocolate museum and the amber museum a few feet from the main gallery, and will feature unusual works from students and graduates of the Chavón School of Design, former and actual artists-in-residence as well as found or donated pieces.
The gallery is displaying many smaller works or “packable art” in different media that are easily transportable for travel on airlines or cruise ships for tourist passing through the area.
Each work is of high quality, curated, and typically priced around US$200 to US$800, which reflects a percentage for the gallery as well as a portion for the artist. This is especially important when the works are of current students who need scholarships to pay expenses and tuition.
The current show is a mix of figurative work, some by students, some by anonymous artist(s) from the 1920’s. There are also many abstract studies of texture and color compositions that look really well in small groupings. The little square wet-on-wet paintings of figures are particularly interesting for their spontaneity. We encourage the Casa de Campo Community to go and check out this new gallery space.
Take a look at the descriptions of each collection on display:
COLOR STUDIES / LINEAR PASSAGES — Abstraction in New York in the 1950’s
This collection signed by Duganan of sensitive explorations of color and line were part of a body of work recently discovered in the basement of an old building in New York’s Greenwich Village. Clearly the artist was trained and experimental. He or she was part of the early abstract expressionist movement when art for art’s sake…rather than art as narrative… was gaining recognition. The lyrical quality, the subtle colors are reminiscent of many of the great painters of the fifties. Milton Avery, Mark Rothko, come to mind as one allows the color works to conjure poetic metaphors. In contrast the same artist’s calligraphic images are like twisted wire works by Alexander Calder, obsessive scribbles of Cy Twombly, or sketches for Alberto Giacometti sculptures.
It is rare to see such competent and relevant works, albeit unsigned, available in such good condition.
FIGURATIVE STUDIES
The artist, named Zimmermann was a student of the human form. We, here at the school of Design in Altos de Chavón are dedicated to teaching the classical figure. These astoundingly delicate and graceful figures on newsprint were no doubt part of a sketchbook done in a life drawing situation. The models’ personalities and demeanor are as uncovered, as visible as their nude bodies. We have the feeling that these people may have been part of the demimonde of the period. The dated and signed piece gives us a context, 1929, the year the Great Depression began in the United States. The skill level is European, although the artist’s name is German, the work feels more Italian. This is a rare collection of intimate and skillful figure drawings.
STUDENT SELF-PORTRAITS
Identity, confronting one’s self in the mirror is always a challenge. The artist seems to find either an idealized, or distortedly grotesque view of him or her self. For beginning students it is an enormous challenge for to see themselves objectively, here they tend toward bold, almost Fauve, colors for their images. The paint in most of the works is applied thickly and therefore produces a work that is at once about reporting image, but more importantly is about making a painting, a painterly painting. The references to the European expressionists of the early 1900’s cannot be avoided. Painting for painting’s sake and the infusing those creations with the emotional punch of fledgling artist zeal make the work irresistible.
STUDENT FIGURE STUDIES — wet on wet
These are works done by the current students at CHAVÓN | The School of Design. In every one the impasto paint has been applied thickly, wet paint upon wet paint and there is minimal mixing of colors. The result is spontaneous, fresh, and vibrant. Each little square is a vignette of the model, done from life, holding his or her pose for only a few minutes. It’s the immediacy and richness of surface that make these works so appealing. We cannot help but feel the energy of these young painters as they capture the moment in lush pigments.
FIVE SMALL WORKS BY KEN TISA
Reproductions, these personal stories with vivid narratives are somehow like Pop-Art miniatures. Tiny soap operas they are at once humorous and poignant Yale trained quirky artist of the 1980’s.
More about The Atelier Gallery
The Atelier Gallery is composed of high quality work and mixture of styles for varied tastes, from floral silk-screen prints by the renown botanical artist, Pam Sztybel, to oil pastel nudes.
The gallery is not staffed all day or on a schedule, but the main Chavón Gallery sales staff has the key and can open the space if someone wants entry. The purchase of art can be made using credit cards at the main gallery.