share ART: August 2012

Thursday, August 9, 2012

"Artists view the world with our own eyes, each of us; and we make from us the world we see." San Diego , FAITH FLEURY

Faith Fleury & Rivian Butikofer@ 16+1

My earliest memories are in my grandmother’s gardens – the lively bursts of color and the lush, cool green shade of the 75-year old willow trees. That’s probably when my fascination with color began.

I spent a large share of my life building business models and product launch plans in “high tech” – the more creative side of finance,

all the while pining for that satisfaction of making something visually expressive.

There is nothing like that special elation from creating a drawing or painting that makes people want to stop and drink in the environment I’ve produced.

Now I devote as much of my time to those pursuits as I can, keeping a playful frame of mind whether it’s making an intriguing portrait, an inviting landscape or experimenting in mixed media/ collage and more abstracted forms.

Artistic Influences

Sorting out the influences on my work is a complex task – on any given day, the order of importance shifts.

In studying art history, I was exposed to the whole panoply of “gods”: Durer, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Renaissance artists Da Vinci and Michealangelo – they still captivate me; the economy of brushwork of Valasquez and Goya which looks remarkably “modern”; the expressiveness of El Greco, etc. But the period which has most influenced me is twentieth/ twenty-first century artists: Matisse, Cezanne, Picasso, Degas, Kandinsky, Calder and those who’ve followed.

As I have explored more contemporary work, I find my favorites list has grown to include Nolde, Lucien Freud, Basquiat, Wayne Thiebaud and David Hockney. There are so many exciting developments in today’s artistic environment. I’ve become a great fan of many current painters including Elizabeth Peyton, Romare Beardon and Beverly McIver.

FAITH FLEURY

I am so proud to say that Faith has been a student of mine since I first began teaching at The Athenaeum, La jolla nine years ago.