Here are some of the lovely things people said about the art yesterday that warmed my heart, or made me smile and will keep me motivated to keep making art for you:
“YES! YES! YES! That is EXACTLY how that place FEELS!”
“I can feel the sun on the back of my neck when I look at this one.”
“Could I buy a print of this one that is already sold? Even though it’s not the original painting, the feeling I get is always authentic.”
“There’s something mystical in your use of light.”
“I feel like I could take many different walks in many different directions through these landscapes.”
“This view is where my partner proposed just a few weeks ago!”
“I like that you used unexpected colours.”
“Wonderful paintings – so vibrant, alive and full of feeling!”
“I didn’t expect to see Greece and Belgium with these colours.”
“Your prices are really accessible, thank you. I couldn’t afford original art otherwise.”
“There’s something in the atmosphere of light between the trees that reminds me of the person I’ve started dating and falling in love with right now.”
“Very happy to be here.”
“Amazing work.”
“I’ve been on a pedalo in that lake! You should’ve painted me in a boat right there!”
“Thank you for these so personal colorful landscapes.”
“Thank you for this trip into the happiness of art!”
“These paintings are both feminine and masculine.”
Tervuren (Autumn), Belgium 75.5×113.5cm (29.7×44.6in) FRAMED €1200 Buy now. Contact me to discuss art shipment. Shipping costs excluded.
“Painting on the frames is really unique and exciting.”
“I love all the tree ones. I’m a trees guy.”
“You saw lots of colours in this place, you see a lot of the colours because you’re an artist, but I just see an excellent place for me to ride my motorcycle and have one of my greatest rides.”
“I would arrange them in my home in this way…”
“I need to bring back my wife before I buy because she is the boss.”
“I need to bring back my husband before I buy to check he enjoys it too.”
“I need to bring back my child tomorrow so you can inspire them the way you inspired me.”
My original idea of painting on the frame aims to draw the viewer into the scene, in a sculptural way.
This provides the art collector with immediacy for hanging.
The bespoke frames provide deep dimensionality.
This allows the viewer to step into a scene. Another window for their home.
Most of these works are painted through the canvas and over the frame. I felt bad that art collectors often buy a work and then have to take it for framing.
If I can provide them with a ready-to-hang piece of art, I save them that extra time and expense.
To prepare for this collection I hunted for the biggest and most beautiful antique frames from markets and auction houses in Athens, Greece and Brussels, Belgium. Then I affixed and painted both canvases and frame simultaneously.
I have not perfected the method but so far I’m told it’s both helpful and delightful. What more can I offer?
Colour Mixing & Texture to encourage dynamic eye movement.
Inspiration and energy came from artists I respect; the bespoke palette and mixed media of Andy Dixon, the bright textures of the Impressionists and Van Gogh and the Fauvist’s wild use of colour.
There are many ways in which the pandemic came into these landscapes: close quarters, disruption, questioning the value of my shared time, holding space for studio time, working with uneven light.
Colour Mixing
As a true artist in (imperfect) residence, I then developed a self-tailored colour palette that I worked hard to create myself through long colour mixing theory research and colour mixing practice sessions.
Cohesion in the Collection
All this so the cohesion carries from canvas to canvas across the collection. Even as I make these pieces I’m thinking about how they speak to each other and how we are going to install it. I was thinking about the Art Base gallery where the solo show would take place and considered how the pieces will sit best in the space. The goal here is that the audience stands in the gallery and receives a fully peripheral experience. The movement in each painting will draw the audience from one travel experience across to another, with salon style smaller paintings grouped at the back and no boundaries between them. Finally, the way I painted over the frame creates a sculptural depth that lends itself to getting lost inside these views.
Light to Dark then Dark to Light Again
If you come to examine the artwork even closer you might note the light to dark and then dark to light again order in which the paint is layered. This is the first time I’m working on canvases spray-painted with solid colours. I’m very driven by the shaping in Ori Reisman’s landscapes.
Although I don’t explore a human form in the earth as Reisman does, I aim to work the shaping of the land in a similar way that inspires a similarly human interaction, even though it’s not intended to be a human-sized view.
This is me trying to expand my skillset, widening my canvas, practicing grander sweeps, expanding what I can do and bringing you to the precipice with me and you can extrapolate from that what it means to you to stand in immense spaces.
Paint Texture
Childlike Innocence in Mixed Media
Due to the close quarters, I’ve been painting next to my 3 year old. She has influenced me. I mixed my use of acrylic paints and oil pastel to create a dynamic forward and backward motion of the viewer’s eye: from the background acrylic to the foreground pastel, we move through the scene.
Thanks to my daughter, I was inspired to replicate form with a childlike sense in the brushstrokes. For example, I thought very deeply about the innocence I wanted to convey in the form of the Temple on Sounio. There is an innocence in one’s experience of wonder when one encounters ancient monuments. It makes you feel small to see the history. I hope that textural peculiarity, the quirkiness in the lines and colours I chose, wakes up the dull feelings of ordinary scenes and gets the viewer excited about the unique vision we get when standing in the inspiring spiritual locations ancient people appreciated for the same reason.
Tidal & Air Movement in Space & Paint Speed
I thought a lot about texture because it offers something we don’t get from our screens. Paintings need to offer something more than what we get in the visual world of our screens. I asked: What do paintings do that screens cannot? I answered: The texture of the paint and the peripheral size of the canvas can outsize our peripheral experience and let us step outside ourselves, deeply experience the movement of the wind and air and leaves and water and receive that specificity of human perspective in a vast space.
Even if you are not familiar with these locations, from our travels in Greece and Belgium, even if you have not stood in the same spaces, I hope you agree, you feel a sense of space, feel their particular quality of light and catch a breath of the same air.
Gloss Varnish
The gloss varnish was also an important element. Products made by machines can make a smooth perfect flat surface. An impeccable glossy flat surface cam be made by the digital world. I asked: What can paintings do that cannot be done by photography or a computer or a machine? I answered: Dynamic texture that follows the shapes of the image and brings an overall sense of sculptural harmony to the piece. This is unique to painting and that’s why I do NOT try to apply the varnish as flat as possible across the surface of the canvas, but instead follow the movements of the painting’s forms and express the speed of emotive brushstrokes even with the varnish itself.
By shaping the solid forms with the paint texture, using mixed media to bring in a dynamic movement forward and backwards from the surface of the canvas, flowing the brush strokes to mimic tidal or hot air shafts away and around the nearly fish-eye lens enlargements of the horizon, I am working to enlarge one’s sense of space.
Educated in London and Cambridge, Tamar has published as an author, illustrator and editor of multiple award-wining books designed for families, classrooms and doctors. Her prized artwork is highly collectible, commissioned by private collectors, sold at private auctions and exhibited in galleries around Europe.
