Kevin Gilmore:

A new painting in a new studio in a new town

2010-11-17T03:49:00.000-08:00

I have been away from this blog for a few months now. Having a baby named Orion with my beautiful wife Holly (view her new blog: BKLYN to RI) and moving from Brooklyn, NY, to Rhode Island has been a whirlwind. Saying goodbye to old friends, the city life, and a neighborhood we will miss always has its challenges. Setting up a new home and having space for a studio just down the hall is exhilarating and fresh. This weekend is a holiday show at Jessica Hagen Fine Art in Newport. After getting the studio all fixed up, it feels perfectly natural to stand up to a blank canvas once again and let the painting begin. It just feels right.

heart, humor, & hypnotism

28" x 40"

acrylic and collage on canvas

fall 2010

Kitchen Magic: How to paint in your underwear.

2010-07-06T05:44:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I feel like the kitchen is one place that rivals my studio for inspiring creation. My favorite way to cook is bringing together fresh ingredients in a recipe-free way - building on my experience as a home cook - add a little of this...taste...add a little of this...what if I try a little of that...

This morning in the wee hours after Holly and Orion fell back asleep "après feeding," I brought my actual painting supplies and set up shop in the kitchen. I guess if I can rock gourmet meals for 2.5 in this tiny kitchen, I can get my painting on in the kitchen too...in my underwear.

After a studio visit with my painter friend Max Carlos Martinez, I was unable to use the old excuse "I don't have enough space in the apt..." While supplying me with some fresh collage materials, he also inspired me to remember to use what I've got right in front of me and just make it work. Thanks Max.

I am working on 9 small paintings/collages. New updates soon...

(it's an ellipsis kind of day...)

Beebopareebop Rhubarb...Lemonade! (when life hands you lemons and rhubarb...)

2010-05-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of meeting Ronna Welsh of Purple Kale Kitchenworks, at the Farmer's Market at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. Ronna and her Husband were giving out free kitchen advice and free rhubarb lemonade infused with cardamom, that was so delicious, I decided to buy some raw materials and make a batch myself. The colors of the rhubarb and lemons and everything combined were so enticing to my eye, and they were begging me to photograph them. So through my rhubarb lemonade adventures I snapped shots of each stage.

Sometimes, I find the kitchen to be just as satisfying as a day in my painting studio. The process is identical at times, with the result being the only difference. Lemonade anyone?

Ronna's Rhubarb Lemonade Recipe! Click HERE

A little Graphic Design never hurt anyone...

2010-04-29T12:35:00.001-07:00

A small advertisement for Windsor Wine Merchants that will be seen in the Celebrate Brooklyn Program - a listing of shows for the Summer 2010 Prospect Park Bandshell.

Bits and Pieces: a collage exhibition

2010-03-25T05:29:00.000-07:00

When Jonathan Talbot asked me to participate in his curated show for BID Gallery in New Rochelle, I gladly obliged. I have known Jonathan for many years, and his work is an inspiration. Take a moment to see his work HERE. The show, perfectly named Bits and Pieces, took place in October 2009. Recently launched is a website dedicated to the exhibition. Candid photos like this one were compiled, and an interactive click and see function was added. Just click on the piece of art in the picture and a new window opens to display the work in an organized window with size and titles - you get the idea.

Lunch: watercolors, wine, and steamed mussels...

2010-02-09T11:15:00.000-08:00

Jessica Hagen: 5 Year Anniversary Opening

2010-02-02T20:57:00.000-08:00

Cheese, wine, a good crowd, lots of beautiful art, smiles, laughs, great conversations, and sales... Could there be a shorter way to describe a successful art opening? A great space filled with artistic minds and Objet D'Arts...

Jessica Hagen, Timothy Ohliger, and Kevin Gilmore

(not necessarily in that order)

un groupe de peintures... the night started with two red dots!

An opening isn't complete without an after hours celebration with good friends!

(Chris Wylie, Tricia and Brandon Akers, and Kevin Gilmore. Also not in that order.)

a late night poem

2010-01-28T01:02:00.000-08:00

Forget about time

ticking silently on the red LED' s.

Nevermind the contrasting sliver blue light

piercing left to right from the east.

My mind is pointed westward,

it's still dark on this not quite dawn.

Awake like a night time northern breeze

blowing just hard enough

to clang the downstairs neighbors'

wind chimes discordantly.

"Midnight Blue - Please wait at least

another anecdote or two.

Permit me another story."

"Time will do what it will do."

"Stay up a bit longer with me,

indulge me, because

I can't permit sleep

when creativity spins

my thoughts this deeply."

"Then tell me another one."

A Bird in the Hand is Worth Seven New Collages

2010-01-18T21:10:00.000-08:00

Jessica Hagen-Hill, Owner of Jessica Hagen Fine Art,

asked me to participate in the 5th Anniversary Show and Celebration at her gallery this January. Jessica and I met over 5 years ago at her post at the now closed Station 29 in Newport, RI. It was there that we forged a long lasting relationship between Gallerist and Artist. Almost six years later, with

many adventures in our past, I obviously was eager and estatic to, again, join the ranks of artists that have graced the walls of Jessi

ca's Gallery.

Thanks to several of Jessica's clients, I have had the opportunity to call myself an artist over the past six years. From Newport, RI, to Puglia, Italy, and now in Brooklyn, NY, Jessica has provided the services and space for keen collectors to view and appreciate my work. Art Collectors like Susan Ruf

and Michael Walsh, Alessandro Giuliani, and a few others, have trusted my and Jessica's partnership and purchased work that has lead to my continued perseverance in this challenge that is - being an artist.

While working in Brooklyn, NY, (miles away from beautiful Newport...) I still ponder on the beauty

and solitude of the amazingly quiet moments spent in my studio in Newport. Also, my trip to Italy (see older posts...) always seems to creep into my brain while plugging away late night in my studio here in Park Slope...

A place of never-ending noise, this place called Brooklyn has presented itself as a never-ending conundrum of balance between time, space, money, family, and strangers. While I exist in the heart of museum world, each day is a struggle to forfeit

the precious time and cash to get myself uptown to the Geug' or the Met or wherever - or spend those golden minutes on a painting in my studio here at home.

But...Where do the birds fit in?

Some folks know me as a bird watcher, some as a bird hunter, but either way, I love the "winged, bipedal, endothermic, vertabrate animals that lay eg

gs." (thanks wikipedia...)

The image of the bird crept into early paintings...three of which began the Jessica Hagen /Kevin Gilmore art relationship.

For the past few years, birds have not landed on my canvas.

Recently the birds have landed in Brooklyn:

A poem by Anne Pierson-Wiese if i may:

Birds Hitting Glass

On the way to my job the other day I sawa pigeon sail out of the park on a tide
of morning light, coast weightless across the wide
street and swoop smack into the glass wall
of a bus stop shelter. There was the soft sound
of a pillow being punched, the bird slid
down against the glass, wings frozen askew mid-flight and then suddenly was up — rebounding

into the air, gaining altitude gradually
like a small plane with a bomb in its belly,
banking over the traffic uncertainly
and returning to the shelter of the trees,leaving in the fine dust on the glass a faint
tracery of feathers at point of impact.

This made me remember other birds hitting glass.
The hawk diving with unerring aim from high leaves
along the parkway, as if lured by the windshield’s
flash, and glancing off darkly — half thud, half flap
into the shoulder grass. The partridge storm-blown
with a neck-snapping crash into a cottage
window in Vermont, cracking the ripple-edged19th century glass — hard to know
how, lifting its sleek, freckle-feathered, hollow-boned
body from the sodden and soil-spattered fern
border the next morning — like air breaking ice.

The chickadees drunk on the cherries that liefermenting in the sun each summer
outside the new library with its blue-stoned
walk, ornamental fruit trees, and three-story plate
glass wall designed to let the public glimpse
tiers of books inside but proving fatal
to the scores of tiny birds taking off tipsywith all the conviction that accompanies
drunkenness. The shock of slamming up against
reality happens more slowly when you don’t have wings.

This is why you should sign the inside cover of a book you give as a gift!

2009-12-01T18:59:00.000-08:00

I couldn't believe the dates on these. Imagine - 1884. This book was probably the only gift McLoughlin received that year! Maybe that's a stretch but...

These books are frail and weathered - and full of fragments perfect for collages. Thanks "Sandy" and Rhudele Moorerji!

Kevin Gilmore: 4 new paintings/collages

2009-12-01T18:00:00.000-08:00

each mixed with rock

8" x 8"

acrylic and collage on canvas

november 2009

brooklyn, ny

one day in the sun.

in the same way:

8" x 8"

acrylic and collage on canvas

november 2009

brooklyn, ny

738

8" x 8"

acrylic and collage on canvas
november 2009
brooklyn, ny

given an x

8" x 8"

acrylic and collage on canvas

november 2009

brooklyn, ny

__________

Yes, finally, a stream of creative energy hits me again - in time for a group show at Shop Art Gallery - http://www.shopartstudio.com/ - in Brooklyn, New York. I swear it has something to do with the moon...(at the time of this posting the full moon is in 22 hours...) These are for sale at the show, and what a holiday bonus it would be for me to see these go to new homes just in time for the New Year!

I found a few old books of which pieces found their way in these collages:

1. Rasa=Jala=Nidhi or Ocean of Indian Chemistry & Alchemy Vol. I.

Compiled in Sanskrit with English Translation by the Author

2. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas or The Marvelous and Exciting Adventures of Pierre Aronnax, Conseil, His Servant, and Ned Land, a Canadian Harpooner. Translated from the French of Jules Verne.

I only add this info based on the lovely script on the inside cover of each of them. I think it warrants a new posting with a reproduction of each.

"Driftwood" a donation for Latitude 14

2009-10-21T04:34:00.001-07:00

This was a small 9" x 12" piece I painted for a donation for Latitude 14 - http://latitude14.org/ind/ - in support for their newest project red fly/blue bottle. It went to a silent auction and resides somewhere in NYC.

happythankyoumoreplease

2009-07-06T18:04:00.000-07:00

I ran into the set designers who were getting the set ready for a new flick called happythankyoumoreplease. They were discussing what to do with the "abstract" painting that was needed for the shots when I walked by. On the stoop 5 doors down from me in Brooklyn sat this large painting... well sort of a Pollock-inspired action piece...yikes it was a bit of a disaster. I was on my way to work but boasted that I could do much better given 45 minutes. The rules were simply that it needed to be black and white to match the feel of the set. So here are a few screen shots...

Art Exhibit at Shop Art Gallery in Brooklyn, NY

2009-04-03T12:16:00.001-07:00

Kevin Gilmore: Recent Paintings 2008

2008-08-11T12:56:00.001-07:00

New Exhibition: Recent Paintings 2008

2008-07-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

sketches painted after seeing the diebenkorn exhibit

2008-05-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

two small canvases

2008-05-15T14:49:00.000-07:00

these two canvases have been submitted to 440 Gallery in Park Slope, Brooklyn, for a juried show appropriately titled "small work show"

self portrait of kevin gilmore

2008-05-12T13:52:00.000-07:00

my little corner of the world

2008-05-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

new paintings

2008-05-09T21:03:00.001-07:00

Green and Orange

2008-01-14T15:46:00.000-08:00

2 new sketches

2008-01-14T15:36:00.000-08:00

three oil paintings

2007-12-04T19:27:00.000-08:00

two sketches

2007-12-04T09:59:00.001-08:00

More Sketches

2007-12-04T09:54:00.001-08:00

New Sketches

2007-12-04T09:27:00.001-08:00

After a week in Venizia, Firenze, and Bologna

2007-06-26T13:38:00.000-07:00

Partly inspired by the many street artists working in watercolor to paint beautiful landscapes of the famous cathedrals, fields of poppies, and famous sites along the way, and partly inspired by the museums of Venizia (particularly the Peggy Guggenheim Collection), these paintings are the result of our week traveling around Italia.

The week of our return was also depressingly wet. It seemed as though it rained for 7 days straight, with giant storm clouds, and only the occassional peek of red at sundown.

the first few paintings:

2007-06-26T13:16:00.000-07:00

Before I was able to locate an art store in Pulia, I began experimenting with the colors that surrounded me in Giurdignano. The fertile soil that filled the farmland, practically the only trees around were the olive trees that made up the olive plantations, the beautiful blue skies, and the white limestone colored buildings...

painting for three months in southern italy

2007-05-26T09:03:00.000-07:00