John Seed

Janice Nowinski's "Seated Girl II" -- a blocky little nude with dun colored thighs and heavy umber fingers -- is a bit of a flirt. She is, in fact, the insouciant painted descendant of an anonymous coquette that the artist lifted from a 19th century "naughty postcard." As...

Siddharth Parasnis, who was the subject of a one-person show at Dolby Chadwick Gallery this past March, and whose work is currently on view at

Paul Karlstrom, the...

Painter Mitchell Johnson has worked for years in two distinct but related styles: one abstract, the other representational. Johnson has been painting in different geographic zones as well; his studio is...

In Bruce Cohen's "Untitled (Poppies Against a Storm)" a thin marble ledge is the only...

At the age of 11 William "Theophilus" Brown shook the hand of the artist Grant Wood, the creator of "American Gothic," who was awarding him third prize in a juried art competition. "He (Wood) was amazed to see this kid walking up the aisle," Brown later recalled. In the long...

Robert Neffson, whose views of New York City, London, Paris, and Venice are on exhibit at Bernarducci Meisel Gallery through April 28, is considered a Photo-Realist. However, that particular stylistic label doesn't quite describe the full range of his aesthetic ambitions. Neffson's richly detailed canvasses are...

"Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery of the truth about the unique history of our childhood."

- Alice Miller in "The Drama of the Gifted Child"

Looking over Facebook Saturday morning I saw...

The "Bay Area Figurative Style" goes back to the year 1950 when David Park submitted a heavily brushed painting of a jazz band -- "Rehearsal" -- to a group exhibition at San Francisco's de Young Museum. His representational painting looked so out of place among the field of...

"Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads: Gold," a group of sculptures by the Chinese artist/provocateur Ai Weiwei, is now on view in the Strauss Gallery of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego's Downtown Jacobs Building. The installation consists of 12 gilded bronze heads -- a rat, an ox, a tiger, a...

I recently had the opportunity to interview painter Sangram Majumdar, whose exhibition NEW WORK was on view at Steven Harvey Fine Arts, New York, from January 12 through February 19, 2012. Majumdar, who has been teaching painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art since 2003,...

In the prologue of David Park: A Painter's Life, a newly published biography of the pioneering representational painter, author Nancy Boas describes the scene at...

Every Friday morning I teach a community college painting class of about 25 students. The classroom is quite full, and the beginning students paint on folding easels set on heavy formica topped tables, while a handful of advanced...

While growing up on an Oakland hillside, artist David Tomb -- his last name is pronounced "Tom" as in "Tom Sawyer" -- was interested in both art and birds. "I'm not sure which interest came first," he muses. The home where Tomb grew up was filled with landscape paintings...

I recently interviewed Sonia Mak, an independent curator, and founding curator at the Chinese American Museum, about the exhibition 'Round the Clock: Chinese American Artists Working in Los Angeles. The exhibition, which will present the work of five contemporary Chinese American artists -- George Chann, John Kwok, Jake Lee,...

My favorite statement about how artists use intuition comes from Pablo Picasso. I have looked everywhere to try and find the precise quote, and can't, but it went something like this...

Picasso told a friend that intuition was like having a carrier pigeon with a message land on your balcony....

During my morning jog last week I was hit by an idea: I would ask all the painters I knew to send me an image of something they had painted this year and post a "10 Great Paintings from 2011" blog and slideshow. After my email box began to overflow,...

After artist Kyle Staver lost her older brother six years ago, she was moved to honor and memorialize him in the language that suits her best: the language of painting. The resulting trio of canvasses, a Biker Triptych now on view at the Pennsylvania College of Art...

David Prifti, who died on November 21st after a 2 1/2 year struggle with pancreatic cancer, was a photographer and teacher who for the past 15 years embraced the earliest techniques of photography. Using the traditional wet plate collodion process, which was developed in the 1850's, David made...

"Well, crazy wisdom--that's a very good question--is when you have a complete exchange with the road, so that the shape of the road becomes your pattern as well. There's no hesitation at all."

-Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

It has been almost exactly thirteen years since Eric Orr,...