Artists to Watch -- Vanessa McKnight

Vanessa McKnight

Producing a photo-realistic representation can be a very non-contemporary venture for most artists, lacking the edgy and heterodox elements that define so many painters of the contemporary canon. There are those, however, who capture the quivering and discreet kinesis of events so carefully that the result pushes the boundary of one's perception.  Through her varied works, Vanessa McKnight places herself among those whose talent and forward-looking aesthetic have given them such liberty as to paint what they see, without being illustrators.  Like Richter's or Rosenquist's, McKnight's images seem to shift ever so slightly when looked upon, as if the subjects were allowed an imperceptible micrometre of movement within their permanently fixed place.

The draw of McKnight's work is further augmented by the scenes she has chosen to paint.  Often capturing moments anticipating an explosive burst or a highly stressed yet silent epiphany, the emotions and events conveyed lend to a sense of tremendous tension -- the subject only restrained from action by the mere fact of it being bound within a two-dimensional artifact.  The style and renderings of McKnight's works seem to be used only to the end that they give life to what we see -- no extraneous or pretentious strokes are made -- and thus the artist is hiding behind the curtain while her production independently exists before us, qualifying her implied belief that, as Oscar Wilde states, "To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim."

For further viewing visit: vanessamcknight.com.

Artists to Watch -- Justin Craun

Justin Craun

Justin Craun skirts the periphery of his medium by committing his talents to meticulously tousled visuals engendering at once elements of cubism, surrealism and photo-realism.  His multiple-personality attack on the canvas clues the viewer into a self-imposed conflict of intent within the painter, showing that he is not satisfied in simply producing highly skilled, surreal, photo-realist renderings of snap-shots on canvas.  To the contrary, as his own first critic, he seems to turn on his creations and elevate them to the kinetic pieces we see. Carefully deranging features and thus magnifying their haunted qualities, Craun unveils dark truths about his subjects through distortions which come across as x-rays of the skinless anatomy of life itself.  Glowing eyes, exposed enlarged teeth, insouciant children colored in negative -- these are the sufferings, slings and arrows of Craun's people presented in bold palettes some critics find objectionable.  Nevertheless, like so many controversial artists of the past, Craun is beautifully corrupting the specific -- his paintings -- for the sake of purifying the general -- art itself.  

For further viewing visit: http://www.fredericksfreisergallery.com/artists/craun/index.html.