We just had to let previous and potentially new guests for PAINT SAFARI know that October is looking fantastic. The sun is sharp and low, shadows are long and the sky is intensly blue.

As our friend Pepe says ‘this is the best month to paint landscape’.

One of this years Joya: art + ecology resident artists Melissa Marks is exhibiting in NYC…

MELISSA MARKS  Adventures of Volitia: Paradise, Again

JAMES W. PALMER ’90 GALLERY

ART COLLEGE CENTER, VASSAR COLLEGE, 123 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604.

For gallery hours and travel information call 845 437 5370

Tuesday October 5 -Saturday October 23, 2010, Reception (PV) Tuesday October 5, 5-7 pm

Adventures of Volitia: Expulsion From Paradise originated in 2009 at Bloomberg SPACE in London as part of their prestigious COMMA series of contemporary art. It is now being shown for the first time in the US at Vassar College with a new wall drawing by the artist created in response to its new setting at the Palmer Gallery.
www.melissamarks.com

Saturday 25th September JOYA resident artist Ellie Rees will be talking about her video installations, ideas and inspirations. The ‘still’ enclosed is an excerpt from a new body of work which she has started at Cortijada Los Gázquez.

The talk begins at 19.30 at Cortijada Los Gázquez. All are welcome.

‘JOYA: a residency for artists working within transition culture’ has subtly changed it’s name to simply ‘JOYA: art + ecology‘

Image:  still of multi-channel video from the overture section of a new opera titled ‘The Commission‘. This recent piece was made  as a result of a Jerwood Fellowship awarded in 2008. The composer is Elspeth Brooke and the librettist is poet Jack Underwood.

The JOYA residency:

‘I am currently looking at fictional depictions of women who kill themselves. Inspired by opera, literature and art of the ninteenth century, I am exploring the disconnection between a romanticised representation of female suicide and it’s reality. Whilst at JOYA I want to research the contradiction that exists between the ‘beauty’ of a tragic heroine and the real circumstances that lead to taking ones own life. I hope to make performance based films within the dramatic landscape, based on this reasearch’.

Ellie Rees

PAINT SAFARI

[ecosistema urbano] is an architecture and engineering team that focuses on the research and ecological design of new architecture projects that understand sustainable development as a resource for innovation and enthusiasm. JOYA resident artist Lluís Sabadell Artiga on the completion of his time here at Los Gázquez has made a contribution to the web site and blog relating his experience here and explaining the workings of our ‘community of practice’.

The Castellano in the blog post is not too complicated and the site generally is in Castellano and English. To read more look here. To look at the web site in general look here and to see the web site of JOYA artist Lluís Sabadell Artiga look here.

Ellie Curtis is an artist, designer, illustrator and print maker (both on paper and fabric). She presents small vignettes of  distorted animalism, hybrid creatures conjured from the imagination of an over eager explorer, the taxidermist, distorting the character of two creatures and amalgamating them into one. She favours water colour then inscribed with India Ink…

Some of the work (such as the above) becomes screen print which can then become printed paper editions or fabric design.

The reprographic character of the illustrations above are a tell tale sign that these works are for print. These are to be fabric designs and indeed the one on the left is destined to be material hanging at Los Gázquez.

Here Ellie Curtis talks about her work to guests at Los Gázquez. All our JOYA resident artists are obliged to give talks to our guests which they are all keen to do. On this occasion Ellie had a mix of PAINT SAFARI clients, travel writers, graphic designers and animators along with university students.

This is an artist with a lot of design savvy. She is open in her influences and she travels at tangents described in maps only chartered in her creative mind. Her sense of colour is sublime and what some may call faux naif is more like innocent talent. Should anyone have a story that needs an illustrator, I would recommend.

Molly Hogg is an ethnic and antique textile dealer and collector who for many years has travelled the globe pursuing her passion for all things fabric. Her residency at Los Gázquez sees her returning to her design roots and we shall be seeing some interesting developments as a result of her residency.

‘I first studied textile design in the 1980′s, specialising in constructed, knitted and woven fabrics. After a long pause, I am now starting to design again.
For my JOYA residency I have decided to use the sky over Cortijada Los Gázquez as my inspiration.
I vividly remember from a previous visit to Los Gázquez how I was amazed by the extreme beauty of both the vast horizon of the daylight sky, its strange shaped clouds and colour, and  then the purity of light of the night sky and the Milky Way.
Living in London I rarely look up at night as the light pollution, density and height of buildings destroys any clear view of our Galaxy. However, at Los Gázquez lying on the roof terrace at night is a whole new adventure which I hope to capture in a variety of mediums.
I will be working with textures in materials ranging from glass, felts, velvets, paints, soot, rock and clay. I will be exploring the ethereal quality of the sky, using these materials to somehow express the inexpressible’.

You can see more from Molly Hoggs residency here or visit her website www.mollyhoggdesign.com