Matthew Dibble - Parking Lot (2011)

Parking Lot (2011)
Mixed technique - 60"x50"

Here is another favorite piece from Matthew Dibble's abstract painting series Middle is Everywhere, this one entitled Parking Lot.  Dibble's technique so expertly evokes a sense of space and depth, borrowing bits of technique and insight of those who preceded him, yet completely takes the medium to a whole different level.   As I study the paintings from this collection, I allow myself to become drawn into the whole, still fully aware of the intricate detail that Dibble has presented which provides this passage.

As the artist himself says:

My wish is to live in the real world. I have a natural curiosity about my place on earth and a thirst for sincerity in all forms. These paintings are a glimpse into what happens when this very active inner life and the outer world come in contact. 

I tried to work on these new paintings with “feeling” in my whole body. I’m not quite as interested in brushing the paint on, but pushing the paint around. 

A reminder:  if you want to learn more about Matthew Dibble, please check out his website to learn more about him.  In the meantime, keep an eye on this blog for more posts and thoughts on Dibble's work.

Matthew Dibble - Quarrel (2011)

Quarrel (2011)
Oil and newsprint on canvas - 72"x90"

I'm departing from precedent and beginning a series on modern abstract artists I've had the pleasure of finding in my travels on the internet, beginning with Matthew Dibble, a general contractor from Cleveland, Ohio.  Dibble also happens to be a trained artist, having studied at the Cooper School of Art in the mid-1970's, and has been actively painting for over twenty years.

I first saw Dibble's work on the Abstract Expressionist group on Facebook and I was immediately blow away by his free use of color, the structure amid the seeming chaos and the near infinite layers of meaning in his design.  Each piece that he painted and displayed from his current collection entitled Middle is Everywhere seemed to continue where the previous piece left off, as a new chapter in a deeply complex novel.  Quarrel is just one example from this outstanding series.

While it may be seem to be a significant contrast between Dibble, the roofing contractor, with Dibble the abstract artist, Matthew's own words may explain how interrelated these two sides of him are:

My wish is to live in the real world. I have a natural curiosity about my place on earth and a thirst for sincerity in all forms. These paintings are a glimpse into what happens when this very active inner life and the outer world come in contact.  

In this series, I’m trying to approach the work as a tradesman approaches his job, in a very ordinary way, with a watchful attention and a certain confidence that comes from experience while at the same time searching for something new.

If you want to learn more about Matthew Dibble, please check out his website and take note of artist statement page.  Meanwhile, please stay tuned as I will posting other works of his in the coming weeks.

Albert Kotin - Whispering Rain (1957)

Jean-Paul Riopelle - Painting (1957)

Hans Hofmann - In the Wake of the Hurricane (1960)

Hans Hofmann - Fantasia (1943)

Hans Hofmann - Le Gilotin (1953)

Albert Kotin - Untitled (1958)

Willem de Kooning - Gotham News (1958)

Emilio Vedova - Immagine nel tempo (1958)

Emilio Vedova (August 9, 1919 − October 25, 2006) was an Italian modern painter, considered one of the most important to emerge in his country's artistic scene after World War II.

Read more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilio_Vedova

Philip Guston - Close Up III (1961)

Willem de Kooning - Excavation (1950)

Lee Krasner - Imperative (1976)

Jackson Pollock - Portrait and a Dream (1953)

Philip Guston - To Fellini (1958)

Elaine de Kooning - Bull (1958)

From Wikipedia:

Elaine de Kooning (March 12, 1918- February 1, 1989) was an Abstract Expressionist, Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era and editorial associate for Art News magazine. On December 9, 1943, she married artist Willem de Kooning, who was a highly influential artist in the Abstract Expressionism movement.

Read more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_de_Kooning

Joan Mitchell - No. 5 (1955)

Karel Appel - Danse d'espace avant la tempête (1959)

Christiaan Karel Appel (25 April 1921 – 3 May 2006) was a Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet. He started painting at the age of fourteen and studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in the 1940s. He was one of the founders of the avant-garde movement Cobra in 1948.

Read more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_Appel

Philip Guston - The Return (1956-1958)

Philip Guston (June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980) was a notable painter and printmaker in the New York School, which included many of the Abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning. In the late 1960s Guston helped to lead a transition from Abstract expressionism to Neo-expressionism in painting, abandoning the so-called "pure abstraction" of abstract expressionism in favor of more cartoonish renderings of various personal symbols and objects.

Read more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Guston

Franz Kline - Untitled (1959)

Franz Jozef Kline (May 23 1910 – May 13 1962) was an American painter mainly associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement centered around New York in the 1940s and 1950s. He was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, attended Girard College, an academy for fatherless boys, attended Boston University, spent summers from 1956-62 painting in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and died in New York City of a rheumatic heart disease. He was married to Elizabeth Vincent Parsons, a British ballet dancer.

Read more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kline

Jean-Paul Riopelle - Descriptif (1959)

Born on October 7, 1923 in Montreal, Canada, Jean-Paul Riopelle is one of Canada’s most famous painters. Riopelle studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Montreal in 1942, and then at the École du Meuble, graduating in 1945. He studied with Paul-Émile Borduas under whose direction Riopelle created his first abstract painting.

Read more here:

http://www.dailyartfixx.com/tag/abstract-art/page/2/

Edward Dugmore - Untitled 15-P (1959)

From Wikipedia: Edward Dugmore (February 20, 1915 - June 13, 1996) was an abstract expressionist painter known for close ties to both the San Francisco and New York art worlds in post-war era following World War II. Since 1950 he had more than two dozen solo exhibitions of his paintings in galleries across the United States. His paintings have been seen in hundreds of group exhibitions over the years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Dugmore

Wassily Kandinsky - In the Gray (1919)

Jackson Pollock - Galaxy (1947)

Arshile Gorky - One Year the Milkweed (1944)

Willem de Kooning - Untitled V (1977)

Willem de Kooning - Easter Monday (1955-56)

Jackson Pollock - Convergence (1952)

Wassily Kandinksy - Composition VII (1913)

Jack Tworkov - Green Landscape #4 (1949)

Yvonne Thomas - The Corner (1959)

Yvonne Thomas’ art acknowledges the union of paint and support that the famous critic Clement Greenberg posed as a modernist quest for a responsible colorist. The poetry and sophistication of the paintings is the culmination of an education... received firsthand from several leaders of the New York School’s first generation.

Read more here:

http://www.denisebibrofineart.com/artist/view/1044

Jean-Paul Riopelle - Sans titre (Composition No. 2) (1951)

Joan Mitchell - Untitled (1960)

From Wikipedia: Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 - October 30, 1992) was a ‘Second Generation’ Abstract Expressionist painter. Along with Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, and Helen Frankenthaler she was one of her era's few female painters to ...gain critical and public acclaim. Her paintings and editioned prints can be seen in major museums and collections across America and Europe.

Another biographical source:

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-mitchell-joan.htm

Jackson Pollock - Number 4 (1950)

Jackson Pollock - Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952 (1952)

Hans Hofmann - Spring (1945-1946)

Jackson Pollock - Shimmering Substance (1946)

Fred Mitchell - Little Tom Big Bee (1958)

Jackson Pollock - Untitled (1953-1954)

Hans Hofmann - Flowering Desert (1953)

"The key to Hofmann’s paintings is his passion for nature, whether perceived on location, from memory, or imagination. He incessantly probed natural elements, focusing on volume, and geometric forms in positive and negative spaces. It was ...the object, he said, that creates the negative or positive space, not, as traditionally conceived, that an object is placed in a space. If an object creates space, then it is light that creates form. Similarly, light makes color in nature, but color creates light in painting."

Read more at the artist's website:

http://www.hanshofmann.net/

Jackson Pollock - White Light (1954)

Amaranth Ehrenhalt - Parcours (1959-60)

"Some are born with a silver spoon in their mouth; I arrived with a paint brush in my hand and have painted steadily since the age of four. My work is abstract expressionist.'Unexpected' and 'radiating energy' are often used to describe my art."

Read more at the artist's website:

http://www.amaranthehrenhalt.com/

Misha Reznikoff - Untitled (1958)

Misha Reznikoff was born in Ukraine in 1905. During the Russian Revolution in 1918 he served as the youngest communication officer. In 1921 immigrated with his family to the United States and settled in Rhode Island.

Read more here:

http://www.anitashapolskygallery.com/reznikoff.html

Ernest Briggs - Untitled (1958)

"From dense layers of calligraphic brushstrokes to broad, sweeping passages of luminous color, Ernest Briggs's paintings from the 1950s bristle with the artist's sense of elation at leaving traditional image-making behind. Briggs was an active participant in the later wave of Abstract Expressionism, the revolution in abstract painting that secured New York City's position as the art capitol of the world in the post-World War II period."

Read more here:

http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/mishkin/briggs/briggs.html

Jackson Pollock - Alchemy (1947)

Jackson Pollock - Phosphorescence (1947)

Jackson Pollock - Untitled (Scent) (c.1953-1955)

Jackson Pollock - Enchanted Forest (1949)

Jackson Pollock Number 31, 1949 (1949)

Jackson Pollock - Enchanted Forest (1949)