WOMEN PEACEMAKERS-Bearing Exquisite Witness Arts Festival

USD: KSPS: IPJ: WPM: Fine Art Exhibits

"The Three Furies" Oil on Canvas 40x43"

Exhibit by Stephanie Goldman

Inspired by her recent travels to Morocco, Stephanie Goldman explores issues of gender, culture, religion and identity through exotic images rich with symbolism. The piercing gazes of her subjects ensconced in vivid hues immediately evoke issues of identity, agency, rights and universal humanity. Goldman explains the impetus for this exhibit having sprung from an ardent desire to bear witness, allowing observers an opportunity for personal reflection on the meaning they find in her pieces.

USD : KSPS: IPJ: WPM: BEW Schedule

Bearing Exquisite Witness Arts Festival

September 24-26, 2009

Presented as part of the 2009

Women PeaceMakers Program

Bearing Exquisite Witness is a three-day event, held in conjunction with the institute's Women PeaceMakers Program, to highlight the ability of the arts to transform individuals and reconcile communities who have suffered conflict and violence. The Festival showcases playwrights, filmmakers, poets, musicians, visual artists and academics from the fields of theater arts and conflict resolution who are using the creative power of art to raise awareness, prevent violence, help communities recover, change policies of exclusion and heal trauma. I have been invited to exhibit my work at this special event.

I Am A Child

I Am A Child
I am a child,
 All the world waits for my coming.
 All the earth watches with interest
 To see what I shall become.
 The future hangs in the balance, 
 For what I am
 The world of tomorrow will be. I am a child, 
 I have come into your world
about which I know nothing.
 Why I came I know not.
 How I came I know not.
 I am curious 
I am interested. I am a child,
 You hold in your hand my destiny.
 You determine, largely, 
whether I shall succeed or fail.
 Give me, I pray you, 
 Those things that make for happiness.
 Train me, I beg you,
 That I may be a blessing to the world.
This statement, written in Chinese and English, appears at the entrance to the Guideposts Kindergarten in Hong Kong.
The Riverside Art Museum proudly exhibited fourteen paintings from the “I AM A CHILD” Series by the artist, Stephanie Goldman. This solo exhibition was presented in our Mezzanine Gallery from January 19 thru March 4, 2006.
"Stephanie Goldman’s approach towards child portrait painting is truly fresh and unique. One could study the history of painting, and not find another contemporary artist that has captured an adult’s perspective or angle of view of children as well as Ms. Goldman. Her painterly technique accurately portrays the innocent and vulnerable qualities of childhood that are universally valued within all communities and cultures. We were specifically impressed by the mezmerizing quality of the “eyes” in the paintings---which follow the viewer as he/she moves around the gallery space." Daniel Foster Executive Director Riverside Art Museum

The "I Am A Child" series was purchased by an anonymous donor for the Osteopathic Center for Children & Families and can be seen there today.
All of the children chosen for these paintings were three years old. Each painting is oil on canvas, 48 x 24 inches.

You may download a catalog from the exhibition for free at:

I Am A Child

A Portrait of an American Woman

Strapless then and now, today's American Woman dares it all against the social mores of yesterday. She can and will push the boundaries of convention. She is a celebrity in her own social clique, brings attention to the anonymous fashion designer, struggling artist/sculptor and partakes in the dangers of life from prognostications by the seers of tomorrow. As the iconic mother of the American nation she will risk everything so freedom and justice reigns for all human beings. Anonymously and with unchecked aging, she works and gives generously for beauty and connectivity to each passing moment.

Portrait of an American Woman oil on canvas 84x50 in.
This modern portrait of the American Woman is an unknown model called from the heart of the American nation as a representative of "awe" in participating as a free citizen. Last century it was Madame Gautreau aka. Madam X, the well known American woman living a Chic Parisian lifestyle portrayed as a model unsettling the status quo.

John Singer Sargent 1884 oil on canvas

Aristotle said, "The aim of Art is to present not the outward appearance of things, but their INNER significance; for this, not the external manner and detail, constitutes TRUE reality."

Sacred Pathos & Catherine of Siena

Tiepolo's use of bravura brushstrokes, virtuoso narrative and depiction of Catherine of Siena left a memorable impression on my minds eye. The visual pathos he captured moved me to paint a derivative of the original. I chose to use a limited color palette of raw umber, burnt sienna, carmine, naples yellow, ultramarine blue and flake white, based on my visual memory of the painting.

Catherine of Siena oil on Canvas 24x18 in.

Giambattista Tiepolo Oil on Linen 1746

Pierced

Pierced oil on canvas 60 x 36 in.
The painting by Alonso Cano and Yves Klein have influenced me greatly since first viewing them. They are strong, emotional compositions for different reasons making further representation unsurpassable. The two artists used light, color and composition to create an artistic divine sensibility for the visible and invisible.

YVES KLEIN-IKB 79 1959
I combined 17th century baroque pictorial ideas and 60's neo-Dadaists elements to create a picture with transcendental luminescence. Merging corporeality with conceptual freedom to create form that is embodied. Rather than portraying physical light, I use color to represent transcendence.

ALONSO CANO oil on canvas, 1667

Rembrandt Redux-Red

Rembrandt Redux -mene, mene, tekel, upharsin translated literally as, “It has been counted and counted, weighed and divided.” The story of Belshazzar's Feast ignites artist's imaginations as it vividly illustrates a universal human drama repeating itself by moderns today. I used many flavors and brands of red paint to redux Rembrandt's painting as a story wrought with colorful emotional chaos. Warm and cool red pigments layered in thick and thin crescendos of rising and falling textures and transparent glazes creating a sprezzatura effect.

The Hand Writing on the Wall Oil on Linen 39x59 in.

Rembrandt Belshazzar's Feast Oil on canvas, 168 x 209 cm

Rembrandt Redux

Saul and David, a story that serves as a reminder to every generation how envy is as corruptible to the human spirit today as in ancient times. Rembrandt used strong chiaroscuro, atmosphere and low intensity earth colors to create his dramatic emotional masterpieces.
In Rembrandt Redux-Revisiting Envy, I used high intensity color to create an illuminating light and hundreds of layers of transparent glazes to suggest a rich, deep mysterious dark. The emotional nature of color creates a strong visual drama for "envy" that draws the viewer in to see a familiar picture and story in a new way.

Revisiting Envy Oil on Canvas 36x59 in.


Rembrandt Oil on Canvas 1655-1660

Joan Of Arc Redux

The artist should paint her spirit -- then he could not fail to paint her body aright. She would rise before us then, a vision to win us, not repel: a lithe young slender figure, instinct with "the unbought grace of youth," dear and bonny and lovable, the face beautiful, and transfigured with the light of that lustrous intellect and the fires of that unquenchable spirit. ......she is easily and by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced. Mark Twain

Joan of Arc Oil on Canvas 48x24 in.
Was she Genius or Saint asks George Bernard Shaw in his play Saint Joan or in her seeming insanity did a larger sanity encounter the status quo says Poet Li-Young Lee. She continues to be relevant in a day and an age that is distant yet similar to her own. I humbly add my painting along side other artists homages offered to the living legacy of Joan of Arc, it probably will not sell but it was painted with LOVE.
"One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying." Joan of Arc

Swynnerton, Annie Louise (English, 1844-1933)

Sir John Everett Millais 1865

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1863

Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique 1854

Painting Bathsheba

Bathsheba Oil on Linen 36x24 in.

Limited Color Palette with Robert Doak Paints

Carlo Brulleau

Rembrandt

Willem Drost

Hans Memling
Wanting to more fully understand classic painting and traditional methods as taught by the Charles H. Cecil Studios in Florence, Italy, I found those same techniques being demonstrated by Adrian Gottlieb in Los Angeles, California. The painting started in LA and was completed over time in my SD studio. Bathsheba has been inspiring Artists for centuries and today is no different. A woman who lived many different roles in her life; she was a daughter, wife, adulteress, widow, royal harem wife, mother and Queen. Her first child from the illicit affair dies and as a beloved wife of King David she has her second child King Solomon known for his wisdom, wealth, writings and the building of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. A persons life has many twists and turns and often so does a work of art as this paintings provenance continues to unfold.

Retired Palettes

Color is delicious and inspiring and the palette is where pigment and artist meet to make m a g i c with logic. Like the smells on a chef's chopping block, artist's palettes tell a fabulous story. Studying the palettes of other painters has helped me to create order out of what can easily be chaos. How many pigments an artist uses can vary from colors available at any one time, cost of a pigment or from painting to painting. These are some of my old but favorite retired palettes.

I used to do all of my mixing on the canvas, then I did most of my mixing on the palette and now I do a combination of both. I like to have available the option of lots of color knowing I can always limit my choices. After all, I live in Southern California where the light is bright and the colors are everywhere. Check out this website for analysis of how some of the great masters have inspired us with their palette magic. http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/06/20/color-inspiration-from-the-masters-of-painting/