Art Bomb - A Canadian On-Line Auction Site



Undercurrents by Teresa Young

  Recently, I have been picked to become one of the artists whose work is available through ArtBomb, a Canadian online auction site for Canadian art.


 ArtBomb is a carefully curated, subscriber-based daily online auction featuring artwork by Canadian art stars. Launched in December, 2011, ArtBombDaily.com is a brand new, successful way for artists to market and sell their work to thousands of potential buyers.

ArtBomb is a service that delivers one email featuring one to three artworks into subscribers’ inboxes every morning - seven days a week. Bidding opens with a starting bid at 6 a.m. and closes at 11 p.m. at which point the highest bid wins the piece. All works are delivered ready to hang. 

ArtBomb is coast to coast across Canada with outstanding curators in each region working hard to find the stars of the local scene. Through their experienced eyes, ArtBomb highlights an incredible array of exciting new pieces everyday: paintings, prints, photography, sculpture, drawing and mixed media. It's ArtBomb’s goal to make it easy to access incredible Canadian art. We're working hard to keep ArtBomb fresh and relevant.



On the cusp of a new direction

I've been at a roadblock lately, looking at my own art with a different viewpoint.  It just doesn't seem to work for me anymore! Not that I've given up painting and drawing, but I've been mulling things over and figured out what the source of my dissatisfaction is...

I seem to have descended into the gloomy depths somehow and lost that bang of colour!  Maybe too much overworking of detail, a loss of freshness and verve somehow.

So, I took a step back to figure out where I'm going and how I want to change my direction to point there...

It's like learning to zig when you normally zag...  I've made a bit of return to glass painting, because that particular medium forces me to more simplicity. A return to the roots of my own painting style in some ways, I believe.  It will be an interesting experiment anyway!

Peggy's Cove Festival of Arts opening night

Well last night at the opening was loads of fun!  We had six artists doing their art for people to watch (live!) and they called us 'Fresh Fish Artists'.... Which is pretty funny, because I found out when I was doing a bit of preparation practice that I cannot do a fish to save my life!  Hahahah! 

So I did the closest I could come, I painted a mermaid.  What?  She may be imaginary, but she is half fish!  LOL!

Here's the painting I worked on during the opening night. It's only about two thirds done, but people at the event got to see me paint this from the barest of underpaintings to the current state over the course of a few hours.

The Omnia Scroll Exhibition

The Omnia Scroll Exhibition 2012

 The Omnia Scroll Exhibition launches at Brighton Jubilee Library UK on 14.11.12 to 12.12.12.  A global arts collaboration and international collective exhibition touring the world annually.  Connecting new artists, exhibitors, galleries and the public alike.

The Omnia Scroll and Exhibitions explore the interconnectedness of all things (Latin for all things is Omnia), with each other and our planet.

Everything is alive; everything is interconnected.

Presenting Clive Hedger (UK) Alberto Martinez (UK) Carla Mascaro (Italy) Stephen Meakin (UK) Masakazu Yamashiro (Japan) Yvonne McGillivrary (UK) Bert Monterona (Canada) Nikhil Kirsh (Iceland) Teresa Young (Canada) Penelope Oakley (UK) Angel Ortiz (Mexico) Keith Neary (UK)

Artists will exhibit their original artworks and each work exhibited will form part of the collaborative work thus creating “The Omnia Scroll” an ever increasing, continually growing work of art, images transferred onto silk fabric cotton canvas panels which will be connected and embroidered with gold thread.  As each exhibition takes place and grows so does The Omnia Scroll, one piece of art, many artists’ creations, continually evolves.

2012 Exhibition Curated by Penelope Oakley & Keith Neary

www.penelopeoakley.org  Monday 10am-7pm Tuesday 10am-7pm Wednesday 10am-5pm Thursday 10am-7pm Friday 10am-5pm Saturday 10am-5pm Sunday 11am-5pm

Where Are The Famous Female Artists?

You know, I was thinking of role models the other day and it occurred to me, that other than one single female artist (Emily Carr),  all of my 'role models' are male!

I realize that up until the last couple of centuries, we have lived in totally male dominated society, which would explain the lack of famous female visual artists... But it's been a couple of hundred years here where women have been making inroads on equality, and still, I really haven't seen any larger than life genre defining women appear on the horizons. 

I've been discussing this from time to time with my writer friend and she has many theories as to why. 

I've even read a book about different types of societies and how humanity seemed to have started with something more equal, not a male dominated society, back in the days of Crete. 

The book was called the 'The Chalice and the Blade' by Riane Eisler, and it was pretty dry, but very, very interesting...  Ms. Eilser advanced the theory that early societies in human history were based on Goddess worship rather than focusing on a male God.  This led to less warlike tendencies, greater harmony between the sexes and also with nature... She went on to mention how our archeological history was slanted to give credit to males while discrediting, misinterpreting or dismissing female accomplishments found in historical artifacts.  This was a natural tendency as the bulk of archeologists were men and historically, women were not really thought to matter. 

I'm pretty glad that society has changed, I know I didn't enjoy growing up in the seventies with my mother harping at me to become a housewife and stop having so many opinions!

As for Ms. Eisler's theory, light of how western society has worked in the past, it makes a lot of sense.  I've noticed that history has a way of highlighting male accomplishments while just leaving out the women.  It's a definite void in history, it's like we are missing half of our background!

I wonder if there were more female visual artists that were just left out, overlooked?  It would be interesting to try to collect them and get a more detailed picture of how art evolved over time...

On the other hand, I'm going to be the devil's advocate here and hypothesize that we may have done some of this to ourselves...  Women have been socialized to be modest and self effacing... That type of approach would certainly lead to women not putting themselves forward to create new art movements. 

In fact, one of the things I was taken to task on by my rather traditional mother was my lack of modesty about my artwork...

But I figured that if I didn't like my own work and put it forward, certainly nobody else would do it for me!  I've noticed that people that stand back and wait for others to notice their merits tend to be left standing on the sidelines...

I've never been that good at waiting for things, and blending into the crowd on the sidelines sounds like a special kind of feminine torture to me... So I think I'll just carry on with being myself and let my mother rest with her traditions back in the last century!

But I still think it would be nice to have some more famous female artists out there...  Hmmm... Maybe I could help fill that void someday!

References:  Eisler, Riane. 1989. The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future. Harper & Row. New York.

Images:
Paintings by Teresa Young, photograph of Teresa Young by Nina Munteanu.
1. Undercurrents - Mar.2009,  2. Central Viewpoint - Aug.2009,  3. Near The Edge of Reason - Sept.2009,  4. Halo - May.2001.