Spotlight: Judith Huys

Judith Huys has been a favourite of corporate interior designers and their clients for the past two decades, thanks to her aptitude at providing Art and site-specific commissions that enhance the working environment and bring a subtle hint of colour to offices, both here in Canada and across the pond in England. Here is a sample of some of her latest work…




In addition to being an accomplished author of children’s books, Judith Huys competently expresses herself and her love of town and country by exploring on paper and canvas the often mythical meeting point where metropolis and hinterland marry. Unique among contemporary artists is her gift for mixing and layering oil, acrylic and chalks, often on the same quadrant of the canvas, in order to record not only an ever evolving aesthetic, but a lifelong love of style, design, colour, nature and community and the often elusive meeting point where they convene in perfect harmony on the landscape
Judith studied Fine Arts at Lieber College in Columbia South Carolina and now lives and works in Canada. Her works have shown and sold extensively in North America and Europe. She is represented by the Elisabeth Legge Gallery (www.leggeprints.com) in North America and Arch & Company Fine Arts (www.archart.ca) in South America and the Caribbean.

The Art Market: Down but not Out

Messages are mixed this autumn on the state of the Art Market; some of us see the glass as half full (especially if there is an umbrella an fruit artfully perched on the rim) and things seem better than in housing and a whole lot more stable than stocks, bonds and futures!

· "The market is down but not out. Volumes and values are down, but there is a renewed confidence and a renewed spirit," Georgina Adam; The Art Newspaper

· After months of trauma that saw auctions shrivel, fairs cancelled and prices nosedive, Zurich- and London-based gallery Hauser & Wirth sold a Louise Bourgeois sculpture at Frieze for EUR 2.4 million (CHF 3.6 million, USD 3.5 million), while New York's David Zwirner earned EUR 680,000 for a Neo Rauch.

· After months of trauma that saw auctions shrivel, fairs cancelled and prices nosedive, Zurich- and London-based gallery Hauser & Wirth sold a Louise Bourgeois sculpture at Frieze for EUR 2.4 million (CHF 3.6 million, USD 3.5 million), while New York's David Zwirner earned EUR 680,000 for a Neo Rauch.

· Street and Graffiti seems to continue its mainstream success; the anniversary of the coming down of the Berlin Wall celebrated two decades’ of creativity recently, and Berlin continues to capitalise on its former communism – how ironic.

· Sotheby’s, the world’s largest publically traded auction house has lauded the end of the recession and the art market lull with sales totalling USD $181-million this past week. Lots at the highest end of the price scale exceeded low estimates at auction this last week, and the auction house’s PR machine has lauded these numbers as sign of market renewal, although these numbers only apply to the highest price art and the highest bidders with the solvent cash to pay for it.

· The vestiges of the Lehman Brothers art collection also pleasantly surprised auctioneers and speculation as many of the lots greatly exceeded high estimates. The Financial Times reports that the first sale of art from the 650-strong collection belonging to Lehman Brothers on Monday in Philadelphia was an outright success. Local auctioneer Freemans knocked down 283 lots (they all sold) for $1.35m, twice pre-sale expectations. The top price was for a Lichtenstein print, “I Love Liberty” (1982), which sold for $49,000. More Lehman art comes under the hammer in December and February next year. Meanwhile, Bonhams and Butterfields sells art from the bankrupt Californian law firm Heller Ehrman this Tuesday in New York, with more to come in San Francisco in February next year. And on December 8 the Italian auction house Finarte is selling about 200 lots of modern Italian art from the Italian carrier Alitalia SpA. The highlight is a vast canvas, “Zeus gave birth to the sun”, by the Futurist Gino Severini, commissioned for Alitalia’s Paris office in 1954 and now estimated at €300,000- €500,000. Other works are in the low thousands, among them Osvaldo Peruzzi’s “Flight above the clouds” (1997) estimated at €2,000-€3,000. (Adam)

· "The market is very much alive ... after a year of abstinence," said auctioneer Tobias Meyer.

Works by Pissarro and Leger also achieved twice their estimated prices, while Salvador Dali's Girafe en Feu reached $1,874,500 (£1,130,000) - a record for a work on paper by the surrealist artist. (British Broadcasting Corporation)

Adam, Georgina. "The art market: ‘When you have the right property ... you get fireworks’." FT; The Financial Times 06 11 2009.

British Broadcasting Corporation. BBC News 5 11 2009.

Expatica.com. Expatica.com - News and information for the International Community. 09 11 2009. 09 11 2009 .

Gunn, Molly. "Art and the Kiss of Life." The National; a Publication of the Abu Dhabi Media Company 08 11 2009.

Hauser & Wirth. Hauser & Wirth. 09 11 2009 .

Barbara McGivern (Canada/UAE); Sunset

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

~Leonardo da Vinci

Jon Barlow Hudson

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.

~William Faulkner

ARCH 2010

A sneak peek at what's to come in 2010!

Image/Art: Cliff Kearns

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
~Scott Adams

Barbara McGivern (Canada/UAE); Sublime Fizz

I don’t follow international art auctions with much interest, as I view that world as a kind of high-end racket manipulated by a bunch of corporate players. Works by relatively obscure contemporary artists are often arbitrarily earmarked as value-added investments, like IPOs or stocks. It's contrived, to say the least.

~Charles Pachter

Source: http://www.themarknews.com/articles/636-beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-promoter

I'm an enormous fan of Stanley Feldman's work; Here's Why!

Born in Dublin, Ireland, Stanley Feldman graduated from Trinity College, University of Dublin with Bachelors and Masters degrees in Arts. He studied painting and drawing at Ireland’s National College of Art, and under noted Irish and Canadian masters. He is an Associate of the Institute of Professional Designers.

Feldman has traveled extensively throughout the world, and this fact is often reflected in the composition, colour and expression of his highly individualistic work. From striking large-scale abstract and semi-abstract canvases to delicate and evocative watercolours, his refined techniques mirror a highly cerebral approach to art.

Stanley Feldman immigrated to Canada in 1977. His studio overlooks Lake Ontario and his work is wideley collected in Canada abroad.

Paradise (re)Visited: Why I'm proud to be a corporate patron of the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands

The National Gallery of the Cayman Islands serves to promote and encourage the appreciation and practice of the visual arts, of and in the Cayman Islands.To this end, the National Gallery travels Caymanian art and artists abroad as well as having many fine international artists visit, exhibit and work in the Cayman Islands. For more information and images, be sure to visit their site at www.nationalgallery.org.ky