San Jose Mission

Born in Acomayo, Cusco, Peru in 1955, Sonco Carrasco moved to the city of Arequipa early in his childhood, where he was undeniably inspired by its charming countryside.

Over the years Carrasco mastered the medium of watercolor paint; striving to create the picturesque landscapes, culture and invigorates of traditional ways of life.

Carrasco is considered a master watercolorist, having been recognized by the international artist community; winning the National Prize of Watercolors Award in 1984- presented by the North-American Peruvian Cultural Institute.  Although based in Peru, Carrasco has traveled internationally, showcasing National treasures like the Alamo in his artwork.

San Jose Mission is a watercolor painting that simplifies the rustic life of the Missions.  Elementary in imagery, there is no need to over-stimulate the viewer with the crowded living conditions of the reality of such existences, but Carrasco chooses instead to insert two donkeys with a peasant in the exact middle of the painting. With his/her back to the audience, we see them hard at work-loading or unloading supplies.  However, the destitute surroundings indicate this is not the hustling heyday of missionary living.

This is a painting about the ideal moment of this Mission’s grounds. Lush vegetation, blooming foliage, and most importantly, no tourists- illustrate his decision to showcase an inviting scenario of this San Antonio landmark.

As a watercolorist, Carrasco uses several techniques to achieve the stylistic aesthetic. Wet on wet modus operandi with blue, white and pink paint in the sky create a billowing partly cloudy sky; giving shade at the ideal times for these weary donkeys.

The flawless mission walls have hints of similar methods while mixed with pristine architectural and detail oriented precision. The impressionistic qualities of the cactus, palm, and brush drop their visual importance to scenic filler, never drawing attention away from the iconic building and its visitor.

Compositionally the center building wall line is placed purposefully in the exact center of the painting, bringing your eye right down onto the secondary subjects.  Bookending this working class troika are the cactus plants; holding our gaze as we contemplate the life of peasant husbandry. ©

-Gabriel Diego Delgado 

Art Consultant

J.R. Mooney Galleries

San Jose Mission

Sonco Carrasco

Watercolor 

22 x 30”

$1500

Artwork can be purchased at J.R. Mooney Galleries

Alamo and Mission Spotlight Showing 8-29-2012

Art and the Alamo

Quiet Time by Arthur McCall

Swatches of Bluebonnets, check…Windmill, check…Barn, check…scenic hill country landscape, check…Worn pathway, check. 

Hold on Mr. McCall…What’s this?

“Something unexpected!”

Settling in the middle of this quite solitude of countryside seclusion is a pleasant surprise by Texas artist, Arthur McCall. Known more as a realist more than an impressionist, Arthur loosens up his meticulous artistic methodology and gives us a foggy haze of bellowing brume; nestling down upon the lush and dense tree line and mountain ridge.

Bearing the brunt of the early morning dew as well as an emotional nostalgia for yonder years, McCall’s lackadaisical fog, landscape and painterly passions evoke the true essence of what impressionism painting should be- Evocations of personal appeal.

With the windmill left of center, the mountain valley dips to almost kiss the treetops.  A winding pathway snakes through the blossoming underbrush, arriving at the center point at the horizon line; fragments that anchor the central focal point.  Cool and warm earth tones balance the composition- easing the visual transition from the crumbling rock wall on the left and rocky mountain plateau on the right. ©


-Gabriel Diego Delgado
Art Consultant
JR Mooney Galleries

Artworld News Aug. 2012

Sneak Peek at Sept. 2012 Mooney Makes Sense advice column

Gallery Wall Rehang 8-20-12

Gallery Wall Rehang 8-20-12

Cliff Cavin

Serenity Sunset

by Cliff Cavin

A jaundiced skyline, full of twilight jester; laughs at us as we struggle to hold onto the dying dog days of summer.  The billowing heliotrope and wine colored haze veil the sun’s rays.  Foreground, middle, horizon, and the firmament of the sky anchor the perfect composition for Cavin as his artistic intention is revealed.

No longer concerned about detailed landscape perfection, Cavin is a purist, dedicated to the capturing of light, of atmosphere, of sub-stratospheric heavens. This painterly alchemy and impressionistic rendition captures this ideal moment in time.  Placing the horizon-line directly center of the picture plane, the configuration plays neither favorites to land nor the sky; balancing the importance of the artist’s view. The silhouetted mountain range transforms into a strip of neutral value and tone easing the transition between the earthly divisions.

 Minimally painting the underbrush, Cavin showcases only the highlights of the radiance from behind the peaks; leaving much to our own emotions as we emerge ourselves in the tranquil night arrival.

 -Gabriel Diego Delgado

Art Consultant 

 J R Mooney Galleries

Excerpts from Fall into Color spotlight Wall

Autumn's Arrival

P. Blair

Autumn’s Arrival

24 x 36

Oil

Peter Blair an international artist known primarily as a seascape painter has answered the calling of Mother Nature with his eloquent rendition of autumn’s season approach.  Autumn’s Arrival metaphorically illustrates the momentous and distinctive ecological spell of death and dying. With a hazy lackadaisical mundane landscape pictured between the two sets of Birch Trees, Blair forces us to come to grips with the colder climate, the nakedness of the barren earth, and the dormant vegetation that lurks and encroaches into every crevice of this landscape. Warm tones, contrasted with cool blues, and greens; the birches stand tall like stoic testaments to the stubbornness of mankind. Young in girth, the trees have a long lyrical lineage ahead of them as they will once again face the destitute of autumn’s climate-accepting the yearly occurrence year after year, for another century.  Dotted with rudy red brushes and pockets of marshy wilderness, Blair elevates the tale telling yellows of the leaves into the highest compositional position available- making sure they are seen, referenced, and paused; but allowing for more of the particulars to play an important role in the landscape viewing.

-Gabriel Diego Delgado

Art Consultant

JR Mooney Galleries

Wheat Fields

Samir Sammoun

Wheat Fields, Bekaa Valley

24 x 30

Oil

Samir Sammoun is a Lebanon born artist who resides in Canada.  Captivating audiences with his Van Gogh influenced impasto oil painting, Sammoun has steadily gained international attention as one of the artists to watch as his self determinacy expels him into the cataclysmic idiosyncrasies of traditional impressionistic painting. Sammoun’s Wheat Fields, Bekka Valley references the fertile farmland of the Bekka Valley in East Lebanon- even today it remains Lebanon’s most important farming region. Placing the horizon line exactly in the middle of the composition and choosing to angle the mountain terrain down from the upper right- Sammoun take no risks in his placement of geographical referentials. However, the signatory essence is captured in the windblown wheat fields of this ancient agricultural basin.  Left stroked painterly whips of yellows, greens, oranges, and blacks levitate off the picture plan- wafting out in the viewer’s proximity; almost close enough for a sensual hand wave of grain. Looking to the sky, Sammoun launches into another Van Gogh-ish and imitative mastery of dazzling blues that energize the atmosphere with swirls and random marks of unconscious and automatic artistry.

-Gabriel Diego Delgado

Art Consultant

JR Mooney Galleries of Fine Art

Mountain Stream

D.S. Kim

Mountain Stream

48 x 36

Oil

D.S. Kim, a painter born in 1961 in South Korea has steadily increased his talent and reputation after receiving his degree from Dong A. University of Art.  Alternating between the traditional landscape paintings, Venetian street scenes and coastal seascapes, Kim has found a viable niche in his craft.  Mountain Stream encompasses a new vitality with his successful attempt to illustrate the rushing water of a mountain spring; as it roars over ‘choppy’ rapids.  Violent marks of white anchor the composition to the acute eye level stance.  Nature is addressed in a cool color palette, accented with truths of warm hue tinges. Slightly upward, the perspective exemplifies the angular viewing as Kim places the viewer downstream, in the middle of the river- looking upstream; locked in the rushing mountainous irrigate. Yellow ochres, orpiment, and golden radiance make the leaves, brush, and vegetation glow with a ‘qenyt’ and ‘nebw’ aurora of autumn brusque.

Balanced on the right and left, with an ominous waterfall in the central configuration, Kim has delivered on an Impressionistic painting that is both expressive in genre as well as sensibility.  Kim has epitomized the sometimes irregular changes of nature as temperatures drop, leaves fall, and life continues on- sight unseen.

-Gabriel Diego Delgado

Art Consultant

J.R. Mooney Galleries

Sunlit Seclusion

M.S. Park

Sunlit Seclusion

36 x 48

Oil

$3,000

M.S. Park was born on August 11, 1951 in Eum-Sung, Chung-Buk Province, South Korea. It wasn’t until he was in his mid 20’s did he gain a mature style and aesthetic; having previously been a hobbyist painter. Park’s depiction of landscape paintings have routinely focused on the changing of the seasons- a crisp autumn air is intuitively depicted through golden leaves with rich red accents; floating effortlessly down into a bubbling brook or heavily down-trodden and worn pathway.

Sunlit Seclusion is a prime example of the ominous riddle, “If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it… Does it make a sound?”  Park has illustrated a perfect time and space landscape continuum; we hear the gurgle of the water, the swaying of the leaves in the trees, feel the heat of the sun peaking through the canopy- yet we feel a chill. But is that all happening somewhere and there is not a soul in sight?  Such a reclusive environment does exist in the mind of M.S. Park.  Littered leaves, radiant glows, geodetic substrates, algae adorned water, and various other grandeur environmental identifications coagulate to form a lavishly illustrious landscape that only M. S. Park could execute. 

-Gabriel Diego Delgado

Art Consultant

JR Mooney Galleries of Fine Art

Boerne Gallery Rehang 7-2012

Selected Images of the JR Mooney Gallery of Fine Art 

Rehang and New Aesthetic