Friday, July 24, 2015

Frame Focus on Jepara

Frame Focus on Jepara

J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art has many incredible frame choices, one example being the Jepara collection from Larson-Juhl. These exquisite frames are handcrafted from the shell of the Placuna placenta or the windowpane oyster, a mollusk that is a renewable resource harvested from the Java Sea and Indian Ocean for its transparent and luminous shells.  


The collection’s namesake, Jepara is a small Indonesian town also known for its teak furniture industry, which contributes to its prosperity.  Capiz is also another name for the shell and the geographical region on the northern coast of the Philippines, where the mollusk is also bounteous. The shell’s surface has a sheen like mother of pearl, with iridescent effects that are amplified by the light, thereby contributing to its desirability to be utilized in a wide range of decorative applications in jewelry, house wares and interior embellishments.   


Due to their stability and cost effectiveness compared to traditional glass, they are commonly used for windows in Southeast Asia.  The strength of the shell has even been studied by graduate researchers at MIT, which will use their findings to possibility develop synthetic materials to be used in creating transparent armor, like facial protective masks and bullet proof windows.  Its potential is completely boundless, with many endless creative possibilities.  


The frame moulding has the shell inlaid over it, and comes in varying widths.  A minimalistic design with a traditional twist, alone or paired with another frame, this is an excellent framing choice that is an art piece on its own.

©Katherine Shevchenko, 
Art Consultant J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne, TX

Photo of harvested Capiz shell 

"Capizshell" by Johnnyflex - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Capizshell.jpg#/media/File:Capizshell.jpg


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Sources:
For more Information on the Jepara collection Larson Juhl website:
To see framing inspiration and ideas for the Jepara moulding check out the  Larson Juhl Facebook:
To read up further on the findings at MIT:


Saturday, July 11, 2015

Framing room at JR Mooney Galleries


Be sure to make it out to our J.R. Mooney Galleries -San Antonio and visit our extensive Custom Framing / Ready Made Framing room. Here you will find a large selection of quality frames that are ready to go for quick framing installation.

8302 Broadway, San Antonio, TX 78209

www.jrmooneygalleries.com









American Flag Framing

Working on a great shadow box framing of 

the American Flags, in the framing zone at 

J.R. Mooney Galleries-Boerne

 www.jrmooneygalleries.com



 ‪#‎flag‬‪#‎americanflag‬ ‪#‎military‬ ‪#‎shadowbox‬ ‪#‎customframing‬ ‪#‎frame‬‪#‎jrmooneygalleries‬ ‪#‎boerne‬

'Mooney Makes Sense" advice column in the July 2015 edition of Boerne Business Monthly Magazine

Check out the latest edition of Boerne Business Monthly Magazine for the newest installment of our monthly advice column called "Mooney Makes Sense". 

In this month's edition, Gallery Director, Gabriel Diego Delgado discusses the trending imperfections of the international art fair market. 


 http://issuu.com/laurenstumberg/docs/july_2015_bbm_online

 http://issuu.com/laurenstumberg/docs/july_2015_bbm_online

Click on the images to read the full article online or click here:




__________________________________________________


Rise and Fall of the Titans

By: Gabriel Diego Delgado
Gallery Director, J.R. Mooney Galleries-Boerne


In recent times, the rise of the international art fairs has dominated the art markets. The pull for collectors and buyers to one location that in some cases houses over 200 art galleries is too much of a temptation. Why wouldn’t it make sense to go to these events, see the “cream of the crème” and meet the high caliber artists who are making guest appearances like some kind of art rock starts at the art booths that showcase their artwork?  Nationally, it used to be just the signature fairs in New York and California, with the who’s who of the art work present, but over the last 10 to 15 years the numbers have increased steadfast with some estimates tallying over 250 annual art fairs internationally.

Now let’s take in to account the people trekking to all these events trying to purchase the artists riding waves of trending prices and buzzworthy notations. Major collectors have woe stories of always on the go, planning that next art fair, scheduling vacations around art fairs dates etc. etc.  However, the exhausted accounts are reflective of an ever increasing jet lagged patron, crisscrossing the globe to see and be seen at these at these events. Flying and buying, more crowds and higher prices are making some collectors second guess these decisions to attend these kind of happenings.  Galleries see this push back and are talking to their clients to get a bigger picture on ever increasing unsatisfactory experiences.  

 Resurrect the role of the galleries, with buyers again choosing to stay close to home. A reinforcement of a cyclical trend we see as the gallerist play a role in sales decisions as consultants. Major collectors are beginning to feel burned out in the quest to buy the latest and greatest artist at these art fairs and are relying on the gallery dealer to make recommendations and acquire the pieces to be viewed in the gallery, not some international location where overhead is high and patients are waning.

Art Dealers and Gallerists used to be considered a middle man, to be kept at arm’s length with a sales driven mentality with sustainability always in the lurches as rent and bills had to be paid. However, that concept has begun to change as the rules of the game have begun to change. Yes, as in any retail business, products do need to be sold, and money made, but with the rise of so many galleries going out of business, only the strong ones stay to sell art another day. For the consumer, this means that those people who are running those galleries are the educated, scholarly and pedigree art dealers who have somehow weathered the turbulent financial art financial-scape of unpredictability.  

They are the ones to be trusted, balancing a sincere interest in careers of artists they represent, accurately reporting and accounting for after-market sustainability and investment and hoping for subsequent generations of art collectors to continue in the art community patronage.

Believe in your local art gallery dealer, and forge a relationship with their staff and owners. In almost every case, they are passion drive individuals who care a lot about their craft and have a heavily vested interest in the arts. Trust their judgement, recommendations, and vision, and continue to buy art whether from an art fair or a gallery.



Selected Upcoming Art Fairs
 
  • Art Miami (Miami, FL)
    December 1 - 6, 2015


By: Gabriel Diego Delgado
Gallery Director, J.R. Mooney Galleries-Boerne




Claude Roy's "Afternoon Dance" at JR Mooney Galleries

Spotlight
New Acquisitions


Claude Roy 
“Afternoon Dance” 

 http://www.jrmooneygalleries.com/Roy-X-8248-Original-Oil-Art-Landscape-Impressionist?manufacturer_id=629

Oil  20” x 24” $745.00



Claude Roy explores the landscape in vivid and brilliant explosions of color through a robust impasto palette knife technique.  Typically he paints idyllic vistas of country sides, meadows and fields with architectural accompaniments of cottages, punctuated with flourishes of cadmium reds and greens.

“Afternoon Dance” is a maverick painting due to the below eye level perspective, which brings the viewer close up with the tall wavy grasses of the lush meadows that were always seen from afar in his canvases.  Roy has decided to focus on the winged subjects that inhabit the flora of his pastoral renditions.

There are four butterflies that are depicted in flight: a revealing of a world that is oftenoverlooked in the overall scheme of a landscape painting.  Attention has been given to the details on the wings and the interactions between the butterflies. Here, Roy’s palette knife technique in full display, with strokes and impressions slicing through the hues and colors suggesting leaves and clusters of saturated  blooms that are in the foreground. 

The background is a soft haze of subtle layering of delicate blues and soft whites creating an illusion of depth and distance in the sky.  The cool tones of the background contrast and accentuate the crimson impasto that comprises the flowers that the butterflies are fluttering upon.  This harmony of color palette harmony infuses the painting with a whimsical vibrancy and creates a joyous presentation.

© Katherine Shevchenko, 
Art Consultant, 
J.R. Mooney Gallery, Boerne 

July 8, 2015      

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

“Lupine Lullabye” by Jung Yoon

 www.jrmooneygalleries.com


The Korean artist Jung Yoon’s exquisite painting “Lupine Lullabye” has recently been stretched and framed for display at the J.R. Mooney Gallery, Boerne.   

Yoon’s "Lupine Lullabye" delivers to the viewer a carefully rendered execution of an idyllic forest scene that radiates with peace. The graceful elements from the lyrical placement of the elegant birch trees and their mirror reflection in the water are balanced by the lush grasses and vibrant sky. Nature reigns supreme through the eyes of Yoon.  

 The foremost element that strikes the viewer is the vivid use of color which contrasts with the delicate mood in the scene, an example of Yoon’s aspiration to capture, “the subtle intensity of nature.” Golden leaves of the birch trees catch the radiant sunlight light and glow. The pale cerulean sky is an effulgent backdrop to this vibrant scene of life. Warm earth tones in the reflection in the water complement the verdant trees on the opposite bank, leading the eye around the composition.

This halcyon environment is not necessarily an actual location in our world, but a place conjured up by Yoon’s gestural brushstrokes as he evokes a pure state of being that nature can redeem in the conscience of humanity, that has been artificially cut off from its realm.

Excerpt from Online Art Catalog, Jung Yoon, Contemporary Landscape Paintings


©   Katherine Shevchenko, Art Consultant J.R. Mooney Gallery, Boerne TX

The launch of "The Designer's Quill", an interior design advice column by JR Mooney Galleries

J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art is happy to launch the newest edition of a new monthly column geared toward interior design. Penned "The Designer's Quill", this advice column from the art consultant's point-of-view is slated to give tips, advice, and monthly doses of interior tidbits. 

Look for this month's column in the new edition of Plumage-TX Magazine



 http://issuu.com/gdelgado2010/docs/summer_2015_edition_of_plumage_tx_m

A room that “just feels right” can be elusive, but is very achievable. Most of us know what we like.  We all respond to color and subject matter in art.  Yet scale is often overlooked when choosing art and how it relates to the size of the wall and size of the room. The main wall or main furniture sets the tone for the scale of the art. If the ceiling happens to be high, the taller and more dramatic the art needs to be.

Survey the rooms of your home.  If “something” does not seem right it might be the scale of the art that needs tweaking.  Your can have the environment you desire by removing, rearranging, and or replacing.  Most interiors benefit from art that is larger than one might initially choose.  This one decision can transform a space into an extraordinary and memorable area.

A unique opportunity offered at J.R.Mooney Galleries is our concierge service.  At a client’s request and agreed upon time framed art can be viewed in its intended area.  This is especially valuable as a large painting is transported safely by courier and consultation can take place.  The radius of this service is the immediate San Antonio area.

By: Betty Houston, Art Consultant


Editor’s Note:  J.R. Mooney Galleries is proud to present, “The Designer’s Quill” Interior Design & Framing Tips, a monthly column spotlighting an industry friend for hands-on advice in dealing with home interiors. Written by the knowledgeable staff at J.R. Mooney Galleries, “The Designer’s Quill” will highlight tips, reassurances, thoughts, and advice for those making changes to their home. It will also feature facets of custom framing, including new moulding lines available, how-to walkthroughs and framing consultation.


Curatorial Review of Russell Stephenson's "Mindscapes" exhibition at J.R. Mooney Galleries- Boerne in New Plumage-TX Magazine

 http://issuu.com/gdelgado2010/docs/summer_2015_edition_of_plumage_tx_m

J.R. Mooney Galleries-Boerne Gallery Director, Gabriel Diego Delgado shares his thoughts with Plumage-TX Magazine on the curatorial basis behind the "Mindscapes" exhibition.  You can read the full article at:



 http://issuu.com/gdelgado2010/docs/summer_2015_edition_of_plumage_tx_m

 http://issuu.com/gdelgado2010/docs/summer_2015_edition_of_plumage_tx_m

 http://issuu.com/gdelgado2010/docs/summer_2015_edition_of_plumage_tx_m

 http://issuu.com/gdelgado2010/docs/summer_2015_edition_of_plumage_tx_m


“Mindscapes”
Russell Stephenson

J.R. Mooney Galleries-Boerne


By: Gabriel Diego Delgado,
Gallery Director - Boerne

“Mindscapes,” a solo exhibition of new work by San Antonio artist, Russell Stephenson, is a curated spotlight of art that engulfs the viewer into a metaphysical journey through sci-fi-esque renditions of Texas topography, juxtaposed and coupled with the artist’s own exploration of mind and world shaped by personal afflictions.

From violent thunderclouds masquerading as crowns for celestial auroras of heavenly atmospheric amalgamations (halos) in Corona, to canyons and mountains portrayed as conceptual struggles in identity, an artist’s simplified battle of good vs. evil, in The Majestic, we feel an undercurrent of cosmic exploration with a signature medium by way of a quest for self-discovery.  Current events like the recent flooding in South Texas, the massive supercells over the Texas Panhandle and the artist’s own drive to experiment all play a role in Stephenson’s influences for “Mindscapes”.  Examples of emotion abutted by landscape explorations can be found in the calmness of mind of “Silent Solitude,” but contrasted in “Castleaine” with its compositional angles; assumptive tectonic plates that jut upward, forced from the subterranean by violent burst of the grinding fault lines.   

With the inclusion of two artworks from the “Cave Painting” series, “Cave Painting III & V”, the audience delves into the past with visual investigations of the primordial gestures of primitive man: a rock art aesthetic that references the cave paintings of Lascaux, Texas’s own Pecos region and Palo Duro Canyon. Stephenson strives to capture the intuitive application of creative need in his own color palette aesthetic while retaining his mastered craft for his push and pull of textures – i.e. the divots, cracks, creases, and pockets of layered grooves that capture our wild imaginations.  The scraped and gouged paint give rise to his pursuit of reconnection to art history by way of contemporary applications.

When I recently met with Russell Stephenson at his Alamo Heights studio we had already been discussing “Mindscapes” on the phone, in text and via email for about four months.  To see the artwork in person prompted a crisscross of casual conversations mixed with a professional inquiry.   I saw a change in his mood, a kind of creative uncertainty mixed with a newly acquired cynicism of contemporary art market vitality.  I heard of his new gallery prospects in Santa Fe, New Mexico, of disappointments with the regional affairs and ways in which he felt his artwork was going to mature.  This insightful off-the-cuff conversation led me to further investigate the ways in which to formulate his exhibition. 
As our conversation continued in the studio, it led to Stephenson’s other Texas galleries and the bodies of work he needed to execute for them; each one exhibiting a different series ranging from strict grid patchwork designs to formal abstractions.  Over the course of the last few years he has deliberated how to blend these styles into one pure signature aesthetic.  His techniques and medium manipulations in any of his series reflect a signature Russell Stephenson touch, but each gallery wanted visuals that appealed to certain demographics and art markets.

I began to understand he was starting to figure out a way to deviate from gallery dictated ventures to creating something new, a compilation of sorts for all of his contractual obligations he was fully invested in.  This thoughtful approach was refreshing to hear, as he was beginning to understand how to dig out from his muddled aspects of five separate directions to one strong maturity.

In 2013/2014, J.R. Mooney Galleries had previously shown only Stephenson’s Texas Panoramic series, a kind of middle ground aesthetic that melded with the gallery’s fundamental branding that has always included traditional impressionistic aesthetic mixed with portrait, landscapes and Tuscan paintings. Stephenson’s abstracted Texas landscapes gives us horizon lines that grounded us in traditional landscapes of geographical locations we could digest; a kind of concrete middle ground that fit in between the abstract and traditional genres.

The new artwork for “Mindscapes” was much more than that topographically driven formulation.  In over a year, I saw a maturity in style, a mastery of technique and a willingness to explore tools that included sticks, rocks, spatulas and palette knives, and which brought about a new sense of control, of student vs. teacher, and Stephenson playing the subordinate to the art.  He learned along the way, and in the course of being schooled by his creations, he found philosophical substance.  Conjectural aspects of personal inner struggle, an inward reflection of self that transcribes physical boundaries to be projected out and manifested as conceptual regurgitations, as he bears down and expels proof of everything around him that affects his mindset - whether political, social or environmental.







Russell Stephenson Podcast Interview in new edition of Plumage-TX Magazine

 http://issuu.com/gdelgado2010/docs/summer_2015_edition_of_plumage_tx_m


In the new edition of Plumage-TX Magazine, Katherine Shevchenko, Art Consultant interviews San Antonio Artist, Russell Stephenson for her 'Mooney Makes Sense' podcast on the eve of Stephenson's opening at J.R. Mooney Galleries- Boerne. 

Read the full article here at:



 http://issuu.com/gdelgado2010/docs/summer_2015_edition_of_plumage_tx_m

 http://issuu.com/gdelgado2010/docs/summer_2015_edition_of_plumage_tx_m




An Interview with Artist Russell Stephenson  
   
 This June, J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art is hosting San Antonio artist and
contemporary abstract painter, Russell Stephenson, and his new body of work entitled
Mindscapes.  Russell Stephenson took some time on the eve of his show’s opening to discuss
his art and his current modes of thought and influences that are currently driving his work.

A native Texan, Stephenson has been based out of San Antonio for the past 11 years, but has ventured throughout the United States observing and gathering inspiration for his art.  Stephenson elaborates, “Throughout my extensive travels and explorations, I’ve been all over the United States… I’ll always try to bring some of the inspiration that I always got from nature into the work in one form or another.”    

As an artist, Russell Stephenson has been on a lifelong journey that started early in his life,
I’m one of the stereotypical artists that was born with a pencil in my hand and I’ve been drawing since I could hold a pencil and scribbling on the walls with crayons.  My artistic journey started from then and has become this long paced development of an unique voice that has developed over time through professional academics and my own experimentation.”  Everyday life and its challenges and joys merge into his abstractions; they are processed through his hand as he creates.  “So periodically, my work changes and evolves, depending on how I’m growing in that particular period and what occurrences happen in the news on a daily basis.  And what events occur in my own life and times and the people that I know and it all kind of gets thrown into a blender, so to speak, and mixed in together and it all comes out in one form or another in the studio when I work.”  

When Stephenson works, the execution and craft are at once in force, picking up anything that can be used to translate the feeling and effect he is striving to achieve.  Stephenson elaborates, ”I’m always experimenting with different techniques and different tools in order to explore the mark-making aspect of my work.  Sometimes that involves a pencil, sometimes a brush, sometimes a spatula, sometimes something out of the kitchen drawer...”.

 Currently, Stephenson has created a painting series that references the landscape, yet in a more conceptual and introspective nature than his previous bodies of work.   Having grown up in the Texas Panhandle, the expansive landscape permeates his subconscious, manifesting in exploratory renderings in paint.  One of the signature paintings in the exhibition, Corona, depicts textural cloud formations hovering with tension over an earthen toned horizon.  Stephenson explains in depth, “Corona is influenced by that landscape and even more recently by the recent thunderstorms that have ravaged Texas... the idea of the super cell that kind of carries an idea and then dumps it at will wherever it may; I think they’re quite spectacular, sometimes they bring life and sometimes they bring death.  They fill lakes that are ravaged by drought, but at the same time they overflow rivers and cause devastation.  So the power of nature has shown up in this recent body of work, because we’ve seen so much of it lately.” 

Having done realistic figurative work in the past, Stephenson’s process has evolved to transcend the figure to wholly depict the world the figure inhabits and is experiencing.  “What started as landscapes ended up as an internal thing in the mind.  Once I got all the way through school, the figure started to come out of the work, and then I just concentrated on the world itself and thereby the viewer of the paintings became the figure and the work that hung on the wall became the world I was able to explore.” 

This transition of subject matter in relation to the landscape has been a gestalt of psychological elements that have come together in his artistic formation.  The role nature plays in his work and how it enforces a sense of scale both literally and metaphorically, causes Stephenson to reflect, “I’m certainly influenced by the natural world, I mean as we all are; we are all affected by it.   From the immensity of the sky and what’s unknown underneath the waters and so on, we become very small in comparison to the forces of nature.” 

Ultimately, an abstraction of the landscape is merely the result of Stephenson having formulated a process to express all the intangibles of the many multifaceted aspects of witnessing various locales firsthand.  “These are all collective experiences over time of different places that I’ve been to.  In the artistic mind it turns into a totally different language altogether, because there’s also the exploration…into how to push the boundaries in the work, rather than just capture what the eye can see.  But also try to develop something new out of it and explore a new depth in some of the works and create a sense of realism in the abstraction so the abstraction itself becomes its own reality.” 

  
© Katherine Shevchenko, Art Consultant 
Mindscapes is on display at J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art - Boerne until July 1st
305 South Main St. Suite 400 
Boerne, TX 78006

830-816-5106