The Dynamic Abstraction of Nicolas Longo

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Abstract art, art criticism, Claudia Moscovici, Cubism, Nicolas Longo, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian

The Dynamic Abstraction of Nicolas Longo

By Claudia Moscovici

I don’t know if Nicolas Longo likes to be compared to other artists. Many artists don’t, yet nobody lives in a cultural vacuum. As an art historian and art critic, I try to describe the innovations of new artists in terms of the legacies of the past. Nicolas Longo is a young Argentinian artist. He started painting Abstract art at the age of twelve, growing up in the age of digital art and the Internet. His geometric art seems to come to life: the abstract shapes pile up, one upon the other, in multiple dimensions and countless angles, beckoning to the viewer with their vivid colors.

In Longo’s art we can see traces of Piet Mondrian’s obsession with primary colors and simple geometric shapes, which the artist viewed as spiritual basics. As Mondrian famously stated in 1914: “Art is higher than reality and has no direct relation to reality. To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual. We find ourselves in the presence of an abstract art.” Perhaps echoing this idea, Longo observes: “I feel that the common trait in contemporary art is having nothing to say. I only focus on painting until my hands burn.”

While Longo’s artwork makes no claim to mirroring or expressing reality, it certainly evokes emotion. His vivid colors—bright reds, deep purples, and strident neon greens–clamor for our attention. Their geometric shapes burst unto the screen in a manner foretold but perhaps not fully imagined by Pablo Picasso’s Cubism, which depicted objects—and subjects—in terms of their underlying, simpler geometric shapes while allowing the viewer a fuller, richer three dimensional perspective from several angles. Multiply that Cubism by a hundred and you get Nicolas Longo’s dynamic Abstraction: a geometry bursting at the seams, moving with a mesmerizing force in a dance of color and form that overwhelms the senses and tantalizes the imagination.

 

The Art of Vesa Peltonen and Global ArtXchanges

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aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, Amnesty International, art, art and human rights, art and spirituality, art criticism, art history, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, Cubism, fine art, fineartebooks.com, Global ArtXchanges, international art, international art programs, modern art, multicultural art, pop art, post-Impressionism, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, Romanticism and Postromanticism, Vesa Peltonen

Vesa Peltonen has dedicated not only his art, but also his life to protecting and celebrating human rights. His paintings have a softened Cubist feel about them: as if the viewer were examining not just the shapes themselves, but also their shadows and the shades of color, from all angles.  The effect is dazzling. Like in post-Impressionism, his paintings allow the eye to mix the colors from afar. Because the emphasis is placed on shades of striking colors, however, the images seem to float despite their underlying realism.

Vesa’s paintings are multicultural in theme, as the artist finds the beauty and flavor of each location where he travels to bring art to students all over the world. Vesa Peltonen’s art and his human rights activism are, in many respects, inseparable. He founded the Global ArtExchanges Program, which, in his own words, views art as “an integral part of helping enliven the learning of youth, and thus enriches their neighbourhood and community, large or small.”

This program collaborates with local art group directors to motivate youth across the globe to express themselves artistically. Global ArtXchanges works hand in hand with human rights organizations, like Amnesty International, to bring the beauty of art to impoverished areas of the world, where artistic expression might be viewed as a luxury, not a necessity. Art may not be essential to basic material survival, but, Global ArtXchanges maintains, it’s nonetheless essential to our spiritual and creative flourishing. You can find out more about Vesa Peltonen’s visionary art and the Global ArtXchanges Program on his website, GLOBALArtXchanges.org.

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

Modern and Whimsical: The Art of Helene Lopes Codrescu

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art blog, art criticism, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, Cubism, Cubist painting, Dora Maar, finartebooks, fine art, Helene Lopes Codrescu, La Danseuse Voilée, modern art, modernism, New York from the Sky, Op art, Pablo Picasso, painting, Paul Klee, pop art, postromanticism.com, Romanticism and Postromanticism, Veiled Dancer, Woman in a Box

The artist Helene Lopes Codrescu describes herself as “a free electron.” She finds inspiration in numerous traditions in modern art, spanning the globe and reshaping them according to her own talent and perspectives. The painting La Danseuse Voilée (Veiled Dancer), below, has something of the whimsical playfulness of a Paul Klee doodle.

But New York From the Sky, on the other hand, with its geometric shapes and mosaic angles and refractions, bears some similarity to the New York Op Art movement of the 1970’s.

Finally, what art lover can fail to recognize echoes of Pablo Picasso, during his Dora Maar phase, in the tortuous Cubism of Woman in a Box, featured below?

Helene Lopes Codrescu paints outside the box, however. She freely finds inspiration in numerous rich traditions of modern art, but makes them her own, with the independence and internationalism of the free electron that she is. You can see more of her art on the website artquid, on the link below:

http://www.artquid.com/artist/lopesco/about

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com