"As part of the nominating committee of the San Diego Art Prize this year, and allowed one vote with no anointing power for the final selection, I was pleased my choice of artist Michele Guieu was respected. Guieu is far from being the introverted artist feverishly toiling away in the studio with little to no social skills and only stacked up paintings to show for her efforts. She is quite the opposite. Guieu possesses an enthusiasm and passion for anything art rarely seen these days by her peers; it is infectious, endearing and sometimes just plain over the top. This is good.
Her paintings paradoxically, are carefully controlled and produced, pared down to their most minimal appearance. Typically figurative/landscape works they are reduced to a shadow of themselves, flattened silhouettes that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle on the surface of the canvas. The problem that arises from time to time is that you need to complete a puzzle to enjoy its full beauty – any missing pieces are like a hole in the fabric of the painting. Completing this puzzle was the key to the most compelling and dynamic work I've seen yet by Guieu.
Working from photos of friends and family, Guieu removes from them as if she was peeling an onion, virtually any detail, texture, color, and recognizable image through a repetitive Photoshop process that creates polarized studies and amoeba like shapes of contrasting lights and darks. She then inserts these shadows into an equally bleached-out background that is sometimes made up of hand-stamped lettering recalling current world affairs or personal diary entries. The results are bold, graphic works subdued by a rather softened pastel palette Guieu uses to fill in the various forms and background.
The five works on view in New Contemporaries II have evolved for the better from Guieu’s typical and a bit formulaic treatment of limiting herself to black and one or two other colors. Instead we find in the new pieces, the surface of the painting coming alive as layers of color and image blend and collide, creating pockets of interest and susceptibility to failure as the artist searches for a cohesive image by relying on an artistic resolution as opposed to a computer the computer generated one. "Ricardo the Gardner" I believe has everything Guieu has to offer as an accomplished artist. My only request and hope is she stops using her family as subject matter and inspiration. It pushes the work into sappy clichéd images that remain too decorative and sentimental for my taste."
Talk at Noel Baza Fine Art on the Occasion of New Contemporaries II
for the San Diego Museum of Art Contemporary Arts Committee.
from top to bottom, and from left to right:
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness 2009, 36x48", mixed media on canvas
Guillaume on the road 2009, 36x48", mixed media on canvas
I live here (watching you) 2009, 24x48", acrylic on canvas
Ricardo the gardener 2009, 36x48", mixed media on canvas
The Border 2007, 36x60", mixed media on canvas
Landscape 9 2006, 36x36", acrylic on canvas
From the San Diego Visual Art Network Website: NOMINATING COMMITTEE 2009 SD Art Prize Artists 2007-08: Lael Corbin, Allison Weise, Pamela Jaegar, Eleanor Antin, Marcos Ramiriz (Erre), Roman de Slavo; Art Notes Contributors 2007-08: Alice Diamond, Kevin Freitas, Mark Murphy, Betti-Sue Hertz, Lucia Sanroman, Erika Torri, Doug Simay, Larry Poteet; SD Art Prize honorary Chairpersons 2007-08: Vivian Lim and Joe Wong, Patti and Coop Cooprider, Cap and Julie Pinney; SD Art Prize Committee: Patricia Frischer, Ann Berchtold
New Contemporaries II:
Emerging Artists nominated for the 2009 SD Art Prize at Noel-Baza Fine Art Tom Noel and Larry Baza made the choices of works by these artists spending hours to showcase each artists so they could be seen in the best possible light. The SD Art Prize is extremely grateful to them both for their efforts on our behalf. We hope our readers support this exhibition with your attendance and purchase of the works by these up and coming creative talents.
Introduction to the Exhibition by Larry Baza New Contemporaries II is an extremely varied exhibition with thirteen different takes, visions or statements on 21 st century life, important enough to be made into visual art by thirteen artists living and working in San Diego County. This show comes together not in the traditional manner in which a show is curated by one or more curators or gallerists around a central theme or a specific art form. Instead, the artists showcased in New Contemporaries II were nominated for the San Diego Art Prize, a project of the San Diego Visual Arts Network. The artists were selected by professionals for the quality, excellence and the promise of their work in the “Emerging Artists Category.” The nominators included other artists, gallerists, a curator, art collectors/patrons, an art critic, and arts administrators. Essentially, this exhibition provides viewers with a great opportunity to experience a microcosm of the high quality of art being made in this region by thousands of artists.]
