Painting this still life I wanted to capture those pinkish shades of onions, almost silky yet fragile, in a way mirroring the surrounding light so beautifully. Pairing three onions with an old white porcelain jug gave me the possibility to dive into an almost Marandi like atmosphere. But had to add color, of course!! Just to embrace the subjects and to build different planes of perception: what is near, what is distant, what is before and what is after, what is gone and what is coming? I leave this questions to the spectator……
3 Onions, Tamara Jare, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm, 2020
Coleus still life is a small format oil on canvas painting I’ve made recently. Currently working on my Ostia Antica series and some other projects I’ve noticed the coleus on the window shelf. I guess at the time there has been that special light in the room, entering the room just at the angle as it does on late November afternoons, reflecting reddish nuances of some clouds on the teal blue sky. A late hour of the day that has accentuated the pink parts of the plant leaves. And I am quiet happy I’ve managed to catch the palette of the coleus foliage here, together with the fragility of the young stems. Just a small canvas, but dear to my heart, remembering the coleus I’ve got this summer.
Coleus still life, Tamara Jare, oil on canvas, 2020
Painting series Ostia Antica has kept me busy since the Covid- 19 pandemics with lockdowns has started. Still remembering the day I’ve taken a new canvas from the stack, put it on the easel and sat in front of it. A luxury I love the most, just to paint whatever calls me at the moment.
Just imagine. We’ve been under the first lock down in Slovenia, I’ve been staying at home and dreaming about the summer to come. It has been obvious we’ve got to stay at home for at least a couple of weeks. So the reveries have come up my mind. Remembering Italian summers. Remembering Rome. Remembering pine trees. Remembering the freedom of traveling.
And as I’ve remembered walking Ostia ruins I’ve seen the striking analogy between remnants of lost civilization and our times. An archeology museums aficionado and history lover, I’ve got immersed in the subject I’ve never before considered as my painting subject. Indeed, I’ve just loved working on the subject, letting it evolve into a painting series. Here comes a new work from the series. And which comes up to my ind is a wish, to be able to visit these places soon…
My new Ostia Antica painting is made in oil on linen canvas, measuring 60 x 75 cm.
Please find here some Latin sayings:
EXEGI MONUMENTUM AERE PERRENIUS: I have made a monument more lasting than bronze. Horace, Roman poet
MATERIAM SUPERABAT OPUS: The workmanship surpassed the material. Ovid, Roman poet
SOL OMNIBUS LUCET: The sun shines on everyone, Gaius Petronius, Roman writer
DE GUSTIBUS ET COLORIBUS NON EST DISPUTANDUM: There’s no arguing about tastes and colors.
My new Ostia Antica painting is made in oil on linen canvas, measuring 60 x 75 cm.
Tamara Jare Ostia Antiqua Painting series, oil on canvas, 2020
Still life with a landscape, or a landscape with a still life?
Painted in October 2020 are two porcelain figurines and a bouquet in a blue vase on the table by the window in my art studio.
From my window I can see green hills with trees, houses and sky. I often just sit by the window and watch the colors of sky. Just by the nuance of its blue color I can tell the weather is going to change.
Painted here are the flowers from my garden, pink and purple asters planted there many years ago. Yet they have stayed at the same place for all the time and since I can remember they start to bloom just about the time when the summer is ending. Observing the colder temperatures of the air, the colors of the sky, the first rains of the season and the clouds of tiny purple stars, asters, one can know for sure the autumn has come.
This October has been a bit different, hitting the second lock down I’ve been sitting by my working table in my studio, wondering when the life would go back to normal……Looking at the flowers and seeing all the colors of that October day I’ve felt almost as being transferred into the future, normal future. Or was it just a day dream? Has it been s still life full of colors that has brought back all the memories of normal Octobers? Or has it been the landscape behind the window promising me the better days to come?
My landscape painting is in a way much older as my painting per se is. As strange may it sound, this seems completely logical.
I’ve started painting my landscapes
I’ve started painting my landscapes, although at the time without colors or canvases, far before I’ve decided to become a full time artist. Which I’ve discovered at the very moment I’ve painted my first landscape years ago. Painting a landscape at that time felt unusually easy for a beginner. It had been almost as a mere transfer of a picture from my subconsciousness. A memo that had been stored there times ago, on some walk or a travel. As surprised by the fact I’ve been, I’ve remembered at the same time that for me, looking at the world around me has always been a sort of a painting analysis. My travel memories lack the accuracy of a travel guide regarding the names of the places. But which I do remember are the colors. Blue color of the sky , all the colors of the houses. Tiny patches of different green colors in the park, vibrating lines of light in the turquoise water. Which is actually a really great way to start a painting from.
I usually do use photographs taken by me as an additional reference, but the picture with all the shapes and colors already exists in my memories. Which means, I am almost unable to paint after the photographs not taken by me. All I have to do is to dig into the atmosphere remembered and then, to transform it to the canvas.
Yet with this landscape
Yet with this landscape it has been a bit different. This is a painting of the place near my home, so dear to me. It is a place where we played as kids, where I walked my dog, a place of my daily walks. With brushes in my hand (yes I usually do hold more brushes in my hand while painting) and picking the colors to use I’ve felt as the painting is unwinding all by itself. The brushstrokes were coming from all the summers spent under those trees. Coming from all the memories of autumn colors at the top of the hill, reviving all the forgotten shades of beautiful Octobers forgotten long ago…. By the time I’ve finished this Landscape I knew it is just as it has to be….
Ostia Antica Landscape is new oil painting from my Roman Ruins paintings series.
Ostia Antica is well preserved archeological site of the ancient Rome port at the ostium of the river Tiber. I’ve started to paint the series of landscapes depicting archeological site near Rome, Ostia Antica, just in the times of spring outbreak of the Covid – 19 pandemic that has changed our world so immensely.
Time of isolation has been a sort of an artificial bubble, keeping me at home. Which I’ve loved as I basically love being at home. Yet in my subconsciousness, there has been that latent feeling of being trapped in a way. And that strange feeling has led me to the unusual perception that my travel memories have become vivid. It quite possibly has been a sort of escapism. Daydreaming about the places visited at happy summers I’ve remembered the strong colors of a Roman summer. Closing my eyes I’ve been able to smell the flowering trees of the early summer in Rome. I’ve heard the cicadas in the pine trees and the deep shade of old cypresses. Suddenly I could walk down the cobbled streets of the ancient port near the old city. Immersing myself into the scenery of Ostia Antica I’ve imagined the merchants calling the customers, kids playing with a barking dog behind the corner of the bricked house and down there at Via del Sole I could smell the freshly baked bread…..and all that colors have been so vivid I suddenly could not tell the difference between the reality and the happy memories from the far ago……..
Blue jug was waiting to be painted, so to say. Forgotten on a shelf in the garden shed, even don’t remember who brought it there. I came by, with some flowers from the garden, as a ray of light uncovered its blue color. One of those moments when a painting is born. Or almost born. For then comes painting. Getting frustrating when the picture in the memory or in the subconsciousness waits to be transferred on the canvas, jet the painting proceeds slowly. This time I even had to wait a certain amount of time, just wasn’t able to proceed in the right direction. Done some studies, thinking for a certain amount of time about the colors, even at some distant places. And then the idea came. I was able to finish this still life just the way I’ve intended to. It is a small oil painting on linen, but I am more than confident about it. Blu jug and colorful flowers, a reminiscence of the abundance of late summer with its warm colors and the feeling, that fall is coming soon.
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