Rainy Day Bouquet
Rainy Day Bouquet, Tamara Jare, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 cm (9.8 x 11. 8 inches), 2019
ostia antica landscape
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……..
Tulips
Tulips, Oil on canvas, 50 x 70 cm , 2019
Blue jug
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.
Artichokes
Artichokes, oil on canvas, 2019
This canvas was made after a photo of mine, taken the same year. It was spring, I remember, as I visited Udine with my husband. I can still see the bright day it was as we crossed the market in the old town. Always attracted by beautifully arranged vegetables, fruits, I was taking some pics. As I saw these artichokes I got stuck by the gorgeous colors. How widely had someone put them on display on the bright electric blue vinyl cloth, just to accentuate the herbaceous greens and pinks of the first artichokes of the season!
June bouquet and a lemon
June bouquet and a lemon, oil on linen painting, 55 x 55 cm (21.6 x 21.6 inches)
Ah, all that abundance of the colors of the flowers of June! Take the roses, to start with: cadmium red, pale pink, magenta, then all the yellows of the common bird’s- foot trefoil, whites of queen Anne’s lace, purple comfrey, green grasses! Vertigo of a bold palette, trembling in the early summer sunlight. Colors that promise a long summer to come……
Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? no. Just as one can never learn how to paint. Pablo Picasso
Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more. Vincent van Gogh
I always notice flowers. Andy Warhol
Variation in blue
Variation in blue is a still life I’ve painted back in 2018. This small format oil on linen is still dear to my heart.
Painting a still life by me usually starts with a small walk around my garden. It is a sort of meditation, preparation for the painting process. Which flowers would I pick depends on the mood of the moment. And, obviously, it depends on the time of the year in the garden. Spring is always joyous, bringing first colors to the nature, then comes the summer with all the richness of the blossoming plants, fall again has it’s own colors, just as beautiful.
But at that time, when I wanted to pick at least something from the garden to paint, there was November. And not much around the garden to pick For at that late autumn time garden is usually still, frozen on time, waiting for first snow to come on it’s cold mornings.
So instead, I took some chrysanthemums from the bouquet in our living room. Just some white and blue blossoms for the small vase. And painted them immediately, capturing those blue and white hues, trying to catch light of that November morning before the snow fell to our garden…….
May bouquet
May bouquet, painted obviously in May, in the spring of 2020, that has changed so profoundly the world we know. Yet, no matter what, the spring does come each year.
Each year makes me particularly happy to see our old garden phyladelphus is starting to bloom. Sweet scent of hundreds white little stars wraps up the garden, sun is getting warmer and in a couple of days first purple iris-es open, usually accompanied by the roses.
I guess each gardener will recognize that feeling one gets just after picking the fresh flowers to make a bouquet. Bringing all those flowers inside, one needs to find a vase big enough to display all the colors just brought in. And as you put the bouquet on the table to watch the flowers closely, even, so to say, with an inner eye, then you can see the spring avakening, bursting and flowering after a long winter. Looking closer it seems almost like flowers are dancing, moving around each other, just to reach sky and to blossom into the spring. It is a sort of vertigo like feeling. Remembering when the last spring took part one gets almost absorbed into all the colors and patterns of nature bursting into spring again.
So here it is, my May bouquet. Please, have a close look at the flowers from my garden and feel the vertigo of all the colors of a new spring……
Online exibition
Online exibition : Social Distancing International Virtual Exhibition has just opened, so to say, its doors. Organized by Michael Rose Fine Art in response to time of social distancing and facing new global realities of corona pandemy the show presents thirty international artists. I am thrilled to participate in this art show for more than a couple of reasons.
First, this is a juried international art show and it is a great honor for me to be part of it. Basically it is true that an artist knows, or should know, when his work is good , just good or excellent. And even recognizing a piece just made as a bad one it still means nothing more as that the show has to go on, meaning work must go on. Better piece is definitely a moment of satisfaction, but then always something new to accomplish awaits and challenges an artist. And from that point of view getting recognition from outside means the show will go on, yes, for sure, but it also means: hey there is something in your work somebody likes. And, lets be honest, this means a lot. So, yes, juried international art show is a great thing for self consciousness of an artist.
Second, Michael Rose is a professional in the field. I don’t want to sound pretentious but as an emerging artist I do use social platforms intensively. I am grateful for the technology making it possible for me to connect with the potential customers, galleries, curators, art advisors, art dealers across the globe. But, oh my, am I also tired of non professional attempts, people stealing my time or even trying to get me into art- scam bussiness. So, yes, working with a professional is a huge relief I am grateful for.
Third, covid epidemy has hit us quite hard. Living in Slovenia it means we got quarantine quite early and the rules were rather strict. With Italian Bergamo and its tragedy less than 200 km away from our border it was no doubt things were serious. Our life turned upside down in a matter of days. I will never forget my friend from Rome urging me to buy food and toilet paper in advance. There had been times the two of us discussed italian fashion shops and suddenly we were briefing each other about the time spent in queue in front of the grocery shop. Yes, we actally were lucky ones, we could stay at home, in social isolation, battling, so to say, in our living rooms, skyping and zooming friends. Yet there was certain amount of anxiety in the air. Listening the news had become a ritual and reading about the virus almost a must. But the creative part of me did have a thoughter time as one could assume. Creating art means escaping into universe far away, it feels like travelling different lands and it really can be a relieve in hard times. But there is a hint, to start that journey of creative process it helps to be perfectly calm. No bad covid news needed. So from that point of view the Michael Rose Fine Art open call was a sort of relief, it helped a bit to embark that creativity flight and work hard for a goal. For that goal also meant the isolation should once end….
And fourth: this is my ever first online exibition! This spring I am participating on art show in my home town, too, but it has been postponed due to corona pandemic. Which I hear is the case with so many recent exibitions over the world. We all know the technology is able to support us to work from afar, to connect across the globe, so it basically shouldn’t be a surprise art shows are going virtual in time of pandemic. I personally believe the post pandemic landscape will be much more technological, virtual, as we can assume now. But this is not for the good, not for the bad. It is just a matter of type of communication. Yet, which does matter, and which I sincerely do hope that is growing before our eyes, is a new paradigm of communication in the art world. Where it would be possible to connect with the like minded art minds, galleries, art collectors, artists across the globe, making a big step across the social, political, economic, racial, gender barriers separating us now. I hope the pandemic art would teach us how to surpass those boundaries to remain close to the only thing that matters: good art. I see this art show as a step towards that goal.
At the end, let me finish with a quote from the official online exibition introduction:
“The goal of this exhibition is purely to bring together an exciting grouping of diverse work presented in a digital space.” Michael Rose
Please have a look at the exibition here,
Thank you,
Tamara
Ostia Antica
Visiting Ostia Antica, archeological site near Rome, I got stuck with the strong experience. Walking down the streets of the town extinct centuries ago I felt like the ruins were in a way still communicating with us, visitors from today. Tranquility of the noon was full of bright colors under the blue sky. Only crickets interrupted summer heat, singing the same old song since ancient times. And it almost seemed like some Roman inhabitants might come out from the old house, going to visit the neighbors.
Staying in isolation this spring, some of those memories from Rome have returned to me. I’ve kept asking myself , how fragile our lives, our civilization are….What is staying behind us when we are all gone one day?Would there be a visitor wandering ruins of our civilization? Having those thoughts I’ve got the certain feeling that the light, colors might even then be just the same as they are now and as they have been centuries ago…..And this assumption of at least light and colors not changing have brought me some sort of calm in the times of isolation….
My paintings collection made in the time of isolation:
Update:
Happy to announce a painting from this series has been chosen for a juried international art show Social Distancing International Virtual Exhibition by Michael Rose Fine Art. Browse the exibition and check which artwork from the Ostia Antica series is participating 😉