Graeme Shackleford's article about City Chromatic

Everybody reads our little local newspaper, known in my neighborhood as the Rosebank Killarney Gazette and in others as the Chronicle, the Herald, etc.

Graeme Shackleford wrote a nice article about City Chromatic.  You can read it here in a piece called "Niebuhr Paints the City".

Cityscape with Memories

This commission is going to live in Australia.  The people wanted an amalgam view of Johannesburg so I combined three perspectives and then overlaid local figures.

New Joburg Painting, Stage Five - FInished!

After a two week hiatus in the Karoo, I came back home and finished this painting.  It's hanging on the wall in our flat and my wife said she wished we could keep it!  It's 1m x 1.5m, nice and big. 

New Joburg Painting, Stage Four

I've worked on the buildings a lot and now I've also laid in the sky.  The painting takes on much more of a 3-D look.

New Joburg Painting, Stage Three continued

In these blog entries, I'm documenting the process of painting a complex cityscape, step by step.

Plugging away, still on stage three, in which the buildings in the foreground come to life one by one.  Next I'll work on the sky.

New Joburg Painting, Stage Three

In Stage Three, I pick out surfaces of different buildings and paint them in their right shades.  This stage takes a long time, as you can imagine.

New Joburg painting, stage two

I'm in stage two of this Joburg skyline painting.  Stage one was drawing in the black and white outlines of all the buildings, and now I'm working on the shading and contouring.

This is a commission for an executive who is moving to New York and will miss his Joburg.

I took the shot from the Carlton Centre, our tallest building (usually cited as the tallest building in Africa).  In the far distance, on the horizon, you can see the Brixton Tower.

Joburg with Bridge and Figures

I must say I really like this recent commission.  It has a "fun" feel but also a sense of dignity.

Tin Ned

This is my dog, Ned.  He has starred in many previous artworks, mostly paintings.  Now he has been immortalized in metal.  I took a drawing of Ned and had it made up in laser-cut metal as a commission for a veterinarian's office.  This is a miniature version of the one the vet used.

Panorama Tondos

These two tondos are the long-distance views of Joburg's central business district. 

The four pieces (with the two close-ups from yesterday's post) will hang in the entrance foyer of a corporate headquarters.

Downtown Tondos

This is what I've been working on, in between my new parenting duties.

Gallo House

Sometimes it's a single building that catches my eye.  This beauty, called Gallo House, sits in the centre of Joburg near the Fashion District.  I liked its Art Deco lines and the way it responds to the light.

Jeppe Overpass

I'm always seeking out new ways to look at Joburg.  It's a city that can be viewed from many directions.  Lately I've concentrated on the "bird's eye view":  not straight down, but at a flattering angle.  Joburg's geometry continues to fascinate me.

Langermann's Kop

I used to live near Langermann's Kop, a rocky ridge in "the heartbreak East" of Joburg.  The view of the skyline is fantastic, particularly at sunset.

Metropolis

I loved visitng New York in September, and then a few days ago I found this painting of Joburg I made a while ago that reminds me of New York.  Our metropolis Joburg is the Gotham of Africa.

Oxford Road Overpass

This is the piece I contributed to the 'on the rhodes' show opening tonight at These Four Walls fine art gallery in Observatory, Cape Town.

I painted it in homage to Edward Hopper's 1946 work Approaching a City:

London Cityscape in 4 Easy Steps

Second Hands

I was looking through art books I had picked up at second hand shops, and it occurred to me to focus on the hands from classical works. I selected 25 of the most beautiful hands from Titian and other masters, and painted them onto one canvas.

Corot's mine

This painting from my recent exhibition mine is called "Corot's mine."

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a French landscape painter (1796-1875). He is the leading figure of the Barbizon School of painting and became as well known for his portrayals of human figures as for his plein-air (working outside the studio) landscape paintings.

The woman in my painting is a direct reference to Corot's reclining nude, but I have placed her in front of a Johannesburg mine dump. The dark brown "roots" of paint trickle from the landscape over the human figure.

"Corot's mine" is both homage to this master and a merging of the current-day man-made, toxic scenery with the tradition of 19th century landscape painting.

Artist's Residency in Brazil

I've just been accepted to an Artist's Residency programme in Sao Paulo, Brazil. We'll be there from 15 August until 15 November 2010.

The programme is run by the Foundation Armando Alvares Penteado, or FAAP. It's attached to a university with an art department, and I'll be giving lectures as well as having dedicated studio time in a beautiful 1920s building in the center of the megalopolis.