Carmel & Big Sur Painters Bohemian Legacy, by Randy Tunnell... /  by Chris Leib

I’m thrilled to be included in Randy Tunnell’s book of 100 painter’s portraits, Carmel & Big Sur Painters Bohemian Legacy

The book is now available currently by visiting: HERE

https://checkout.square.site/merchant/ML3AX70CDY241/checkout/DDFD3IXJP7HXUGCXZTMI27MP

Beautifully photographed, this book features portraits of 100 regional painters in their studios, all of whom carrying on the legacy that began over 100 years ago when the Carmel and Big Sur coastline of California became a bohemian paradise.

And don’t forget to view Randy Tunnell’s Amazing photography on his website…

www.RandyTunnell.com

My Father's Artwork /  by Chris Leib

My father, Merv Leib, was an artist who lived and worked in California. A graduate of San Francisco State University in fine art, he did graduate studies in painting at Instituto Allende in San Miquel de Allende, Mexico. For more than two decades he taught art in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the 1960s, he also designed a line of successful greeting cards, and later a cartoon strip. Merv was an avid runner, excellent skier, and could be found at the gym when he wasn’t teaching or in his studio.

While an excellent painter, his pen and ink, as well as graphite work, in my view really stood our as exceptional. His pen and inks are layered with cross hatching, stippling, and he would even go over areas and refine lines with a razor blade. In person, even more so than on line, the depth of these works is quite masterful. Many of his best pieces were large and could sometimes take several months to complete. Some pieces were diptychs and triptychs, the largest being nine panels in total.

‘This Screwed Up World’ and ‘The Tree of Life’
The last two drawings here were the final two drawings he made a few months before he passed away. They are both done on 9 x 12 paper. I don’t know how he was able to do so much detail. The second to last one he titled aptly, ‘This Screwed Up World’. He loved a pun as you will see. And the last drawing, ‘The Tree of Life’, which depicts a gnarled, baren tree towering overhead, perched on cliffs, it’s limbs in the clouds. Below the tree, very small is a little person looking up, pondering. I only really closely looked at the piece after he passed away, before I notice the little man below surveying the dying juggernaut of a tree overhead. Clearly my father knew.

'Night Vision' closes December 17th... /  by Chris Leib

Night Vision is an exhibition at Beinart Gallery in Melbourne of new paintings by Chris Leib. These paintings are a continuation of his series of royal astronauts, begun in 2012.

The exhibition runs until December 17th.

Night Vision at its root is about power and surveillance. It is a collision of heroic themes and state (royal) portraiture. The heroic is redefined against a backdrop of state intrusion. Anachronistic royal travelers watch over their realm in panopticon fashion.

The astronaut represents the highest achievements of humankind, but in these paintings, the astronauts’ helmets are faceless, with dark reflective visors like a camera lens or eye pupil. What the astronaut is taking in visually is unknown to the viewer, setting up a contrast between blindness and camera-like intake and suggesting twilight (crepuscular) and nocturnal hunting for “enemies.” Night vision is associated with predatory behavior, and here the upper hand in knowledge and movement provides an advantageous position of predator over prey.

State (royal) portraiture was the promotion of statesmanship, projection of power—propaganda. The subjects appear bejeweled and otherworldly and untouchable, above the citizenry. The jewelry and patterns were symbolic in royal portraits. Like in those portraits, Leib sometimes uses jewels and patterns to create codifications and ciphers, puzzles to add another layer to the narrative of the paintings. The paintings also reference various figures of mythology and folklore that involve power, civilization, etc. Blending classical and contemporary themes, Leib hopes to create a sense of timelessness that speaks to the nature and dynamic of power.