American Art Collector Magazine's Upcoming Show Preview on Joseph Todorovitch

January 25, 2019

Low Chroma

As an artist and instructor, Joseph Todorovitch is always exploring new methods of how to apply paint to a canvas— whether that is changing up the tools he uses or experimenting with a new color palette. This penchant to push the boundaries artistically helps keep Todorovitch’s figurative paintings fresh and moving into new series. Most recently, he has been aiming for simplicity in his paintings by limiting the tools he uses and working in a relatively low chroma color palette.

“Even though the color is relatively neutral, I do find there is more and more subtlety, which is nice,” says the California-based artist. “There’s quite a bit of color. It feels poetic to me as opposed to some of my earlier work a year or two ago that was really high chroma.”

Another important element to this latest body of work is that the paintings seem to have more feeling to them, such as in the work Wonder where a woman stops to pluck a flower from a blooming field below. “For some reason, simplifying has really been a good, direct path to creating more feeling in the painting. That’s been a fun discovery,” Todorovitch explains. “[Wonder] is the two-value statement, a dark figure against a light background, and a very simple compositional device to create a compositional balance. It’s a notan— the physical design of simple light and dark and how it interacts.

“It’s a little mysterious to me still how the interaction between those shapes can really create emotional content,” he continues. “That’s been the thing I’ve been trying to explore. I haven’t put my finger on it, to be honest, but I’m not trying to articulate it that much. It’s been largely intuitive. Being a teacher, speaking about it two or three times a week, it’s nice to step away from that necessity to articulate it and instead feel my way through painting. I’m trying to embrace that and not pin it down too much.”

In other works, such as Rapunzel and Bather, Todorovitch has taken a conceptual approach to realism where instead of strictly relying on what appears in front of him he takes liberties in adjusting the scene. “I am changing things as I go, adding my own ideas to the painting and being less fearful of taking away from my reference,” he shares. “I think that’s been a real source of inspiration for these works, allowing me to rely on my own design intuition.”

February 9 through March 2, Maxwell Alexander Gallery in Los Angeles will present a showcase of Todorovitch’s new works.

Southwest Art Magazine Previews Joseph Todorovitch's Upcoming Solo Show

January 25, 2019

In a small solo show opening at Los Angeles-based Maxwell Alexander Gallery on Saturday, February 9, California figurative painter Joseph Todorovitch continues to explore the nuances of the human form. But this showcase of about 10 new oil paintings is also sprinkled throughout with what Todorovitch describes as “magical, fairy-dust things,” including quiet, almost dreamlike moments in the human experience. A few pieces convey, for example, the feelings of wonder and inspiration that come through wandering and discovery. “I’m really focused on creating a genuine feeling in these paintings that is simple and hopefully universal,” adds the artist. “They are kind of whimsical with a little bit of charm.”

Todorovitch, whose works have appeared in such prominent national shows as the Salmagundi Club’s American Masters and the California Art Club’s Gold Medal Exhibition, has been painting for nearly two decades. “That’s a lot of time to explore and feel that I have dexterity in painting and with artistic concepts in general,” he says. Now, adds Todorovitch, “I feel like I can throw it all out the window and be free. I’ve had great joy in learning all those skills, but it’s nice to retire into this person who owns all the technical experience and can just kind of play with it.”

Although the contemporary realism remains faithful to the representational acumen of historic masters like William-Adolphe Bouguereau and John William Waterhouse, he has increasingly been tapping into his own life experiences and personal creative vision when he paints. “It makes it feel like I’m creating something more special,” says Todorovitch. “I do love representational work with high-fidelity realism in doses, but not at the sacrifice of my personal choices in portraying the subject,” he explains.

So, while photographic references still have a place at the artist’s easel, these days they are mostly a loose visual compass for Todorovitch, who is armed with years of experience working from life. “I’m feeling free to make design decisions that may even stray from what I’m actually seeing. That’s really where I’m starting to feel fulfilled in my work,” he says. These creative choices extend to the varied ways he is applying his paint. In a single picture plane, some areas might feature large, graphic shapes with impasto and expressive brushwork, while other areas might display thinner, more delicate paint applications and refined detail. “The engineering of the paint should have a certain impact,” he says. “I’m trying to create a simple, elegant and poetic statement with this new work.”

That means Todorovitch is engaging more fully in the process of editing and simplifying, which includes not only abridging his use of the many technical tools in his repertoire, but also paring down his palette, even in figurative pieces that feature California landscapes in the backgrounds. In his latest work, he notes, “I still wanted to portray a subtle sense of illumination, but not so much the strength of color that I was using in my last few shows.”

Todorovitch’s efforts to personalize and simplify his vision have added up to an unanticipated but welcome effect: the luminous, understated works of Edgar Degas are revealing their influences in his paintings now more than ever. “Degas was one of the artists I really started admiring at the beginning of my artistic journey,” he says, “and I think I’ve come full circle.” — Kim Agricola

American Art Collector Magazine Previews Jeremy Mann Solo Show

October 18, 2018

The Promise Land

When Jeremy Mann wrapped work on his first feature-length film earlier this year, he immedi- ately recognized the importance of his breakthrough in the medium. “...I will continue to film forever,” he says. “It’s a language which fills my soul with poetry.”

The film, The Conductor, a cerebral and at times surreal journey into an artistic dreamscape—think Lars von Trier or Nicolas Winding Refn, but shot with a painter’s sense of color and composition—allowed Mann to take a four-month hiatus from painting. That break from the easel directly inspired his newest works, on view beginning September 8 at Maxwell Alexander Gallery in Los Angeles. “...I decided to approach the new paintings with an open air of exploration, drawing from my abstract expressionist background, using tried-and-true techniques I learned from my MFA research (i.e., making myself uncomfortable with the materials and techniques to open new windows in this stale, dusty house) and feeding from something I’ve been developing for a long time now, my darkroom prints of Polaroids from homemade cameras.”

Mann’s paintings—both his evocative figures and his shimmering cityscapes—have long featured unfinished edges, blocks of raw color and abstracted elements that sought to frame his subjects within an emotional veil of expression, but his new works are transcending even further into this shattering realm of color and form.

“You’re seeing the result of a hesitant mind getting closer to a self-invented promise land. I personally know that destroying and then rebuilding paintings stage after stage is not only thrilling after the fact, but also has the look, the feeling of history, melan- choly and memory that I am wanting in my art,” the California painter says. “I’m not there yet, usually it’s deadlines for shows which hinder this, and as you say, you can see it encroaching from the edges of the paintings and reluctant to appear near the focal areas. That’s just reluctance, but it’s like putting cars in space; the point isn’t to have a lot of cars floating in space, that’s useless, the point is to get better technology seeing if we can get such things into space. But people focus on the silly car floating around. So when looking at my paintings now, you could say those abstract expressionist marks and effects are areas of testing ground on final paintings, seeing how it works and reacts to the subject matter, the feeling I want, the mood, while at the same time, experimenting with new materials and techniques, building new tools and trying them out on paintings that I’m afraid to screw up. A big swirling cycle of invention, experimentation, confidence- building, assessment, and then back to invention, keeping the results I want, and perfecting them along the way.

New works include The Sound of Wilting Lilies, featuring a figure calmly sitting in a cascade of white and gray paint that holds her within a tender stillness, a reverence carved into the color. The painting was his first after The Conductor, the hiatus and the building of his photo darkroom. “I went big, knowing that’s what I want, and returned to my earliest years of painting, with a completely rendered underpainting, color toning and then final rendering...every damn leaf, blade of grass, hole in silk,” he says of the piece. “Days later, throw it on the floor and destroy with new tools and techniques, then bring it back to a new life. Almost an allegory for where I am in my life as an artist. I’m not sure that’s necessarily evident in the painting itself, but as every painting, every creation an artist makes, is just one baby step toward the place he wants to be—I feel like this was two baby steps.”

While the new paintings seem to be reaching further into the maelstrom than Mann’s previous works, they are still unequivocally Jeremy Mann paintings, ones that can be identified as his from across a room. “I always tell the story—usually starts at the bar, which is just for some humanism— but the point is that I broke myself away from what I was being taught, what I was seeing around me in the art world, and went off on my own with two important rules: gain wisdom and experiment. Mixing those two goals, an artist will constantly evolve from pushing them-selves to find new ways of saying what they want to say, and then being aware of the effects with the wisdom to decide and choose for yourself which ones you like and which ones you don’t. Then, just do the ones you like perfectly (that part has all the hard work in it). The great thing about this process is that I am making the judgement call, [without] confusion about ‘what sells,’ ‘will I get likes,’ ‘will other artists like this.’ Those ideas are poison, ridiculous to even enter the mind, and it makes me sick how prevalent they are becoming in artists of all stages. That is why you can identify my artwork sepa- rate from any other, infused with other inspirations, but evolved to be my own, and across any medium. Having the self- respect to be true to yourself, this is the fundamental reasoning and goal in every workshop I teach—to be you, not me. It’s already difficult to be me, it’s easy to be yourself.

American Art Collector Previews Jeremy Mann's solo exhibition "OPUS 27"

July 21, 2017

Theater of Light

In the early 20th century Florenz Ziegfeld, creator of the Ziegfeld Follies musical revues on Broadway, was widely known for his muses, elaborately costumed chorus girls often called Ziegfeld Girls. The girls were the primary residents in Ziegfeld’s fantastical worlds of music and drama. “[H]e simply couldn’t stop being more and more lavish with every show,” wrote his wife after his death in 1932. “...the world remembers Mr. Ziegfeld as the man who revealed a whole new world of color and light and gaiety in the modern musical revue.”

Using the iconic Ziegfeld Girls and the era that they thrived in as inspiration, painter Jeremy Mann will be presenting a new collection of work at an exhibition July 15 at Maxwell Alexander Gallery in Los Angeles. The show will open the gallery’s brand-new space, which will be decorated with the installations the artist used for his photo shoots. For the opening guests are encouraged to come dressed in their finest and interact with the installations. The exhibition is a collaboration with Christina Molcillo of Black Lotus Clothing, who used Ziegfeld Girls as models for her designs, including dresses, gowns, headpieces and other antique materials.

“Many good things come out of collaborations in unexpected ways,” Mann says of working with Molcillo. “Wanting to not only keep my hands from detaining the unexpected, but also with respect to another artist’s unhindered personal visions, Christina developed and created the wardrobe and sets with unobstructed direction, based on a few meetings and her own research into my stylistic tendencies combined with her own artistic style.”

Their collaboration can be seen in works such as Luna and Moonlight, both featuring a female figure elegantly dressed in front of a prop crescent moon. Like Ziegfeld’s girls, and the photos of them that have survived, these figures have an element of theater to their presence amid carefully placed light, oversized stage elements and beautifully designed costuming. They are at once sumptuous and also vulnerable within Mann’s cool shadows and delicate brushstrokes.

“Having a theme to hold everything loosely together and give direction, we both have affections for the 1920s and the Ziegfeld Girl style, crossed with some [Alphonse] Mucha and modernity, as well as theater and darkness,” says Mann. “The moon stage grew from that era’s fascination with it as often seen as a moon with a painted face upon the stage. The timeless feeling is always something I prefer in my paintings, creating a haze of memory and capturing fleeting moments in perpetual paintings which draw up those same emotions, something dreamlike and lost, or a thing once wonderful and now forgotten.”

These “dreamlike” qualities overlap with much of Mann’s current state as an artist, in which he says he’s diving further into the cerebral ether of creation. “I suppose these would be my foggy years. I’ve been exploring deeper into the feelings evoked from atmosphere and light, how their effects work both with and against form, while eliciting emotions of fading memories, things past and times ceaseless endurance,” he says. “Logically this exploration evolved from my endeavors with film and Polaroid photography from the homemade cameras, and now into video and films using homemade lenses to capture that same effect, without the need for digital manipulations—I’ve a badinkling about most things digital. Film and video have a direct connection with ‘time’ and that is something which I desire to have a stronger place in my paintings. What an artist does with their time when not painting affects the painting even more than when they are.”

Mann’s show, which will also feature his bold cityscapes, will continue through August 12 in Los Angeles

To view more of Mann's work, click here.