Iskra Fine Art

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You are here: Home / Archives for Architecture & Sense of Place

Celebrate the Beauty of Swans: Holiday Print Sale, Twenty Percent off!

December 2, 2024 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Navigation ©Iskra Johnson

A big thank you to the friends and collectors who came out to my open studio and party November 16th! You made the year a great one, and work continues to go out the door, as those who could not make the open house stop by to visit. There were many requests for the swans to appear as cards, and as promised, they are now live, in The Swans Suite in my shop. All of the works are available as larger prints as well. A few of the swans are available only as larger prints. I may make a second Swans stationary collection as time goes on.

As a holiday thank you I am offering a 20% discount in my shop from now through the Solstice. If you have had your eye on a larger piece this is your chance to save big on any purchase over $150, cards excluded. Enter SOLSTICE24 at check out.

A note on upcoming price increases: Due to the inflation of costs for ink, paper and postage, I will be raising prices to catch up next year. This is one of your last chances to purchase cards at the current rate of 6 for $33

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Construction/Reconstruction, Photocollage, Print Sale, Prints Tagged With: 20 percent off print sale, bird stationary, swan art cards, swan prints

New Wabi Sabi Minimalism: Expressive Ink Painting Abstraction

November 10, 2023 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Inkstone and Brush

New Minimalist Modern Art for Interiors

I have long been in love with the idea of the Kakemono, or hanging scroll, that brings elegance to a vertical space in the home. These new pieces are created with washes of ink with brushes and other studio tools. The washes and calligraphic markings are then blended and composed digitally in improvisational sequences that suggest landscape, the memory of place and the moods of weather. A muted monochrome palette gives them a photographic feeling, and as with photographs they can be printed in warm tones or cool. The Kakemono form lends itself best to paper or fabric. I like to use a fine-grained slightly iridescent canvas from Hahnemuhle.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Abstract Calligraphy, Architecture & Sense of Place, Commissioned Art Tagged With: Art for Interiors, Commissioned art for interiors, Ink Painting Abstract, Minimalist Art, Wabi Sabi Painting

Seattle’s Waterfront Park Construction Project

April 3, 2023 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Waterfront Park with Wheel
I loved the Viaduct, a fact that is documented by acres of elegies, eulogies and shrines made in its honor. As one of its passionate defenders, I mourned when it came down for the as-yet unproven benefits of a “park” and an “underground tunnel.” The viaduct’s mood range was immense. Beneath its clumsy mastodon pillars one could wallow in the dank smells and charcoal smears of pure grime. Above, given a tenth of a gallon of gas and any class of car, a million dollar view rolled out from sea to shining sea and a white-capped mountain. It was our last glimpse of The View, as contrasted with our current life with an ever-diminishing View Corridor. We now see the world beyond the city in slivers, something blue or gray and moving slowly as atmosphere does, sliced against a block-long bank of windows that only reflect the sky and will never be it.

All that said, what a difference in perspective 10 years and a pandemic: Never again will I write eulogies to graffiti in the same way. Now that random scrawls are inescapable and cover every inch of our city with relentless self-regard I just want the power of a large hose filled with bleach and the god-powers of erasure. This shift in perspective hit me with bracing clarity as I stumbled into the Waterfront Park Construction project on a gray Sunday morning. With no hall monitors present, no generators, no growling excavators or men in hard hats shouting at me to leave or show my permit I had freedom to walk during Sunday matins like a slow monk observing, shooting, revising, studying every angle of scaffold and ramp and the lyric possibilities of fresh concrete. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Architecture & Sense of Place, Photography Tagged With: graffiti, Seattle architectural photography, seattle renewal, seattle viaduct, Seattle Waterfront Park Construction

Disrupted Architecture: Studio Process and New Prints

November 18, 2021 by Iskra Leave a Comment

In the studio I have been returning to typographic practice in a new abstract way. These recent pieces are a mix of ink drawing, photography and collage composed with my process of digital alchemy. Buildings are big, the body is . . . human sized. These pieces consider scale, in terms of both architecture and maker. Largeness interrupted by the slightness of a memory, a figure, the intimate handprint of dirt and atmosphere and time. They continue the Construction/Reconstruction series based on construction sites and ruins and the blurred space in between.

In a break from my usual process I am beginning with pure drawing, using for my “brush” tools made of wood and steel that have hard edges designed for the work of construction. Working either from a photograph or memory I explore architectural space as I would a letterform: drawing the structure and drawing the air around it. Along the way I have found myself in the pure territory of composition, revisiting the lessons of Mondrian and the austerities of the Bauhaus.

The first set of images here show early studies that go back and forth between drawing and digital blending. The completed pieces that follow are all editioned as archival pigment prints. As with my other new media work they are not reproductions of paintings, but contemporary printmaking in which the print itself is the final art. 

New Typographics Process ink drawings

New Typographics Process ink drawings

As I scanned and deconstructed the original drawings I entered what I think of as a Mid-Century Modern Moment. Mondrian hovered at my shoulder and advised. It was a rigorous process of sacrifice and minimalisation that shaped his path from “drawing a tree” to knowing the space between branches. Although I always thought his older work was emotionally bloodless, the sense of mystery in his reductive methods stayed with me. Pieces like “Broadway Boogie Woogie” are as much a part of my DNA as formica and ashtray mosaics – and they come with a great soundtrack. By working with ink and soft absorbent papers incapable of truly hard edges I have invited the human element to re-surface. The piece below is as much about the sensual experience of paper as it is about the mind.

A Conversation with Mondrian, mid century style abstract
A Conversation with Mondrian, © Iskra Fine Art, archival pigment print, size variable

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Filed Under: Architecture & Sense of Place, Digital Collage, Photocollage Tagged With: Building C Studios Open House, construction site art, disrupted architecture, Iskra Architectural Prints, new media architectural art

The Water Tower Project from Iskra Fine Art

July 12, 2020 by Iskra Leave a Comment

All that is Solid print by Iskra
“All That is Solid….” limited edition archival pigment print ©Iskra Johnson

The Water Tower Project

It might have been enough to face off with a pandemic. But the center does not hold, “all that is solid melts into air,” and across the world cities are aflame with protest and an expanding movement for social justice. As structures of order crumble, as statues are de-platformed and sprayed with graffiti, as the jails and hospitals overflow, we huddle in isolation, transfixed by news that is alternately exhilarating and disturbing. Can you blame a person for looking for something to hang onto?

In the chaotic urban environment, the water tower shines for me as a beacon. I think of it as the German Shepherd of architectural structures: noble, tastefully proportioned and faithful to its purpose, which is to gather the heavens in a bucket and gift it back to us glass by glass. It sits high atop the city, merged at times with the clouds, and calling down from the heavens a very practical benediction. It is a usually hand crafted vessel, built from wood, using a method little changed from the 1800’s. Water towers are rarely defaced by graffiti, but any totem of neutrality invites our projections.

The Water Tower Project looks at this iconic structure from many different perspectives. In some cases I have located the tower in an imaginary landscape, complete with horizon line. At other times it serves as an emotional vessel to express the clamor and heartbreak of the streets. I am offering this series through the #ArtistSupportPledge, which is a global initiative to broaden the circle of art appreciators and create a circle of generosity. The first two prints in each edition of 35 are priced at $150, half the usual price of $300. When I have earned $1,000 from the sales I will then purchase the work of another artist for up to $200. At the end of this post you will find the collection of 16 gathered as a jpg that may be downloaded for reference. In the week since I have been posting these to social media I have sold three, so if you are interested in the PandemicPrice you may want to move quickly. The blog software allows me to show images at their best quality, so I will post the entire set here (click below the fold) for the time being rather than my portfolio. I am offering these through direct sales rather than through my shop, so please reach me through email if you are interested.

Each Water Tower has a story, and if you are interested in the narratives I suggest following along on Instagram.

Angle of Repose Water Tower by Iskra
“Angle of Repose,” limited edition archival pigment print ©Iskra Johnson

 

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Filed Under: Architecture & Sense of Place, The Water Tower Project Tagged With: architectural prints by Iskra, Artist Support Pledge, New prints by Iskra, Urban landscape, Water Towers

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Subtractive painting study and ground experiment: Subtractive painting study and ground experiment: I added baking soda to my gesso. Pretty wild texture here, not sure yet how stable it is. You can see the test of the edges in the second piece— the rugged edge only works if I get a pristine background and unfortunately the tape I used to mask it did not work consistently. Hello tape, my old friend and nemesis. You work differently on every surface. These little barn structures give me great comfort as the bigger structures of our government and nation seem to be crumbling.
Today’s landscape to quiet the mind. Out in the Today’s landscape to quiet the mind. Out in the fields somewhere, on the road to Edison. Acrylic on prepared ground, sketchbook.
MUST SEE! Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai We MUST SEE! Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei at Seattle Art Museum.
I am thinking this morning about the phrase Americ I am thinking this morning about the phrase American Heartland. Learning to paint a barn means studying the neutrals. Our political discourse has pitted the barn people against the city people and there are no neutrals, just shouting. But if you walk out into the horizon lands, all you hear is the wind and a kestrel. Walk in boots, hard-pressed against your toes, walk on stubble barefoot and get acupuncture for a lifetime. Study the intervals: how the clouds can be in the upper one third neatly or one sixth, precarious, the future disappearing with the sun as it falls making the barn your whole world if you’re three years old and looking up; one big triangle with a square in the center, and so many mysteries inside the square. 

There is also the question of what kind of light seeps between the verticals and is the light coming in the evening or at midday when you can finally begin to make out all the other tiny squares within the big square, which would be called hay. Reach for the rope and swing out over the canyon, that great big canyon from bale to bale.

Collage studies: painting neutrals
A hybrid study, mixed process. Reading the New Yor A hybrid study, mixed process. Reading the New Yorker this morning, about the global population crash. This will upend urbanism, for sure, though it will very good for veterinarians and dog groomers:
“Only two communities appear to be maintaining very high fertility: ultra-Orthodox Jews and some Anabaptist sects. The economist Robin Hanson’s back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that twenty-third-century America will be dominated by three hundred million Amish people. The likeliest version of the Great Replacement will see a countryside dotted everywhere with handsome barns.”
First Thursday. Such a beautiful night. First Thursday. Such a beautiful night.

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