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You are here: Home / Music / Existential Greetings! Ex Voto Paintings by Iskra

Existential Greetings! Ex Voto Paintings by Iskra

December 16, 2018 by Iskra 1 Comment

Ex-Voto painting by Iskra
“Ex-Voto for a Non-Believer,” from Sleep Studies. Available here.

It’s that existential season when structures reveal themselves, whether they are trees bare of leaves or beds bare of comfort. Winter can bring insomnia and questions of faith, along with powerful affirmation. Although December is a time of celebration, it is also often a time of passage, and anyone who has lost a parent or other loved one in this season knows the particular poignance of this confluence.

What better station to consider life, death, prayer, hope and all the indulgent remedies for these thoughts than the bed? Over the years I have had many requests for prints of the Sleep Studies series. These paintings, inspired by Mexican Ex Votos, are an interpretation of traditional arts of prayer and supplication. This month I put a selection of the remaining original paintings and archival reproductions in my shop. These are intimate works, meant to be hung in a quiet place. The originals range from 8×8 to 9×12 inches, and the prints are offered in two sizes, up to 15″ wide. I hope you will take a look at the collection and be in touch if you would like an original or a print.

Technically these works are a hybrid of printmaking and painting. In my search for non-toxic printmaking materials I had a brief but mad love affair with Daniel Smith water soluble printing inks (alas now discontinued.) I discovered that I could do the most extraordinary things with them using brayers, scrapers, water and brushes. They have the richness of oils, without the toxicity. I have been experimenting in the studio with Golden Open Acrylic, and hope to achieve some of the same magic with them in the next year as I begin work on a variety of new ideas. Here are a few of my favorites from Sleep Studies:

Baroque Morning painting by Iskra
“Baroque Morning,” archival print from an original painting. © Iskra Johnson
The Red Bed, Painting by Iskra
“The Red Bed,” archival print from an original painting © Iskra Johnson

Looking ahead to 2019 I hope to have an open studio sale, to make way for new things. I am working out the logistics for this, and have not yet decided how I will announce it. But if you are interested please do drop me a note by email and let me know you’d like to be included in the invitation. *A little housekeeping note on recent changes to gmail: More and more people use gmail, and I am finding that fewer people than ever actually see my newsletters, as they go into Google’s system for “promotions” and look like they belong with ads from Firestone and Target (non, non!) So if you want to be sure you get my updates please do adjust your settings.

In honor of the devotional mood I will leave you with these images from a recent concert I attended at St. Albans in Edmonds. A small ensemble featuring Irish flutist Brian Dunning, Jeff Johnson, Marc Gremm and Janet Chvatal played Celtic and traditional Christmas songs. I am not a crier over Christmas carols, but within a few moments of Stille Nacht I was in tears. A reminder of the transcendent power of music and the human voice, and an experience I will not forget:

 

Stille Nacht

Stille Nacht

Filed Under: Music, Painting Tagged With: bed paintings, Edmonds arts, ex voto paintings, Paintings from Iskra Fine Art, sleep studies, Stille Nacht

Comments

  1. Marni Muir says

    December 16, 2018 at 12:15 pm

    and neither will I . . .

    Reply

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Sunday studies of motion and emotion. I’ve been Sunday studies of motion and emotion. I’ve been in an obstinately “unproductive” space this past week, but used my time well. Motion: I went swimming for the first time in 5 years; in the autumn’s holy light, the lake is a sacrament. Emotion: I watched three years of The Split in four days. Cried my eyes out. In awe of acting and a script this good. Sometimes you just have to take a vacation from yourself and let other people do life for you. On Hulu, BBC possibly the best relationship drama I have seen.
I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in wh I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in which I let the story of place, museums, witness and culture unfold as it wishes. It’s an old-style post before I had “newsletter consciousness.” (Sigh….when you send out a post with one image and a show announcement and maybe five more words and someone writes, “perfect length to view on my phone” you may be tempted to perform more of the same and forget the original muse, born long before success was judged by how well thoughts fit within 2x5” square inches. A few excerpts here and first link in bio to read the entirety. Witness and elegy is where I seem to live. Painting is acrylic ink on panel, a piece I have yet to resolve but like to see into for the next step.
If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s still yours! Yesterday I started early and went to an island in the middle of the blue sea to be in beauty and celebrate life. As we walked the beach we met a young boy also born on 9.11. His parents had brought him to Vashon for the same reason, and he had found a perfect moon shell for his own birthday present sent from the sea. It was such a lovely moment, to remember the world is young no matter how old we are.
Taking the last golden days of summer for study. T Taking the last golden days of summer for study. The Volunteer Park museum has an exhibit showing the influence of the Edo arts in Japan on Toulouse-Lautrec and I went to see it last weekend. As you can see from these images, I seem to have no interest in Lautrec— True! But these details of woodcuts and paintings on silk fill me with a quiet rapture.
Walking Meditation Walking Meditation
RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid

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