watercolors

new watercolors that reflect the condition of homelessness in my Mission District neighborhood:

NEW WORK!

three new artforum pieces done April 2011

DAGBEELD BLOG

I was featured on Dagbeeld

http://www.digezine.nl/digezine/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3809:dagbeeld-789-francesca-pastine&catid=40:sea-hear-perviews

Tegenwoordig zien we weer geregeld het opnieuw toepassen van andermans werk of design in nieuwe creatieve uitingen, zoals dat overigens ook al jaren geleden opzien baarde (Marcel Duchamp). Bij Francesca Pastine komt daar in dit geval nog een extra tussenstap bij te pas - zij neemt namelijk oude exemplaren van ArtForum, een van de toonaangevende art-magazines die op grote schaal werk van kunstenaars publiceren, weer als basismaterialen voor haar papiersculpturen.

Door dan ook nog eens overduidelijk van 'For the Love of God', een fameus werk van Damian Hirst op de cover gebruik te maken voor haar intrigerende sculptuur is er in feite sprake van een drietrapsraket (of misschien wel meer trappen als we de uiteenlopende geruchten over de diamanten schedel mogen geloven.

Met deze via glamcult.com gespotte Francesca Pastine tonen we voor dit DAGBEELD een van onze favoriete media - papierknip- of snijkunst - ook weer eens op een heel andere manier dan we toonden van designers als Jerome Corgier en Yulia Brodskaya of bekende kunstenaars als Karen Sargsyan en Ton Zwerver welke laatste haar qua materiaalgebruik nog het dichtst benadert.

Het doorklikken naar het 'artforum excavations' portfolio van Francesca levert een aantal zeer mooie composities van re-re-used art op die allemaal ArtForum tijdschriften en Jaarboeken als uitgangspunt hebben. Meer werk van Francesca Pastine via de Eleanor Harwood gallery (o.a. 'Iraq casualties') of haar eigen website bearclaw.rexx.com

FLOOD BLOG

My work is mentioned on THE FLOOD blog.

http://ledeluge.wordpress.com/?s=francesca+pastine

http://ledeluge.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/art-blasphemous-cut-outs/

BLOGGED!

I've been blogged on Glamcult

"When I laid my eyes on this pieve of art, they kept looking for a while. After a few minutes they came to the conclusion that the work of FRANCESCA PASTINE is outstanding and has to be blogged. Stunning!

When Pastine noticed that ARTFORUM magazines were familiar fixtures in her friends’ home, she began using them for her work. Because of their glossy nature, nobody wanted to throw them away. While their sqaure format intrigues Pastine, she began asking her friends for their unwanted magazines.

She began using ARTFORUM magazines as a medium for her work. She started with the covers. She cut, bend, manipulate, pull and dig her way trough them, revealing a visceral topography of art trends."

Source // ArtForum Excavations

mu**see*um

It's amazing how horizontal the world is these days. Hurray for toppling hierarchies! Here is another blog, mu**see*um, that features my work.

"Francesca Pastine is good, really good, but her series “Iraqi Casualties” had us freaking out today. Some of the most beautiful lo-fi work we’ve seen in AAAAAAAGES made using some issues of the New York Times and a 9b pencil."

review by DeWitt Cheng

Here is a review of In the Dark by DeWitt Cheng in Visual Art Sources

http://www.visualartsource.com/index.php?page=editorial&pcID=26&aID=794

One of the first lessons in Drawing 101 class is that the “negative space” between objects is as important as the shapes of rendered objects. With the discovery of dark matter we might now nervously joke, whistling, that the visible universe is merely what is left over, excluded or extruded from the dark. That conclusion is partially verified by three artists — Joseph Bender, Francesca Pastine and Niall McClelland — who eschew color, preferring the blacker shades of dark. Once your eyes adapt to being “In the Dark,” the subtle joys of tone, texture and context become more important; and maybe your hearing improves, too. . .

Bender’s dark oils or oils/alkyds on 36 x 36” aluminum squares call to mind Ad Reinhardt’s 50”-square black cross paintings of the 1950s. “Addition is Not Subtraction” even employs the familiar cruciform composition; in other works, however, Bender is more severely reductive and monochrome — and ironic, considering titles like “Fabricator of Hidden Riddles,” “Where Dogs and Vultures Meet,” and, of course, “Crepuscular Predilection.” They vary in brushstroke and finish, if not in hue, asserting their materiality as we peer into their opaque “confrontational but contemplative” depths. Pastine works with printed newspaper and graphite in her “Iraq Casualty” series. New York Times cover pages from 2006 to 2008 are obscured with metallic 9B lead strokes, burying most of the type and imagery so that poignant slices of reality — body bags, coffins, a mourner — can expand to assume larger importance. In “Blackout, Section A Series,” she completely coats the paper, suggesting both censorship and mourning. McClelland’s “Tapestry” pieces are arrays of black page-sized rectangles with worn white creases, folds and puckers. They resemble astronomical charts without stars, or maps without geographical features, and reflect, darkly, both 1960s Minimalism and 1970s Process Art.