My Artomatic Favorites ( top 8 and counting....)

so far, these are some of my favorites from Artomatic 2007.
I'll fine tune this list and add a few more to get an obligatory top 10.

1. Veronica Szalus- metal spikes,paper and plaster: perfect combination.



2. Novie trump- Novie's series of ceramic sculpture is beautiful. great textures, wonderful themes. skilled execution. i'm a big fan of Novie's work.


3. Rebecca Gordon- Ant-O-Matic. just because it's insane.



4. Laurel Lukaszewski - Laurel is a studio mate of mine and seeing her work everyday is inspiring. it has this wonderful ordered craziness to it. so structured but expelling radical ions. i really like Laurel's work and this installation is a smart use of her space.



5. Elizabeth Lundberg Morisette- This is a perfect installation. wrapping around the column in front of big windows. smells wonderfully of beeswax. powdercoated paper. Stunning to see and smell.



6. Sergio OlivosM- i like his use of wax and burnt objects. the organic quality of his work really appeals to me. I respond to these on a very visceral level.



7. Cory Oberndorfer:


because whoever can combine both these images in one presentation rocks. look at the egg!


8.Joanna Knox i'm especially excited that i'll be having an exhibit with this photographer later in the year. Her work has a clean but eerie feeling. shes seems to use white much like Andrew Wyeth.....and in a way that parallels my limited use of color, in my mind anyway. Nonetheless her imagery is intriguing.there is a quiet desolation i enjoy.



9.?
10?
though i'm not sure if they are my top ten favorites yet
I really like this piece:
Its a graphite drawing straight on the wall. I'm a big fan of installation painting.... so this is kinda up my alley. I don't know who did it. *Alexandra Silverthorne mentions that its John Adams*



This and other pieces by Michael Stebbins are pretty cool:


There are a bunch of encaustic artists too that i'm really digging on:

Sondra Arkin, who has an opening of MORE work at Nevin Kelly gallery on thursday.


and this artist, whose name i don't recall:



then there was the person that did this piece:

though i thought that only two of them had much bite.

There weren't too many straight up painters than were doing incredible work, but these paintings by Claudia Olivos were beautiful, especially displayed together. i'm afraid that if you buy her work, you'll have to buy 5 or six paintings to display next to each other



There are a number of other excellent artists, but are either good friends of mine, or my wife, so i can't really add them to my top ten, even though their work is new and exciting.
here are some pictures of their work:


Rania Hassan



Tim Tate:

Michael Janis

Kirk Waldroff:



Erwin Timmers




All in all i think that this years Artomatic has the most professional vibe to it, though perhaps at the expense of experimentalism. Its very well put together, the presentations are tight. There are some artists that have retained the energy from the original AOM at the Manhatten Laundry, but more have moved on and it seems that the energy of AOM has changed altogether.

I wager that Art Outlet will fill the experimental niche........