ARTEZINE

-- A Cyberspace Review Of The Arts

Volume 17.18
May 29, 2010

Editor:
Robert Sievert
robert.sievert@gmail.com
Editorial Associates:
Eva Sievert

 


Publisher and Webmaster:
ETAOIN / Gordon Fitch
artezine17@etaoin.com
Artezine is a New York City - based review of the Arts and Culture by artists for artists.

Editorial comments, contributions, and inquiries should be directed to Mr. Sievert.
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click on picture for press release




Book Review:
  A Painter's Life
    by K.B.Dixon

book cover of "A Painter's Life"

by Robert Sievert

 

If you live in New York and are familiar with the art world you may think that it is something goes on only in the big towns. K.B. Dixon's A Painter's Life belies such thoughts with an interesting account of a fictional painter, Christopher Freeze. The book is set as a series of notes by Christopher Freeze. It reveals the ongoing life of an artist living in parts of America's West, first Phoenix, then the Northwest. The notes are like diary entries; then there are excerpts of various reviews and sections of "unpublished journals."

My first reaction was "This stuff goes on outside of the New York scene too," with which I am more familiar. The openings, parties, rivalries, all hit a familiar note. Christopher Freeze is very fortunate in that he has a dealer, is often written about and regularly sells his work. All these things set him apart from New York artists where the ratio of artists to dealers is about 500 to 1. Everyone I know works hard to gain any written documentation of their career, so this book has a certain romanticism with respect to "a painter's life" in the amount of press Freeze is able to generate and his other good fortune. And then, it may be easier to be an artist outside New York City.

All this said the book is very engrossing. More so than I initially thought. At one point during the time I was reading it I misplaced it and went crazy for a day looking for it. There is no real "story" to the book -- just the ongoing daily life of the artist. His perceptions and sensitivity are beautifully portrayed and there is certainly a compelling aspect to his work. Throughout the book one is challenged to imagine the paintings being talked about. Christopher Freeze has interesting things to say about painting. In one faux interview he confesses a suspicion of scale, noting that " spectacle is the first refuge of a scoundrel"

I kept wondering whether the writer, K.B. Dixon, was not also a painter. His sense of pictorial imagination is very strong.

The book is available through Amazon.com. Among its many virtues is its brevity. The passages are brief, never more than a page and one can read for a few moments or spend an afternoon moving through the artist's life.

On a further note, A Painter's Life has just been short listed for the Eric Hoffer Award for short prose and independent books. See http://www.hofferaward.com/HAcategoryfinalists.html



Copyright © 2010 Robert Sievert

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Back to the Front

Bill Jensen

Richard LaPresti

Pinhole Camera

Peter Halley

Bronzino

Man Ray

Bauhaus

Book Reviews

Stuart Sherman

Street Art Report

Taller Artifex at Blue Mountain Gallery

David Mollet at the Bowery Gallery

Socrates Goes To The Country

German Art at Blue Mountain Gallery

Lousie Guerin at Blue Mountain Gallery

Nicolas Carone at Washburn Gallery

Diana Manister: Visual Poetry

A New Format

Artezine 16

Artezine 15

Artezine 14

Artezine 13

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ETAOIN
May 29, 2010