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Xiao Ming

Born in the Yunnan province of China, close to Tibet, Xiao Ming found her artwork on her beliefs and traditions of living with nature as a guardian and protector. These beliefs and traditions may have influenced Ming to favor colored inks, a gouache of sorts, derived from mineral pigments bound by using animal glue. Ming’s work is steeped in Chinese art history, influenced by the ancient scroll paintings depicting the mountains of China.  Xiao Ming interprets the Chinese landscape juxtaposed with her own personages and figures. In addition to possessing a unique talent with natural art, Xiao Ming combines her quiet faith with a sense of aestheticism, holding them in a kind of symbolism that, to the western eye, remains shrouded in mystery.

 

The Spirit Song of Heart by Xiao Ming mixed media, signed, 2001 33 1/2" x 32" (10547c)		The East Light by Xiao Ming mixed media, signed, 2001 34 1/4" x 34 1/4" (10561c)

Previous Artists of the Month

Carol Summers

Born in 1925 in Kingston, New York, Carol Summers is often described as the best printmaker in the world. He is represented in virtually every museum’s contemporary print collection in the United States, and has taught at the School of Visual Arts and Hunter College in New York, San Francisco Art Institute and University of Pennsylvania, among other institutions. Summers is a recipient of the Guggenheim, Tiffany and Fulbright Fellowships.

The artist’s father and mother were both trained painters, which partly explains why he made up his mind early. In 1948, Summers attended Bard College in New York with the idea of specializing in painting, but a year or two after he started his studies, Louis Schanker, one of the country’s most accomplished woodcut printmakers, joined the school’s art faculty. “That was it for me,” Summers recalled. “He was the cause of my falling in love with the woodcut medium. It probably strikes some people as strange that anybody would want to work at such a primitive process as woodcut printing when in recent years there have been such great technical advances in such fields of printmaking as etching and lithography.”

The artist is fascinated with the landscape and its spectacular changes of season, its regal mountains and seas. These landscapes are featured in his woodcuts in an abstract form with bold color. At the present time Summers resides in California and Mexico.

Chamba Bamba by Carol Summers color woodcut, 2004 17" x 12 3/4 " (11381g)	Northern Lights by Carol Summers woodcut/monotype, signed 25/100 2002 11 3/4x 12" (10769g)	Pura Vida by Carol Summers woodcut, signed, AP 1985 24 1/4 " x 24 1/2 " (8296g)
Phewa Tal by Carol Summers woodcut, signed 83/150, 1978 12" x 16 " (8157c)

 

 

Ernesto Gutierrez

Ernesto Gutierrez was born in Lima, Peru in 1939, his father a Spaniard, and his mother a descendant of the Incas. In 1971, he came to Milwaukee to study art on a Fulbright Scholarship and received a Master of Fine Arts Degree in 1974. Gutierrez is also a noted historian of Pre-Columbian culture, writer and illustrator who has received several awards for his printmaking and painting. Gutierrez has been influenced by Pre-Columbian forms, native-popular Peruvian art, and by modern French masters such as Cezanne, Gaugin and Matisse as well as Rembrandt and Botero. The bold colors that are used by Gutierrez- bright pink, chartreuse, mauves, blues, purples, and greens, sometimes underlined and accented with black, maize and pure white, add to the dramatic effect. “The most important part of a painting to me is the color, and then the subject”, notes Gutierrez. His sensibility strikes as essentially Spanish while his inspiration derives from his Inca heritage, Peruvian landscape, folklore and textiles.

El Baile (the Dance) by Ernesto Gutierrez oil on canvas, 1999 38" x 48" (9770g)

Patio in Peru by Ernesto Gutierrez oil on canvas, 1997 10" x 8" (1955d)

Porongo Rojo (Red Water Vessel) by Ernesto Gutierrez oil on jute, 2000 25" x 30 " (10455g)