ANIMAL-ISTIC ART - INSPIRATION + DEVOTION IN EVERY CANVAS

Maria Teresa Miriel tells about the source of her inspiration for painting wild creatures and domestic animals, why clients choose her work and these subjects as gifts & to adorn their homes.

"I do so love animals. I simply feel tremendous tenderness towards them. They are wonderful creatures but are not always treated as they deserve, and too often with a total lack of respect, consideration and cruelty. It breaks my heart when remembering some occasions and not only feeling sad but truly furious about the unfairness of the situations I have known or heard.

I think that animals are like defenceless children no matter how fierce they can be. If you chain them, beat them or simply don’t give them food or water, they will die, no matter how strong and wild that animal is. The poor creatures can’t speak, cry or call for help. They do feel and suffer. There are so many proofs of it… I cooperate with dog rescue centres and they have too many stories that can back this statement! We should, we must be their voices… they need our help.

I live in Spain, Andalucía, a wonderful country but unfortunately not known for their love to animals. Luckily and gradually things are changing, for the better, with people becoming more aware of the necessity to be kind and respectful towards them. Sadly it hasn’t been like this and still there is a long way to go. But now, there are more societies created for animal protection, my husband and I, sponsor a donkey from the Donkey Sanctuary in Antequera, near Malaga. It is such a marvellous experience to visit that place. It is worth every minute of it. Also, our dog of 12 years old now was a stray, found abandoned near our house, like so many poor dogs around Christmas time… so sad.

That is one of the main reasons why I probably enjoy painting animals so much. I have painted pets, horses and also zebras, lions, beautiful Bengal tigers, etc. I feel that they can be portrayed as works of art in themselves and decorate our walls in a different and magnificent way. And those paintings fit equally well in a classical or modern environment. A big painting of an animal can fill up the room and create a unique atmosphere all by itself.

                                                  

I have often heard with great satisfaction particularly from lady clients how happy they are when buying from me the painting of an animal and giving it as a present to their husband . Otherwise, they tell me, he would have just ended up with the usual seascape, landscape, boat or map picture… but a painting of an animal? Well, that is simply wonderful, something special … nobody remains indifferent to it. I like to think that my particular love of animals helps to add power to the impact of those unique subjects."

To buy Maria Teresa Miriel's works or for exhibition arrangements, trade and corporate sales and partnerships contact The Fine Art Partnership Ltd TM  http://www.fineartpartnership.com/ .  We work with your preferences on every level: ideas, periods, color-ways, artist or genre with access to extensive collections and artists who create on commission as well.    

All works are available as commissions by contacting enquiries@tfapl.com  to discuss or to ask for a quote.

KOP Africa - Make a difference in 2011 - Intelligent Giving, Intelligently Implemented

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"The Kenyan Orphan Project was started in 2001 by 3 medical students with the vision to fight against poverty, disease, social exclusion and injustice and to help improve the lives of orphans and vulnerable children in Kenya.

Since then more than 650 students from different UK medical schools have been helping to support KOP projects. KOP also works hard to link project work with global child health education and experience for UK students and volunteers.


KOP is committed to creating sustainable initiatives with local project partners."

Give your time:  http://www.kopafrica.org/students.htm
or Support with funds, a small effort makes a big difference: http://www.justgiving.com/kopuk
Watch and Listen to know why : http://www.kopafrica.org/homevideo1.htm

One of the greatest Masters of Vietnamese Lacquer Work

We decided that for 2011 The Fine Art Partnership would begin cooperation with a living legend of Eastern Art and we are offering his works (a sample of which can be seen in detail on The Fine Art Partnership Ltd TM  pages devoted to him). 

Nguyen Viet Bang

Artist Nguyen Viet Bang was on October 1956 into a very artistic family both musically and as visual artists.

"I have been studying lacquer since the mid 70s and started a career in lacquer with the help of my old master when I was nineteen.  People always ask me :  'Why have you always been so passionate about Lacquer art?' and I say: 

"Lacquer is the type of art where you use a lot of materials to describe PIECES

and OBJECTS in different colours but the outcomes are so mysterious that I can’t even begin to explain or achieve the same effect through other different media. It makes no difference what the subject matter, whether I am painting landscapes, portraits, abstractions ... to me everything in everyday life is beautiful but being able to transfer these beauties into paintings is the key.

I specialise in traditional Vietnamese lacquer which is becoming a lost art as lacquer in Vietnam becomes more and more commercialised.  Artists now use modernised lacquer materials, which can be produced much more quickly than the traditional but has lost almost all of the original qualities. A traditional piece of lacquer can take up to 6 months or more to complete depending on size and complication.  In a year I only can complete a very few works.

Recently the national TV proposed that I do a documentary about traditional lacquer master work, the documentary mainly was based around my gallery called ThuyKy and my warehouse where everything’s related to the works are kept. The hour long documentary was made and broadcast on Vietnam national TV  recently and was very well received.

See link:

History of Lacquer

Lacquer is the resin of certain trees growing only in East Asia whose characteristics vary: Rhus succedanea in Vietnam, Rhus verniciera in Japan and Melanorrhea laccifera in Cambodia.The Vietnamese Rhus succedanea has been known for a long time as the so’n tree, an indigenous name. In Phu Tho Province, in Northern Vietnam, resins are harvested from the Rhus Succedanea Tree and converted into natural lacquer, which is then applied to the paintings.

Over the centuries, Vietnamese master craftsmen and artists have mastered techniques using lacquer for purpose of decoration ,preservation, lacquer paintings then became Vietnamese specialties.

To paint with lacquer, one must paint in depth what is in the external layer of the picture and paint above what is in the internal layer, then rub it with pumice and the picture will be visible. The strokes must be minute because there is a great deal of sticky matter and a high degree of homogeneity must be achieved in the lacquer, because everything might disappear during the pumicing. The creation is done in several stages, after each of them, the lacquer dries and only then can one start the following stage. A small mistake can be disastrous. Thousands of other difficulties are to be overcome, the working rules must be strictly observed.

Only a true artisan in the lacquering art who has inherited the secrets transmitted from generation to generation can resolve these problems.

The palette of lacquer painting includes only the color of canhgian (cockroach wings), then (black), son (red), silver and gold. Gold and silver must be pure gold and silver, which in the present are difficult to obtain. To prepare the color, mother-of-pearl and egg shell are also used.  If all the complex stages are carefully exectured only then does the master lacquer artist obtain the marvel of the finished product: an artwork of material, color and light bound together in perfect proportion to last for centuries.

Neo-Renaissance Andalusian Artist - Maria-Teresa Miriel

If there were ever an artist that is made for the world of Interior Design it is Maria Teresa Miriel.  She has an extensive background in art and her particular life long love of Italian Renaissance allows creations which are not copies but rather reworkings for the buildings she decorates and artworks she brings to life.

Florentine Scene - oil on baord - with ground of 22 carat gold foil (as http://www.fineartpartnership.com/ )

She has been an integral part of the visual, mural and decorative restoration of Italian and Spanish villas to ancient private chapels and whether you choose to own a painting of a regal Count for your entrance hall or over mantle, or select a series of Renaissance Servants to process around the walls of your dining room, the viewer is overwhelmed by the presence of the figures which populate her paintings.

For instance, the works which can be seen by browsing http://www.fineartpartnership.com/ are inspired in some cases by the anonymous work which the artists describes as being her inspiration:

"......Basically this series of noble figures were in the Baronnial Room, I suppose it was the noble area of the Castle..... no one knows for certain who painted these figures, but they are clearly Italian with French influence. The date, without any great accuracy, is 1430 .... The old castle where the originals were discovered and from which I painted mine, was in Piemonte, Italy"

Born  in Chile in 1949 she studied Art initially in Santiago, and then in Madrid, Barcelona, Florence and Paris, as well as most lately decorative arts in London.  Her studies covered degrees in textile design, silkscreen, decorative effects., oil, acrylics, charcoals, and mixed media.  Her work is even more attractive when one considers she has only exhibited locally in Spain, but her clientele is entirely international, with designers and collectors around the globe commissioning and buying her work. 

Tete (as she is known to her friends) lives in Andalucia, the beautiful Sotogrande,with husband, dog and her magical studio. 

It should be noted that all of Maria Teresa-Miriel's work can be recreated to size and in variations for the individual client / interior decorator - Please contact enquiries@tfapl.com without obligation to ask about commission works.

While the US and Europe face a test, Asia rockets towards recovery | The Art Newspaper

While the US and Europe face a test, Asia rockets towards recovery The Art Newspaper

ML Art Source: ML Art Blog

ML Art Source: ML Art Blog

Mark Briscoe - The Interior Designer's Artist

Mark Briscoe was born on the 19th of December 1964. In Watford, Hertfordshire, U.K. (named: Mark Francis Drake-Briscoe) His early years were spent in the West Country in the county of Somerset. When he was six his father bought a house on the moorland countryside of Dartmoor in Devon. From an early age he showed a strong interest in artistic activities and when he left school he studied graphic design and fine art for two years at college in Torquay. He then went to live in London in the mid 1980's and it was here that he learned some fundamental techniques in paint finishes while employed at a painting restorer's workshop in Covent Garden. He had also at this time started to develop a fascination with oriental lacquer and eastern miniature painting. The museums of London provided a rich source of inspiration, with their collection of Chinese and  Japanese artefacts and the "Art of India" collections at the Victoria & Albert museum.

Briscoe started to experiment with some techniques for painting lacquered furniture. The experience he had gained working for a restorer had taught him a few tricks, in particular the use of gesso in priming a wooden surface which enables one to achieve a highly smooth ground on which to apply lacquer, a traditional technique that has been used by craftsmen over the centuries. He also learned some methods for painting fine gold decorative designs in the Persian style which he used to decorate small items of furniture. Although he was producing some fantastic results Briscoe was not fully satisfied with his achievements, and in 1988 he made a trip to India where he met an artist called Ram Krishna Sharma who made a living painting traditional Indian miniatures. Sharma lived in the beautiful city of Udaipur in the state of Rajasthan, Northern India.

Sharma invited Briscoe to stay and learn the art of miniature painting, an opportunity which Briscoe jumped at having already seen what could be achieved with the skilful handling of an Indian miniaturists brush. The next few months of tuition under the guidance of R K Sharma taught Briscoe more about painting than all the years he had spent at college back in England. The use of line as practised by the Indian Masters with a very fine squirrel hair brush and a gum based paint solution were the basic foundations of all the great Eastern traditions of painting, whether Indian, Chinese, Japanese or Persian, the use of a gracefully flowing stylised line ran through all of them. By mastering the brush techniques employed in Indian miniature painting he realised that they could be successfully applied in other forms of artistic expression and would be of particular value in Chinoiserie decoration on lacquer furniture.

In December of that year Mark Briscoe married a girl called Sandhya that he met in a small town called Kalyan near Mumbai, He continued to live with her family making periodic visits to see his teacher back in Rajasthan. He had already made some useful contacts in Bombay and was given a number of commissions including some murals in the Juhu beach residence of Rajesh Shah, the director of Mukand Steel. He also spent some time working on several projects in the palatial Poona residence of Sri Mataji Nirmala Devi.

There he painted some more murals and a very large ceiling painting in one of the main halls displaying a colourful floral network of spiralling arabesques on a huge arched ceiling forty feet in length supported at intervals by columns, a project which took several months with a large team of artists. During this period in Poona Briscoe began to experiment with some ideas that had long been in his mind. He started to develop some techniques for painting Indian compositions on a large scale format but sticking to the traditional themes used in Indian miniatures.

He was aware that India had a tradition of painting large wall hangings (called Pichhavais) but these lacked the subtle tinting found in the finest of miniatures, especially those miniatures painted on small sheets of ivory where the colours are applied very thinly exploiting the pale background tone of the ivory which shines through creating a beautiful luminosity. This same effect he achieved in his paintings with great success, creating a depth and richness of tone that has a soothing effect and is pleasing to the eye. In addition to the paintings he has also employed this valuable knowledge of Indian brush work in his chinoiserie decoration of lacquer furniture, successfully applying detailed foliage, flowers, and trees to coloured lacquer backgrounds.

In 1991 Mark Briscoe moved to Brighton in the South coast of England where he continued to work until 2001 when he moved with his wife and two children to Zaragoza in north eastern Spain. Here he began to experiment with the techniques of the old European master artists using both egg tempera and oils as a medium for painting on panels. To begin with Mark painted classic landscapes with great success and then moved on to a more expressive style of work using thick impasto paint strokes with bright sections of colour surrounded by a fairly bold dark line, a style similar to that of the fauvists or post- impressionists.

His works have been bought by art collectors such as Lord Swraj Paul, RamolaBachchan and Rajesh Shah (of Mukund steel) He has also worked on several creative projects in conjunction with interior designers Neena Campbell, Joanna Wood and Victoria Waymouth.but only since he started exhibiting with galleries in the USA has his work begun to attract attention from a much broader audience, Mark's current style of composition has had an instant appe

al with US collectors. His work has been featured in several magazines including Architectural Digest, House and Garden, the front cover of Resurgence magazine and India Today.

(See: http://www.fineartpartnership.com/  to see some of Mark Briscoe's latest works or contact Claire Swait csoffice@virginmedia.com for more information on Mark, to view or to commission a work.)