My new book " Wheelhouse" published by ArtVoices Books this month
Check it out!
Here is the cover my new art book, and I want to let you know that it is worth the work to put this volume together for my interested collectors and followers! We hope you will enjoy the stories that are told inside along with over a hundred different works of art - paintings and works on paper and many new prints that I make in my studio. Yes, there is a wide range of artwork here, and it follows my development as a fine artist which has gone through some real evolutions!
Even this book has evolved through paperback editions and now here is the new hardback which you can find on line for sale at Amazon! My new book traces the changes in my work from representational compositions like the one on the cover which I call "Summer Harbor", to recent pieces like the one below which I call "Back Bay"
"Back Bay" , Transfer print on Fabriano paper
Earlier, in the 1980s my work took on an active kind of abstraction, influenced by expressionist artists, and I really got deeply involved in a kind of spontaneous composition, using wax and tempera ( they kind of repel one another! ). I thought of composition as a way of defining movement - like looking at a modern dance group and how they use the space they inhabit... These early abstractions are reviewed in the new book - "WheelHouse" by Bill Zimmer who was a New York Times art critic that I met when I was living in The Big Apple.
"The Desert Comes Alive At Night", 1984, oil on linen by Alan Singer
I was lucky to have found a large studio on Union Street in Brooklyn. I was on the ground floor of a building owned by the painter, Kendall Shaw who was also teaching in Manhattan. In my world at the time there was a lot of interest in abstraction, and Ken Shaw did a kind of painting that used systems and a process of building compositions out of little squares of color, which I found very interesting.
Now, forty years later I find a real connection to those paintings, and I put some of my energy into realizing new compositions that build on that experience, along with a new sense of where art and mathematics establish a visual dialog. In my new book two writers - Anne Coon, and Rebecca Rafferty expand on this idea. They contribute fine essays to my book and I am grateful to them for their insight!
"Blue Lake" , 2005, oil on linen in two parts, by Alan Singer
I think. of all the changes happening in the art world and beyond and we really are in a different scene today, especially after the Covid pandemic. I still am engaged in my art and I look forward to showing new work when chances arrive, and I am really excited about having a new book to share, so take a look if you have an inclination!
My new drawings and prints are included in this edition and the book is dedicated to my family, without whose support this would be a really different experience! Also the book is dedicated to the memory of the artist and printmaker Keith Howard who came to live with us in Rochester in the late 1990s, and whose work as a writer and practitioner will indicate some radical shifts in the use of materials and techniques for his art form.
A work in progress - oil on panel and not featured in my new book!
Many of my new works have bright color and an underlying grid system. I began to use visual cues from the efforts I make on my computer to understand how a composition can be developed using geometry and including concepts such as the formation of cellular automata on the two-dimensional plane of my canvas or board. I am really excited about the possibilities! This new work above really glows...
Finally, I did move my studio from the Hungerford Building in Rochester to a new cottage in Fairport where we now set up our home. I get to do prints and paintings and look forward to new showings of all this energy and attention!
"Tropicalia" , a transfer print made in 2016
Page 85 in my new book - WheelHouse
