burka william stoehr

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BURKA William Stoehr

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BURKAThe exhibit

This exhibit features 32 (possibly more) large portraits (48 x 36 in each) arrayed in separate eight portrait collections (see example below). Each of the collections is approximately 9 ft. high x 13 ft. wide. Ideally each of the portrait collections will occupy a wall or partition in the gallery space. On another wall or partition an HDTV monitor will display a four-frame slide show featuring randomly selected Burka Series portraits moving in and out of one of the four frames at regular intervals. This installation requires a minimum room size of 24 x 24 ft with at least a 14 ft ceiling. Even larger is better. There may also be other suitable room configurations.

The video display is accompanied by a soundtrack (casino background noise) which is discordant and seemingly inconsistent or apathetic to the emotion portrayed by the images.

The Burka Series portraits are of expressive individuals in unknown situations. The title "Burka" refers to my emphasis on each individual's eyes. However, I am toying with the idea of changing the title of the exhibit and portrait series paintings from "Burka" to "Facebook".

I believe that the individual portraits as well as the portrait collections stand on their own but, the addition of the video slide show allows me to go beyond the four portrait collections in exploring how adjacent images affect one another both in terms of emotional response and graphic presentation.

__________________ 13 feet _______________

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BURKAThe proximity effect - graphically

Each of the individual portraits influences and is influenced by other portraits in the collection or group. In the abstract, the eight-portrait collections present symmetry, rhythm and movement based on the repetition of these generally similar compositions. With the addition of the HDTV, therandom reordering of these similarly composed yet different images casts a new overall composition with a new and different rhythm and movement with each random change.

The proximity effect - dramatically and emotionally

Each of the individual portraits elicit a particular emotional response but may project a different meaning or impression and elicit a different response when viewed collectively as a group as in the case of the eight-portrait collections. With the addition of the HDTV video slide show, as individual portraits are randomly substituted in each group, viewers respond differently to each change.

The metaphors - the company we keep

I see this exhibit as mirroring our lives and how we are viewed by others relative to the group that we are part of at any particular moment. It reflects how we are affected by others and how we in-turn influence others as well.

The soundtrack along with the random reordering of portraits, supports the suggestion regarding chance encounters in life – chance regarding the people we come in contact with and how they influence, redirect or change our lives.

The video display will appear like the image below. To preview this exhibit, including the video slide show, visit www.stoehr.us/BURKA or go to www.stoehr.us and follow the links to the BurkaInstallation.

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BURKAI am striving for a total effect but with figures that read as individuals. The single portraits and portrait arrays read both dramatically (emotionally) and graphically while the video slide show creates new meaning and new compositions with each change.

Notes on process and technique

Each individual portrait in this series is acrylic over charcoal on canvas measuring 48 x 36 inches. Each portrait was first drawn and then painted with charcoal which I applied all overthe image and then moved around with a wet sponge. I then scrubbed, sanded and washed the charcoal for highlights and various effects. I strengthened lines and added small amounts of color to the images before finally adding bold black and red marks. These large portraits seem to reflect my own conflicting interest in control combined with instinctive reaction and randomness. Focusing on a face and eyes seems to amplify my ability to engage the viewer. The juxtaposition of a monochromatic face, colored expressive eyes and stark red slashes seems to intensify the overall reaction.

The images in this proposal are all available for this exhibition.

New images in this series as wellas other additional Burka Series paintings can be seen on my web site www.stoehr.us

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BURKAI am most interested in my exhibit sparking discussion such as the role of painting and how it can be combined with other media in new art. I am interested in art and metaphor.

I have been a featured speaker and commentator around the world on behalf of National Geographic and I have presented workshops and talks for the Denver Art Museum, Colorado Art Ranch and CultureHaus (partner Denver Art Museum). As such I am comfortable in taking an exhibition from a simple display to a provocative and educational event. I am available for a talk, panel discussion or workshop on or around the time of the opening.

Regards,

William Stoehr

1641 9th St, Boulder, CO 80302 303-638-2868 [email protected] www.stoehr.us

Please visit www.stoehr.us for additional information and new paintings as they are completed.

mailto:[email protected]�

http://www.stoehr.us/�


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biography

In 1964 I was 16, living in Burlington, Wisconsin, Willem de Kooning was my art hero and I thought that I was going to be an artist. I became an engineer instead and ultimately president of National Geographic's world-wide mapping operations. 40 some years, several jobs, countries and cities later, I am back where I belong - in front of a canvas with a brush in my hand. So here's the deal, in 2004 at 55, I quit the best job I ever had so that I could paint. A brief resume follows.

Stoehr is the past President of National Geographic Maps where he was responsible for the National Geographic Society's worldwide mapping operations. He is also the past president of the International Map Trade Association, representing the map industry in more than 55 countries.

He has and is currently serving on the board of national and international non-profit organizations focusing on inner-city, at-risk teens, and children in war-torn countries.

A featured speaker at national and international conferences around the world, he has also appeared on radio and television on behalf of National Geographic.

1641 9th St, Boulder, Colorado 80302 303-638-2868 [email protected] www.stoehr.us

mailto:[email protected]�


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Recent solo exhibitions

Gallery St Thomas, Virgin Islands, 2008 Gallerie Porto 34, St Barth, FWI, 2008 St Barth International Book Festival, St Barth, FWI , 2008 Gallery St Thomas, St Thomas, Virgin Islands, 2007 Caneel Bay Resort, St John, Virgin Islands, 2007 Exhibitrek – the Gallery, Boulder, Colorado, 2007Exhibitrek – the Gallery, Boulder, Colorado, 2006Gallery St Thomas, St Thomas, Virgin Islands, 2005Gallery St Thomas, St Thomas, Virgin Islands, 2004

Recent two/three-person exhibitions

Gallery St Thomas, Virgin Islands, 2009Space Gallery, Denver, CO, 2008 Gallery St Thomas, St Thomas, Virgin Islands, 2006Neo Art Gallery, Denver, Colorado, 2004

Recent group exhibitions

ArtExpo, New York, NY, 2007 Artists Association of St. John, Annual Group Show, St. John, Virgin Islands, 2006Safety Zone Invitational Exhibition, St. John, Virgin Islands, 2006Beaux Art Festival – Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, Florida, 2005Artists Association of St. John, Annual Group Show, St. John, Virgin Islands, 2005Safety Zone Invitational Exhibition, St. John, Virgin Islands, 2005Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit, New York, NY, 2005

Other events, features or presentations

American Contemporary Art Magazine, summer 2009 – feature articleCulture Haus (partner Denver Art Museum), Space Gallery, 2008 – exhibition/presenterColorado Art Ranch, Durango, CO, 2007 - workshop presenterCulture Haus (partner Denver Art Museum), 2007 – presenterDenver Art Museum, Denver CO, 2007 - untitled #5 program presenterDestination US Virgin Islands Magazine – featured artist for 2006Caribbean Museum Center Calendar, 2006

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artist’s statement

You might call my style inner directed figurative. The best way for me to provoke an emotional response is to paint a person. I strive for powerful imagery that creates tension and expresses raw emotion.

The more I paint the more I understand that intention almost always gives way to discovery. Once I figured this out I stopped trying to force meaning and just take things as they happened – both in style and interpretation.

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Untitled(Britt) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Britt2) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Brittany) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Cathy) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Destiny) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Destiny2) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Cassidy) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Hauna1) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Ama2) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Lonni) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Loni2) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Loni3) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Laine2) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Misuzu) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Misuzu2) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Molly1) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Priscila7) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Priscila) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Rebecca) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Rheanna) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Ruth2) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Sarah2) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Sarah1) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Skye2) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Thea 2) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Untitled(Thea 3) acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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Excerpt from upcoming American Contemporary Artist Magazine 2009 By Kelly Stone

William Stoehr left his career to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming an artist. In his previous career incarnation, Stoehr was president of National Geographic Maps, the entity responsible for all things cartographical for the international magazine. Although gratifying on many levels. Stoehr yearned to explore a different sort of terrain, the infinite territory of canvas and paint.

Speaking with him from his Boulder, Colorado studio, one gets the feeling Stoehr is in his element judging from the excitement with which he speaks about his recent works. This interview finds him midway through his newest series. For many modern artists and explorers alike, this is the dreaded moment of “what do I do next?”, a critical junction between a momentous start full of ideas and fervent work and the gradual waning of drive and longing for the next frontier. Surrounded by canvases many of which are on the verge of the final brush-stroke, Stoehr finds opportunity for new discoveries in the paint already applied and inspiration for the forms not yet realized.

Stoehr’s aptitude in rendering the human figure is astounding, not withstanding the fact that he has only been a “career artist” for four years. The ability with which he coaxes the form from within the canvas has earned Stoehr accolades from domestic and foreign galleries, exhibiting recently at Space Gallery in Denver, Colorado and Gallerie Porto 34 in Saint Barth, French West Indies.

The inception of Stoehr’s newest collection originated from a conversation between the artist and a close friend, a fellow artist and gallery owner. Eager for a new adventure, Stoehr asked his friend what he thought would be an interesting artistic avenue to explore, contemplating a foray into the unknown. Stoehr’s friend, familiar with his earlier works, suggested a closer examination of abstract portraiture. With this suggestion and having recently attended a Marlene Dumas retrospective, Stoehr began the first pieces of what he would call the BurkaSeries.

Focusing on the elements of portraiture that interest him most, Stoehr directed his attention to expressive qualities of the human face with intense concentration on the subjects’ eyes. Stoehr details the model’s features with precision, each planer variation expertly drafted with dramatic shadows and highlights. Stoehr’s models are ethnically diverse providing a comprehensive array of varying bone structures and features. The selection of models enhances the universality of the collection as a whole.

The monochromatic palette with which he initially renders the visage freezes the form in a dramatic likeness of the model while imbuing the canvas with an almost sculptural reflection. Although the face is frozen in a sort of suspended reality, the subjects’ eyes are vibrant and engaging. Stoehr’s application of dramatic sweeps of red across the canvas accentuates and abstracts certain details of his figure, enhancing the tension and movement of the subjects’ eyes. With varying coverage of color, Stoehr amplifies the figure’s intensity and presence.

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For Stoehr, this melding of figurative and abstraction is a functional union of his right-brained and left-brained approach to art. While drawn to the pragmatism of representational mark-making, Stoehr is enthralled by the freedom of intuitive abstract compositions. Stoehr describes the first time he approached a detailed canvas with a red brush questioning, “Should I put the paint in certain places… or let the painting go?” A moment of conflicted desire to control was met with his instinctive reaction to press the brush to the canvas; Stoehr standing on the precipice, decided to leap. With a distinct portion of the journey relying on intuitive happenstance, has Stoehr experienced any missteps? He answers, yes, explaining a situation with one of his first canvases, an over-energized brush stroke produced a foot-long gash across the surface of the painting. Aware but not overly conscious, Stoehr continues to allow the brush the ability to create at will.

While some of his canvases are lightly touched with color, others integrate color intensely into the matrix of the composition. Stoehr juxtaposes translucent washes of color with opaque brush-strokes varying the figure’s presence on the canvas. In some portraits the color closely contours the facial features, pleasantly accentuating the form. In other portraits in this series, swaths of color seemingly dissect the image, abruptly cropping and intensely abstracting the figure

At the time of this interview, Stoehr is investigating new techniques of color application. Having recently read a biography on Francis Bacon, Stoehr is interested in Bacon’s use of spray paint. Drawn to its immediacy, limitless intensity, and unpredictability, Bacon used spray paint and other unconventional coloring tools as a distraction from intentional mark-making stating, “Half my painting activity is disrupting what I can do with ease.” With an unwavering sense of adventure and a taste for the unknown, Stoehr picks up a spray can and charges forward.

Stoehr’s exploration has thus far produced twenty-five 48” x 36” canvases. Each piece is left untitled indicating his model’s name in parenthesis. Stoehr notes, the collective title BurkaSeries and the figures therein are not intended to be explicitly political. Individually, the images are powerful; as a group, the tension is moving. The women look out from behind their mantle of color urging the viewer to stay a moment, engage, and process.

Stoehr did not have preconceived ideas as to how the pieces should read singularly or as a series leaving the impetus of the collection to be decided by the viewer. Stoehr hopes to provoke an experience and illicit an emotional response but is apt to allow the viewer the freedom to explore his or her own conclusions. Stoehr simply states, “I shouldn’t be trying to guide. I’m interested in knowing but will let them figure it out.” For a man who spent the majority of his career producing detailed maps and guidebooks, it seems fitting that in “retirement” Stoehr opts to provide the vehicle but not the destination.

Kelly Stone is an art historian and freelance writer living in Denver, Colorado.

burka william stoehr

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