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Joan Gaustad

By Additional Works

Joan Gaustad addresses the human body as a fleeting form, interpreting figures more as an element with a moment, feeling, or communication.   The artist often uses her nieces as models, portraying a youthful beauty both gossamer and abnormal.  Gaustad’s figures dance, play, and sleep.  They are haunting in their ethereality, seemingly as fleeting as the moment depicted.  The artist explains, “The figures evoke something apparitional or damaged: a sinking down, lowing control, not-knowing” (2014). Her spontaneous use of Mylar—a type of polyester film paper—and washes of acrylic paint guide her approach to composition and form.  As acrylic intermingles on the Mylar surface, color and weight fluctuates, developing relationships sometimes diaphanous, sometimes bold, and often unexpected. Gaustad lives and works in Richmond, where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University (1974). She also studied at the University of Maryland’s Far East Division in Bangkok, Thailand and the Offenbach Hochschule Fur Gestaltung in Offenbach, Germany.  Her works have been exhibited at the Center for the Arts, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA; Hunter Gallery, Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, VA; Dupont Gallery, Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, VA; Lavori Su Carta, Milan, Italy; Virginia Contemporary Art Center, Virginia Beach, VA; SCOPE Art Fair, Wall Street Gallery Walk, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, all, New York, NY; 1708 Gallery, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Studio School, and VCUarts Anderson Gallery, all, Richmond, VA.  Her paintings are in the collections of the University of Virginia Health and Science Center, Charlottesville, VA; and Markel Corporation, Federal Reserve Bank, Medical College of Virginia, all, Richmond, Virginia.

Curriculum Vitae

Conor Backman

By Additional Works

Fascinated by representational work of master artists Van Gogh, Matisse, and Michelangelo, Conor Backman translates their techniques into the modern age. He expresses objects, landscapes, or elements of time with thousands of small brushstrokes, stippling oil paint to create photorealistic paintings. Although referencing pointillism, he combines this technique with abstraction, often changing perspective, scale, and material. He often incorporates man-made and common materials into the canvas, creating complex juxtapositions. Backman challenges how we see and interpret classic and modern art. He graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011 with dual Bachelors in Fine Arts in Painting and Printmaking, and Sculpture and Extended media. Having already mounted major solo exhibitions nationally and internationally, in 2017 he will have his first museum solo show in the United States at the University of Albany Museum SUNY. He was listed as one of the top 15 artists to watch in 2015 by The Huffington Post.

Curriculum Vitae

Past Exhibitions
Circular Garden
Taking Off: Hot New Painters
Hot Fun in the Summertime
Almost Famous

News
Richmond Times Dispatch 2016
Art Papers 2013

Portrait of Hannah, 2016, Oil on canvas over panel, tinted plexiglass, artist's frame, 23 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches
Untitled, 2017, Oil on canvas, 23 x 16 1/2 inches
Wave Book, 2018, Oil on steel, 12 x 16 x 2 inches
Portrait of Hannah, 2016, Oil on canvas over panel, tinted plexiglass, artist's frame, 23 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches
Untitled, 2017, Oil on canvas, 23 x 16 1/2 inches
Wave Book, 2018, Oil on steel, 12 x 16 x 2 inches