LAST EDITED ON 23-Jan-02 AT 02:32 PM (PST)
 

"Frescoes" - group exhibition at the Cafe al Fresco

Welcome to create the First Fresco Group Show on the Internet!
Everyone is encouraged to show their frescoes.

How to show/post: Click reply, type your name in the subject line, post image (see HTML reference, if the PIC is on your comp's hard-drive upload the image to our server - this options will appear above message box after you click reply), type the title of the fresco, size, year brief story about the work (if you want), link to your site (optional), click submit.

LAST EDITED ON 30-Dec-00 AT 09:28 AM (PST) by admin (admin)

It is nice to begin the first new year of the 2nd millenium showing my first real attempt to create large scale fresco. It was done on 94 and this is a part (center) of 3m x 2m work. Since then I made more works by commission (few) and LOTS of small exercises. I love this important forum. Thanks and happy new year.
Yoram

Beyond technical demands (most important) stands the picture and the question if we, artist, play any roll in formation of something different, better approach, better anvironment, tolerance, if we realy try to help people around us to open their eyes and accept differrence as a fact, as a reality, or, if all we do is ask for a blind admiration of blind people.
I worked on this Fresco for about four month within a school during studying hours and the reaction of the children and stuff lead to most interesting and fruitful arguments and discussions about art, life, techniques, history, order, in fact, things that not necessary associate with the direct message of this work, and I thought suddenly that maybe the main achievement was that I brought myself and my gallery into school, forcing people to react and by this help to rise questions that relate to art beyond just another asthetic medium.

Yoram - your work is impressive!

I wanted to comment on how lucky you are to be working where you are. The problems of an identical project in this part of the world would be many. First of all, you would have to rent professional scaffolding, erected by the company, with a cash deposit of $2,000. Because it is near a school, the safety police would worried about things dropping, the whole base area would have to be fenced off within a few feet of the scaffolding. As an extra precaution, they might require the project to be wrapped - this is heavy plastic sheet which is heated with torches to form a "shrink wrap" over the whole job (another sub-contract). I understand that in California, any job over $500 requires licensing and "trade papers" for whatever work you are doing (this might not apply to fresco art?).

You, on the other hand, got to interact and respond to the public while you were working. Again, you are a lucky.

This is a detail of my "Albuquerque Fresco" (total size 24ft/19ft). Wooden Angels, hand carved in Germany, have been placed over the surface to create an additional perspective.

more pictures at
http://www.truefresco.com/albuquerque.html

This one called "Sundance". It is a small 3ft by 4ft fresco panel
First of in so called "Modern Fresco Collection"

more images at
http://www.truefresco.com/exhibitions/oldweb/mfc_index.html

An this one is my favorite of the 17 frescoes in the "Modern Fresco Collection" entitled "The Wind" (photos are not to good)

more images at
http://www.truefresco.com/exhibitions/oldweb/mfc_index.html

this is one of my first tries at fresco painting....a copy of one of the ajanta cave paintings in India....i tried to distress it to make it look old, etc...any suggestions and comments would be so greatly appreciated!

LAST EDITED ON 16-Mar-01 AT 11:47 PM (PST)

here is another, a bit larger, with the same inspiration from the ajanta caves but trying a more modern approach.

i so much welcome any comments and advice you all could give!
thanks!
karla

This one is very clever! clean and fluid in color. I could not see the one above well enough (i understand it was distressed to have an aged look). Great start!

thank you ilia! i'm thrilled you like it as i respect your opinion very much....
if you have any tips on how to distress frescos, i.e. create cracks, an aged look, etc, i would so much appreciate your advice!
warm regards,
karla

LAST EDITED ON 19-Mar-01 AT 04:17 PM (PST)

I am the wrong person to ask this question, I am and will be an advocate for, and a pupil of undisstressed, alive frescoes - takes years to mature in color - a fassinating process to vitness through years for a collector, viewer, artist - like an aged wine the difference is that the "bottle always remains full". However with some practice and with different ammount of water in the plaster You should be able to control the size and location of the cracks easily.

read this letter I have received from Steve & Renee Upah (Albuquerque Fresco)
http://www.truefresco.com/workshop (scroll to the bottom)
The beauty of the fresco is in color - not cracks!

Hi Karla! I hope I did not offend or confused you in any way.
My comments about the cracks and distressing are purely personal to fresco as a form of art. For the moment any fresco work is utmost important. My suggestion was a try to channel your exploration into "natural aging" - manipulating of water in the plaster to achieve cracks. This way you will be able to grow as a frescoist and sutisfy the market that you have. Please continue to post your art at the Cafe al Fresco and not only frescoes - explore other gallery sections.

Ilia

PS. Remember, people like you, that are straggling through the luck of possibilities to learn and practice fresco in the contemporary art world are doing an invaluable service to the world community.

dear ilia,

thank you so much for your message...i promise you did not offend me at all and i as always so much appreciate your input and the time you give me directly and through this site with advice and encouragement...that is truly a wonderful service to all of us. i hope to learn more about all different techniques in fresco painting and am moving forward in it with great enthusiasm...i will be traveling to italy on thursday, then on to nepal....in italy one of the things i will be doing is spending some time at san servolo for a 2 week course in fresco, including some training in restoration techniques (which is my background). i hope to come away with a more solid feeling of what is possible in fresco painting and to have a lot stronger sense of how to work with the materials.
as i said before i am really grateful to you for all of your help, and i will continue to seek it i am sure!
with warmest regards
karla refojo

Hi Karla
I have an idea to try working on the Intonaco in different ways like for instance applying background colors first and than drawing in a free modern way on top, that way I hope to achieve different result from the traitional clean look of the Fresco. I think that you try to achive also some kind of different and more personal expression. The old masters worked according to conceptions of their time. Do not hasitate to try ALL kinds of ways, including "wrong" ways to find your way. The more mistakes you do the more you learn about this beautifull technique and you might even find along this experiments some new original solutions. Hello to you from Ajanta. I have just been there.
Good luck
Yoram

dear yoram,

thank you for your e! i agree with what you are saying and am trying to do just that....i think there are so very many possibilities with these materials, and part of the excitement i feel is in the discovery of them.
you just went to ajanta???? is it as amazing as the pictures convey, i imagine it is actually way more so....it is a place i hope to go to myself before to long. it is such a strong inspiration for me, and i do feel as if i have been there already. but, it will have to wait....for now i am looking forward to my trip to venice and nepal for inspiration as well....
thank you for your advice and words...i will keep you posted

warm regards
karla