_PNG.png){kind=small}
Jeff Newman
USA
_p.png)
“Artists’ worldwide connectivity to each other is a driver of artistic and, more broadly, human evolution.”
Listening to Jeff Newman talk about painting is a spontaneous and interesting trip down a rabbit hole of unrelated subjects connecting together in surprising ways like when he compares Darwinian evolution and painting. He sees today’s ubiquitous access to the internet by artists as an excellent example of how such a dramatic change in human culture interestingly drives human evolution.
Concerto Dream | Oil
Sold
36 X 36
Several years ago I stumbled on YouTube videos of 2 CELLOS and immediately became a fan of the unique sounds they mastered from a cello. It’s a deeply emotive instrument that catalyzes a broad range of feelings and colorful imagery in my imagination when I listen with my eyes closed. “Concerto Dreams” displays all of the drama, fire, and ice from the soundscape created by the musician in a deep musical trance during their performance to a live audience.
From what the earliest cave painters shared with members of their tribe to the pure abstraction of the 20th Century took 64,000 years to evolve. Today it only takes seconds for a painter on the other side of the world to see what another painter somewhere else just painted.
Busker's Dream | Oil
$1,100
14 X 20
Late summer afternoon at twilight is my favorite time of the day. The oppressive heat has left the air yet it’s still warm enough for a t-shirt. The narrow streets and sidewalks of the old town are filled with people coming to and leaving the restaurants, bars, shops, and galleries. Buskers’ music fills the streets and I feel at home.
Jeff was a hyperactive child often forced to sit down and be quiet. He learned to transfer his physical impulses inward. Art books, drawing, and building stuff out of junk were the perfect activities for his active imagination. As a result, he feels more at ease expressing himself visually rather than verbally.
“The ability of painters to view other artists' work as soon as they post it creates a virtual conversation between artists and impacts what and how they paint.”
Jeff’s art education began early in his life in his grandmother’s library. A painter and interior decorator, Caroline’s library was filled with Russian academic art, impressionists, post-impressionists, expressionists, cubists, and abstractionists. Later in life, Jeff studied academic drawing and painting under Iliya Mirochnik, and Slava Korolenkov, and the Bridgeview School of Fine Arts in Queens, NY.
Banquet at the Nightmare | Oil
$2,900
14 X 20
Being part of an organized event is uncomfortably stressful for me. When I speak to others, does my voice sound ridiculous? Am I too one-dimensional to be interesting? Will anybody care if I don’t participate in conversations about this or that? Must I interrupt another to be part of a group conversation? Can I be a quiet person without being judged as arrogant or aloof? Must I fake being a social person to be accepted? This is a nightmare; “Nightmare at the Banquet” interprets the recurring.
For me, museums built with contemporary architecture’s open and airy spaces that take advantage of natural light are my favorite. “Museum of Dreams” is a surrealistic interpretation of the Des Moines Art Center with my dreams on display.
Museum of Dreams | Oil
$4,800
30 X 40
In 1968, at the age of 13, Jeff traveled to San Francisco on a family vacation and visited his uncle Jim’s art gallery named Dilexi. The Gallery was known for its avant-garde sensibilities and focused on the contemporary art movements and artists of that time. During his visit, Jim Newman introduced Jeff to several of the artists the gallery represented. Naturally, he spent the next couple of years doodling op-art on everything, creating all sorts of abstract and surreal dioramas out of anything he could lay his hands on, even if he found it in the trash bin.
“I thought I had met the coolest people on the planet at Dilexi and was immediately captivated by everything and everybody there.”
“I rely a lot on intuition and emotions to guide the technical choices so I can end up with dramatic pictures.”
Jeff earned his BA in Biology from Creighton University and worked towards an MS in Bio-Systems Engineering at the University of Nebraska before leaving school. Science is as fundamental to Newman’s thought process as art is. He thinks that science and art are evolutionarily creative cousins that share a common lineage.
Dreaming of Water Lilies | Oil
$1,100
14 X 20
Monet’s paintings were imprinted on my mind from a very young age when my grandmother exposed me to them. I finally had the opportunity to travel to Paris where my partner, also a painter, and I saw Monet’s extraordinary Water Lily paintings at the Musée de l’Orangerie. “Dreaming of Water Lilies” shows a
perspective view of Les Deux Saules. I master copied The Two Willows impressionistically as this is how the painting has appeared in my dreams, and I can’t improve on that
As per Jeff, if you ask a child and an adult what the last common ancestor of a dog and a human looked like. 45% of adults will deny evolution and science. Children will simply draw a picture of what they think one would look like.
Dreamscape Animalia | Oil
$1,100
14 X 20
I began painting a dream landscape and began to see eyes in the image that morphed into snakes, mice, tropical birds, and a dog when really all there exists is the sky, trees, and the shadow they cast on the sandy ground in the form of a pyramid.
Jeff has been creating art seriously since his retirement while living in New York City and now in California. His work has been shown in NYC galleries and pop-up art shows in SOHO, the East Village, the Bowery, and Chelsea. Jeff’s artistic philosophy combines intellectual exploration with emotional interpretation by applying technical skill sets acquired through invention, practice, and study.
I was sipping coffee with my partner at an outdoor cafe in St. Germain, Paris on a beautiful day. Across the street was an extraordinary contemporary art gallery in view. I think of that moment and street scene when I think of Paris.
Art Gallery in Dream town | Oil
$1,100
14 X 20
“Even when I paint something entirely abstract, I’m usually referencing something from life, even if it’s only the emotional experience that winds up being familiar in the painting.”
Ukraine | Oil
$800
11 X 14
I painted this at a sunflower farm in Connecticut during the pandemic. I dedicate this work to the people of Ukraine and their courage in standing against the invasion.
He draws on his deep respect for impressionist and post-impressionist techniques of painting for both choice in subject matter and how he represents a vision, regardless of where on the spectrum between representation and abstraction he decides to work during any given moment. Whether Jeff paints a landscape, a figure, a still life, a surrealistic vision, or an abstract painting, creating visual drama drives his impulse to paint.
Giverny is a historical town for a painter to visit. I painted the long shadows and reflected the light of the bright afternoon sun in a walkway between houses in Giverny, France.
Giverny, France | Oil
$1,700
Quickly bored by routine, Newman strives to combine techniques from cubism, surrealism, impressionism, Art Deco, Art Nouveau, and academic painting movements in his use of light, perspective, and subject matter to spark intellectual and/or emotional responses from viewers.
Absinthe in Bayeux, France |Oil
$4,600
My partner and I enjoyed some absinthe at a bar in Bayeux and then marveled at the lit up church in the town center.
“My most successful paintings are my least boring ones.”
Not a solo artist yet? Subscribe to our solo exhibitions at TERAVARNA and share your art with the world!