Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

  Helios, Oil on Canvas over panel, 16 x 16 in. I'm framing "Helios" today, the last of my work to be framed in preparation for the 2023 Spring VIVA Art Studio Tour, May 6-7 & 13-14, Sats & Suns, 10am-5pm.  I am lucky #13 on the tour map this year! I was delighted to have one of my sunflower paintings selected for this years brochure and poster.  Check it out here, VIVA Art Tour , along with all the other wonderful studios and galleries on the Vashon Island Visual Artists (VIVA) studio tour!

“Taming Bucephalus” Oil on Canvas  with 24k gold, 20 x 20 in.  I nspired by Alexander of Macedon, Alexander the Great, this painting "Taming Bucephalus" is about his famous war horse.  There is much real, documented, history about Alexander and of course the larger than life lore that grew up after his death.  All of it has kept his story active, alive, 2,345 years after his death. My mother gave me the Mary Renault books about Alexander when I was young.  I recently reread the first book in Renault's Alexander trilogy, Fire From Heaven, first published in 1969.  Historical fiction can be informative and entertaining.  This story, his story, is powerful, and still relevant!  Delighted that Taming Bucephalus and it's companion painting, Hephaestion,  just sold.

  Haniel, Angel of Joy is said to hold the keys to the palaces of heaven and appears in Genesis and The Book of Enoch, part of the Jewish and Christian Apocrypha, where he transports Enoch from earth to heaven as a living man. My painting of Haniel and all the Angel paintings and prints I've made in 2021, are inspired by Italian Renaissance artist Fra Angelico’s Angel paintings. His "Technicolor” depictions of angel wings intrigue me. I am delighted that Haniel has already sold to a friend and patron but you can still see Haniel on exhibit at Vashon Center for the Arts Gallery Jan 7-30, 2022, where you will also view work by Notable Collection artists; Victoria Adams, Morgan Brig, Brian Fisher, Pam Ingalls, Kristen Reitz-Green, Cathy Sarkowsky, and Erin Shulz. You can also see work online at VCA's Notable Collection now thru April 2022.

  Mystras, an oil on canvas painting is my contribution to the 2021 Vashon Center for the Arts Gala Art Auction  at Vashon Center for the Arts Gallery. The auction begins First Friday, September 3, with hundreds of works generously donated by island artists, as well as dozens of unique one-of-a-kind experiences. Bidding will take place for three weeks from September 3 until September 24 and will close at the start of the Gala Livestream event at 7PM on September 24. All items will be featured online and in the VCA gallery. If you'd like to see the art in person, gallery hours are Wed thru Sun from 12-5PM. Mystras is named for the archaeological site and Byzantine city in the Peloponnese of modern Greece, where ruins of churches and palaces, houses, and bridges, were built on a steep mountain slope. Its ruins tell the story of a beautiful city that once flourished as the provincial capital of the Byzantine Despotate of Morea. Founded in 1248 by William II of Villehardouin, Frankish

"Guardian" oil on canvas, 28 x 24 in. Guardian is one of two paintings among many prints in my exhibit at Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island, November 3-27.  I was inspired to reinterpret my monotype print "Guardian" in paint when I read these words from one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins. "It is hard to speak of these things how the voices of light enter the body and begin to recite their stories how the earth holds us painfully against its breast made of humus and brambles how we who will soon be gone regard the entities that continue to return greener than ever, spring water flowing through a meadow and the shadows of clouds passing over the hills and the ground where we stand in the tremble of thought taking the vast outside into ourselves." from the poem “Directions” by Billy Collins "The entities that continue to return," are symbolized in the Nyads, Kodama, and Green Men.

The 11th annual "UNCLAD" Art Show opened yesterday October 12th and will run through the 14th, 10 am to 5 pm, at the Floyd Norgaard Cultural Center in Stanwood.  Admission: $5 suggested donation. The show features over 150 artworks -- all nudes -- by artists from across the country. A variety of styles and mediums are on display, from watercolors and oils to bronze, steel, and glass sculpture. Special Events include a lecture and reception with art historian and travel guide, Vicki Artimovich, on Saturday evening, Oct. 13th, from 6 pm to 9 pm. The "Floyd" is located at 27130 102nd St NW, about two blocks north of SR 532. For more information about the show and a preview of the Art, visit the website. www.uncladart.com At left, Nature’s Priest , is one of four of my own works in the 2012 Unclad show.  Nature’s Priest is an oil on canvas and is 46.5 x 17.5 in.

The Argonauts  Monoprint  (12.5 x 32.5 in.) The Argonauts is another of my new Monoprints created for exhibition at the Vashon Hardware Store Restaurant Gallery.  The show comes down at the end of August but I am happy to say it was captured for posterity or at least for a few cyber years by Google Maps.  Click here to go to Google Maps and the restaurant interior.  Take the virtual tour to the back and right of the restaurant bar, down the hallway and Gallery and see my Monotypes and Monoprints, Rust Prints and Oil paintings. What a Kick!  Let me know which one's you like.

"Taming Bucephalus"   Oil on Canvas (22 x 22 in.) I hung 15 prints and paintings at La Medusa early this week.  I love the name La Medusa!  What poetry and illusion to Gorgon mysteries.  I can only hope that my work is also received as poetry in this wonderful eatery! La Medusa is located at 4857 Rainier Avenue South in Seattle Washington and serves incredible tastes of Sicilian, Italian food.  The restaurant is beautiful, the staff friendly and ones entire experience is just what "dining out" should be about. Columbia City, La Medusa's home, is a magical mix of cultures, of the now and yesterday and well worth a visit at any time of day. My show at La Medusa hangs until July 30. View my work and enjoy this wonderful restaurant.

This evening I am posting an image of my (still a little wet) painting, Achilles Complex . It will be exhibited for sale in my studio during the Vashon Island Art Studio Tour. When Thetis became convinced that her son Achilles would die if drafted into war with Troy she hid him on the island of Scyros, disguised as a girl, among the daughters of Lycomedes.  (Imagine a young Brad Pitt in a dress.) The Roman poet Statius wrote about the repressed Achilles, his sexual awakening among his “sisters” and the subsequent end to his feminine masquerade by Ulysses in his poem “The Achilleid.” Based on this mythic evidence psychiatrist Demetrian Delias suggests that the violence and aggression that the adult Achilles manifests might be traced to trauma that began during this pre-Oedipal period. The person who suffers from an Achilles Complex is dominated by sadistic, murderous impulses that may be turned against the self or may ultimately be enacted against others.  Achilles Complex