Category Archives: Fine Art

John Caple

Wish we could post all of John Caple’s captivating paintings for though they are somber, they are filled with intense passion. John Caple is a self-taught artist who creates paintings in a folk art tradition. He grew up in a close, rural community in which family stories and folk traditions were passed down through successive generations and which were to become the inspiration for his earliest paintings. He paints entirely for himself, a manner of painting that is straightforward, simple and perfectly suited to the job. On John Martin Gallery he is quoted as follows:

“In a world in which we can feel increasingly disenchanted from the earth, I wanted to think about the search for re-enchantment and a simpler wildness within us. It is perhaps that small wilderness within that shapes our relationship to the macrocosm, and so ultimately shapes the world we live in.”

John Caple is represented by John Martin Gallery.

Images:  Courtesy of John Caple.

Ikki Matsumoto (1935 – 2013)

Ikki Matsumoto is the son of the artist we featured yesterday, Katsuji Matsumoto.  Ikki travelled to the United States to study at the John Herron School of Art in Indiana, where his older brother was a sculpture student. He transferred to the Art Academy of Cincinnati to study under the renowned wildlife artist, Charles Harper.  After an unsatisfying work in the advertising field, he established a new career as a painter and printmaker using the native birds as his subjects. Matsumoto intended for his work to make people feel good as he said, ‘there are no heavy messages in my work, I just simply wish to delight’.

More of his art can be viewed here on his posthumous website.

Images:  Courtesy of various sources.

Stéphane Bulan

French painter Stéphane Bulan’s first career was as a successful journalist and caricaturist.  In 1975 he completely devoted himself to fine art painting.  His images has a certain cleanliness to his form that is paramount in his artworks. The artist uses vibrant yellows, blues, greens and other primary colors in his work. Even with his intense colors, Bulan incorporates a certain liberty and serenity in each of his canvases. His work has been widely collected and exhibited throughout Europe, North America and the Orient.

More of his work can be viewed on his website, Facebook and Instagram.  

Images:  Courtesy of Stéphane Bulan.

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