BEST COAST AT THE MIDDLE EAST OF AMERICA

Tuesday night I went over to the Middle East in Cambridge to check out Best Coast... apparently who is everybody's favorite band, because everyone ever was there. Whatever. They were good. They were having fun. I especially liked the drummer because she looked like a teen banging away at the drumset like she just found religion.

Inarguably, the best part was that my Hartford girlfriends were there getting into it, feeling groovy, letting their hair out (literally, J is!), and turning looks from almost complete strangers.

smelling a pec





Melanie Yin Yanging

yours truly, Gabi and J

JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY

John Singleton Copley, Self-Portrait, 1780-1784, oil on canvas

"John Singleton Copley, proclaimed John Adams, is "the greatest Master, that ever was in America." While still a teenager, Copley was capable of gratifying Bostonians' desire for realistic portraits; by the time he was twenty, the essentially self-taught artist was painting better pictures than he had ever seen. Frustrated by the limitations of his provincial environment, where people, he complained, generally regarded art as "no more than any other useful trade," Copley longed to go to Europe to study. Increased political turmoil in the wake of the Boston Tea Party of December 1773-his father-in-law was one of the merchants who were supposed to receive the tea dumped in the harbor-spurred his departure for England in June 1774. There, in the flush of new success, he painted his own likeness. He never returned to America."

-from the National Portrait Gallery

Basically still true.

ULTRA SENSITIVE AT PROOF GALLERY

Hey all. Had a lovely opening reception at Proof Gallery on Saturday. Lots of sophisticated people came through and were forced to consider seriously a group of illusory, figurative oil paintings of sad young men. The whole thing looked very regional which was to my liking. Thanks to everyone who came through. I didn't take too many pictures because I was busy living it. The show is open through October 9th if you would like to see it, and I wish you would, and mostly open on weekends I believe or by appointment. Get at me if you'd like a tour.

"Max"







My brother came through











Hey! its Ike

ULTRA SENSITIVE, SUPRA SENSUAL

Saturday, my show "Ultra Sensitive" opens at Proof Gallery in South Boston. So I'll be spending most of the rest of the week installing and tweaking and fretting and eating and not eating. Actually I am totally ready and the work is ravishing.

If you are in Boston this weekend, please join me on Saturday Sept. 11th, 6-8pm. Proof Gallery at the Distillery, 516 East 2nd Street, South Boston MA, 02127. Also, we will after party at my house until late in Somerville, so bring a bottle.

Self-portrait, 2010, Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches

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Proof Gallery is thrilled to open our season with Ultra Sensitive new work by Sam McKinniss.
McKinniss's lush portraiture is at first glance firmly in line with its history. Beautiful pictures of beautiful folks - documenting a time, a space, an attitude. McKinniss ditches this shibboleth by being hyper-aware of the flattering power of the portrait and transitively, the seductive power of flattery. What we are watching, in the most straightforward of ways, is a romance. Rather than capturing some essence of his sitter, McKinniss's portraits are all about projection. As in the beginning of a love affair, flaws are masked and attributes given; verity is... subjective. Though the paintings depict many individuals, Ultra Sensitive taken as a whole becomes an oblique self-portrait, the subject: self love.

Sam McKinniss is a Boston-based painter. He has exhibited widely in New England including a 2008 solo show, FIERCE DOUBT at the New Britain Museum of American Art. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including most recently, the New Boston Fund Individual Artist Fellowship. Ultra Sensitive is his Boston solo debut

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