Tablet android comprar

At first glance of the Franklin Willis exhibit "Tea and Tonkas" at the Beaver Street Gallery, the concept of painting still lifes with teapots and Tonka trucks as subjects appears a simple, playful one.
Study the paintings, and they begin to distort the notion of scale. The Tonkas are carros rc eletricosthat are scale models of dump trucks, front-end loaders and other construction vehicles. But they are placed with teapots of usual size and set on tablecloths.
Willis takes his studies of the objects further and picks up on the reflections. In one of the paintings, titled "The Atelier," a Tonka's arms and front bucket are raised up. In the reflection of the nearby teapot, the Tonka looks huge and looming, while the room reflected behind it is shrunken in the distortion.
With the 19 paintings in the main exhibit -- plus 12 more from past series and one installation, Willis plays with perspective and theme. The two subjects of teapots and Tonka trucks suggest a dichotomy of male and female.
"Tea and Tonkas" will be on display through April 26 at the Beaver Street Gallery, located at 28 S. Beaver St. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Monday. Also, Willis will give a free lecture at the gallery on Saturday, March 23, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
TEACHER TO STUDENT
Willis has taught at Northern Arizona University for the past 18 years. Around three years ago, he introduced to his students a still life study of teapots and Tonka trucks. The idea was inspired by his now 4-year-old son, Demitrius.
The artist searched and scrounged for 20- and 30-year-old Tonka trucks to feature as part of the still lifes, "with all of the rust and everything on them."
He added, "I think about the historical significance of this toys and how many hands they passed through, and how long they might have sat in an attic or garage somewhere. It makes it an interesting subject matter," Willis said. "And it deals with the study of mechanical shapes and forms."
At one point, a student asked him why he did not join in trying to paint the still life studies himself. With that prompt, Willis set out to paint his own assignment like a student might approach it and appreciated the result.
"I like the idea and concept of scale," he said of the paintings, which he does in oil. "I look at scale being reflected in two different ways. In some of the reflections, the Tonka looks massive in the overall space. So, those are the elements I look for ... I like to paint it multiple times. You always see it differently. Sometimes I focus more on the reflection and play with the subtleties like that."
Willis also likes to deconstruct his paintings by painting them, knocking down the paint layer with a palm sander and repainting. The paints are applied thicker in some places and thinner in others. But they always remain striking given the palette, which is strong with primary and neutral colors.
"The colors he uses and the topic, they interest me," noted David Harton, the owner of Beaver Street Gallery. "They are not the typical still life of vases and flowers. You don't think of dynamic as a word to describe still lifes, but these are dynamic."
GUNS IN PLAY
Along with the 19 paintings of teapots and Tonkas is an installation in the center of the room that Willis calls "In Memory of ..." It interacts with the paintings in that the installation features a duality of toy guns with butterflies, almost playing off the male-female polarity.
However, the three-dimensional piece also brings politics and commentary into the room. The work includes a toy AK-47 and M-4, both assault rifles suspended from wire. They appear next to large butterflies also hung midair.
On the floor is shelving that looks like it might appear in a classroom and collapsed butterflies. Spent shell casings are littered all around the piece. Willis said the recent political debate over assault weapons inspired him.
"Think about the concept of some politicians talking about training teachers to carry automatic weapons in the school," he said. "The last thing I want is my son in a school where a teacher carries an automatic weapon. Now, we have the social and political issues that deal with this and the resistance to make any kind of change."
IN THE ROUND
Visitors to the Beaver Street Gallery will experience Willis's depth of talent, as a second room includes 12 additional paintings from other series he's created. This includes paintings he did with boots as the subject.
"These boot paintings were influenced by Vincent van Gogh," he explained. "I was very surprised to learn of how many paintings van Gogh did of boots. He did boots in different positions just like this ... To me, a painting like this is a challenging composition because the colors are in monochromatic tones. It's tough to put in an expressive composition and keep everything in a simple perspective."
Also in the second room are a series of paintings known as "tondos." Originating from the Renaissance Period, tondos are paintings done on canvases in the shapes of circles.
"I did a number of these paintings with fish," he noted. "It's a simple composition that's based on the clock. So, I'll put the pieces together based on a simple composition of where the hands on the clock fall. I really like the simplicity and the challenge of trying to balance things out on a round canvas."
Willis's art in the exhibit appears to be about this notion. An idea, such as painting fish on circular canvases, appears dia da mentira 2013 simple on its surface but becomes complex in the composition and the execution.