Billy Solitario, Demond Matsuo, and Mia Kaplan provide the inspiration for our Art of Food dinner on August 19.
Meet the three artists whose work Chef Michael Gulotta will interpret at our Art of Food dinner August 19:
Working in the spirit of Dutch still life masters like Floris van Dyck and Pieter Claesz, New Orleans artist Billy Solitario devotes himself to capturing the beauty of the coastal Gulf’s sea creatures and the towering splendor of the cumulonimbus clouds that gather in the summer skies above, views embedded in Solitaro during his childhood in Gautier, Mississippi. Out of doors as much as in the studio, Solitario notes that painting the small things beneath the sea and the big things in the sky above it are inextricably linked. “A week ago we were out fishing. I was in the bow studying a red snapper we’d caught, and there was a storm coming up,” he said. “I’m taking notes and photos of both. You’ve got what’s below the water and what’s above the water, and you’re this tiny island between the two. You’ve got to paint both parts of that to make it all make sense.” (billysolitario.com)
Drawing inspiration from the wild lands of Southeastern Louisiana, artist Mia Kaplan reflects her natural surroundings with botanical illustrations of native plants, sculpture, and large-scale paintings made in the Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge. Using a process that she describes as “foraging for images,” Kaplan roams Big Branch Marsh, filtering the profusion of flora that she encounters through a process of abstraction to create two- and three-dimensional pieces that fairly vibrate with the energy of life. The artist works with water media and folded paper to capture flowers’ delicacy; and with sheet metal and welded steel to reflect their resiliency. Whatever the media, what ties Kaplan’s work together is her extraordinary sensitivity to the colors, textures, and movements of Louisiana’s unspoiled places. ”I’m fascinated by how important balance is to nature,” she notes. “I find moments of strength, fragility, regeneration. We need that reminder that, whatever the challenges, life goes on. That’s what my work is about.” (miakaplan.com)
Fascinated by exotic mythologies and informed by the masters of Dutch mannerism and the flowing forms of Japanese painting, Demond Matsuo creates exquisite collages that express the workings of the subconscious mind. “I’m making combinations of fractured ideas, and putting them together to create new ideas,” he explains, crediting his twin passions for ancient mythology and video games for shaping the fantastical creatures that float above the black backgrounds of his canvases. Demond loves collage for the ability it gives him to transform a collection of discarded materials from a series of disparate and disconnected objects into a fully realized idea—in much the same way our minds draw upon many disparate thoughts and experiences to arrive at an understanding of the world that surrounds us. “Initially when I did art, it was like alchemy to me because I was starting out with trash, and turning it into gold,” explained the artist, who studied art at LSU but credits the Baton Rouge artists’ collective 200 Government with having taught him much of what he knows. In Demond’s hands, scraps of patterned paper and simple elements such as salt and iodine evolve into delicate flowers, leaping deer, and the rippling fabrics of a geisha’s robes. The result: magical creatures that seem capable of stepping out of the enchanted realm of memory and joining us in the here and now. (demondmatsuo.com)
To learn more about Chef Michael Gulotta, click here. For tickets to the Art of Food Dinner, visit bontempstix.com.
