Author: Curator

David Najar

David Najar describes nature as a subject that is simultaneously in perfect harmony, full of beauty, and near God. His artwork seeks to capture this indescribable balance with a serene combination of movement and color, mixing imagination with reality.

Najar’s paintings are sold worldwide and have been featured in exhibitions throughout Israel, Canada, and the United States.

NAJAR: PERSONAL HISTORY

Born in 1962, Najar grew up in Israel. His teachers recognized Najar’s artistic skills, but his family was less supportive of Najar’s talent.

“In my family there was no such thing as an artist or painter. The closest thing to a painting we had at home was a tapestry,” Najar says.

Najar attended Bar-Ilan University from 1987 to 1990, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Social Sciences. With his artistic pursuits stymied, sports took over Najar’s life. This eventually led him to an exercise facility that also served as a school for Krav Maga, the hand-to-hand combat system used by Israeli defense and security forces. Najar took an interest in the martial art, and soon after met Imi Lichtenfeld, the creator of Krav Maga. The two became fast friends despite an age difference of 50 years, and Najar endured intense training to become a coach and leading figure in Krav Maga.

Najar taught Krav Maga for 20 years. During his many conversations with Lichtenfeld, his master often told him that he “would be surprised by what you’ll find inside you.” This prophetic musing came to be when Najar visited a museum where, upon viewing a painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, felt his passion for art reawaken and decided he had to learn how to paint.

Najar was in his 30s when he realized that he wanted to create art for a living. He signed up for painting classes, instructing Krav Maga by day and painting at night. After a year of classes, his art teacher praised Najar’s abilities, but asked him to leave the class because of his “independent style.”

The artist didn’t let the critique deter him. In 2003, renowned Israeli artist Itzchak Tarkay began to mentor Najar. The two artists painted together until Tarkay’s passing in 2012. Najar also learned from Moshe Rosenthalis, a Lithuanian artist who was a soldier and illustrator during World War II before immigrating to Israel.

Today, Najar continues to paint at his studio located in Israel.

“I thank God that I do things that I love,” he says. “I don’t take it for granted.”

NAJAR: STYLE AND INFLUENCES

Najar coins his vivid portrayals of nature as “Contemporary Expressionism.” The artist says he does not base his scenes on actual places, but that about 40 percent of his technique leans toward abstraction. Instead, Najar borrows aspects from reality and combines them in his imagination.

Najar embraces the philosophy that beauty is everywhere, and that one does not need to travel far to see something worthwhile.

 “It’s not just shapes and colors, you see the harmony, the symbiosis, the unconditional love,” he says of nature. “I try to share with someone who looks at it the feeling that I have when I look at the colors, the movement there, the quietness.”

Characterized by coiled brushstrokes, rippling patterns, and saturated hues, Najar uses nature and his love for artists like the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists as inspiration. Najar paints spontaneously, instinctively choosing colors to express his emotions.

Utilizing impasto and rubber brushes, Najar uses color and texture to define the relationship between light and shadow in his paintings. Often focusing on landscapes, his compositions feature themes of reflection by utilizing water sources, the setting sun, and shadows. He also paints figures and still lifes, focusing on bright colors that are deepened by heavily contrasting shadows.

While he doesn’t consider himself a philosopher, Najar believes that to become an artist, one doesn’t need to attend art school. Instead, one simply has to look around and let nature be an instructor. He says that the modern world is so busy that everyone should slow down, and uses his art as an invitation for viewers to stop and breathe.

“I try to give you something where your soul can feel at home,” Najar says.

 

Sunday Afternoon

  • David Najar – 2015
  • Height: 21 – Width: 17 – With frame: 27×23
  • Ser No 330811.0023
  • Appraised Value: $ 1,980 US

Giclee in color with hand-embellishment on canvas.
Hand-signed in ink by the artist.

  • Provenance
    1. David Najar
    2. Park West Gallery
    3. DigitHall Gallery . J

Wayne Smith Lanford

The world through the eyes of an artist is filled with hope and beauty. Even to his last days, sharing that vision was the life work of Wayne Smith Lanford, who passed away August 25, 2003. Born April 13, 1926 in Globe Arizona, Lanford’s roots are deeply embedded in Arizona history.
His Father Samuel Ford Lanford, Sr., an early Representative from Greenlee County, was an Alderman from the city of Globe and worked for the Arizona Highway department when it was in its infancy. His mother Martha Francis Smith, a bookkeeper and business woman, home steaded a ranch in Cochise in 1914 and was instrumental in starting the first adobe, one-room church there.
Wayne was the youngest of four children in this pioneering family. Lanford, like so many young boys of his era, was eager to join the fight during World War ll. Before he was officially of age he began service first in the Third Marine Division, and then in the Fleet Marine Force. By the time of Lanford’s high school graduation he had already served his military term in Guam. After high school, Lanford studied at the prestigious Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. There he married Vera Blanche Sheeks, started a family and lived in Pico Rivera. But the call of the Arizona desert must have been strong as he and his family moved to Phoenix in 1955.
In his professional life, Lanford was a Graphic Designer and Executive Art Director, working for such companies as Goodyear, Sperry Rand and A&M Associates, the in-house ad agency for U-Haul. There he met and later married Nikki Tillinghast. As Executive Art Director he infused his staff with a spirit that colleagues describe as creative, encouraging and gentle.
An entrepreneurial soul, Lanford also operated a company called Venture Advertising & Design. Being a man who loved telling a good story, Lanford enjoyed Toastmasters International and was a past president. Lanford’s strongest ambition was his painting. Watercolor was his form. Using both soft and brilliant tones of his medium he portrayed the beauty of the western world he loved. He was a past president and honorary lifetime member of Arizona Watercolor Association, a member and Chairman of Contemporary Watercolor Association and member of Arizona Artists Guild. He was known for his Watercolor Windows Workshops, where he inspired artists to paint with a new perspective.
Lanford is survived by his loving wife, Nikki Lanford of 21 years as well as his ex-wife, 4 children, 10 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren.

Agua Prieta Street

  • Wayne Lanford – 2002
  • Watercolor
  • H 12″ W 20″ – Frame 20 x 28
  • Appraised Value: $ 1,200 US

Agua Prieta Street is a pen and watercolor creation.
It is a unique piece with no duplication.  Signed by the artist.

  • Provenance:
    1. Wayne Lanford – artist – 2002
    2. Olive Linder – 2002
    3. Cynthia Cielle – 2003
    4. DigitHall Gallery – 2003

Agua Prieta (translated as “Dark Water”) is a town in Agua Prieta Municipality in the northeastern corner of the Mexican state of Sonora.  It stands on the U.S.–Mexico border, adjacent to the town of Douglas, Arizona, USA.

In a manner similar to that of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Agua Prieta Street depicts a beautiful scene happening within the Red Light District of Agua Prieta – an area similar to Moulin Rouge in Paris.

The city of Agua Prieta began at the end of the 19th century as railroads were built between Douglas, Arizona, and Nacozari, Sonora, to transport minerals and goods. As a result, the first settlers of the city, then just a few blocks, were those employed by the U.S. mining company Phelps Dodge Corporation, which was based in Douglas, Arizona. One can say that the town was “founded” in 1899, but it was not until a “contract” was made in 1903 between officials and private citizens, to the name Camou, that area “pertaining” to those citizens was made a Commissary of Fronteras county.

Michael Atkinson

Evening Light – Lithograph
Biography
Contemporary Colorist

Michael Atkinson born in Texas in 1946. He started painting as a child in the northwest Texas town of Lubbock. Attracted early to the study of architecture, he earned a degree from Texas Tech University, then taught and worked in the field for a time. He soon realized that he was most drawn to the design and presentation aspects of his profession. In the summer of 1974, he took time off to concentrate on his painting.

The response to his work was so great; he made the decision to paint full time. A painting by Michael Atkinson is immediately recognizable by its composition He feels that watercolor permits spontaneity and freedom and can be made to do things on its own utilizing texture, density of color, variation of light and dark.

White space is also an essential element of the “Atkinson look”. In addition to his dazzling medium of watercolor, Atkinson demonstrates his excellent artistic ability with beautiful bronze sculpture. His bronze pieces mirror the electricity of his two-dimensional work, earning a grand reception from his legions of collectors.

Brilliant use of color and design has won Michael Atkinson international acclaim… but that has not stopped this native Texan from continually exploring reality through new media and images of the mind and heart

From his Smoky Ridge studio in Austin, Texas, Atkinson seeks to “capture the emotion – be it subtle or exaggerated,” a pursuit that has been in evolution since he started painting as a child in the northwest Texas town of Lubbock.

Attracted early to the study of architecture, he earned a degree from Texas Tech University, then taught and worked in the field for a time.  He soon realized that he was most drawn to the design and presentation aspects of his profession, and in the summer of 1974, he took time off to concentrate on his painting.

“I rented a beach house and began to develop my own style, which has slowly evolved into what you see today,” he says, nothing that the response to his work then helped make the decision to paint full time.

From the first, his art has reflected his training, experience, and wide ranging interests,  as he creates images – buildings, oceanscapes, animals, Southwestern landscapes – through a unique set my abstract style and the mastery of watercolors “spontaneity and freedom.”
His subjects and style have also been influenced by other artists such as Jason Williamson, Frank Howell, and Gerald Bromer, and whose work he first noticed “how white space could be used effectively to  enhance the images.”
White space is an essential element of the composition that characterizes the Atkinson look, yet as Atkinson explains, “The white is not empty. It is completely finished.”  Treating the paper as an element of design, the artist works from one concentrated area of detail in color, leaving much of the paper white and allowing the eye to focus on the central image without intrusion from the periphery.
The white space is defined and given direction by Atkinson’s signature birds which either sweep towards the center of interest or decrease in size is they go back into the painting, drawing the eye into or out of the painting, and thus completing it for the viewer.

“Collectors take what’s in my paintings and use it to get their imaginations going, then they weave a story around the space I have left,” Atkinson says.

Atkinson admirers and collectors have enthusiastically embraced his work over the decade. Quickly sold out, his pieces have been selected for public collections throughout the United States and abroad and are found in such distinguished private collections as those of Burt Reynolds and Malcolm Forbes.
Now represented by galleries in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and California, the artist continues to express stories of contemporary yet lasting value through brilliant use of color in form. And the appeal of the unmistakable Atkinson look has never been stronger.