Claudia Hartley

"Imagining Fields"

2014

CLAUDIA HARTLEY. I was born in California, but raised in Kentucky and Georgia. From the time I was old enough to hold something in my hand, I began to draw on anything available: ...

"The comment I hear most often about my paintings is 'happy'". I've loved art all of my life and it warms my heart to know that I'm able to pass that love and joy on to others. I use...

Artist: Voskan Galstian Work: Original Painting, Handmade Artwork, One of a Kind Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Year: 2024 Style: Abstract Art, Title: Path Of Transformation 2 Size: 48...

"To Hell with Ho Chi Minn," Folk/Naive Painting, Acrylic on Board with Artist's Painted Wood Frame, 24 x 17 Inches, by Self-Taught artist Elias Telles. Telles is a Vietnam vet who unfortunately suffered from undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, who took up painting as a way of dealing with his condition. This painting is a particularly poignant and whimsical abstraction inspired by Tellles's memories of the war. Fifteen years ago, Elias Telles woke from a dream in which an angel holding a lit candle was descending a staircase. The next morning he tore some wood from a dilapidated fence and started painting angels. Elias had already led an adventurous existence before becoming a self-taught painter. Born into a family of 14 siblings in East Los Angeles, he joined the Marine Corps upon graduation from high school and served two years in Vietnam as a rifleman. It wasn’t until he was in his late ‘40s that he started to paint. At a local flea market one of his early works caught the attention of a set designer who placed it in a Steve Martin movie and from there his reputation grew: paintings subsequently appeared in a number of other productions which created a Hollywood following and his collectors now include several film directors, work is included in the permanent collection of The House of Blues, and he was one of the featured artists on the PBS series ‘Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations.’ An ex-marine, Telles lives quietly in California without a computer or a cell phone. His tastes lean towards American history and early blues and country music, subjects that frequently appear in his paintings. Soldiers, skeletons and honky-tonk men populate his paintings as do cultural and historical figures such as early minstrel show entertainer Gus Cannon, a ghoulishly-rendered Hank Williams, and the revered Alabama folk artist Bill Traylor...