New York City's Jen Bekman Gallery has a new online component called 20 x 200 where each week they issue two artist prints–one photo and one work on paper–and sell them online for $20 in editions of 200 (hence the name). Bigger prints in smaller editions are also available. This week's work-on-paper edition is "Birds of the Rockies" by Laura Levine. Laura tells me that this is the first fine art print made of her work and she's thrilled with the way it turned out. From Laura's artist statement:
This is a piece from my most recent series of paintings,Tweet Suite: Birds of North America. Lately I've found myself focusing more on nature in my work – in this case, common regional birds of America. It just so happens that soon after I completed the series, the Audubon Society reported that twenty of our most common birds – the ones we most often take for granted – have lost more than half their populations in the past forty years.
The painting's background is made of vintage trading stamps. I love how randomly the stamps are pasted onto the individual pages. I usually find them in completed books, which means that some housewife (generally) saved up all her stamps from grocery shopping and then pasted them into the books, and depending on her personality, she was either really neat and obsessive about it or made a mess, and that can be seen in the grids. And then you have to take a moment to mourn the fact that these particular stamps were never cashed in for the toaster or whatever. And now they have found a new life, forty years later.
Previously on BB:
• Laura Levine bird paintings Link
• Laura Levine: Music Photos Link
