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mmcarthur.bsky.social
phoenixrising
@mmcarthur.bsky.social
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Aardvark Digital Agency studio, designer, poetry junkie, voracious reader, lover of Indie, punk, and Obscure Rock, Jazz, Classical, Science & the Resistance. 🧷💪 #ArtHeals - always Read the Alt Text
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mmcarthur.bsky.social
We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange.
As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.

~ Carson McCullers, born otd in 1917 🎂
February 19, 2026 at 2:01 PM
mmcarthur.bsky.social
Pablo Picasso :
Nude Standing by the Sea, 1929

Oil on canvas
51-1/8 × 38-1/8 in | 129.9 × 96.8 cm

More info in the alt text 👇
Picasso responded to many different artistic stimuli throughout in his career. 'Nude Standing by the Sea' testifies to his contribution to Surrealism, a movement that aspired to tap into and visualize psychological states of being, often through the distortion of the human body. Here, Picasso rearranged anatomical parts and altered the proportions of a standing nude, thereby creating an ambiguous sculptural mass. This rather threatening bather perhaps reflects Picasso’s inner turmoil over the dissolution of his marriage to Olga Khokhlova and his affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter.
February 19, 2026 at 1:58 PM
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Constantin Brâncuși (born otd in 1876) 🎂 :
Golden Bird, 1919-22

Things are not difficult to make; what is difficult is putting ourselves in the state of mind to make them.

The Art Institute of Chicago

(tap for full view)
February 19, 2026 at 1:52 PM
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Mitchell Grafton :
Cheshire Cat Teapot, n.d.

Raku fired pottery
February 19, 2026 at 1:48 PM
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Wassily Kandinsky :
Bild mit Pfeilform
(Arrowhead Picture), 1923
February 19, 2026 at 1:44 PM
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Robert Motherwell :
from the series
Beside the Sea, 1962

oil on paper

This series comprises 60 small works capturing the rhythm of waves crashing outside his studio. These paintings, feature bold, spontaneous splashes and drips, illustrating faster, more automatic, gestural expression.

More 👇
Context: The series was created as a direct, energetic response to the ocean view from the artist's seaside studio on Cape Cod. Technique: Motherwell used a "rapid, splashing" technique, where he applied thick paint with quick, decisive gestures. This approach is often associated with a transition from "jetting" (a continuous flow) to dripping. Style: The works are prime examples of Abstract Expressionism, characterized by automatism—a form of spontaneous creation meant to reflect the inner psyche. Composition: These paintings are frequently defined by a horizontal, often dark, streak or "splat" across the upper portion of the paper, representing the sea against the sky or land. Medium: The works were created on paper, allowing for a different texture and quicker, more fluid application than canvas. The series is considered a significant part of Motherwell's oeuvre, showcasing his ability to translate a natural, rhythmic experience into a "pure,, direct, and, in a sense, simple expression," as described by the YouTube video.
February 19, 2026 at 1:29 PM
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📸 - Lorna Simpson (b. 1960) :
Collide, 2019

Simpson has been a premier force for conceptual art - principally photography and collage - since 1985 when she graduated with her MFA from the UC - San Diego.

Her work encourages self and societal reflection.

Further info in the alt text 👇
#BlackHistoryMonth Her thought-provoking photographs, collages, paintings and films challenge and redefine malleable constructions of history and identity through the appropriation of figure and text. "As a young woman, and a young Black artist, I felt like I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted, because I didn’t quite have the assurance of success, but I had a strong desire to create.” ~ Lorna Simpson In the late 1980s, Lorna Simpson burst onto the art scene with photographs of unidentified Black figures accompanied by text. These early works interrogated stereotypical images of Black women that existed in popular visual culture and art alike. “The whole premise of the work was to engage with the audience in a way they wouldn't be used to—to put them off balance,” Simpson has said. - madeinbed co uk - moma org .
February 19, 2026 at 1:12 PM
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Kenne Gregoire (Dutch, b.1951) :
Window Picasso, 2017

Acrylic on linen
96 x 86 cm
February 19, 2026 at 12:59 PM
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Eyvind Earle (1916-2000) :
Christmas card illustration, c.1950s
February 18, 2026 at 4:38 PM
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Ewald Schönberg (German, 1882-1949) :
Rotes Pferd (Red Horse), 1932

Oil on Canvas, 91 × 140 cm

Schönberg's work belongs to the New Objectivity movement, including elements of Magic Realism and Naïve Art , and characterized by motifs from his native Ore Mountains and the people who worked there.
February 18, 2026 at 4:02 PM
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The Crocus > Bringer of Spring!
💙💜
February 18, 2026 at 3:26 PM
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Wassily Kandinsky :
Le Rond Rouge, April 1939

Oil on canvas
35 x 45-3/4 in | 89 x 116 cm

Further description in the alt text 👇
Le Rond rouge, conveys the viewer into the realm of pure aesthetic expression. The exquisite arrangement of the composition's forms and colors represents Kandinsky’s final phase of development at a time when the Surrealists dominated the cultural topography and the city of Paris was a hotbed of creative rivalry. He spent his formative years in 1906-07 on the outskirts in Sèvres with Gabriele Münter. The use of color, shape and biological morphology are all at play in Paul Overy’s analysis of Le Rond rouge: “One of the most intriguing works of this period is The Red Circle (1939) which is almost like a journey through the insides of one’s own body. The dark pathways which link the red circle with the other colored elements are like alimentary tracts. Within these intestinal convulsions are built up brightly-colored structural forms like ladders or pylons. The dark areas are fringed with blue which is in turn fringed with a very pale blue aura, so that the positive and negative reversal effects of light and dark forms are used to draw us into the convolutions of the paintings; changes of scale from the little ladders of bright pastel colors to the more sonorous forms and colors of the major forms involved the spectator as in a densely crowded street-scene or a panoramic landscape.” “The Paris imagery typically reflects an accommodation between the geometry of preceding years,” writes Vivian Endicott Barnett, “and a new vocabulary of organic forms. The triangles, circles and squares, the basis of Kandinsky’s Bauhaus grammar, do not completely disappear but are still alluded to in irregular, fantastic biomorphic shapes. They ultimately assume an independent pictorial life and endow the paintings and gouaches of Kandinsky’s late years with their unique character. Kandinsky’s new subject matter seems to exist in an almost natural realm of strange shapes and unusual colors, yet the distance he established between his art and the recognizable object has not diminished.
February 18, 2026 at 3:11 PM
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Salvador Dalí:
Face of Mae West Which May Be Used as an Apartment, 1935
February 18, 2026 at 6:29 AM
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Anthony van Dyck :
Self portrait, 1630
February 18, 2026 at 6:28 AM
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Pablo Picasso :
Self-Portrait, 1901
February 18, 2026 at 6:28 AM
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Edvard Munch :
Self-Portrait I, 1895
February 18, 2026 at 6:27 AM
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Joan Miró :
Portrait of Love No.1, 1938

More info in the alt text 👇
Context: Created during a time of intense political turmoil (Spanish Civil War), leading to a mature,, sometimes "totemic" style. Style: The piece often features large, flattened planes of color, reminiscent of his sculptural work, and a symbolic language. Collection: The work is part of the Bequest of Saidie A. May at The Baltimore Museum of Art.
February 18, 2026 at 6:25 AM
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Kelechi Nwaneri :
Flooded Aparetment II, 2020

Charcoal and acrylic paint on canvas
56-7/10 × 47-1/5 in | 144 × 120 cm

Further info in the alt text 👇
Nwaneri’s idiosyncratic paintings blend traditional West African iconography with elements of Western art history, resulting in fantastical worlds full of hybrid creatures and vivid patterns. Nwaneri, whose style has been described as “contemporary surrealistic,” references issues such as mental health and social values in his hometown of Lagos. His compositions feature a range of Indigenous African symbology (including Adinkra, Uli, and Nsibidi) alongside other mystical and metaphysical images, creating dreamlike scenarios that are deeply rooted in the concerns of contemporary Nigerian life. Humans and animals merge throughout his canvases, and symbols often coat his figures’ skin. Nwaneri has exhibited in London, Lagos, Dubai, Berlin, and New York, among other cities. His works have been acquired by the Arthur Lewis Collection, the Africa First Collection, and the Embassy of Spain in Abuja, Nigeria.
February 18, 2026 at 6:21 AM
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Man Ray :
Portrait of Duchamp, 1923
February 18, 2026 at 6:15 AM
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Happy Lunar New Year! 🐎

Raymond Duchamp-Villon :
The Horse, 1914 (cast c.1930)

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Further info in the alt text 👇
As we enter the Year of the Horse, discover Raymond Duchamp-Villon’s "The Horse." Started in 1914, the plaster original evolved from early, naturalistic sketches into a bold synthesis of animal and machine. Over time, Duchamp-Villon transformed the horse into a dynamic, smooth-surfaced, geometric form that captures motion, power, and modernity. _______ Raymond Duchamp-Villon, "The Horse," 1914 (cast ca. 1930).
February 18, 2026 at 6:00 AM
mmcarthur.bsky.social
Joseph Beuys, 1984

📸 : Alastair Thain
(original photo)
February 18, 2026 at 5:52 AM
mmcarthur.bsky.social
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526-69) :
The Fight between Carnival and Lent, 1559

oil on oak wood
118 x164 cm | 46.4 x 64.5 in
💜💛💚
Panorama of life in the So. Netherlands. While the painting has 200 characters, it's theme is transition from Shrove Tuesday to Lent, the 40 days before Easter.

More 👇
The literary theme of the struggle between personifications of Shrove Tuesday and Lent dates as far back as the year 400 with the Psychomachia. In the foreground is the battle itself: the two opponents, Carnival and Lent, pulled and pushed and accompanied by supporters, are about to meet. Carnival is seated on a large beer barrel and Lent is opposite him seated on a shallow pull cart. The painting does not present either side as being better than the other, but presents both sides as extremes of the human experience. It is typical of the world landscape style, in which an imaginary panoramic landscape is seen from an elevated viewpoint. The horizon is high in the picture, giving the viewer a bird's eye view of the scene. The physical painting is large, and the characters are small, which means that nearly 200 characters fit into the scene, mostly in groupings. A market square of an unspecified village in the Netherlands is shown. Themes in the scene would have been nostalgic for contemporary viewers, since it depicts an older and more rural style of improvised celebration, in contrast to the highly organized professional processions which would have been seen at that time in Antwerp. The spectacle is divided into two halves, and framed by two buildings: the inn on the left, the church on the right, which gives it the character of a scene in a stage show. The left side of the sprawling canvas depicts the Carnival, the right side, Lent. The boundary is not sharply defined, however, and in several places the followers of Lent and Shrove Tuesday invade each other's space. The painting depicts different times of year. Barren, wintery, trees on the left hint at the winter, while the budding trees of the churchyard's lenten side hint at a burgeoning spring. - Wikipedia Carnival (detail) Lent (detail) Lent and Carnival (1558) etching by Hieronymus Cock after Frans Hogenberg Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY The 13th-century French poem La Bataille de Caresme et de Charnage describes a symbolic battle between different foods, meat against fish. A likely graphic precursor of the painting is Lent and Carnival, a 1558 etching by Hieronymus Cock after Frans Hogenberg, in which the personifications of lean and fat are driven together on carts by their supporters. The supporters attack each other with fish, waffles, cookies and eggs.
February 17, 2026 at 4:43 PM
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Edward Robert Hughes : Midsummer Eve, 1908
February 17, 2026 at 1:56 PM
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David Lynch lived for decades in a secluded modernist house in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles, a space that functioned as both domestic refuge and laboratory.

Art was the daily ritual of his life.

👇 Further info in the alt text
The house was angular, private, almost bunker-like, with a separate studio where he painted daily, built furniture, made sculptures, and recorded strange mechanical sounds. He kept a strict routine, up early, transcendental meditation, coffee, then hours of painting or writing before film work began. The studio wasn’t glamorous; it was industrial, cluttered, practical, full of wood, tools, canvases, smoke, and experiment. He treated filmmaking, painting, music, and carpentry as one continuous practice. Living there wasn’t about Hollywood society; it was about protecting a quiet interior world where ideas could surface. Art was the daily ritual of his life.
February 17, 2026 at 1:28 PM
mmcarthur.bsky.social
Max Ernst :
Fireside Angel, 1937
[original title, The Triumph of Surrealism, renamed in 1938]

Oil on canvas

Ernst created this painting for the Exposition international du surrealism which took place at the Galerie de Beaux-Arts in Paris

Degenerate Art

Further description in the alt text 👇
This is one of few that were inspired from political events. Ernst painted Fireside Angel shortly after the defeat of the Spanish Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. In this conflict, Spanish fascist leaders were supported by Germany and Italy in their victory. Ernst’s goal was to depict the chaos that he saw spreading over Europe and the ruin that fascism brings to countries. Ernst’s palette and use of oil creates the dynamic of chaos and motion that he hoped to share with his audience. The angel does not feature a single main color in its depiction. Instead, Ernst includes colors from across the entire spectrum. These colors range from white and yellow in the creatures head to blues, greens, browns, and reds that compose the rest of the angel’s form. Ernst also incorporates a mixture of faded and defined lines to obscure the image in some areas, which causes the viewer to observe the painting more carefully in those places. The use of shading and diagonal lines helps to portray the idea of this giant moving clumsily and rapidly across a proverbial European wasteland. The lack of uniformity creates a feeling of chaos that strongly impacts the viewer. Another interesting element featured in this painting is the creature that seems to be spawning from the angel’s side. This aspect of the painting is Ernst’s effort at trying to reveal how these fascist governments were spreading and becoming more abundant. It serves as a warning by Ernst to suggest that fascism needed to be halted or else more of these creatures may spawn and create even more trouble for the world. Ernst’s use of dark color for the spawning figure portrays the cruelty and darkness that was inherent in governments such as the Nazi Party. Max Ernst’s fear of fascist governments is portrayed in this image by the newly forming angel from the pre-existing figure. Max Ernst predicted the chaos and destruction that would be caused by World War II in Fireside Angel.
February 17, 2026 at 1:08 PM