Life in the Suburbs. Leonard Koscianski, 42″x26″, oil on canvas, 2019.
Life in the Suburbs is a medium size painting in oils on canvas. This view of a suburban backyard uses a surreal, forced perspective that goes from a tiny cardinal in the lower left to the distant moon and clouds. This blend of Surrealism and Realism is influenced by the American Scene painters of the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s. George Tooker and Grant Wood come to mind.
Continue reading “Life in the Suburbs”
The New Day. Leonard Koscianski, 42″x26″, oil on canvas, 2019.
The New Day is a medium size painting using oil paint on linen canvas. It is painted from the imagination. The subject is an organic, dreamlike re-creation of my morning run. It is Post Modern, and Surreal in style, and is influenced by Wayne Thiebaud, Grant Wood, Edward Hopper, and the Scene Painters of the American Midwest. It is also related in style to the now forgotten, Cleveland School of art, a group of Modern artists and designers that were loosely clustered around the Cleveland Institute of Art, from which I graduated.
Continue reading “The New Day”
Lone Wolf. Leonard Koscianski, 8″x10″, oil on panel, 2010 – 2019.
Lone Wolf is painted using oil paint on a wood panel, using organic, all natural bristle, and sable brushes. Though small in size, it is packed with a variety objects and textures including detailed renderings of the moon, a spider web, suburban homes, and sharp teeth. Surreal in style, it is a Postmodern Art re-creation of pet art. The message of this painting is that a hidden psychologically charged world lies beneath our own.
Continue reading “Lone Wolf”
Cardinal Course. Leonard Koscianski, 42″x26″, oil on canvas, 2019.
Cardinal Course is painted with oil paint on linen canvas, all natural materials. It is Surreal and Postmodern in style. It appropriates two traditional painting types – Sports art, and Bird art, and then combines them to create an organic whole which is more challenging than its benign prototypes.
Continue reading “Cardinal Course”
Saturday Morning. Leonard Koscianski, 42″x26″, oil on canvas, 2018.
Saturday Morning is a medium size painting, done in oil on linen canvas. It is Postmodern Art and is surreal in style. It combines painting types from the past and re-creates them as Contemporary Art. Bird Art ala Audubon is combined with Sports Art, and American primitive painting to make a visual statement about Contemporary life.
Continue reading “Saturday Morning”
Bend in the Road. Leonard Koscianski, 42″x26″, oil on canvas, 2018.
Bend in the Road is a painting done in oils on canvas. It is medium in size, and surreal in style. It’s surrealism comes mainly from a forced perspective that distorts, and creates a curved space. The viewer starts off looking down at the foreground houses, and trees, then gradually looks straight out at the distant hills in the background. There is a change in time that parallels the change in space. It’s morning in the foreground, but still night in the background. The runners and birds convey the gradual passage of time.
Continue reading “Bend in the Road”
The Skaters. Leonard Koscianski, 26″x42″, oil on canvas, 2018.
The Skaters is a medium size painting in oil on canvas. It is a night scene, with three skaters seen through the tree branches. The dark blues of the background contrast with the yellows and golds of the illuminated windows, as do the car lights and moon. This is more of a dream-scape than a realistic landscape. It is based on childhood memories of skating at night, on a pond, in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.
Continue reading “The Skaters”
Summer in the City. Leonard Koscianski, 42″x26″, oil on canvas, 2017.
Detail of Summer in the City.
Summer in the City is a medium size painting, in oils on canvas. Its based on childhood memories of summers spent at the municipal pool in Parma, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. Everyday in the summer the pool was packed with kids from the nearby neighborhoods. Except for the lifeguards, and the managers, there were no adults. Its not that they weren’t allowed, they just never came in the afternoons. In the background – the Cleveland skyline as it existed in 1963.
Continue reading “Summer in the City”
On the Corner. Leonard Koscianski, 42″x26″, oil on canvas, 2017.
On the Corner is a medium size painting, in oils on canvas. It is a night scene with different color light coming from different sources – interior lighting, a TV screen, a traffic light, the moon, a stain glass window. This manmade lighting creates our night time world. It is Surrealist Art combined with American Scene painting, and American Primitive art. The lighting combined with the severe simplification of the houses and trees creates a dream world of memory rather than observation.
Continue reading “On the Corner”
The Skater. Leonard Koscianski, 42″x26″, oil on canvas, 2017.
The Skater is a medium size painting, in oils on canvas. The overall whiteness and blue of the colors is intended to create the sense of winter. The style is surreal. In the tradition of American Primitive Art, it is based on a childhood memory. Having grown up on a pond in suburban Cleveland, I enjoyed ice skating in the winter, especially skating at night under the moon. The space is curved, the viewer looks down at the foreground and straight out at the surrounding neighborhood. The house in the lower left is reminiscent of my childhood home.
Continue reading “The Skater”