“Evening Sea” (2012)
by Oriana Kacicek (1986-)
6 x 6 in., oil on linen
Coppola Collection

I hasten to point out that these seascape paintings by Oriana are even more remarkable because she executes them at 6 x 6 inches.

“Cloudy Sea” (2012)
by Oriana Kacicek (1986-)
6 x 6 in., oil on linen
Coppola Collection

A few days ago I posted a seascape by Barbara Kacicek (Oriana’s mom) that was so evocative that I had named it Mood Indigo. I am continually taken by any artist’s ability to evoke tone and mood through their medium… whether it is paint, pencil, music, stage, or in movement.

Given that the only one of these things I can barely do is art, I am drawn to artists. When you look at Cloudy Sea (above), I get that sense of a passed storm and imminent clearing. In Surf (just below), I get the completely different feeling of the joyful sunny day. And seeing them together creates, for me, a contrast and sharpening of the difference precisely because of the side-by-side comparison. Look at Cloudy Sea II (bottom of entry) and see how different it is – for the story it tells – compared with Cloudy Sea (above), and how those different values become more acute when you view them together.

“Surf” (2012)
by Oriana Kacicek (1986-)
6 x 6 in., oil on linen
Coppola Collection

“Cloudy Sea II” (2012)
by Oriana Kacicek (1986-)
6 x 6 in., oil on linen
Coppola Collection

“Sea Slice II” (2014)
by Oriana Kacicek (1986-)
6 x 24 in., Oil on Linen
Coppola Collection

Oriana had done a painting similar to this one (the long slice) and I really thought the sense of depth represented by this subject in this aspect ratio was impressive. That painting was long gone, but I commissioned a second version of it, and it turned out even better.

As you might have noticed in some of the header images, I sometimes end up with photos that have a single dominant color. I commissioned a set of paintings from Oriana which were completed over a year’s time. Each one features, and is named for, it’s color. All of these are based from photos I took except for one taken in Greece by one of my former students.

The Spectrum of Pride Series (2015-16)
by Oriana Kacicek (1986-)
Coppola Collection

“Hong Qiao” (2015-16)
8×10 in., oil on linen
(“Hong Qiao” means “Red Bridge” or “Red Entrance Way” in Mandarin. This is a close-up of a door at the entrance to the Forbidden City (Gu Gong) in Beijing, China, taken in 2004)

“Green Gorge” (2015-16)
8×10 in., oil on linen
(The original picture was taken on a boat trip through the Three Gorges area in Chongqing, China, in 2008)

“Golden Rise” (2015-16)
8×10 in., oil on linen
(The original picture was taken in the morning, at the entrance to the Three Gorges area in Chongqing Province, China, in 2010)

“Orange Slice” (2015-16)
6×24 in., oil on linen
(The original picture was taken in the morning, at the entrance to the second of the Three Gorges area in Chongqing Province, China, in 2009)

“Blue Bounty” (2015-16)
8×10 in., oil on linen
(The original picture was taken around Dam Cau Hai, a large inland bay between Da Nang and Hue, Vietnam, in 2014)

“Indigo Limbo” (2015-16)
8×10 in., oil on linen
(The gull not only pulls this entire composition together – I had Oriana move it ever so slightly from its place in the photo, which was about there – but it inspired the title. You can jump to whatever you want with the image of a bird in flight and its symbolism. It is also lined up, on one side, with the trajectory of the crosses, and on the other side, with the red door. So if it strikes you as a spirit poised on the cusp between heaven and hell, then you get why I gave it this title. Original picture from 2015)

“Violet Bloom” (2015-16)
8×10 in., oil on linen
(The original picture was taken in Grenada in 2007)

“Wilde-Turing 1+75” (2016)
by Oriana Kacicek (1986-)
8×8 in., oil on linen
Coppola Collection

I commissioned Oriana to create a painting based on a photo I took in the Halong Bay (Vietnam) in 2014. These have been known for a long time as the Trong Mai Islet (or Fighting Cock Rocks), although the more recent and less aggressive sensibilities have starting to think of them as a hen and rooster kissing.

I named the painting “Wilde-Turing 1+75” to honor the memories of some of  those who suffered gay persecution over the past (nearly) 175 years: Oscar Wilde, Alan Turing,  the portion of the German Criminal Code (Paragraph 175) that was broadened by the Nazis to capture and detain the “pink triangle” prisoners, and finally 1976 (1+75), the birth year of Matthew Shepard.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Alan Turing (1912-1954)
Paragraph 175 (1871-1994)
Matthew Shepard (1976-1998)

“Candy Cane Kisses” (2015)
by Oriana Kacicek (1986-)

6 × 8 in., oil on linen
Coppola Collection

Given Oriana’s facility with Hershey’s Kisses, I commissioned her to work out this idea for a strip tease.

“Under the Mistletoe” (2015)
by Oriana Kacicek (1986-)

6 × 8 in., oil on linen
Coppola Collection

This is not an new idea. Hershey’s has used this “kisses under the mistletoe” concept in a their campaigns, as you might expect.

“Dust” (2013)
by Oriana Kacicek (1986-)

6 × 8 in., oil on linen
Coppola Collection

This was a commissioned piece, derived from an image of a 1936 dustbowl photo found in the Library of Congress over at Shorpy.com

March 1936. “Heavy black clouds of dust rising over the Texas Panhandle” — evidence of the forces that were driving thousands of farm families in Texas and Oklahoma to the West Coast in the great Dust Bowl migration chronicled in “The Grapes of Wrath.” Medium format negative by Arthur Rothstein.

“Breach” (2012)
by Oriana Kacicek (1986-)

6 × 6 in., oil on linen
Coppola Collection

Oriana painted this to commemorate, and provide a donation of funds towards, the recovery from Hurricane Sandy (late October, 2012). As you can see from her other seascape work, this is distinctively different in style and tone.