Sun Valley Property News: July 2014 issue

Everybody’s got their thing. A love affair with chocolate, Jimmy Choo stilettos, single malt scotch, their dog — something they can’t get enough of and love in a deep emotional way. For a few gallery owners and artist in Ketchum, art is that thing: they wake up and live art, love art, and think art. For them, Monday mornings are not met with a grumble and complaints as they head into their work week, but rather with a smile as they know something beautiful and creative awaits them. Part of the reason these people are successful, is that they are passionate about what they do, and sharing this passion with our community of locals and visitors is something they are genuinely excited about. Meet SVPN’s featured gallery owner/artists for July, and you’ll see exactly what we’re talking about. 

Frederic Boloix Fine Arts

Creativity in all forms makes life, well, better. With an open heart and mind colors are brighter, music more melodic, and the act of waking up and living a dance in and of itself. This is how Frederic Boloix lives his life. When he looks at beautiful things, he really sees them. When he listens to music, he really hears it. Boloix Fine Arts represents superstar artists such as Françoise Gilot, Sulustiano, and Francis Bacon. And Frederic’s passion for experience, with which he runs is gallery, is one that he is passing on to the next generation. 

The first time I met Frederic’s son Tristan, he was barely three, and was playing conductor. Like his father, Tristan is passionate about classical music, able to recognize and differentiate composers by hearing ten-second clips from movements, and playing conductor of an imaginary orchestra, with eyes closed, complete with dramatic gesture, was one of his favorite games. Don’t get me wrong — bicycles and soccer and skiing are also extremely important to the young boy, but music, and the experience of live orchestra like at SV Summer Symphony and the Vienna Philharmonic, he counts as favorite memories. 

Frederic was also exposed to music from a your age, and counts it as one dialer of artistic language that helped him choose his profession. “All of the artists I represent embody their own philosophy in a way unique to them, and that is what sings to me. Art is tricky and merciless because the muses are fickle, and you need to be there for that fleeting moment. The same can be said of the enjoyment I find in music: I am hooked on that magic dialogue between performing artist, composer and audience that is difficult to replicate via recording. It is all about the moment.”

351 Leadville Avenue N, Ketchum
208.726.8810
www.boloix.com  

Harvey Art Projects

Globalization is tricky. It seems more often than not, we read globalization in a cultural context next to the word extinction. Another language dies, a dance is lost, a young generation forgets or ignores its culture, inundated with the ability to be virtually anywhere instead of learning from ancestors and experiencing place. However, when we look at the specific case of Harvey Art Projects, globalization works inversely. The more this Aboriginal art is seen and distributed globally, the stronger Aboriginal culture, art, and story become. 

In its essence, Harvey Art Projects operates under a mission to revive and preserve an entire way of life, namely Tjukurpa, or dreamtime (also translated to story, the method of oral tradition utilized by indigenous Australian cultures). Doing this is no small task, as becoming close to the Aboriginal people of Australia takes time, patience, and the development of true relationships. Julie Harvey is now intimately connected to the families of the people she represents. 

As Australia’s leading contemporary art movement, Aboriginal art also provides an interesting juxtaposition of newly created work rooted in the oldest continuing tradition of its people. The sale of work in the gallery goes directly towards sustaining this unique culture and the land of Australia’s people. This month, Julie is curating a show with the Spinifex Art Project, whose artists are discrete indigenous Australian people, whose lands are situated in the Great Victoria Desert region of Western Australia. Singing while they work, their art tells the story of the land to which they are tied and their countless traditions. 

“The Spinifex Arts Project truly belongs to us. Painting helped us get our land back. It’s good work for keeping our culture strong, our people healthy, and earning some money. All of us must grow the Art Centre up to be strong so the young people can learn from us and keep our Tjukurpa going.” —Lennard Walker, Chairperson, Spinifex Arts Project 2013 

3891 1st Ave N, Ketchum
208.309.8676
www.harveyartprojects.com 

Jeannie Catchpole & Steve Behal

Looking at a piece of art created by Jeannie Catchpole and Steve Behal is like looking at their relationship. You can see all of its layers, disagreements, compromises, meetings, moments of complete clarity, and secrets held between lover, on the canvas. Like getting to know someone, the work unfolds slowly in front of you, revealing its intimate parts in proportion to the time you spend with it. 

The first time they created a ‘painting duet’, Jeannie screamed. She stood by with a bucket ready to undo anything Steve added that she did not approve of. Yet, after giving into the spontaneity of creating together, their relationship, individual artwork, and collaborations have grown tremendously. When painting together, they challenge each other physically, emotionally, and intellectually through canvas. Then, while they spend time apart (Steve is a Toronto resident who spends half the year here, and Jeannie spends the majority of her time here in SV), they have time to bring those experiences back to their independent projects. 

Currenlty, they are both immersed in writing collaboratively (mostly screenplays)and painting both individually and together. Though they are working ‘normal’ jobs right now, they hope for art to be their primary income soon. With upcoming shows in Venice, New York, Chicago, and Keller Williams in Ketchum, that transition might be sooner than they think. 

“The adventure began around midnight in a fit of inspiration, and I literally screamed as I watched Steve hurl a streak of paint on my precious canvas. The resulting line was so ENERGETIC, I ‘got it’ and between the two of us, we proceeded to lay down layers of color and texture until the painting was finished. We both signed it.” —Jeannie Catchpole 

680 Sun Valley Rd., Ketchum
www.behalcatchpole.com 

Gilman Contemporary

Like every teenage girl, L’Anne Gilman went through a photography phase. Yet unlike those of us who spent time taking pictures of our feet and getting film developed at the corner store, L’Anne’s father set up a darkroom in their home where she learned to develop and print her own film, drawn to portraiture over landscape or still life. In college, she honed her interests, reading about Avedon, Klein, and Horvat, and purchasing her first ‘true photo’ at a San Francisco Art Fair, ‘Smoke and Veils’, by Wiliam Klein. It wasn’t the fashion of the photography that necessarily caught her attention, but rather the intimacy between photographer and subject. 

Today, Gilman Contemporary is proud to represent fashion photographers like Rodney Smith, who creatively portray models, his photos looking as though they could have been taken in the ’50’s. This relationship between artist and subject, behind and in front of the lens, is one that is apparent in Smith’s work, and also representative of all forms of artistic medium represented at the gallery. 

L’Anne has a team built of her best friends, Casey Hanrahan and Raine Kidder, who constantly help L’Anne push the envelope when designing exhibits and thinking of the future. Challenging each other with new ideas and forcing each other to think outside the ox, they have built a group of core artists that communicate intimacy through contemporary work. L’Anne muses, “Whether or not you like it, contemporary art makes you think. It always moves you in some way.”

“I want to bring something new at every available opportunity. Art is fun! It does not always have to be serious. And, while we are very serious about the art and the artists we exhibit and represent, there has to be joy in it or why else would you be motivated to do it at all?”

661 Sun Valley Rd W, Ketchum
208.726.7585
www.gilmancontemporary.com