Based in New Jersey, in the Philadelphia region, Charles Newman had my attention immediately with his portrayal of chairs on rooftops in the city (images above, top), an image that so strongly reminds me of my top-floor Walnut street apartment when I was an art student it’s uncanny.

Newman’s appeal goes much farther for me that that, of course; his brusque, textural paint application, muted value relationships and carefully controlled color give his work a kind of ghostly pull. Everything, even interiors, seems atmospheric. In contrast to so many artists whose work is shouting for attention, Newman’s paintings whisper, drawing you closer, inviting you in with intrigue and suggestion.

His compositions are strongly geometric, large shapes and value masses predominate, and light, even bright daylight, seems tamed and controlled in service of the composition.

Newman works from life, but his immediacy seems to act through a sophisticated filter of painterly choice, registering the most important elements and indicating them with deft reduction of the inessential.

On his own website, be aware that there is a third level to the Portfolio drop-down navigation that is easy to miss. The Plein Air section has several sub-sections, and it’s certainly worth coming back and investigating each.

His work will be on display in a solo show titled “Charles Newman – New Paintings” at the F.A.N. Gallery, here in Philadelphia, until June 27, 2015.

There is an interview with the artist on the F.A.N. Gallery blog.

Belgian painter Evariste Carpentier started in an academic style. During his time in France, he was infulenced by the French Realists, the naturalism of painters like Jules Bastien-Lepage and Jules Breton, the Barbizon painters and the move toward what would become Impressionism and eventually, Luminisim.

In many of his stylistic experiments, he was undoubtedly influenced by his almost lifelong association and friendship with Belgian painter Emile Claus, also a noted proponent of Luminism in Belgium.

Carpentier became director of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Liège, and was an influential teacher.

His paintings of lyrical domestic scenes and pastoral views are often filled with bright but gentle light, at times softly diffused by haze or overcast. Carpentier also did at least one major series of illustrations, or history paintings used as illustrations.