Christine Lafuente studied at Byn Mawr College, The Barnes Foundation and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; and is continuing her study at Brooklyn College in New York.

Lafuente blurs the line between representational and non representational painting, and moves further over it than I am usually inclined to follow; but her use of color and value, and the way she treats her brush strokes as textural elements and objects in themselves, captured my attention.

She works with splashes of color, their borders often indistinct, dissolving but never quite losing the underlying form. There is sometimes a feeling that the paintings are in motion. Wonderful smudges and swipes of paint coalesce to suggest objects, dissolve again into the background and recombine as another object.

Lafuente currently has a solo show the Gross McCleaf Gallery here in Philadelphia that runs until February 24th, 2010. I can’t find a dedicated web presence for her, but I’ve added some other links below.

California artist Johathan Bernard Koch studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design. Since then, he has apparently has had a successful career as an illustrator, with clients like The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and Rodale Books, and has been honored by the Society of Illustrators New York; but I can’t find an online portfolio of his illustration work.

What is available online, however, is Koch’s painting blog, A Small Painting. Crediting Duane Keiser, Julian Merrow-Smith and Justin Clayton with inspiring him to start, Koch posts his small paintings (and sometimes larger ones) of still life subjects and landscapes, and offers them for sale.

Unlike most painter/bloggers, Koch does not sell his paintings through auction, or even list their price on the blog, asking instead that interested parties contact him for information.

There is a page of Available Work, but it is a small fraction of the posted images. There is also an Archive page in which you can browse thumbnails, but I recommend browsing leisurely through the posted works by clicking on the left arrow, or simply clicking on the images of the paintings, to view them full size as you go.

Much of the appeal of Koch’s work is in his deft handling of texture, contrasts of rough and smooth and delicate shimmers of restrained color.

He has a more rendered style than most painters who frequently post small paintings, and he obviously posts when a painting is ready and not on a pre-determined schedule (note the absence of a frequency in the name of his blog).

His still life paintings are composed against textural or dark backgrounds, and have a feeling of Dutch master still life. Koch has a wonderful command of soft and “lost and found” edges.

Despite the fact that he often renders more smoothly than many contemporary still life painters, much of Koch’s work consists of suggestion; he hints at where the curve of an onion or the edge of a glass jar might end against a dark background, and lets your eye fill in the rest.

His landscapes likewise have a feeling of soft edges, soft light, controlled color and gentle atmospherics, frequently evoking stillness and contemplation.