James Aponovich

Barga: Still Life with Itoh Peonies 48 x 36" oil on canvas 2004         Castello Nuovo: Still Life with Daylilies and Watermelon 40 x 32" oil on canvas 2004                 Barga: Still Life with Amaryllis 40 x 32" oil on canvas 2005               Barga: Still Life with Bearded Irises 40 x 30" oil on canvas 2005               Barga: Still Life with Red Pears 18 x 26" oil on canvas 2002               Still Life From The Villa Donati 52 x 48" oil on canvas 2001             Barga: Still Life with Bearded Irises and Tangerine 26 x 18" oil on canvas 2005             Still Life with Watermelon 22 x 26" oil on canvas 2005             Study for Judith’s Roses 18 x 12" graphite on paper             Boxed Fruit Series (Figs) 9 x 11" oil on canvas 2005           Boxed Fruit Series (Orange) 9 x 11" oil on canvas 2005 Barga: Still Life from the Via Del Pretorio, #28/125 18 x 24" lithograph on paper 1997           James Aponovich (b. 1948–) is a still life painter whose work features complex compositions set against idealized Italian landscapes. A strong undercurrent of surrealism1 pervades Aponovich's work. He endeavors to depict the ultimate object and his opulent fruits, fabrics, flowers, and vessels function as archetypes. His paintings focus on the ideal, as opposed to the real, and his work is neither iconographic nor narrative. As the artist himself says: "In my work, if I am painting a peach, it’s not just the soft, furry flesh outside, but the hard pit inside. That’s the kind of meditation on objects that I seek in my approach."2 Noted for its geometry, proportion, composition, and light-filled atmosphere—the artist forgoes the chiaroscuro employed in more traditional still lifes—Aponovich's work not only reflects the influence of Cézanne and Picasso but also that of the early Italian Renaissance painter, Piero della Francesca, and the Dutch and Flemish still life painters of the 17th century. An accomplished figure painter and portraitist, Aponovich turned to still life painting in the early 1980s after intensive study of Chinese landscape painting. According to Aponovich, it was the "attitude toward interpretation and assimilation [that exists in Chinese painting] so that the object and the artist become one,"3 that inspired the move to still life. Aponovich's work is greatly informed by nature. Married to a professional horticulturist, and an accomplished gardener himself, Aponovich paints in conjunction with the bloom seasons, sketching first from the live bulbs, and resolving the remainder of the painting during the winter.4 James Aponovich has exhibited nationally since the late 1970s. In 2005, the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH, mounted a major retrospective of his work. His paintings are in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Arkansas Art Institute, Little Rock; The Currier Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Portland Art Museum, ME, among others. The artist lives in New Hampshire.