3 Bodies, 2010
San Francisco based artist Jennifer Poon uses expertly uses watercolor as guache on paper to create theses unforgettable large-scale images.
She is Represented by Claire Oliver Gallery in New York.
A Little Here and There, 2010
Four in a Row, 2010
Sleep, 2010
Los Angeles-based artist Jessica Hlavac sculpts teeny tiny food by hand (in some cases full-course meals), and photographs it. The images here are all available as limited edition prints available in her etsy store.
She makes the food out of polymer clay, specifically Fimo. Ms. Hlavac explains:
you may recognize polymer clay as a material which was all the rage about 15 years ago. it was used to make everything from the beads on the sweet ass necklace you wore to that dave matthew’s concert in ’94, to the lovely and intricate adornment on the stem of your “tobacco” pipe in college.
Yes, she has a sense of humor. You must visit her website.
Ms. Hlavac also makes videos of her process. It was tough to choose which video to include in this post (the three course steak dinner and lemon meringue pie are great), but ultimately went with the meatball sandwich.
Oh yeah-the croissant above? In order to achieve those perfect ham slices, she "up and made a whole damn tiny ham just to slice it up."
In 2004, you couldn't turn a Brooklyn corner without encountering a hairy arm, bat head, or sharp-tooth demon rendered by NeckFace. The mark of NeckFace was so prolific, in fact, that one could literally give directions using his tags as landmarks. Okay--maybe that's a stretch, by they were everywhere.
Since then, NeckFace has been a busy boy, moving his work off of the street and into the art gallery. This Halloween (appropriately), he will unveil his latest series of twisted drawings, paintings and sculptures, as well as a full-scale haunted house and skate demo.
Unfortunately, (for me anyway) Into Darkness will be held at OHWOW in Los Angeles.
The video trailer:
Opening reception Sunday, October 31st @ 7PM
OHWOW
101 S. La Brea
Los Angeles, CA 90036
tattoo, 2006, porcelain
I love this piece by conceptual artist Min Jeong Seo. The subtle, fluid gesture of the arms is really something.
The arms were cast in porcelain from a professional ballerina, which are painted with Japanese Yakuza-style tattoo patterns.
This installation, Weisses Gold (animal metaphysicum) (2010) by Alicja Kwade is so lovely! These dancing figurines could easily be the kitschy collection of your wacky grandmother, but here, a landscape. The ballerinas really appear to be dancing together--The artist actually altered their heads to make them all look upwards.
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has covered the floor of Turbine Hall in the Tate Modern with 100 million hand-painted porcelain replicas of sunflower seeds.
A team of 1,600 skilled artisans from the Chinese city of Jingdezhen, known for its porcelainware were employed for the task of molding, firing, and hand-painting stripes on the tiny seeds. The workers found it "very difficult to understand" the reason for doing so.
Why sunflower seeds?
"Sunflower seeds, he said, had a particular significance in recent Chinese culture and history. During the cultural revolution, Mao Zedong was often likened to the sun and the people to sunflowers, gazing adoringly at his face. But sunflowers were also a humble but valued source of food in straitened times, a snack to be consumed with friends."
The piece is inspired by Twitter. The artist really likes Twitter. You can follow him here.
via The Guardian via Gawker
The Bedroom charcoal & acrylic on paper, mounted on panel 47 x 46 inches
I've been meaning to post the work of California-based artist Catherine Ryan for a while now. Her faceless children painted from old family photos, animals, hunters, and are expertly rendered in a combination of charcoal and acrylic paint, and are quite beautiful.
I was reminded of these images I've been hoarding yesterday when Meigan over at My Love For You posted pics she took while visiting Catherine's studio. Check it out here.
Practice charcoal & acrylic on paper, mounted on paper
In Wait charcoal & acrylic on paper, mounted on panel 30 x 44 inches
Two Boys in Costume acrylic and charcoal on canvas 48 x 60 inches
Lion With Three charcoal & acrylic on mounted paper 20 x 26 inches
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I really like this series of embroidered pieces from artist Lauren DiCiocci. Be sure to check out her website, as she has other great projects.
From the artist: As news-gathering departs from paper form and is conveyed instead through the television and internet, the newspaper becomes a nostaligic and old-fashioned object. I describe the beauty of the ritual experience of newspaper-reading by describing the paper as a tactile and fragile object in the language of craft. The pieces in this series are entire issues of The New York Times encased in hand-embroidered cotton muslin. I select a photograph from the paper; usually a strong image suggestive of power, leadership or communication; and embroider the image onto the fabric, applying colors in a painterly way and layering line and thread. Portions of the image remain as outline and threads tangle and unravel from the fabric.
via: Sweet Station |
Field Guides, 2003, photocollage, gouache, acrylic, resin on wood, 60 x 84 in.
Opening this week: The Brooklyn Museum presents a mid-career survey of American artist Fred Tomaselli's work from 1990 to 2010.
Tomaselli's highly detailed paintings on wood are comprised of unorthodox materials: images of flowers, birds, butterflies and human body parts clipped from magazines and layers of real drugs (both legal and illegal).
The result? A kaleidoscopic universe laced with historical and cultural references.
Fred Tomaselli
October 8, 2010–January 2, 2011
Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 5th Floor
Paola de Grenet's photo series "Albino Beauty" is so amazing I had to share.
From the artist:
Through photography I intend to search and at the same time show the diversity of the world we live in. The portraits of albinos celebrate a different kind of beauty and eliminate the stigma sometimes associated with difference.
via: Beautiful / Decay
I recently came across the work of Glasgow-based artist and queen of wacky collages of Lola Duprè over at HUH.
Her process involves multiplying a particular photograph a photograph and chopping it up by had only to reassemble the bits, to create something altogether new. The distorted, misshapen, deformed, grotesque, and arresting images that result are truly worth a look.
I find her portraits of world leaders particularly hilarious.
What better way to kick off the weekend?
Portrait of Pope Benedict XVI, 12.6 x 16.4 inches
Portrait of Maggie Thatcher, 11.6 x 16.5 inches
Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, 11.6 x 16.5 inches
I love this series, titled "Serpens" by photographer Guido Mocafino. These creepy-crawlies would make awesome handbags. Just kidding...kind of.
Good news--these images are available in book form through Steidl.
via Feature Shoot
How timely.
According to historians and gender theorists, it is only recently that male intimacy and outward affection was allowed without being branded a homosexual. Artist Ain Cocke's idealized portraits of World War I and II era soldiers (painted from photographs) are inspired by Rococo artists Fragonard and Boucher, and explore masculinity and male intimacy of men at war.
via: Robert Goff Gallery
Irreverent, witty, eccentric, and old-timey. Wilhelm Staehle employs Victorianesque hand-cut silhouettes and wacky one-liners to inform his refreshingly simple, yet vaguely sinister artistic agenda.
The cheeky artist's biography:
Wilhelm Staehle is a horribly disfigured gentleman who often frightens small children when he emerges from the seclusion of his sprawling estate on the Eastern Coast of the Americas. In his free time, between sporting for wild game, dressing his disturbingly broad collection of taxidermy, he finds time to hand-cut peculiar silhouettes.
Fantastic news! You can purchase framed prints and stationary from the artist's shop.
Enjoy!
Love this!
This installation called A Gust of Wind by designer Paul Cocksedge was on view for only one day at the Victoria & Albert Museum last week during the 2010 London Design Festival. Each piece of "paper" is made of Corian® and engraved with the words "Ideas Tray".
At an evening event on Friday the numbered "pages" were given away. The designer intends them to be used as a paper tray, "becoming a place for wandering paper to gather."
via Dezeen
Today artist Maurizio Cattelan unveiled his extremely generous gift to the city of Milan in Piazza Affari-- in front of the Italian Stock Exchange building. The public monument, made of marble, stands about four meters high (eleven meters including the base.)
The artist has title the public statue L.O.V.E.
Says Cattelan: "Officially it's name is L.O.V. E. - so it stands for love - but everyone can read between the lines and take away the message they see for themselves."
The sculpture is part of an exhibition of the artist’s works at the Museum Palazzo Reale, which opens today. The piece was donated to Milan, but refused
The official statement from the city: "We want to be confirmed as the capital of contemporary art...We have to not only mediate but also accept what we do not like'.
How diplomatic!
L.O.V.E. will be on display for only ten days. Fashion week!
via: designboom
