Storm Thorgerson’s BIG & SMALL illustrates the vast diversity of format now facing music designers, from billboards to digital downloads and postage stamps. In particular the show features enormous high quality fine art prints at 5 foot square of album covers from Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Muse, The Mars Volta et al derived from original art and individually supervised. BIG & SMALL also displays more manageable sized prints of recent work including Pendulum, The Wombats, Younger Brothers plus more familiar works from Black Sabbath, Peter Gabriel, Steve Miller, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin etc.
“Mandy Shadforth is an Australian Contemporary Artist based on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. With an earlier background in Sign Writing her work displays explicit control and depth which she uses to create her super realistic figurative and subjective pieces. Mandy paints in a super realistic style to get closer to her subject matter. Through painting in this style she is able to draw in the viewer ininitimately to her images sharing with them the detailed beauty that would normally be overlooked. Her flawless figurative oil paintings are often mistaken as being airbrushed as her attention to detail is a signature feature of Mandy’s work. Her subject matter often references images from pop culture combining her interest in fashion, art and the mysterious. However the underlying essence of Mandy’s concepts revolve around her love of nature, beauty, travel and culture.”
“In an increasingly digital world, painting perseveres as a low-tech but engaging art form. Through colour, scale and gesture, my most recent work celebrates painting’s physicality, both in terms of its application and its dependence on space in the real world. The images are bright and playful, but also macabre and grotesque. Form and space lack clear boundaries. The images rest between creation and destruction. They convey a kind of mortality, a symptom of the organic and non-digital.”
“Jan Gunneweg stands out as an industrial designer not only with his unique and daring designs, but also because of his technical skill. The combination makes his creations stylish and special but also – and this is equally important – very practical and exceptionally user-friendly.
His traditional background and love for wood leave their mark on all his creations. You might expect wood to result in cumbersome and unwieldy designs.
But nothing could be less true. Jan Gunneweg’s creations are elegant and designed with style.”
Máximo Riera has been a practicing artist for over thirty years. Whilst predominantly working in photography, painting and sculpture, he has also published a collection of poetry. Inspired by his travel and experiences through Europe and the Caribbean Islands, Máximo’s vibrant use of colour and evocative attention to detail have been an inspiration which convey the meaning of his creations. His work also demonstrates a predominant influence from abstract expressionism and the Pop Art movements.
“Suren was born in Yerevan in 1976. He received PhD in Theoretical Physics from Yerevan State University in 2001 for researches in the field of Quantum Chaos. Next year he received The President Award of Republic of Armenia for the investigations in the field of quantum technologies. He is scientific researcher in the Institute for Physical Research of National Academy of Sciences since 1997.
Suren played 5 musical instruments: guitar, cello, piano, block flute, and lyre. He teaches physics, mathematics and astronomy in Yerevan Waldorf School for more than 10 years.
Suren started to photograph when he was sixteen. He became professional photographer at 2006. Suren involved nearly in all fields of photography, especially in Macro, Portraits, Creative photo projects, Landscape, etc. His photos were published in numerous magazines. Especially popular his series of close ups of human eyes called “Your beautiful eyes” which have millions views in Web and were published by Daily Mail, The Independent, Telegraph, La Reppublica, etc.”
“In 1992 I began to combine stencils with my freehand work, which allowed me to juxtapose almost photographic imagery with the rawness which evolved from conventional graffiti styles. Stencils introduce an impact element to my work. The appeal of stencils is that they allow me to take an image from anywhere – dissect any part of life – and recreate it on any surface.
I try to add an element of humour or irony to some paintings to add a little light relief to the walls. Painting is a form of escapism for me and if my work allows the spectator to do the same thing, then I’ve achieved more than I set out to do.”
Nick Walker is one of the world’s best known street artists. Born in 1969, he emerged from the infamous and ground-breaking Bristol graffiti scene of the early 1980s.
I checked out “Fighting Fire With Ice Cream”, Alex Chinneck’s show at See Studio exhibition space in Hackney Wick. Loved it.
“Artist Alex Chinneck celebrates everyday construction materials by enlivening them with a new purpose and appearance. For this exhibition the artist has removed them from their utilitarian context and entered them into ambitious sculptural situations. Inspired by the industrial landscape that surrounds him, this body of work reflects the artists time spent working and living in reclaimed warehouses. Through his practise these unrefined materials of basic construction that most would consider mundane are given a second life.”
Sarah Elisabeth is a photography based in Toronto. She shoots under the name Thrity9Steps with partners Hannah Sider & Gabriel Graham. I like her style.
Grady Gordon is originally from santa fe, nm. in the high-desert he grew up alongside various art forms, most notably the native American ‘katchina’ wood carvings of numerous spirits. these spirits allowed him to investigate the world beyond our limit. The japanese ‘yokai’ are also another great source of inspiration.
In his prints, grady searches for xrayz of mortality, the face behind the veil, and aims to illuminate what is staring back at us.
The monotype print is a study of impermanence. unlike other forms of printmaking the monotype offers only one copy. the original image on the plate is then given back to the ether, back into the fabric.
Gordon has a show, Birth of Namahage, at Pure Evil Gallery until 31st July 2011.
“Celebrity is a series of thermographic photographs featuring waxwork celebrity figures and their adoring fans taken in the world famous Madame Tussauds.
Whereas a normal camera functions on the basis of visible light, a thermographic camera measures infrared radiation and creates visual displays of heat. Hirasawa’s collection captures the intensely coloured figures of smiling tourists, creating contrast between lifeless subjects with human beings as they swarm around a colourless space – the waxwork celebrity figures.
Hirasawa’s work scrutinizes aspects of human life and looks at how faith and hierarchy are formed in society. Something which resonates when thought of in relation to how visitors to Madame Tussards queue for hours to get close to wax work versions of their heroes. How their faith in the cult of celebrity motivates swathes of people to wait for hours just to get close to lifeless celebrities.
Celebrity also offers a comment on the façade of the “real life” celebrities who pose for photographs on the red carpet and appear in countless airbrushed adverts. In Hirasawa’s work it is only the attention of the visitor that brings the celebrity to life. The audience constructs the narrative and dictates the celebrity’s personality, could the same be said about a type cast actor or actress playing up to the part that their audience expects of them?”
Perth based artist Tane Andrews presents a solo exhibition featuring a collection of drawings on paper, laser cuts and kinetic sculptures at Venn Gallery from the 22 July – 19 August 2011.
“This new series of works continues the artist’s fascination with botanical illustration, repetition, mortality and the passage of time. Utilising the labour intensive technique of stippling, Andrews produces thousands of tiny dots to create images of specimens in metamorphosis or various stages of life and death. Also on display will be a kinetic sculpture developed in collaboration with local artist Phil Gamblen featuring butterflies in a delicate investigation of form and motion.
The works are explorations of transience, displaying a beauty and fragility that marks the progression and deterioration of life.”
Images are of previous exhibition works. You’ll have to check out his new show to see the fresh stuff!
First issue of BUY&DIE zine. BAD zine will be published periodically with each issue featuring the work of, and being edited by a single artist/art collective from anywhere around the world. BAD zine hopes to become a printed medium, distributed internationally, for artists to communicate their ideas & concepts freely, with complete control and without editorial judgment.
