The Space Collective is one of those rare and magnificent beasts that you stumble upon and can find little words to describe. That is essentially what happened today when I found it by way of a link to a link to a link. Even still after having spent some time on the site, I really can’t even describe to you exactly what it is all about. What I do know is I like where it is going and that it is about looking at the world, and the internet a little differently. It is about wonder and I like to wonder. Our live, work, consume, die routine doesn’t account for much wonder and the irony is that wondering about things is usually what leads to the greatest ideas and innovation. So, it is nice to find a site that is encouraging people to do so in several regards. Be sure to look around the site because there is something unusual, unexpected and often times inspiring lurking just past every button click.
Above is his latest creation and below his earlier sculptures.
Joshua Allen Harris is a NYC street artist who has been constructing some extremely unusual sculptures out of plastic bags that he attaches to the above ground vents of the city subway. When the train passes by underneath a gust of air rushes up through the vents filling and breathing life into the sculptures. You can see more of them in action at Wooster Collective. It’s an interesting combination of art and environment. I love the concept and I love that it stops people in their tracks and makes them think about where they are. It’s great when art can pull people into the moment and force them into the here and now, if only for a moment.
Huskworks is the creative work of artist/illustrator Simon Noynay. Simon was born in the telling year of 1984 in Cebu, Phillipines. He grew up mostly working in fine art and studied Communication & Design at Swinburne University. He now lives in Melbourne where he has worked under the aliases Huskworks, Cova and Kid_Z.
He combines traditional techniques with digital media to produce a wide array of imagery. His style ranges from a softer hand to a arrangements in psychedelia. His work has appeared in several publications throughout Australia. He stays active on the exhibition circuit and at one point was profiled as one of the top 25 artists under 25 in Australia.
Oh Yeah is the work of Oslo-based designer/artist/photographers Christina and Hans. They claim they like to do their work after dinner. I translate that as they probably hold down day jobs and have to do the bulk of their creative in the evening after earning their rent money. I think many of us have found ourselves in a similar situation.
Although I am not really a fan of how their website functions, there is an enormous amount of work to view. It looks as though they work in a serial nature creating strange little clusters of work that ranges from design, art for art’s sake and photography. All of it is very original and unique.
Heiko is a German artist and illustrator based in Heidelberg, Germany. Coincidentally, I believe Heidelberg is the same city in which my Aunt-in-law lives with her husband who works as a Doctor there. Small world.
Heiko lives there with his wife Lilly Piri who is also an artist. He is currently available for commisions. You can keep track of his exhibitions and artistic endeavours at his blog. He also has an online store where you can purchase prints of his work. Please be sure to drop him a line if you are in the market for an illustrator with a unique style.
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State of Fear
Dan Tague is an artist who isn’t afraid to use his artwork as a vehicle to protest or rather a mirror to hold up to the hypocritical face of American society to force some serious questions as to our motives. His recent work for his exhibition at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery is no exception. The show is titled, ‘Cash Rules Everything Around Me‘ and involves large scale photographs of American Currency folded to reveal messages involving war and commerce. It’s a simple but genius idea that has conjured iconic images.
Tague lives and works in New Orleans. There is little doubt that the massive fuck up that was Hurricane Katrina has had an impact on his work and perception of his nation. His past show titles are case in point to this fact with titles like, ‘Paradise Lost, In Harm’s Way, Katrina & The Waves, America: Are We Drowning, American Muscle and Natural Disaster.’ It is good to see an artist being so active and using his work as a vessel to deliver his protest to a sad time in American history.
Notorious stencil artist Banksy will be exhibiting in Hong Kong late this month at the “LOVE ART” show curated by Fabrik Contemporary Art. The exhibition will also feature the work of several other high-profile controversial artists such as Damien Hirst, Keith Haring, Romero Britto, and Mel Ramos. I can’t thin of another exhibition where such an infamous group of artists have all been grouped together. I only wish someone would buy me a ticket to Hong Kong so I could see it for myself. The details of time and place are listed below.
Place: Hong Kong Arts Centre:
2 Harbour Road,
Hong Kong
Time: Opening Night:
April 23 (Wednesday) | 6:30pm – 8:30pm
Dates: Exhibition dates:
April 23rd (Wednesday) – April 28th (Monday) | 10am – 8pm
Justine Ashbee creates the kind of art that I think would be a lot more interesting in person than it appears small-scale on the internet. She creates large drawings using sharpies with the kind of curves you would swear had to be computer generated. It’s an interesting methodology and execution in what is definitely an original perspective.
I read this in Wireless today and thought it was worth noting here. So, have you been hankering for some affordable art and don’t want to wait until I get around to producing my prints. Well, fortunately Web 2.0 has once again made art accessible to just about everyone and anyone from college bound to upper crust.
So where to buy this art? Well there are several options. I have listed some in the past but there are 3 here that were mentioned in the Wireless article.
DORM ROOMS TO HIPSTER APARTMENTS: Thumbtack Press: Originally Thumbtack’s founder Tony Bailey asked his cache or art buddies to help him stock out his site. Since then, he has pulled in more established talent and now there is something there for just about any amateur collector interested in dabbling in the low brow. Prices range anywhere from $15 to $45 bucks for unframed archival prints and a $100 up for framed.
SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS DESIGNERS WHO OCCASIONALLY SKIM JUXTAPOZ: Blueflip Art: With prints from artist/illustrator/designer hybrids like Brazilian Eduardo Recife and the deftly-skilled and also coincidentally Brazilian (Paulista) Will Murai, there will no doubt be something there that will satisfy the appetite of any in the know designer. Prices range from $15 to $45 for archival giclée prints. It gets better with Blueflip however because they also donate 10 percent of every sale to the charity of the artist’s choosing.
HIGH ROLLING NEW YORKERS & CREATIVE DIRECTORS: 20×200: Soho gallery curator extraordinaire decided to take her taste for the finer side of art online by offering up carefully selected limited edition prints by artists any good NYC art socialite would be proud to adorn their brownstone with. Prices reflect taste and range far and wide from small prints starting at $20 ranging all the way up and out of most lower brow pocket books to $2,000. The bigger price tag does mean a much larger print. So, if you have the coin there are far worse things to do with it than support a hungry artist.
Paul, better known in the design industry and art world as ‘Insect’ served for several years as the creative force behind the London design collective, ‘Insect’. Paul was born in southeastern England. He studied graphic design for 4 years at Hastings and Salisbury art colleges. Since his design days he has gone on to work more individually and has recently launched his own website where you can finally get a look at some of what he has been up to lately. His images have graced the covers of creative magazines the world over and he recently created the cover for the last DJ Shadow album. He is one of the rare and strange birds spawned by the digital revolution. A strange computer working, screen printing, collage and painting kind of Franken-artist. You can see a little of each represented in much of his work. He also takes his work to the streets of London pasting up posters and writing the occasional tag. If you don’t spot his work there you can always find him exhibiting on the gallery circuit. I am sure many of you will recognize his work, it’s nice to finally see a collection of it in one place on the web.
I posted an entry about Byroglyphics on my last blog but much has happened since then and there is now a lot more work to see by this talented artist and illustrator. Byroglyphics is the work of 36 year old Brighton-based Russ Mills.
In his own words from his Myspace page, Russ describes Byroglyphics and it’s inception:
“Byroglyphics was born in the wee small hours of the morning one day in 2004, when I used to be a world champion alconaut, the name was shouted by my friend Hambot and it stuck in my head, we used to make up many words, most far more expressive than the one’s in circulation today. My illustrations are not too scientific, they begin life as sketches in ink, the tool of choice is the Bic ‘fine’ because it gives me a lot more mileage than more expensive, snootier fine liners that break if you give them too much stick. The sketch is transported into my ageing mac and then abused in photoshop (you may have heard of it) i use this because of the joy of multiple undo’s plus its the closest I can get to painting without painting. The next stage in byroglyphics’ life is to turn these illustrations into big canvases, it’s taken me many attempts to get to a stage where i’m confident enough to attack canvas and leave the relative safety of the computer, as with everything else it’s a constant learning curve, sometimes a downward one. The results of these curves will be in circulation soon.”
His commitment to his craft is evident in the work. It just gets better every time I visit his website. If you want to purchase prints of his work you can do so at Big Cartel. You can also stay up to date on his work at his blog. His work is a great study in what is capable when the best of both worlds collide with digital and analog produced art. It’s truly inspirational.
Eno Henze was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1978. He was educated in Germany as well. He has also exhibited all over Germany. His work is very unusual as he works in a variety of mediums. I apologize that I cannot tell you more because that was the little I could translate since his site is entirely in German. Art is universal however and you will not need to speak German to appreciate his original work.
Bert Simons is a Netherlands-based Designer/Programmer who has created some very unusual sculptures. Using a 3d modeling program he maps portraits of people, including himself as pictured above of over a wireframe model. He then breaks the image down into a series of geometric shapes and outputs the pieces. He cuts them apart and then after what I could only imagine would be a lengthy and trying bit of time manages to glue them together to create the striking papercraft sculptures above. Yes, that’s right they are made out of paper. Ah will the wonders of technology never cease. So bizarre but utterly fascinating, if not the least little bit disturbing.
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Wow. That pretty much sums it up in a word. Regardless of how you feel about the highly digital collage trend, like it or not, you have no choice but to respect the work of Neil Duerden. I don’t know what amazed me more about the work on his new site, the quantity or the undeniable quality of every single piece. I don’t know how long he spends creating his images but it looks like he hasn’t slept in over a year. I know from experience how hard it can be creating a densely layered Photoshop image and I am just stunned at how many he has created. He must need 10 computers to store them all on. They look like they have to be about a gig a piece.
If you don’t know about Neil, he is a self confessed Mac monkey based in a rural miners cottage 20 miles north of Manchester. He generates imagery combining elements from mixed media, including photography, drawings and complex vectors for clients all around the world. He is a commission and trend junky who is happy to tackle just about any brief that is handed to him.
He now has his own space on the web for his motion work as well and of course he also now has his own blog. My personal congratulations to him on amassing such a stunning body of work. You can also purchase prints of his spectacular work here. He has really pushed a trend into the realm of art where I am sure it will be logged and not forgotten.
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Oliver Hibert was born in 1983 near Seattle, Wa. He is a totally self taught artist and has been painting since he was all but 15. By the time he had reached the legally cigarette buying tender age of 18, he had already shown in numerous galleries. By age 20 he was only one year shy of downing a cold one and had shown his paintings in two different museums in Arizona. According to the last known report he now resides near Phoenix, Az. with his girlfriend and his living collection of 1,000 albino peacocks.
The art of Stephan Balleux really knocked the wind out of me. It’s completely original and totally amazing. He also likes to focus on a subject I have been obsessed with in the past, skulls. In the heart of every rock n’ roller there lies a skull.
Balleux’s work goes way beyond the subject matter and dives into the conceptual. Here is the artist in his own words from his website, “At present, my work investigates the closeness of the ‘antique’ form of representation – painting – and the ‘up-to-date’ forms of image production – 3D virtual images and computer-manipulated images. Despite of the different ways of working and of their opposition in terms of what is animated and inanimate, visual as well as conceptual connections exist: the figural painting process and virtual images share a same approach of creation which depends on a re-conception of reality “by way of the hand” (by opposition to the historical basis of photography which rely on the mechanical recording of reality, showing “what was”), they are both the coating of a texture on a surface (on pigmentary and material, the other completely virtual and mathematical).
Paradoxically, my work consists in confronting these two modes of image production in close spaces and open a field of perception located at the border of each medium. The relation to the spectator/visitor is established both in a contradictory and pertinent movement, by the contrast between the effects induced by the video – a definite and fixed (almost totalitarian) movement, and painting, an immobility which offers to those who watch their own time of perception.”
He is no doubt someone who will continue to evolve and amaze. So keep a close eye on his work and development because he will no doubt be surfacing again in any number of art publications and websites.
The “Magazines and War 1936-1939” exhibition was held from January to April 2007 at Madrid’s Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. The exhibition included serial publications from more than 20 public and private collections. It was the first of its kind in undertaking a study of the role of artists in Spanish Civil War magazines.
Since the show, a website has been assembled allowing visitors to browse, 30 selected individual magazine issues from the Museum’s library and the University of Illinois’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. You can start browsing those issues and bare witness to an era of design you most surely have not yet seen right here.
David Foldvari is another Illustrator/Artist that I believe I may have written about on the previous version of my blog. Regardless, I can’t really seem to get enough of his work no matter how often I see it. His skill at combining images with symbolic undertones to create something that becomes forever lodged in the back room of the psyche is unparalleled. He ups the anti by creating most of those images in black and white, almost like a dream. He is an artist who isn’t afraid to show his strokes either and that is always nice for computer jockeys like me. He is based out of North London and apparently hasn’t had a lot of time to tend to his website, he does have a blog however where you can view more of his work in progress. This should come as no surprise either when considering the rest of their roster. He is represented by Big Active.
