I stumbled upon the collaborative paintings of painters Daryoush Asgar and Elisabeth Gabriel today and was really kind of just blown away by the radical use of color, composition and staging of subjects. Each painting is like a violent but beautiful play.
Here is a little background on two incredibly talented artists:
“Asgar / Gabriel’s works depict what they call “the historization of the moment” with references to baroque and 19th century paintings. They see their protagonists as portraits of a generation following the imperative “you can be anything you want”, a generation of ideological homelessness unabashedly pursuing a new myth moving between ecstasy and nightmare.
Painting itself is the last step in their long creative process. Asgar / Gabriel begin with a photographic sketch. Each sketch consists of hundreds of compiled photographs borrowed from mass media, their private photo album and then recomposed and modified on the computer. Like a contemporary Frankenstein, each of the subjects and compositions are reconstituted time capsules and commentaries on modernity’s obsession with notions of the “ideal” calling awareness to the global patronage of this obsessively unattainable modality set forth and so pervasive in popular culture.
Daryoush Asgar was born in Tehran 1975. In 1985, during the Iran-Iraq war, his family immigrated to Austria. 1996-2000 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. He exhibited in Austria, Germany, Italy and Canada and won the Austrian Strabag Art Award in 2002.
Elisabeth Gabriel was born in Vienna 1975. 1988-90 she studied piano at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts. 1994-2000 she studied philosophy and literature at the University of Vienna. She did her thesis on the Aesthetic Theory of Theodora W. Adorno. After graduation she worked at the theatre in Vienna, Berlin and Bern (Switzerland).
Asgar / Gabriel work and live in a studio in the heart of Vienna. They began their relationship musically in the 1990s playing in a garage rock-band. In 2002, they moved to Berlin where they started their painting collaborations and stayed for 3 years. Their first collaborative painting Entering Barbarians was exhibited in Vienna, 2005.”
Banksy has updated his site with more of the kind of work that flings shit into the eyes of our overly commercialized, materialistic and hypocritical society. No use trying to cover yourself because no one is safe. Thank you Banksy.
You just have to see the paintings of Nicola Verlato to believe them. I haven’t witnessed something more violent yet beautiful, vivid and wildly imaginative, all generated by hand, in quite a while. The pencil drawings bear witness to the ability to achieve an absolutely amazing image with zero disruption from mind to hand. Amazing.
Ron English recently appeared on CNN to explain his recent art that has appeared in the Manifest Hope show. I had to opportunity to sit down with Ron this year at the Manifest Hope show in Denver during the week of the Democratic National Convention. We were both busy putting back a few drinks that night and we talked about everything from Shepard Fairey, advertising and the government. He is a pretty funny guy and like most of us in the art and design fields, highly opinionated about a lot of different topics. It was a real pleasure to meet him as I have always admired his work. Its great to see him getting such great coverage. He’s worked his ass off for it and deserves it.
Really beautiful paintings from artist Regino Gonzales. Seriously amazing work, the detail is incredible and each composition is unique and just flat out gorgeous.
Kay Rosen is an artist whose work is comprised of typographic wordplay, and what I guess I would describe as experiments with word structure and language interpretation. She exhibits this work through installations and produces paintings utilizing color and letterforms that explore word usage and character combinations. Its interesting to see typography used purely as an artform unto itself and see it within the context of high-end contemporary art.
