The remarkable talent that is James Jean has updated with a new website and filled his online store with some beautiful works of art. I am impressed by how much he has gone straight towards being a fine artist and deviated from just being an illustrator. Prepare to be inspired after sifting through his work. He is one of the best. This one is being filed under ‘art’.
Christopher Davison earned an MFA in Printmaking from the Tyler School of Art. His work is dark, intense and deals in religious symbology, specifically Christianity. It’s a dicey subject to toy with in this day and age.
Rob and Christian Clayton, the amazing Clayton Brothers who share a bit of a Denver, Colorado heritage have updated their website with some of their spectacular new paintings. They now reside in Pasadena, California (come home guys). Count me as a fan. Their use of color and just flat out imaginative subject matter is absolutely beautiful.
The work of 25-year-old German illustrator Valentin Fischer will no doubt remind you of the work of James Jean and Sam Weber but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it is still very well executed. Regardless of the influence, I am still a big fan of this style and with the amount of talent required to achieve it Fischer definitely has some potential to make some beautiful work.
Oil painter Gglennray Tutor paints mind-numbing trompe l’oeil landscapes that are so meticulous in detail it’s almost hart to imagine they could be accomplished by the human hand. There are so many things at work here, light, form, dimension and pop culture.
Artist Jon Todd takes eastern and latin cultural influences and throws them in a blender ending with a mishmash of references that evoke a sense of familiarity while managing to still seem exotic. Anecdotal sidebar: I have dressed as a luchador 2 years in a row for Halloween.
Gallery Nineteen Eighty Eight is currently hosting an exhibition that brought the memories flooding back. The theme of the show is He-Man, the toy cult phenomenon that so many young boys became devoutly engaged in. I was way into He-Man as a child and had practically every character in my toybox. I even used to make my own custom He-Men by taking them apart, making new costumes and weapons with plastic soda bottles. I would even melt new parts onto my He-Men toys by heating them in the microwave (sounds toxic now). Anyway, as you can see the show is featuring the work of several artists, all of whom interpreted a beloved part of their childhood in a different and unique way.
I have been pretty busy lately. One of the things I had the pleasure of doing was curating an “Illustration” show with Nate Van Dyke and Jeremy Forson. I enjoy the opportunity to show people the process involved in art making so I encouraged exhibiting sketches next to the finished paintings in this exhibition.
All the work can be seen here, and photos from the opening can be seen here.
“Dave Macdowell Paints Acrylic on Canvas in the Lowbrow/ Pop Surrealism movement. His focus is on Childhood Fantasy and our Contemporary Cultural Nightmare.”
Macdowell subjects are a mish mash of iconic movie stars and cartoons all stewed and stirred together with vivid color and swirling action. You can view his work via his website or his Flickr-folio. Although he calls himself a lowbrow/pop surrealist painter, he has a control over his medium that would rival any old world master.
Remed is originally from France but has traveled as a street artist and spent a little time on the ugly but urban art acclaimed streets of São Paulo. He has a touch of Picasso in him and is versed in several styles and mediums. You can peep his inspiring exploits in his Flickr-folio.
A little from the artist in his words:
:I discovered the art of painting in an atelier of my city, Lille, in 1995. I have worked at home for a wide, exploring various techniques on any kind of supports. After this i wanted to cross over the limit imposed by the frame. So, I ve started to interact on my environment pasting stickers, then painting my ideas, messages or “witnesses” over Lille..s walls, with the consciousness of the context my “traces” will evoluate in. On the other side of this work, i ve kept on working on canvas, always mixing text and visual, i interpret or create icons that take sens beside letters and words. That’s how i compose the canvas, as long as the ideas are being drawn, they have in them, the seed of the ones that will follow. I make rimes with colors, shapes and sounds in order to express a feeling, or the evolution of a thought…always tending to evasion, infinity, or rebirth.”
Since I first wrote about Moscow native artist Ted Vasin last summer, he has since updated with a new site and some new work for 2009. His style continues to amaze with the strange weaving of the real and the surreal.
I have thought about getting a tattoo since I was in my teens and have never been able to commit. Amanda Wachob has me thinking differently and reconsidering what is even possible with a tattoo. Her tattoos looks as though they are painted on using a brush. The color work is also remarkable. It’s permanent art that would no doubt spark a few conversations.
Artist Nick Gentry has found a muse on our throwaway culture. He paints onto discarded computer disks and cassette tapes.
Here is a a section pulled from his artist statement:
“Since graduating from Central St Martins in 2006, the focus has been to explore how technological advancement is affecting society. Throughout history, information has always been recorded on physical objects. Important documents, favourite songs, videos and more were stored on mountains of tapes, polaroids, cassettes and disks. As media is rapidly absorbed into the World Wide Web the rich variety of formats of the past are becoming obsolete.”
You can now check out the works created by artist Doze Green for his third solo exhibition at the Jonathan Levine Gallery website. I have always been a big fan of his work but I must admit as much as I love his original work, I am really into his recent black and white works on paper. They are more abstract but beautiful to look at and make for an interesting progression of his style. I’d kill to hang one on my wall. Maybe a print will suffice, if I can get my hands on one.
I remember seeing one of Jason Holley’s illustration a few years back in one of the Communication Arts Illustration annuals. I bookmarked the page and kept referencing it for inspiration. As far as I know he only recently put up a website. His work continues to inspire.
I remember seeing Antony Micallef’s work a few years ago on the cover of one of the Semi Permanent books. I only recently finally stumbled across his website and was just completely blown away by his work. It’s sincerely amazing.
Quoted from Wikipedia:
“Born in Swindon, England and a graduate in Fine Arts from the University of Plymouth, some of Micallef’s work illustrates many contemporary cultural aspects and connects them with the human experience. His use of neutral colors and depictions of the human form delve beyond pop culture and bring to the surface many of the things that operate underneath the cultural construct. Aspects of Micallef’s work examines our dichotomous relationship with consumerism, questioning how we can despise multi-national brands yet still allow ourselves to be seduced by them. He frequently uses the union of two opposites to make an intriguing chemistry. Micallef’s practice has been summarized as ‘critical pop’, exposing the darker side of our consumerist society and the human condition.
His painting style has been compared to Francis Bacon and is seen as an amalgamation of influences from the old masters such as Caravaggio and Velázquez to more modern contemporary photographers and graphic artists. His depiction of the human body and mark making echo his teachings from John Virtue, who in turn was taught by Frank Auerbach. The rawness of expressionistic painterly marks is a stark contrast to the more graphic elements which surfaces throughout his work.”
Nicholas Bohac live and works in the Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco. He works with printmaking methods and acrylic based media to create his paintings and drawings whose subject matter is the ecological climate that we live in today.
Painter Nicole Gordon’s work is obviously influenced by Northern Renaissance painters like Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch. Her paintings utilize surrealist environments to communicate the concept of sin. The mashup combination of old world inspiration with modern day subject matter manifests a particular tension in her work.
Her artist statement claims that her apocolyptic visions reflect hope and a possibility for change in an era where the destruction of the environment is par for the course in a post industrialized world that puts economy before ecosystem.
