‘Beautiful and Damned’, the shows title, is of course taken from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 novel, which explores the listless lives of moneyed society during the Jazz Age.
This captivating era, drenched in glamour yet tinged with tragedy is the decadent setting for this extraordinary series of work. The exquisitely beautiful movie starlets, society icons and characters on display capture the spirit of the age all who are caught in the unforgiving glare of the limelight and some sadly burn out before their time.
As Pam states, “the tragedy amongst the beauty is what has inspired this show, the sharp contrast between a blessed life and one that ends in scandal, hedonism or destitution”.
Hollyweed not Hollywood, the prankster (and his wife) who hijacked the hills of California.
You most probably heard about this very recent prank – on the 1st January, the famous HOLLYWOOD sign got hijacked to read HOLLYWEED.
Click to enlarge
“I wanted to make people laugh”
Zach Fernandes, the artist behind this prank, also goes by “JesusHands,” – at the time of writing this post, his Twitter account seems to have been suspended – https://twitter.com/account/suspended
We hear that Zach Fernandes’s motive behind this prank was just to make people laugh but pressure got too high and the artist cracked under it.
“If I did break the law in trespassing, I’m not going to run from the law,
Fernandez said.
The artist turned himself in on Monday.
Over the fence and a bit of sewing
Click to enlarge
Looking more closely at how the sign was transformed, you’ll notice that he wrapped letters with tarps to transform its message.
We literally were sewing stuff the day of. It was so fun and exhilarating.
We have all seen these handwritten flyers taped on bus stops or telegraph poles and for most of them if not all of them, they look rather boring and plain, aren’t they? This is what the New York designers at Cardon Copy must have thought and decided to do something about this.
This involves ‘high jacking’ these infamous fliers and give them a full make over in order to over powering their message with a new visual language. They are then stick back up where they were first snatched.
Solidarités International, an international humanitarian organisation, was looking to mark World Water Day with an awareness campaign that highlighted the scourge of undrinkable water.
That happened back in March this year but got made aware of this only now.. so you’ll excuse the belated post.
We were amazed here by the final effect – ie when the ink gets dropped to reveal the artwork but what we found even mire amazing is how the artist, Clement Beauvais, managed to create it.
The artist indeed needs to create an invisible water paintings on greaseproof paper.
The water beads and sits on top of the paper in clear rivulets.
With an eyedropper, Clément adds a single droplet of ink to the water and instantly darkness surges through the watery shape.
It’s amazing to watch an image loom out of seemingly nowhere.
It’s as much a performance as an artwork, as Clément has to time his drips perfectly to create the right tonal balance.
The main purpose of this Clement’s work was to engage the help of journalists to focus public attention on the issue of water contamination.
Clement certainly did manage that.
And of course, the core message is?
‘Your ink can help make an invisible problem visible’
A bit about World Water Day as it matters –
To mark World Water Day, on March 22nd Solidarités International and its agency BDDP Unlimited will roll out a campaign to build awareness of the scourge of undrinkable water.
Today, it is estimated that 3.6 million people, including 1.5 million children under the age of 5, die every year of diseases borne by unhealthy water, making it the world’s leading cause of death.
Yet the public isn’t aware of it and political leaders do not demonstrate the drive it takes to end the terrible deaths. The campaign calls on journalists to spread awareness of this scourge and appeal to readers to sign a petition that will be personally handed to the French president during the 6th World Water Forum in March 2012.
To evoke the silent and invisible threat of unhealthy water, BDDP Unlimited opted for a minimalist approach that is both visually appealing and surprising, using water and ink exclusively. The spot shows the power of ink to reveal the invisible.
The spot, created by BDDP Unlimited, produced by Hush and directed by Clément Beauvais, a young director, illustrator, musician and photographer. His multiple talents and mastery of various techniques enabled him to both create the drawings and direct the spot.
A mix of art comedy, street art and illustration. Featuring everyone’s favourite fried friend Dick Chicken; beautifully detailed and illustrated pieces by Showchicken and the neon craziness of Bortusk Leer.
Expect paintings by James Rueben Stephens exploring the darker side of humour; Playboy Jigsaw puzzles by Shuby; satirical prints designed by street art duo Static and a collaborative venture addressing the banality of gun usage by Holly-Anne Buck (Mink Engine) vs Metals vs Box Wars.
A Xmas Show @ The Brick Lane Gallery
Opening 22/12/2010 from 6pm
Open on selected days 23/12/2010-03/01/2011
Featured artists Bortusk Leer | Dick Chicken | Holly-Anne Buck (Mink Engine) vs Metals vs Box Wars | James Rueben Stephens | Showchicken | Shuby | Static
I have always found that acrylic paint used in conjunction with spray paint is a definite winner and give you astonishing results. However, it is difficult to master both mediums for most of us unless you are Will Barras.
Bad Reception, his latest show at Stolen Space, brought to us a series of works never exhibited before which, for most of them, have been painted using acrylics and spray paint (oil and ink have also been used for some of the works).
I was walking towards the entrance of the gallery and could see some of Will Barras’ works and my first thought was ‘wow, it looks amazing from here’. I was eager to go in and check the show out.
The fact that most of the works are large scales pieces gives you the tone of the show – bold. A quick look around the gallery and it became obvious to me that the composition in his works is heavy and busy which, coupled with the large scale aspect make the whole experience very overwhelming. Add to this a varied and strong colour palette and often you get some sort of dramatic or epic feel to the painting, it is almost exhausting to look at his works as you need to look and look again to get the whole picture, to get the story behind it.
Indeed Will Barras intend to tell us a story, the story of Mr Benn – read more about iton the Stolen Space website
Will Barras’s technique is really remarkable, he manages to combine urban/graffiti techniques with more traditional mediums such as acrylics or oil and the result is breathtaking and definitely achieve to blur the line between abstract and reality – what is really going on these paintings?
“I want to maintain the natural flow and energy, the tension between abstract and figurative, while developing and elaborating on a narrative. To generate a multiple choice of possibilities of what could be happening Ideas usually develop from the everyday mundane, broken phone converations and awkward situations …” Will Barras
The show ran until the 14th November 2010.
NB: if you wonder whether the motorbike was part of the show, well not really. Will Barras decided to leave it there after the opening night. Random but it did fit well with the show!
Peripheral Vision, (c)2010 David Minton, oil on canvas
But it may be that without meaning there is only space, so in a sense I make my paintings by accident, but knowingly so. The central space created by painting ‘at the periphery’ has a tension that is constantly pregnant with possibility. In order to remain so, the tensions of space are never resolved, but continue and it is this continued lack of resolution that forms the overall content of the picture.[1] Perhaps what’s missing is what’s outside that loop or the fear of its ceasing to be a loop and become something that runs forward in time. All those fears and hopes, everything the intimacy within the home brings, begins to open up to a greater loss and eventually time will bring the loss of things because of the infinite nature of time; everything outside of time is infinite.[2]
At art college we were encouraged to self-analyse our output and I found myself not fully understanding how I travelled from initial concept to final outcome. So, now I find it useful to think of myself as a black box where every new line of enquiry has the potential to reveal more of my inner (often hidden) self and my motivations for doing what I do.[3] Initially it was very important to move away from outward observation, it came out of necessity for me, and I had to close myself off from the real world for a while although outward observation is creeping back into the work acting as little anchors.[4] All that is visible is a barely responsive exterior… This indifference, characteristic to the figures in my paintings, suggests the social is almost taken away. You wonder what is revealed in this state of consciousness, just mindless projections on to others perhaps.[5]
Woman with Cardigan, (c)2010 Melanie Titmuss, oil on canvas
This play on words, mixing up sentences from each artist interviewed so far for This ‘Me’ of Mine, is not intended as a clever ploy at meaning-making, but rather a look at the interconnectedness of the issues of the self and identity. Each of these artists is concerned in their own way with issues of self in their work. It is fascinating for me as curator to see how their concerns link together in the universal struggle to self-identify; something which I hope will become evident through these interviews.
Join us in the on-going discussions. Go to INTERVIEWS at the This ‘Me’ of Mine blogsite to read more from David Minton, Anthony Boswell, David Riley, Aly Helyer and Melanie Titmuss, the artists interviewed and quoted above (see credits below for links to the individual interviews).
Interviews coming up: Sarah Hervey, Shireen Qureshi and Sandra Crisp. Waiting in the wings: Kate Murdoch, Annabel Dover, Edd Pearman, Cathy Lomax, Hayley Harrison, and Darren Nixon. Art Historian and critic, Becky Huff Hunter, is kindly interviewing me and that will be coming up too.
We were amazed here by the final effect – ie when the ink gets dropped to reveal the artwork but what we found even mire amazing is how the artist, Clement Beauvais, managed to create it.
It’s as much a performance as an artwork, as Clément has to time his drips perfectly to create the right tonal balance.
