Phantasmaphile

Jeanie Tomanek

Jeanie Tomanek  "Litany" 

I love Jeanie Tomanek's whispery paintings.  Her heroine is a bald everywoman who embodies various powerful feminine archetypes throughout mythological history.

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Anne Faith Nicholls

Anne Faith Nicholls  "Three Sides to the Story"  2007

I love a good mystery, which is why I find the work of Anne Faith Nicholls to be so delightful.  Each piece seems like a painted allegory, or a riddle to be unraveled.  And yet there is such great pleasure in the not knowing, as well.

Hyemi Cho

Hyemi Cho  "Untitled"  2007

So happy to have discovered Hyemi Cho during my interweb wanderings.  Vulnerable and powerful at once, these pieces are gorgeously unsettling.

Mark Burckhardt

      
      Mark Burckhardt  "The Alliance"

I don't know how he does it, but Mark Burckhardt manages to create strange, contemporary paintings which appear as if they are hundreds of years old.  The crackled pigments and wooden style are a nod to colonial Americana and old Flemish masterpieces, while the subject matter deals with the tension and ambiguity of modern life. 

Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving!  Many thanks to you, dear reader, for visiting Phantasmaphile and making it your imaginary friend.  Blogging will commence next week.  XO, Pam

Richard Saja

Richard Saja  from "The Lost Girls" series  2007

Richard Saja is a bit of a textiles maverick.  He takes historical fabrics and then alters them with a sort of embroidery-graffiti, with lovely and often humorous results.  His latest series, "The Lost Girls" is a delightfully strange hybrid-creatures romp, printed on heavy-weight canvas, and then embellished with threading.

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Promethea

Every now and then, something so special enters your life that you feel as though it was created just for you.  I've said that I was born with a Promethea shaped hole in my heart, and wasn't complete until I read it.  It sounds melodramatic perhaps, but anyone who has had a similar experience with a work of art can relate I'm sure.  It's like falling in love.  Rather, it is falling in love - that real, rare kind which you know will last for the duration of your life. 

Promethea is a comic book series created by the illustrious Alan Moore.  There is no way I can possibly do it justice, other than to say it is an ingenious treatise about imagination and magic, as well as a damn good yarn about a young woman named Sophie who discovers that she is the newest incarnation of a powerful demi-goddess (for lack of a better word) named Promethea.  It is an absolute extravaganza, cram-packed with mysticism, the occult, alchemy, mythology, Tarot, Kabbalah, sci-fi, history, human emotion, and scathing satire about the modern world.  And it has perhaps the most beautiful, most mind-boggling art I have ever seen in this medium, courtesy of J.H. Williams III.  I don't want to give anything more away about this precious masterpiece.  It is out in five trade paperback volumes.  Do see for yourself.

Others

               

Others is an art fair taking place in NYC this weekend, which features visionary and outsider art.  I'm definitely going to try and swing by:
 

Outsider Art, Folk Art, Ceramics, Sculpture, Objects as Art,
Ethnic & Tribal Arts, Graphic Quilts, Photography & More
Vintage and contemporary...Visionary and vernacular...Raw and refined...
NYC's NEWEST ART EVENT..."Others"
Pier 92 on the Hudson, at 52nd to 55th Streets & 12th Avenue, NYC
Admission $15 includes entry to The Pier Antiques Show on Pier 94

R Simantov

   

             Sapphire with Stars Ring

I really, really, REALLY want this ring by R Simantov.  It's one of their many deluxe, fantastical baubles, fit for urban royalty. 

Pricked: Extreme Embroidery

                

               Andrea Deszo  2005-2006

The Museum of Arts & Design has a fabulous new show up called Pricked:  Extreme Embroidery.  It will be fascinating to see the visions of some of my favorite artists, such as Andrea Deszo and Nils Karsten, translated into intricate threadwork.  The show is up through March 9, 2008, so you'll have plenty of time to make sure you don't miss it.

Inventionland

This is someone's OFFICE.  Inventionland is a product development company in Pittsburgh, and it looks like a living storybook.  You seriously need to take a peek at the web site, and this video is fabulous as well.  My office sure doesn't look anything like that.  At all. *Sigh*

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Karen Kilimnik

Karen Kilimnik  "Snow White"  2004

Brrrrrr, the cold weather is finally here.  What better way to usher it in than with Karen Kilimnik's "Snow White" painting?  I love the way the subject's luminously blown-out skin glows against her dark, decadent dress.  Kilimnik makes this classic story new again. 

Shiori Matsumoto

Shiori Matsumoto  "Birthday"  2007

I can't believe that Shiori Matsumoto works mainly in paint, as I was certain her medium was colored pencil.  It's rare to find hyper-imaginative imagery rendered with such lifelike detail.  And I love her technique of contrasting the melancholy with a rich, jewel-toned palette. 

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Goldfrapp

OK, I know I should just wait until the album drops to post about this, but I am just too excited.  Goldfrapp's new album, Seventh Tree, will be out in February.  Just take a look at the most phantasmaphilic description:

“A sensual counterpoint to the glitterball glamour of Supernature, Seventh Tree is gilded in the butterfly colours of an English surrealism shared from Lear to Lennon. It shimmers and shines with the warmth of a hazy summer, an electric whirlpool over which Alison’s glistening voice soars.”

Sounds delicious.

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Louise Hindsgavl

Louise Hindsgavl  "Consumed with Passion"  2006

I am just floored by all of the fantastic ceramicists working out there today.  Louise Hindsgavl creates cleverly named, white tableaus which feature mythical mutants and their tense desires.

Thank you, Suzannah!

Krista Huot

Krista Huot

I don't know what it is with me and wispy character design lately, but each subject of Krista Huot's work is a beautiful slip of a thing.  She paints dark and lovely interpretations of fairy tales, in a style that pays homage to Mary Blair.

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