« February 2009 | Main | April 2009 »
Kristin Bjornerud "Shadow Thieves"
I'm so happy to have been introduced to the work of Kristin Bjornerud. She creates striking watercolor vignettes that feel like glimpses into her dreamlife, or painted versions of folktales. Reminds me a bit of Amy Cutler. Lovely stuff.
(Thanks, Bess!)
I don't know if it's spring fever or what, but today I feel compelled to take a break from our regularly scheduled programming and highlight a few chromatically addicted, non-figurative (GASP!) artists. Like Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Rothko before them, this crop of creators prove that the mystical experience can be beautifully translated into abstract fields of color:
Maya Hayuk "Forever's Going to Start Tonight" 2008
Maya Hayuk's paintings are as exuberant and vibrant as it gets. When I look at her work, I can feel my body's chemistry change. They should hang these in hospitals, I'm convinced.
Mark Warren Jacques "Two lovers making love under a strange moon" 2008
The work of Mark Warren Jacques feels ancient and super contemporary at once. I love the juxtaposition of his surgically exacting painting technique with his emotionally revelatory titles.
Andy Gilmore 2008
It was very difficult to choose which of Andy Gilmore's optical orgies to showcase here. Definitely be sure to click around his portfolio site and his blog, but be prepared to stagger around for the rest of the day colordrunk.
Herbert Pfostl "the sky still farther away" 2008
Herbert Pfostl manages to create work that is both brutal and tender. His pieces reside somewhere between ashen cave paintings and the scorched remains of an Eastern European housefire. They tell sad, mysterious tales through animal emblems and weather beaten papers. One is left wanting to know more, but ultimately glad to be kept in the dark.
. It is beyond the Beyond.
Francesca Gabbiani "Gold Rush" 2008
Talk about obsessive. Francesca Gabbiani's pieces are created from layers of intricately cut colored paper, with some gouache added for good measure. Her work riffs on empty spaces and decoration, and expertly pulls off the paradoxical state of feeling both extravagant and minimalist at once. I love this black mirror series in particular. Apparently when viewed in person, the glass does indeed reflect the viewer's face, floating like an apparition in ink.
Sibylle Peretti "My Bees 4" 2008
I have been intending to post about Sibylle Peretti's beautiful work for ages now. The media list for this piece is "glass/paper/pigments" which leads me to believe that this jpeg is a pale representation of the real thing, as is often the case. I love the meditative hush her work seems to cast on the viewer, and its crystalline elegance. I also love her predilection for bees and moments of childhood revelation, two things very dear to my own heart.
Now I am all a-sigh.
Jessie Rose Vala "The Rising Dawn" (detail) 2007 from "The Torturous Veil" series
I am flipping over the work of Jessie Rose Vala. The giant netherworlds she creates are so intricate and magical I swear her pencil must be a wand. She depicts young women taking perilous - and ultimately transformational - journeys, where they encounter such creatures as harpies, werewolves, and shrouded sorcerers as well as myriad other threats and enchantments. The narrative is thrillingly ambiguous, as the stories are told by Vala via winding visual pathways, which recall the sequential, sacred art of cultures past (Tibetan, Egyptian, and alchemical works spring to mind). As such, the act of looking becomes a journey in itself for the viewer.
It appears these drawings are often displayed as parts of larger installations, and you can get a sense of what they look like by clicking around on Vala's site. You can also purchase her recently released set of books, The Torturous Veil/Sketchbook here. Nothing, though, can replace the experience of viewing these environments in person, so be sure to keep an eye on her news page for when they come to a town near you.
I just read about the launch party for the new fashion line "Witches" by Lauren Alexander and Gabby Applegate. While the clothing looks lovely, I am particularly bowled over by the event itself. Apparently, it took place at Chateau Marmont, and rather than having a fashion show per se, there were instead dark little scenes set up outside inhabited by the models, allowing viewers to wander from vignette to vignette. The propping looks impecable, and the art direction as a whole is to die for, with plenty of occult and Victorian embellishments, and the entire space bathed in an eerie pink light. You can see more pictures here. Wish I could have been there.
Roberto Kusterle "il bambino e il suo bosco 2" 2005
Roberto Kusterle's works have the same texture as the infamous Cottingley fairy photographs, except this time we're all in on the game. The monochrome makes his inventions seem all the more mysterious, and beautifully timeless as well.
(Thanks, Craig!)
Emily Valentine "Pair of Pugcocks" 2008
On Emily Valentine's site, she writes "Feathers are my paint." Who could resist her marvelous, plumage bedecked mutants? Certainly not me.
Just a reminder that Fata Morgana, the group show I've curated, opens at Dabora tomorrow (Saturday, March 14th.) The opening party is from 8pm-11pm, and will have complimentary absinthe (arrive early, before it's all gone), courtesy of La Fée. There will also be a cash bar for other elixirs.
The show will be up during regular gallery hours from March 15-April 12. Dabora is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 12pm-5pm. It is located at 1080 Manhattan Ave, between Eagle and Dupont, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Map
Directions via subway: Take the G train to Greenpoint Ave. Exit station at the India Street exit. Walk on Manhattan Ave, with cross streets going backwards alphabetically (in other words: India, Huron, Green, Freeman, Eagle...) It's a 4 minute walk from the subway station, super easy.
If you can't make it to the opening, I will be at the gallery most weekends, so be sure to stop in and say hello. The artwork is stunning, and Dabora is a gallery like no other, with its opulent, gothic interior. Divine.
Looking forward to seeing you!
It's been a while since I've done a Dreamy Music roundup, but there's been so much great stuff swirling in my ears lately, I just have to share:
Marissa Nadler - Little Hells
Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light
Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
Also, can't wait for the following three albums to be released soon:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
PJ Harvey & John Parrish - A Woman, A Man, Walked By
Bat for Lashes - Two Suns
YAY!
Gracia Haby "Ruth St. Denis was capable of making every little thing appear effortlessly graceful (II)" 2009
I encountered Gracia Haby's collages through the oddly wonderful The Fox and the Hare blog. My understanding is that she and other artistic collaborators create work based upon collective nouns (A pride of lions, a murder of crows, and so on). This piece is from her "colony of fungi" series. You can view more of these delights as well as other books and projects she's created with her art partner, Louise Jennison, here.
Kirsten Deirup "Jewelry" 2007
Kirsten Deirup's work marries the stark, surrealist environment of a Tanguy with the lovely, heaped excess of a Heffernan. This is not to say it is derivative - quite the contrary: it is some of the most original and unusual work I've seen recently. There is a muted magic to it which hits me just so.
Dirk Staschke "Premonition" 2008
Long live the ceramicists! Especially a ceramicist like Dirk Staschke who uses the medium to create odd, bio-symbolist sculptures and towering platters of food, frozen at the point of teetering. You can see these beguiling commentaries on living, dying, and consumption, at Wexler Gallery from March 6th until April 25th.
Christian van Minnen "Keyhole Portrait 4"
Christian van Minnen's show "Neo-Grotesque" will be at pop surrealist mecca Roq La Rue from March 14th to April 4th. In his latest series, he takes the silhouettes of famous historical paintings, and then crams them silly with his signature gorgeously gross, festering organics. If these pieces had a scent, it would be the sickly sweet odor of fruit as it's crossing over from ripe to rotten.
Please put on your winter boots, and come out to this very fine event:
This will be the first event at a new collaborative lecture/gallery/classroom/event space I am involved in called "Observatory." The space is sandwiched between Proteus Gowanus Interdisciplinary Gallery and Reading Room, Cabinet Magazine, and the Morbid Anatomy library, all housed in a re-purposed turn-of-the-century box factory located at Union and Nevins in the Gowanus district of Brooklyn, New York. The collaborators include myself, Joanna Ebenstein of Morbid Anatomy, animator/illustrator/musician G. F. Newland, Michelle Enemark and Dylan Thuras of the Curious Expeditions blog, Herbert Pfostl of Blind Pony Books and Paper Graveyard, and video and book artist James Walsh. More on Observatory, and its many upcoming workshops, symposia, events and spectacles to come! We've got some glorious things planned...
Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz "Human Candles" 1996
There is something about transient art that I find to be extremely moving. So when I saw Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz' "Human Candles" piece on Lori Field's blog, I was frozen to my chair with awe. The molds for these were cast from the artists' bodies. Such a simple idea, but so powerful and exquisitely executed.
for ages now, big beautiful tome that it is. Published by
Recent Comments