Sculptor Liu Xue Blog: http://goo.gl/jmkcR
Art, Games and a Blog
Hello. Many years ago I'd go through stacks of magazines, newspapers and printed ephemera, editing, cutting and pasting into big scrapbooks. My visual "morgue." Today, as the print world goes digital, so does my scrapbook. Previously my collection appeared in Apple’s MobileMe gallery. I hope it inspires, entertains and informs you ####
artist : RAGNAR PERSSON title : Naked Women media : paper, pencil, ink size : w230mm x h315mm (framed) year : 2008 price : 46,000 yen + Tax
It’s not known what Islington’s Essex Road Library subscribers made of the guerrilla art that started popping up on hundreds of book covers in the early 1960s. To cite a handful of examples, these included cut-out images of two well dressed cats
There are numerous talented artists who hand paint ceramics. Even their own slip cast ceramics. (For those who don't know, slip-casting is one of the simplest methods of reproducing a replica of an original model). But what makes Shalene Valenzuela's work different is the items on which she is painting. Her ceramics are not tableware or homewares. Not pretty vases or wedding platters meant to be used in a functional way, but sculpture meant to make you think. Or laugh. Or both. She paints mid-century retro imagery in a cartoon-like vintage advertising style on mundane objects she slip cast in ceramic. Irons, blenders, toasters, clocks, woollite bottles, pencil sharpeners, handguns, cell phones, women's shoes and more serve as her handmade canvases. Perfect replicas in white, she then adorns them with her whimsical visual commentary. above: Shalene Valenzuela, On Thin Ice, slip cast ceramic, ribbon and paint Some are a work of one item, always painted on all sides. Other pieces are sets, in which the boxes or containers, as well as the objects within, are also cast in ceramic and hand painted. While many of the objects and their images clearly play off of female stereotypes from the Harlet to the Happy Homemaker to the Fashionista with a shoe fetish. Others mock religion, our vanity or are a statement of our society's addiction to television. Regardless, they are as amusing to look at as to ponder. Here are a few of her fabulous pieces from 2002 to the present, in no particular order: Woollite Bottles: Toasters and Bread, front and back: Milk Cartons (front and back): Pee-Chees: Pencil sharpener (front and back): Oven pads: Handguns: Clocks: 99 Bottles: detail of 99 Bottles: Blenders: Science Girls' Kit (interior and exterior): Glue Bottles (front and back) Shoes: Shoes in Shoeboxes: Irons: Phones: Paint Sets and Box: above: Shalene Valenzuela at work Her Artist Statement:"My body of work consists of quirky pieces that reflect upon a variety of issues with a thoughtful, yet humorous tone. I am inspired by the potential of everyday common objects. I reproduce these objects in clay through hand-building, slip casting, or a combination of the two, and illustrate the surfaces with a variety of hand painted and screen printed imagery. I primarily obtain my imagery from remnants of the past (instructional guides, advertisements, family photos, tall tales), and reconstruct the images in order to convey my narrative. These narratives generally deal with topics ranging from fairy tales, urban mythologies, societal expectations, etiquette, and coming-of-age issues. Stylistically, much of my imagery is pulled from sources around the 1950’s era. Through advertising, common objects were embraced in the most royal fashion, and through television and print, images of the “perfect Americana life” were portrayed. One way of explaining my building aesthetic would be a form of trompe l’oiel with a twist. The preciousness of clay as a medium helps transform my depicted common household item into something magical. I care about the object being referenced and recognizable while maintaining an illustrative, and almost “cartoonish” quality at times. Sometimes my inspirations are just pure whimsy, and I find nothing wrong with that. Rules are sometimes meant to be broken- how else are we supposed to learn?" You can find some of Shalene's work at the following galleries or her etsy store: Guardino Gallery Clay Studio of Missoula John Natsoulas Gallery Gift Shop Tin Lark Gallery Shalene Valenzuela ceramic art & whatnot 838 poplar st, missoula, mt 59802 [email protected] www.shalene.com
Tricia Cline is self-taught. She has been a professional sculpture since 1984. Her most recent series, Exiles in Lower Utopia, is an ode to animal instinct. Cline described animals as being intrinsically complete and self-contained in their physical form. When a wolf runs at full speed, for example, a distinct scent or sound may all of a sudden alter its direction. ‘Its legs, nose, and ears are its function, or bliss.’ Equally, when an animal recognizes another animal it reads with an instinctual eye the character in the form. Through this clever analogy, Cline likens the language of animals is the language of images. Her Exiles series aims to reveal our own perceptive abilities. It is an appeal to venture beyond our limited concepts of identity to a vaster awareness. ‘Exiles have succeeded by virtue of being,’ says Cline.
Wherein naked early modernists get wet in the name of science! "While one reflects on those many and frequent Accidents, which thro' wan...
Amazing illustrations by Gabriella Barouch, an illustrator from Israel. Gabriella graduated from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. Currently
Apologies for the quality of some of these images - these were taken handheld in pretty poor lighting conditions (the stacks of of the University of Oklahoma's Bizzell Library). I've selectively photographed certain prints that caught my eye - but it's really a shame to exclude so many - there are 128 linocuts total in the book! A linocut from Giacomo Patri's 1940 wordless novel depicting the hard times of an artist during the Great Depression titled White Collar. I believe the edition I've photographed here was published by Pisani Printing & Publishing Co. in San Francisco (1940). More information here: web.archive.org/web/20050430130803/http:/www.sfsu.edu/~ga... and here: crookedtimber.org/2007/11/26/white-collar/
From the streets of Macerata, Italy graphic designer and illustrator Nicola Alessandrini concocts all manner of surreal and bizarre delights. In his latest series, the imagery that he has fashioned is an eccentric mix of weeping, grotesque babies combined with visions of animal carcasses and misshapen human forms. Disturbingly good. Images © Nicola Alessandrini Via...
Art, Games and a Blog
