art
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta art. Mostrar todas las entradas

Alexander Jansson - Surreal Circus with Punk influences

In the work of Gothenburg, Sweden-based artist Alexander Jansson, we can observe the influence of a diversity of genres as distant as literature, cinema or painting itself.


Occasional animator (I recommend watching The Curious Kind by clicking HERE), and aesthetically reminiscent of Tim Burton. Like this short animated film, his digital work shows certain parallels.


These works are characterized by being characterized by misplaced and somewhat disconcerting beings. However, they gather the skills to finally end up finding each other, coinciding in space time in similar places.

In nebulous universes, in which after overcoming a thousand avatars they manage to feel comfortable in the presence of others. Who are sometimes visible and sometimes not, weaving their own destiny with dreams. 


The carnivalesque elements that he frequently employs, contribute to create a circus atmosphere, in which the range of taciturn and bohemian colors contribute to create compositions through which he conveys a sensation of intensity. Hypnotizing the observer, who is seduced and invited to explore each work in detail. 



Although he is mainly known for his commissions for covers and illustration of special editions. Works that over time he has also created his own creative identity as well as his own style that he called Greenpunk. 



The one that consists of applying a mixed technique formed by a collage to which he incorporates elements of his photos, models, drawings and paintings that he mixes in the same illustration. Almost handmade works with which she achieves digital images that stand out for being very natural, works that require a considerable investment of time. Completing them by adding scratches, dust and brushstrokes with which he enhances their formal finish in plastic terms.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Alexander Jansson - Circo surrealista con influencias Punk


Founder of his own studio called Sleeping House. Among his many works, the illustration of an anthology of works by Robert L. Stevenson, or the new edition of Anne E. Book of a biographical volume on the life of JRR Tolkien.

Basia Irland - Ice Receding/Books, frozen books with seeds against climate change

 

Throughout the history of mankind, seeds have been preserved in a natural way according to seasonal cycles. In cold periods the seeds were frozen. Germinating in their natural habitats when climatic conditions became warmer.


Using a language that combines lyrical, ethnic and scientific elements, the artist Basia Irland creates in 2009 the Ice Receding/Books project. For this project he was inspired by the observations and documentation provided by members of the Nisqually tribe.


Whose communities live on reservations in the U.S. state of Washington, and the natural processes from which they obtained their seed stocks. These seeds were then used in their crops.   

Using ice books to fossilize the seeds, made with large blocks of ice, which are extracted from the plates that are formed in the riverbed where members of the native community usually fish.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Basia Irland - Ice Receding/Books, libros congelados con semillas contra el cambio climatico


And where thousands of seeds are deposited after being trapped in the ice, just carve the ice giving it the shape of books. In whose frozen interior have been embedded variants of seeds of local species. These are finally distributed in different points of the forest, melting due to the exposure to the sun's rays, and releasing the seeds that will spread in their area of influence, germinating.


That first experience has been replicated in other parts of the world such as Spain, Mexico, England or Iran. Through the use of collective tools, teams formed by biologists, artists, botanists, as well as local farming communities, intervene on the territory using natural methods.


Ice Receding/Books is a multicultural proposal that reflects on how human intervention impacts the environment. And how their active presence has modified the methods of germination. 


Altering the landscape on which it acts having as main consequence climate change, and the deterioration of unique habitats. That unfortunately go from being in danger of extinction to disappear for good.



Creative Machines - Heart Beacon, a huge heart allows you to know your health status in an immersive way.

 

Installed at the entrance of the Emergency Coordination Center of the American city of Portland. The presence of the Heart Beacon has no medical function.


However, the users of the hospital grounds approach this huge reproduction of the main human muscle. They are attracted by the desire to know what their heart rate sounds like or what color it lights up when they take their pulse.


The installation, which has a strong playful component, has been created by the Creative Machines studio. It is an interactive proposal where through a system composed of diodes and sound effects.

The vital signs recorded by the sensors attached to its structure are reproduced. Conceived as a ludic artifact, the data collected are translated into a unique pattern linked to the vital signs of each subject that approaches this huge heart.


Composed of two candles covered with acrylic panels, the Heart Beacon's interior houses an encapsulated warhead that functions as an autonomous and immersive platform.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Creative Machines - Heart Beacon, un enorme corazón permite conocer tu estado de salud de forma inmersiva 


From which to convey a message of hope to the inhabitants of the city of Portland. Elaborated with the contribution made by the members of the community. Heart Beacon is a collective experience that combines art and active participation, using an accessible and playful language.


Jeremy Deller - Sacrilege, the megalithic monument of Stonehenge as you have never seen it beforehand

 

After months of hard work in his studio, the artist Jeremy Deller has finally archieved to complete his announced reproduction of one of the monuments or relics of the ancient world, such as the set of dolmens that form the archaeological site of Stonehenge. 


Although as he himself confesses when he had the opportunity to visit it in a casual excursion, he did not harbor many expectations about it. This lack of enthusiasm regarding the contemplation of these ancient stones.


Perhaps it had to do with the fact that he had seen so many of them through the eyes of others that it did not cause him excessive motivation. Perception that changed radically when he had it and could become aware of its historical transcendence.

Entitled Sacrileg, it is a commission for the  2012, lying on the Glasgow Green. The full-scale representation of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.


It is an interactive outdoor installation, an inflatable toy for visitors to interact with through a creative formula. The instantly recognizable shape is created from an inflated plastic design. 


READ IT IN ENGLISH: Jeremy Deller -  Sacrilege, el monumento megalítico de Stonehenge como nunca lo habías visto


Employing the same technique as with the popular children's attractions. Imposing gray pillars and arches perfectly mimic every detail of the original monument. Creating the sensation that you have been transported back in time.


Artist Guy Laramee recycles books to become landscapes.

Books as creative material, apart from the narrative format we attribute to them as readers, can offer endless creative and plastic expressions, adopting in this way another narrative role. 


Resulting in many and varied ways of representing the same reality, the photographer and artist Guy Laramee, is an expert in capturing the essence of the landscapes he has the opportunity to visit. 

After photographing them, he locks himself in his studio and creates these surreal reproductions. The natural and architectural landscapes represented in these models belong to the Biblios and The Great Wall series. 


READ IT IN SPANISH: El artista Guy Laramee recicla libros convirtiéndolo en paisajes


They are sculptural works that reproduce landscapes carved in old books, in which no detail is missing. Revealing serene mountains, plateaus and architectural structures, which are integrated into these natural environments without altering them. 


Caras Lonut - Surreal nature inspired by Poe

 

In many of the works of digital photographer Caras Lonut two constants are observed, on the one hand we see nature represented by different species, sometimes following a crude and stark pattern.


Wild animals that are treated as pets, almost always accompanied by children, in a journey where the dreamlike atmospheres describe a magical universe. In which nature is always omnipresent.


The other is his peculiar treatment of color, a nuance that he undoubtedly achieves thanks to the application of a variety of filters. With which he treats each image after the editing he does with photoshop (of which he is a consummate expert). 



With which he achieves that the final composition of each piece has such a tenuous effect that evokes autumn afternoons that transmit serenity and invite to meditation. And that can remind us of some of the passages of Edgar Alan Poe's stories.


His imagination and his work are captivated by dreams and by the autumn and winter seasons, through which he analyzes the darker side of a subject's desires and dreams.


Born in Romania in February 1970, Caras alternates his professional career, in which he has done commissions for numerous publications. With his love for digital photography.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Caras Lonut - Naturaleza surrealista inspirada por Poe   


In these environments he has used a language where surrealism shares space and discourse with elements taken from the natural universe. Representing landscapes in which the nostalgia for a childhood that will no longer return, is blurred between strokes inspired by the memory of the dream and its traces imprinted in the subconscious.


Fab Ciraolo - Old School Heroes, mythological portraits of Pop Culture

 


The Chilean Illustrator Fab Ciraolo, distmitifica roles and icons, showing us some of the most ambiguous, frivolous, and even why not say it more bizarre aspects. Of many of the most idiotic personalities of the last one hundred years.


Discontrasting the character sometimes practicing the most militant iconoclasm. His is not only limited to a more or less subjective interpretation from a psychoanalytical perspective of the character. Regardless of whether this is confined to the world of fiction as in the case of Edward Scissorhands.


Emblematic character created by the famous film director Tim Burton. Or real personalities who, due to their transcendence or contribution in some social or historical field, have deserved Fab's creative attention.


Such as relevant and influential figures, each in their own facet, such as Cleopatra, empress of ancient Egypt, one of the first women leaders in history. Or the closest in time, the painter Frida Khalo. He portrays them preserving their almost mythological halo, but subtly incorporating elements that belong to a much more current context.



Adding elements of the contemporary culture that revitalize it, updating it for the new generations that observe it as if it were a figure that was relevant in another time and under another social and cultural prism. He reinvents himself by being able to identify himself with him.


Great fan of music, an element that he adds in the form of a fetish or tattoo to his compositions. In which through collage and nuances of Pop culture, he develops a language where the visual impact of the work leads the viewer to a state of mixed amazement and awe as well as admiration. Exciting sensation that far from being diluted in the innocent effervescence that underlies the background, feeds it by demanding the segregation of large doses of dopamine.


His relationship with art begins in childhood due to the influence of his father, selling his first work at the early age of ten. This makes him think that he can make a living from his art.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Fab Ciraolo - Old School Heroes, retratos mitológicos de la cultura Pop



Graduated in graphic design, discipline that relegates to the background in favor of the stroke of illustration. With whose works he has managed to make a name for himself thanks to the presence he has on the Internet. He combines his artistic facet with the musical, being a member of the band Oh Margot, with whom he has released an Ep at the end of 2001.


Starting from a quick sketch, he draws by hand, both in pencil and the part of color and shading using a mechanical pencil 01, adding the shadows and finally coloring with watercolors, temperas and acrylics, also oils, dry pastel and colored pencils. Once the preliminary version is ready, it is digitalized and the necessary filters are applied to complete the illustration.




Alex Gross, The POP illusion of a cancelled future


Surrealism as an artistic current since its appearance coinciding with the dawn of the twentieth century, was already postulated as an expressive movement that transcended the purely aesthetic. Apart from having an evident connotation from its beginnings.


That linked it to a greater or lesser extent with the exploration of the unconscious, having therefore something more than a flirtation with the Vienna school and psychoanalysis, as a practice that in some way established the basis for describing the exploration of our oneiric universe. A nuance referred to by Andre Breton in his famous Surrealist Manifesto.  


It also had an interpretation or capacity so that many of the works could lend themselves to analysis or political-social readings, of which apart from their allegorical capacity. They became a chronicle of the episodes and events that we witnessed as individuals.



Describing with more or less fortune the patterns of behavior, that both in individual and collective terms we were acquiring. Opening highly suggestive debates in ethno-anthropological terms regarding our standards of behavior as human beings.


Within the prolific work of the artist Alex Gross, resident in the Californian city of Los Angeles, there is a tendency to apply this analytical approach. Exercise through which he makes us an inventory of an individualized society.


Based on the value of consumption and aesthetic values that atomizes the behavior of the individual, presenting him as a zombie illuminated by the religion of POP culture. Whose artistic component makes an appearance not only at the time of adding.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Alex Gross, La ilusión POP de un futuro cancelado 


Elements and objects belonging to the digital era, making continuous references to the increasingly pervasive technology and the excess of information. Transmitted in loop by the doctrine of the unique thought. Where temptation is represented by the head of the hydra that divides and multiplies, projecting from its eye sockets. 


Commercial brands alternate with icons of popular culture, and political figures that have marked an era, in compositions where surrealist, pop and figurative elements cohabit.

Mythological epic in the surreal world of artist Heidi Taillefer

 


There is something old-world in the work of Montreal artist Heidi Taillefer, an evocative and romantic air, her paintings featuring figures from ancient mythology, religion and history. They navigate between the classical and the figurative and her archetypal subjects. 


His preoccupation with technology and the way it is changing the perspective on human existence and the way we relate to each other. His subjects are chimerical manifestations that combine human and animal body parts.


To which she adds, light bulbs and antique objects, making them float with anticipatory tension in their environment. In the case of Heidi Taillefer, she fuses classical figurative painting with the most dreamlike surrealism, to which she adds elements of mythology and popular figurative traditions ranging from Victorian romanticism to science fiction. 


His work is in line with some of the surrealists of the twentieth century, such as Max Ernst and DeChirico. With this background he traces the profile of the human condition through different eras and cultures, building his own lens and language.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Épica mitológica en el mundo surrealista de la artista Heidi Taillefer 


This approach reflects the omnipresence of technological advances in the world and how their influence is increasingly present in more creative fields. Born in the Canadian city of Montreal, Heidi Taillefer began drawing at the age of three, raised in a wealthy family. 


She was fortunate to be brought up in a creative environment, where she was drawn to the strange and unusual. Fascinated by strange animal specimens. From the age of ten she took private art lessons, where she developed skills in watercolor painting. 


After earning a degree in humanistic studies from McGill University in the 1990s, Taillefer began making numerous trips to developing countries. Paying special attention to the most universal themes of the human condition, in the context of an increasingly volatile and globalized society.



Federico Gomez, tree and root as an expression of our origins


The organic sculptures of the artist Federico Gomez link the raw material used in their elaboration to the formation of an identity, whether it is forest residue or fallen trunks. He adopts them as his children and through the form of a tree he narrates in first person what he perceives.


Weaving an experience that he shares visually with other living beings, a gesture that seals his commitment to his natural environment. Dictated in an ecological key, the message travels through the transformation of the landscape where each piece is located. 


Inspired by nature and each and every one of the elements that inhabit it, giving it its logic, he perceives each sculpture he makes as a totem. Through which to contemplate the world with a certain calmness and taking the necessary distance.

A CONTEMPLATIVE JOURNEY FROM THE GENESIS OF NATURE.

Reminiscent, except for specific nuances, of cave art, at least in terms of rhythm and expression. That draws on ancestral ethnic art to connect us with our past and show us what our future may be like. 


The elaboration of each piece, therefore, involves applying high doses of temperance. Because it has a lot of craftsmanship technique involving a laborious process, where the characteristics of the environment are a major influence on the final result.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Federico Gomez, arbol y raíz como expresión de nuestros origenes


Born in Madrid, he lives in the town of Bustarviejo, where Federico has the appropriate environment surrounded by forests and in the middle of the mountains of Madrid where he works in the calm. Carving specimens of trees whose final result, whether individual works or sculptural ensembles describe a journey back and forth.


Where the roots and identity are a journey where the natural environment is always present. Manifesting itself in each hollow, in each and every one of the silhouettes and the fragility they represent before our eyes.

Heather Jansch - Driftwood horses, the root of the wild horse


The horse is perhaps the animal that has most often served as a model for a multitude of artistic manifestations. Since its slender figure was reproduced in cave paintings, made by our prehistoric ancestors.


Using rudimentary dyes made with the essences extracted from roots and plants, they painted on the surfaces of the interior of the caves. Dozens of examples have been found so far where this noble animal is represented.   


Due to their great plasticity, these equines have become the inspiration for hundreds of artists. The landscape sculptor and Land Art artist Heather Jansch, picks up these same roots of our ancestors to use the form acquired in their maturation to weave sculptures of mainly adult horses.

WILD HORSES ON AN ARTISTIC JOURNEY FROM PREHISTORIC TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY.


Heather uses roots from the woods around the Westcountry in the UK. A region where forests and steppes abound, meeting the ideal characteristics so that since the first equine populations arrived thousands of years ago, they have been used for a multitude of tasks.


In the case of the horses that serve as Heather's models, they are a selection from her own stable of horses. Horses that the artist has been passionate about since her childhood, when she also acquired a taste for art, thanks in large part to her other great passion.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Heather Jansch - Driftwood horses, la raíz del caballo salvaje



That is none other than Leonardo Da Vinci, not only one of the most important representatives of his time, the Renaissance. But in addition to his artistic facet, he was prolific in others such as alchemy, as well as contributing with his inventiveness thanks to which he patented numerous formulas and prototypes.

  

Whose sketches represented a great influence in his working method. Inspiration that, if you pay a little attention, among other things in the notion of movement and volume that Heather applies in each and every one of the projects she undertakes. 


Practically self-taught, Heather left the art academy on the advice of her tutor. Moving to a rural environment where she reconnected with herself through art, applying the little knowledge she had about art.


In the elaboration of the series Driftwood horses, of which you can find further documentation in her book titled Heather Jansch's Diary. Where, in addition to a large amount of graphic material, the author accompanies you with reviews and a portrait of each and every one of the sculptures collected in its more than one hundred pages.


Her equestrian figures, which have been the subject of numerous exhibitions, are predominantly exhibited in natural settings, and are highly sought after not only by collectors of equestrian art. But by a diversity of private and public collectors. 


Suscribirse a: Entradas (Atom)