Brian Wildsmith

Brian Wildsmith is a children's book illustrator. The below book, Squirrels, is the one that I grew up with because my Nana Beryl sent it to me when I was little. Wildsmith was raised in a small mining village in England, where he said, "Everything was grey. There wasn't any colour. It was all up to my imagination. I had to draw in my head..."



Animals feature prominently in his illustrations, and he says this is because he "once had a blind dog that was mothered by a neighborhood dog. I was quite impressed by this and learned that animals show a great deal of compassion for one another. When I paint animals, I imagine them as a child would. I want children to make personal connections to the animals in my books."

He has his own museum of art in Japan, aptly named the Brian Wildsmith Museum of Art. Wildsmith's message on the museum's website reads:
"It is the very greatest honors for an artist to have during his lifetime, a museum dedicated to his art and bearing his name. I am indeed proud that this distinction has been given to me and my work. The arts have always hold a high place in Japanese life. Their love of beauty, and wonder of the world around them has been constantly passed on to their children in a never ending circle. My life has been dedicated to producing picture books for children, which I hope reflect this love, helping them to observe, comprehend and appreciate the wondrous world that they have been born into. I want to help them climb the mountain of life and reach the peak of enlightenment and fulfillment. This is the basic right of every child born on the our earth."

What a cute little man.



Wildsmith just finished an exhibition at the Illustration Cupboard.

Pete Fowler

The above picture was a floor to ceiling mural at Monsters Inked exhibition at the Idea Generation gallery in 2009. It depicts Pete Fowler's Monsterism Island.

Fowler has one of the most enjoyable websites I've ever visited. His gallery page is amazing. You can even design your own monster on the site.

His work involves his Monsterism series, which is a comic book that has an amazing psychedelic soundtrack. The monsters all have individual traits and levels of monsterism, and extensive backstories. Fowler also designs the toys for the monsters.



Fowler is also known for his work for the band Super Furry Animals.



Here is an interview with Pete-- he's just a neat fucking guy:

From Eroica With Love

Immediately after making the last post, I was compelled to make an entire post dedicated to From Eroica With Love.

If you want the full experience, listen to the following video as you peruse this post:


I don't know if I've ever explained my lovecrush on Robert Plant, but apparently Yasuko Aoike feels the same way. Clearly the main character in the manga is modeled after Master Plant:

His name is Dorian Red, so obviously Dorian Gray was her nominal inspiration. He's an art thief and ridiculously homosexual, so if you can imagine a faggot breaking into the Louvre while the Immigrant Song is playing, that's the basic idea of the comic. He also thwarts Nazis and the KGB and NATO officers are involved, because, really, why isn't that necessary.

If you want to learn more, there's a dedicated fan page that you can check out.

Coloring books for adults

I found this site, and I think it's pretty neat. It's a resource list of colouring books for adults.

Some help you learn anatomy:



But my absolute favourite is by Yasuko Aoike. It's related to her manga From Eroica With Love, but it's Led Zeppelin inspired. As I write this post, I'm actually listening to the Immigrant Song, so I'm ecstatic.


Robert Plant is still a golden god even in the most ridiculous circumstance-- there are clothes on the next page and you color them in and then dress Robby up for a big day being an extremely gay, art thief version of Dorian Gray (heart throb).



There is also colouring book trend for adults that's becoming increasingly popular, and it's creating colouring books which have some kind of meditative quality. The book below encourages peaceful thoughts and inner peace when you colour in the mandala.

Nikolai Syadristy

The Chess men

- A tiny chessboard is placed on a pinhead. The piece arrangement is taken from a game between Alexander Aliokhin (black) and Raul Capablanca (white), for the 1927 world championship. The chessmen are made of gold.

Ukrainian Nikolai Syadristy is only a microminiature artist part time; when he's not creating ridiculously fucking small pieces of art, which is only a hobby, he's an underwater athlete. That's just absurd.



This book is probably my favourite of his works-- it has twelve functioning pages, which feature poetry that a viewer can actually read (with the help of a microscope, obviously). This book is the smallest in the world, which just makes it adorable, and is only 0.6 square millimeters.


Taken from his book, Mysteries of Microtechnology: "Microminiatures to a great extent reflect the attained level of treatment for various materials and, consequently, the degree of comprehension of their properties; they vividly narrate on the culture of human labour, thus, they actually dwell on the culture of human thinking."

Apparently the process is so absolutely intricate that Syadristy has to work between heartbeats and hold his breath as he works.

The Meeting

A jug, two wineglasses, a tray and an apple are placed on a sugar grain, although in complaint, a sugar grain is a fairly monumental surface so I demand the table to be set for four before I'm going to be impressed.

Ron Mueck

"I never made life-size figures because it never seemed to be interesting. We meet life-size people every day."

Ron Meuck is a hyperrealist artist from Australia, although he practices in London and was one of the YBAs. His work appears to be a series of scaled, both larger and smaller, adventures into the human form. Mueck is also one of the badasses that worked as a puppeteer and model maker for Labyrinth.

Dead Dad

1997

Dead Dad was featured in the highly publicized Sensation exhibition, and was a 2/3 scale replica of his father. Interesting, this is the only piece Mueck features his own hair in the end product. I think this is a particularly loving tribute, even if it's a bit unconventional.


The video below is a montage of some of Mueck's pieces, so the scale and installation process shown are pretty incredible.

Valerie Hegarty

Among the Sierras with Woodpecker

2005.

Valerie Hegarty is interested in ideas of American landscapes and the living changes that art goes through when representing this. Interested in the idea of manifest destiny. In the above piece, she pegs the destruction of this wooded landscape to a woodpecker, and the damage spreads across the piece and into the floor, wall, and ceiling of the gallery. This is a brilliant interpretation of a current American landscape.


This concept of early American landscape that was left out in the landscape and nature adjusted the piece. These ideas of change and decay are relevant through use of foam core and various technique.
Listen to her talk about her piece:

Laurie Lipton

Laurie Lipton is absolutely adorable (it's one of the great injustices in life where amazingly creative and dedicated artists are equally attractive). She's also a Carnegie Mellon graduate, so it's neat that she was local, even though she currently lives in London (by way of Holland, Belgium, Germany and France).

Senorita Meurte (Lady Death)

2005. Pencil on paper.


"I wanted to learn to paint like the 17th century Flemish Masters, but no one could teach me. It was all abstract and conceptual art at my university, so I cut my classes and sat for hours in the library copying Durer, Memling and Van Eyck. I tried to teach myself how to paint in egg-tempera but constantly failed. Finally I developed a way of drawing that mimicked the technique by building up thousands of tiny lines to get a tone. It was an insane way to draw, and took a horrendous amout of time, but I was able to get the same kind of luminous detail that the Flemish painters had achieved."

The absolute dedication and the absurdly intricate process of her work reminds me of Vija Clemins' wave and star drawings.

Mirror, Mirror

2002. pencil and charcoal on paper.

"Diane Arbus was another of my inspirations, and her use of black and white (the color of ghosts, memory and madness) opened up a world of possibilities for me."

Haunted

2001. charcoal on paper.

Death and the Maiden

I noticed this as a recurring theme, so I'm dedicating an entire post to artists who play with this idea of a manifestation of death with a woman. Contemporary artists will have their own pages to view, so this is essentially just a picture gallery, and if you don't know about Klimt, Schiele, or Munch, you're probably too stupid to be reading this blog.

Maria Lassnig

Der Tod und das Maedchen (Death and the Girl)

1999

Jeff Simpson



Käthe Kollwitz

Death Embracing a Woman

Hans Baldung



Edvard Munch




Egon Schiele

While the above is called Death and the Maiden, I prefer the creepy factor in the painting below (where the hands can be read as Death trying to pull the almost dead (maybe anorexic) woman towards her inevitable doom-- something like that, maybe Sterbak-esque):



Gustav Klimt



Laurie Lipton

Death and the Maiden

2005
This was part of an exhibition that was inspired by a trip to Mexico called Day of the Dead.


And what always happens to me when I think I'm brilliant for noticing a trend, I find someone else has already written about it in detail (although I have much cooler contemporary artists, establishing a context is never a crime), so there's this bitch who writes the Vince's Ear blog:

Peregrine Honig

Like Amy Wilson, Peregrine Honig's watercolors have charming images with very adult scenarios, as you can see above by "Wonkey Donkey checks into rehab!" The donkey is similar to classic children's characters from the Golden Book series, yet he clearly can't keep his addictions in check (although to his credit, he is looking quite embarrassed and ashamed).



Her work deals with current issues in society (well, the garbage celebriculture/People magazine/Jersey Shore/Miley Cyrus clusterfuck version of society) but through the eyes of a child, where the idea that Peter Rabbit and pseudo-Winnie the Pooh are gay-banging each other in a plushy bro-show is news, so it's bringing in these ideas of destruction of an innocent culture in the most delicate medium imaginable.

Puberty for Louis Vutton

Honig also did a series about models with diseases, or perhaps just the truths about the fashion industry. The image above sheds light on this truth that the runways are suffocating with extremely young girls and girls who have diseases (like fetal alcohol syndrome).

In the article below, Honig states: “It’s very strange that [modes] are that tall and thin, and when people look very different, we’re inclined to stare. My drawings are about people who would also be viewed the way we are not supposed to look at others. I think these images are more empowering for the viewer and not exploitive.” Though this is moreso related to her series of children with diseases (like Downs), Honig's paintings are just so delicate, yet wonderfully powerful and over-the-top.



Her Fashism series is chilling, and these works are significantly larger (usually 3' x 2') than the previous series, so I think that the overall effect would perhaps be far more overwhelming and obvious.

Chanel Hoodie

This series is reminiscent of Egon Schiele (one of my favourite artists) in the best way possible:



If you're buying what she's selling, Peregrine's website should not be missed.

Amy Wilson

"It surprised me to no end" from The Myth of Loneliness series

The work of Amy Wilson reminds me of melancholy adult fairy tale (I agree with the author of the newspaper article below). The autobiographical quality of her work adds an emotional depth twinged with sadness, and it's almost shocking to see the speech bubble text full of largely depressing thoughts (many of the pieces deal with a childhood full of overwhelming depression and loneliness, and there are also commentaries on current events, like the war in Iraq). Her world of drawings is reminiscent of Henry Darger's Vivian Girls, in the idea that these adorable little girls have very real adult emotions and conflicts (although it should be noted that while both Wilson and Darger are gaining some kind of release through their work, Wilson's is meant to be seen in the public sphere and Darger was swimming in a secretive sea of rampant escapism).

As Wilson says on her website, "In my drawings, I like to explore the tension that exists between my interior world and the exterior one. I incorporate personal stories and observations along with commentary about current events (both personal and ones that make it to the news). They depict a "chorus" of young girls, all of whom I see as being an extension of myself and as representations of the many voices I have inside of me; as such I consider my work to be an ongoing exploration of self-portraiture. These girls give voice to my thoughts and are often depicted in scenarios inspired by experiences from my life."

This idea of using these figures to explore self portraiture reminds me of the work of Maria Lassnig, although far more poetic and less abrasive.

Be sure to click on the images in this post for the enlarged versions-- you're missing out if you don't.

Carlota Berard - Aqua Permanens

Aqua Permanens

Carlota Berard

2004

Carlota Berard performs a menstrual dance over a piece of cloth (2x2 meter). Berard choreographs the dance to her own musical composition. During the dance, Berard's period drips onto the makeshift canvas, and she traces her movements simultaneously with graphite. The cloth is cut into the small drawings/collages, which are seen at the end of this post. Berard's piece deals with women's work, the woman's body, identity politics, etc. She creates a lasting creation out of the monthly cycle (something that most women can't wait for it to end), something that only lasts for a handful of days.

"Each body substance or fluid has a different texture and a different way or perforating the body. The body pulsates in diverse ways when releasing any substance, by contraction or expansion and with rhythmical or non-rhythmical pulses. The body is full of a pulse, in other words energy or excitement, ready to ooze slowly and outwards a liquid and an intense emotion. The body also oozes when it slowly disappears within a frame of time to allow a metamorphosis, another performance to happen and another existence. There is a pulse within any artistic performance. The pulse not only concerns matter, but also the soul."
Carlota Berard, 2004
 
The closeness of the spirit,
nowadays a fluent thing to write or tell,
since no distant colour seems to stay.
No flagrant music without spell,
no poison pulse without smell.
Disposition is the key word, the secret.
We had a secret? Tell me if so, again and again!
Slowly and tenderly between distances,
pure and gelid transfuse of blood while breathing instances

Jana Sterbak - Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic

Vanitas -- Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic

Jana Sterbak

1987

Jana Sterbak, one of my personal favourite artists, created Vanitas in 1987. The dress of meat opens a dialogue for the a discussion on human condition, using meat as the vehicle. The meat is stitched into a dress, and is displayed in the gallery space. The dress begins to decay, a process that affects all flesh, and the stench permeates the atmosphere. It speaks to human vanity, and the eventual degradation of beauty as a result of aging. In a poetic twist, the decay is self inflicted (as we know by the title): an anorexic woman, who strives for acceptance into the world of fashion, sacrifices her health, and potentially her life, to stay in vogue.

The pictures below detail the decay process. In the gallery, the piece is exhibited on a dressmaker's stand, with the above picture on the wall next to the piece.

Here is an exert from Storer Rowley’s article “A Raw Meat Dress Stakes Its Claim as an Object of Art.” (Chicago Tribune. April 14th, 1991).

“Unusual and unrefrigerated, Jana Sterbak’s meat dress, 50 pounds of raw flank steaks stitched together and displayed on a hanger at the National Gallery, is causing a cultural flap in Canada.
Entitled ‘Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic,’ the exhibit was created by Montreal artist Sterbak to emphasize the contrast between vanity and bodily decay.
It also underlines the contrast between people willing to recognize it as art, and those who would rather take their meat at mealtimes.
Reminiscent of recent clashes between U.S. politicians over the limits of artistic taste, the dress has drawn as much general attention as any Canadian work of art in years.
The reaction was strong. Two hundred people mailed food scraps to Canada’s most popular fine arts museum last week to protect the new show.
But most people who have seen it say it’s legitimate art.”

I think it's important to note that the reaction of people produces more waste into the world, and they clearly completely miss the meaning of the piece (unless of course they're trying to feed the poor anorexic woman, but I feel that she would probably prefer cake, or at the very least, not leftovers).