Month: April 2015

Christopher Sousa

Oil Paintings by Christopher Sousa

Christopher Sousa was born in Fall River, MA and has lived and worked in Provincetown, MA since 2003. His portraits and figures explore themes of isolation, alienation, longing and desire. He counts Lucien Freud, Jenny Saville, Paul Cadmus and Euan Uglow among his influences. Sousa has studied with Larry Collins and Donald Beal.

Sousa is represented by AMP in Provincetown and the Woodman/Shimko Gallery in Palm Springs, CA. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at the Provincetown Art Association & Museum, A Gallery, and Larry Collins Fine Art in Provincetown, MA, The Leslie-Lohman Museum in New York, NY, The URI Feinstein Providence Campus Gallery in Providence, RI, and Reynolds Fine Art in New Haven, CT.

“My painting has always been about the face and/or figure, but most often depicting the male. My inspiration comes from people I see or meet, and a desire to investigate and document the complexities of their distinctiveness.

Recently I’ve become interested in exploring the male portrait beyond the conventional perceptions of masculinity. Eschewing elements of “manly” coarseness and clichéd machismo, I’m attempting instead to depict a softness and beauty traditionally associated with portraiture of the female.”

-Christopher Sousa

Walt Whitman: “I Resign Myself to You Also”

Photographer Unknown, “Joseph Sayers”, Date Unknown, Photo Shoot

You sea! I resign myself to you also-
I guess what you mean,
I behold from the beach your crooked fingers,
I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me.
We must have a turn together,
I undress, hurry me out of sight of the land,
Cushion me soft, rock me billowy drowse,
Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you.

—Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

Arne Quinze

Arne Quinze, “The Sequence”, Brussels, Belgium, Wooden Sculpture, November 13, 2008-November 13, 2013

The Sequence is a monumental public sculpture designed by Belgian artist and designer Arne Quinze. The artistic intervention located in the heart of Brussels is made from wood and concrete connecting the Flemish Parliament to the House of Representatives physically and symbolically. Acting as a bridge between the public and the government neighbors, it promotes urban interaction and communication.

Quinze lives and works in Sint Martens Latem nearby Ghent, Belgium.

Malcolm Liepke

Oil Paintings by Malcolm Liepke

Malcolm T Liepke (born 1953) is an American painter born in Minneapolis, Minnesota] He studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, but dropped out after a year and a half. He moved to New York and began studying on his own, artists such as John Singer Sargent, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Diego Velázquez, James McNeill Whistler and Édouard Vuillard. In turn, his style has inspired others. Liepke and Milt Kobayashi are friends and former roommates with similar styles.

Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, “The Wolves in the Walls”

The Wolves in the Walls is a book by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, published in 2003 in the United States by HarperCollins, and in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury.

Neil Gaiman has said the story was inspired by a nightmare his daughter Maddy, then aged 4, had that there were wolves in the walls. In the story the protagonist, Lucy, hears wolves in the walls of her family’s house, but her family does not believe her until one day when the wolves come out of the walls. The book is notable for Dave McKean’s art, which utilises many different techniques, including photography, computer-generated imagery and drawing to achieve its effect.

Aluzio Abranches, “Do Começo ao Film”: Film History

Aluizio Abranches, “Do Começo ao Fim”, Computer Graphics, Film Gifs (Rafael Cardoso and João Gabriel Vasconcellos), 2009, Cinematographer Ueli Steiger, Soundtrack André Abujamra

“Do Começo ao Fim (From Beginning to End)” is a 2009 Brazilian romantic drama film written and directed by Aluizio Abranches. The film stars Rafael Cardoso as Thomás and João Gabriel Vasconcellos as his brother Francisco. In their early stage of life, Gabriel Kaufmann is in the role of Thomás at age six and Lucas Cotrim plays Francisco at the age of eleven. Júlia Lemmertz is in the role of their mother, who gave birth to Francisco in her first marriage and Thomás in her second marriage to husband Alexandre played by Fábio Assunção. 

“Do Começo ao Fim” was filmed almost entirely in Rio de Janeiro with parts filmed in Buenos Aires, Argentina. For its premier, nine copies of the film were released in Brazil in 2009. Despite the limited release, the film became one of the top ten most-watched Brazilian films in that year. In 2010, it was released in DVD form in Brazil with success; after its premier in France, the first edition of the DVD and Blu-ray sold out in less than two weeks. 

The film was shown in 2010 at the Seattle International Film Festival in May, the Frameline Film Festival (the oldest LBGTQ+ film festival in the world) in June, and in July the Outfest Film Festival and QFest. The film which dealt with homosexuality and incest received mixed reviews.

Peter Jansen

Peter Jansen, Kinetic Sculptures

English photographer Eadweard Muybridge became a pioneer of capturing movement when he took position on a popularly-debated question of the day: his photographic sequences proved that all four feet of a horse were inexplicably off the ground at the same time while trotting. Late Dutch artist Peter Jansen took on a similar study when he began his series of dynamic sculptures titled “Human Motions”. The project observes the dynamism of the human figure in motion and the visual magic that occurs when we slow things down, frame by frame.

Jansen’s art work is in fact entirely real, created using Materialise.MGX, a method employing 3D printing and rapid manufacturing techniques such as stereo-lithography. Soccer players, runners, and the classical nude, a nod to Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2.”, are portrayed in trailing sequences of movement expressed in a single sculptural image.

Jansen explained that his work is based on his ideas about transposition and movement, using the shapes of the human body to create energetic spaces. “I was curious how the total shape of a human in motion in time would be,” he explained.