Month: May 2015

Julian Hsiung

Paintings by Julian Hsiung

Beijing native Julian Hsiung was raised in Taiwan and was not exposed to Western culture until he was much older. In the mid-1960s, he discovered Western magazines and books which deeply affected his visual tastes. Through those magazines and books, Hsiung became enamored by fashion and contemporary art.

Eventually, Hsiung moved to New York, and immersed himself in the culture. From the late 1970s until May 2008, he worked in the fashion industry. After dabbling in painting in 1979 and 1980, Hsiung officially set up an artist’s studio in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn in 2007.

Juliusz Martwy

juliusz Martwy, Untitled, (Two Men in the Garden), 2019

Juliusz Martwy, born Juliusz Lewandowski, is a self-taught artist who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1977. He began his career with illustrations for an edition of French writer Isidore Lucien Ducasse’s “The Songs of Maldoror”, written under his nom de plume Comte de Lautréamont,  and illustrations for the works of Marquis de Sade. Martwy draws inspiration for his work from the figurative styles of expressionism, cubism, the New Objectivity, and Russian traditional painting.

An important part of Juliusz Martwy’s collective works are the autobiographical threads, through which he presents the universal problems of human nature. He deals with social, political and moral issues in his paintings, both historical and contemporary, such as the past civil war in Spain and the current political situation in Poland. Apart from multi-faceted genre scenes, Martwy paints intimate figurative portraits within spaces that depict small narrative, often erotic, incidents.

More of Juliusz Martwy’s work and contact information may be found at the artist’s Behance site:  https://www.behance.net/juliuszlewandowski

Juliusz Martwy

Raintings byJuliusz Lewandowski (Juliusz Martwy)

Born in Warsaw in 1977, Juliusz Lewandowski, known as Juliusz Martwy, is a self-taught Polish artist. He began his career with illustrations for an edition of French writer Isidore Lucien Ducasse’s “The Songs of Maldoror”, written under his nom de plume Comte de Lautréamont,  and illustrations for the literary works of Marquis de Sade, famous for his libertine sexuality. Martwy draws inspiration for his work from the figurative styles of expressionism, cubism, the New Objectivity, and Russian traditional painting.

An important part of Martwy’s collective works are the autobiographical threads, through which he presents the universal problems of human nature. He deals with social, political and moral issues in his paintings, both historical and contemporary, such as the past civil war in Spain, the French Revolution, and the current political situation in Poland. 

Apart from multi-faceted genre scenes, Juliusz Martwy paints intimate figurative portraits within spaces that depict small narrative, often erotic, incidents. His palette varies from scenes executed in tones of exclusively one color to those with either contrasting or complimentary colors. The portrayed figures, who readily express their emotions to the viewers, are composed through the use of strong lines and blocks of color. 

In 2011, Martwy had his initial exhibition of work at London’s Showcase Richmix Gallery in Bethnal Green. He entered his work at the 2011 Modern Fine Art International Artists Group Exhibition held at London’s Westbank Gallery. Martwy also showed in the 2011 Polish Erotic Art exhibition held at the Museum of Eroticism in Cracow, and later in 2014, as part of the Group Exhibition of EroArt at Warsaw’s Erotic Expo. In 2017, Martwy had a solo exhibition at the Talinn Portrait Gallery in Estonia. His work has been available through the Catharine Miller Gallery located in the Chelsea area of London.

More of Juliusz Martwy’s work and contact information may be found at https://www.instagram.com/juliuszmartwy/?hl=en

Werewolf Cop

Werewolf Cop by Andrew Klavan, 2015

From Edgar Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Andrew Klavan, a supernatural thriller about a good cop in the grips of an evil curse. In the tradition of Dexter and The Shield, the first in a riveting trilogy about a crime-fighter on a quest to control the beast within.

Zach Adams is one of the best detectives in the country. Nicknamed Cowboy, he’s a soft-spoken homicide detective from Houston known for his integrity and courage under fire. He serves on a federal task force that has a single mission: to hunt down Dominic Abend, a European gangster who has taken over the American underworld.

Portishead, “Roads”

 

Portishead, “Roads”, Live at Roseland New York

Portishead are an English band formed in 1991 in Bristol. They are named after the nearby town of the same name, eight miles west of Bristol. Portishead consists of Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons, and Adrian Utley, while sometimes citing a fourth member, Dave McDonald, an engineer on their first records.

Their debut album, Dummy, was met with critical acclaim in 1994. Two other studio albums were issued: Portishead in 1997 and Third in 2008.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Kay Nielsen

Kay Nielsen, Illustration from “East of the Sun and West of the Moon”, 1914

Kay Rasmus Nielsen, born in 1886, was a Danish illustrator who was popular in the early 20th century, the “golden age of illustration” which lasted from when Daniel Vierge and other pioneers developed printing technology to the point that drawings and paintings could be reproduced with reasonable facility.

There was an appetite in the early twentieth century for luxurious collections of children’s stories, often bound in gold-toothed vellum, to be given as gifts. Brilliant artists of the day including Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac were commissioned to illustrate them. Perhaps one of the finest creations to emerge from this golden age of illustration was an edition of East of the Sun and West of the Moon which boasted twenty-five colour plates and many more monochrome images by Kay Nielsen, a young Danish artist who had studied in Paris before moving to England in 1911.

The compendium consists of fifteen fairy tales gathered by the Norwegian folklorists Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe on their journeys across mid nineteenth-century Norway. Translated into English by George Webbe Dasent, the stories — populated by witches, trolls, ogres, sly foxes, mysterious bears, beautiful princesses and shy country lads turned heroes — were praised by Jacob Grimm himself for having a freshness and a fullness that “surpasses nearly all others”.

The Great War interrupted Nielsen’s career and he never quite reached the same heights as an illustrator afterwards. But his work did embellish some further collections of stories, notably by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. In his fifties he moved to Hollywood to work for Walt Disney and some of his illustrations graced the “Night on Bald Mountain” and “Ave Maria” sequences of Fantasia (1940). Nielsen was let go by Disney in 1941 and spent the final sixteen years of his life in poverty.

Marcelo Briem Stamm, “Solo”

 

“Solo”: Written and Directed by Marcelo Briem Stamm; Starring Patricio Ramos, Mario Veron, and Carlos Echevarria

A sexy, romantic and uncomfortably chilling tale of love and deception from first time director Marcelo Briem Stamm. Handsome middle class Manuel (Patrico Ramos), hurt by his previous relationship and bored being alone, meets Julio (Mario Veron), a rugged, lonely, unemployed young man in a chat room. The two eventually meet up in person and the sexual spark is quickly ignited. And while sex is satisfying and frequent, it is their collective problems with intimacy, trust and the fear of being hurt that make them hesitant to commit fully.

As their relationship develops, both reveal secrets from their past but these revelations might be real, imagined or outright lies. All is revealed in this romantic, passionate drama/thriller that offers a shocking, strangely satisfying conclusion.

A great film; search for it. Just watching Mario Veron in this film is worth the effort of the search.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)