Month: September 2015

J. R. R. Tolkien: “There was a Red Thunderstorm and a Shower of Yellow Rain”

Artist Unknown, (Lights in the Sky)

“There were rockets like a flock of scintillating birds singing with sweet voices. There were green trees with trunks of dark smoke: their leaves opened like a whole spring unfolding in a moment, and their shining branches dropped glowing flowers down upon the hobbits, disappearing with a sweet scent just before their touched their upturned faces. There were fountains of butterflies that flew glittering into the trees; there were pillars of coloured fires that rose and turned into eagles, or sailing ships, or a phalanx of flying swans; there was a red thunderstorm and a shower of yellow rain; there was a forest of silver spears that sprang suddenly into the air with a yell like an embattled army, and and came down again into the Water with a hiss like a hundred hot snakes.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Iowa Landscape

Photographer Unknown, (Iowa Landscape)

“The wind comes across the plains not howling but singing. It’s the difference between this wind and its big-city cousins: the full-throated wind of the plains has leeway to seek out the hidden registers of its voice. Where immigrant farmers planted windbreaks a hundred and fifty years ago. it keens in protest; where the young corn shoots up, it whispers as it passes, crossing field after field in its own time, following eastward trends but in no hurry to find open water. You can’t usually see it in paintings, but it’s an important part of the scenery.”
― John Darnielle, Universal Harvester

Autumn in the Northeast

Autumn is Now Here on the East Coast

“Early this morning I read about your autumn, and all the colors you brought into your letter were changed back in my feelings and filled my mind to the brim with strength and radiance.
Yesterday, while I was admiring the dissolving brightness of autumn here, you were walking through that other autumn back home, which is painted on red wood, as this one’s painted on silk.”

–Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Cézanne

Barry López: “Why We Should Believe in Wolf Children”

Jean Baptiste Huong, “Romain Costa”, Photo Shoot

“Why we should believe in wolf children seems somehow easier to understand than the ways we distinguish between what is human and what is animal behavior. In making such distinctions we run the risk of fooling ourselves completely. We assume that the animal is entirely comprehensible and, as Henry Beston has said, has taken form on a plane beneath the one we occupy. It seems to me that this is a sure way to miss the animal and to see, instead, only another reflection of our own ideas.”

-Barry López, Of Wolves and Men

David Ligare

Paintings by David Ligare

David Ligare is an American contemporary realist painter. Contemporary Realism is an approach that uses straightforward representation but is different from photorealism in that it does not exaggerate and is non-ironic in nature.

“I think that I’m very Californian in the character of the light that I use, but I made a decision very early on in my project to try to be an invisible presence in my work. Personal expression and having a personal style are very important to many artists but I’ve been much more interested in how we see – what I call perceptual analysis – and the potential meanings of the objects that I’ve depicted.” – David Ligare

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, 1953, Computer Graphics, Film Gifs

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (aka The Monster from Beneath the Sea) is a 1953 American black-and-white science fiction monster film from Warner Bros., produced by Jack Dietz and Hal E. Chester, directed by Eugène Lourié, and starring Paul Christian, Paula Raymond, Cecil Kellaway, and Kenneth Tobey. The film’s stop-motion animation special effects are by Ray Harryhausen. Its screenplay is based on Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Fog Horn”, specifically the scene where a lighthouse is destroyed by the title character.

The climactic roller coaster live action scenes were filmed on location at The Pike in Long Beach, California and featured the Cyclone Racer entrance ramp, ticket booth, loading platform, and views of the structure from the beach. Split-matte, in-camera special effects by Harryhausen effectively combined the live action of the actors and the roller coaster background footage from The Pike parking lot with the stop-motion animation of the Beast destroying a shooting miniature of the coaster.

Emanuele Giannelli

Sculptures by Emanuele Giannelli

Emanuele Giannelli, born in 1962, is a figurative sculptor – Roman by origin and Tuscan by adoption. His sculptural research emerged after studies at the Academy in Rome and was influenced by the visionary works of cartoonists Billal and Moebius, , by films like ‘Blade Runner’ and by musical groups such as ‘Ministry”. Since the late ’80s Giannelli started to investigate the Western Human – which he calls the “two-footed animal” – and believes that the humans who belong to that tribe can have huge technological potential but which is mixed with a lot of tension and self-destruction. His first solo exhibition, curated by Gianluca Martians and Anna Lo Presti, was entitled “To Lie or Not to Lie” and was presented at the Palazzo Taverna in Rome.

The retrospective – which features about 25 works created over three years – was conceived and designed as a travel narrative and a sensory, emotional descent through the installations which feature visionary sculpted bodies in resin . Giannelli sees his sculpture as a multifaceted map of the human body that raises questions on issues of ethical consciousness,  genetic mutation, the proliferation of identity, and cloning.

Kate MccGwire

Sculptures by Kate MccGwire

Kate MccGwire is an internationally renowned British sculptor whose practice probes the beauty inherent in duality, employing natural materials to explore the play of opposites at an aesthetic, intellectual and visceral level. Growing up on the Norfolk Broads her connection with nature and fascination with birds was nurtured from an early age, with avian subjects and materials a recurring theme in her artwork.

Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2004, MccGwire’s uncanny sculptures have been exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery (London), the Museum of Art and Design (New York), Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (Paris) and most recently at the Venice Biennale, 2015 .

Nicolas Deveaux, “5.80 Metres”

Nicolas Deveaux, “5.80 Metres”;  Directed by Nicolas Deveaux: Music by Olivier Milton, Released in Paris 2012

As a writer and director of animation films (3D and relief), Nicolas Deveaux has a very personal world around two passions : image and the animal world. In 2003, fresh out of his degree in computer graphics, he directed “7Tonnes2″, a short-film showing a realistic elephant trampoline champion. Its critical acclaim (Annecy Festival) gave him the opportunity to work on mny projects from documentaries to commercials and even amusement park films .

If you missed seeing “7 tonnes2″, that film by Deveaux is also posted on this blog. Check it out.

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

Fred Tomaselli

Painting Collages by Fred Tomaselli

Brooklynn-based Fred Tomaselli draws upon decorative traditions from around the world to create richly detailed paintings that pulsate with both abstract and figurative forms. In his signature pieces, natural materials such as leaves and seeds mingle with collaged imagery and painted patterns beneath clear layers of resin. The hybrid nature of Tomaselli’s work speaks to the relationship between humanity and the natural world.

Prescription pills, marijuana leaves, peyote buttons, mushrooms and other psychotropic plant matter are carefully arranged along with brightly colored magazine and picture book clippings of human body parts, flowers and insects. These form beautiful, super-sized collages of kaleidoscopic shapes emanating from the altered states of human forms or floating out of the heads of intricately and accurately patterned birds, all the while suspended in multiple layers of clear resin, blowtorched to a high-gloss sheen, and delicately accented with hand-painted details of swirling, fiery flourishes.