Month: November 2015

Mr. Finch

Mr Finch, Textile Sculptures, Vintage Fabric Flora and Fauna

A wonderful textile artist, who only introduces himself as Mister Finch, has been creating beautiful replicas of British flora and fauna using only vintage and recycled textiles and thread.

His pieces have a faded yet timeless feel to them, which comes from both the old materials he (re)uses and the subject matter he draws upon. As he explains on his blog, “Flowers, insects and birds really fascinate me with their amazing life cycles and extraordinary nests and behaviour. British folklore is also so beautifully rich in fabulous stories and warnings and never ceases to be at the heart of what I make.”

He makes a point of recycling old or vintage materials; “It’s a joy to hunt for things for my work…the lost, found and forgotten all have places in what I make. Most of my pieces use recycled materials, not only as an ethical statement, but I believe they add more authenticity and charm.”

Studioata, “The Livelli”

Tre Livelli, Studio Dwelling with Stepped Floor Plan, Designed by Studioata

“Tre Livelli” is a tiny studio retreat above the seaside town of Alassio, Liguria in northern Italy. It sits on a hillside site terraced with traditional Ligurian dry-stacked stone walls.

Studioata integrated the studio into the site with split stone cladding that matches the terrace walls. The architects took advantage of the different ground levels by raising the bedroom area up, giving it an unimpeded sea view through the large living area windows.

The spacious bathroom is located behind the bedroom. The bathroom door and the interior shower wall were made of translucent glass to let in extra light.

The kitchen was designed as an intermediate level between the living area and the bedroom by building it on a raised storage floor. Drawers and storage bins built into the floor provide enough storage to keep the 35 m2 (377 ft2) studio free of clutter. The kitchen cabinets are tucked under the bedroom level with the concrete countertop only being revealed when a section of the bedroom floor is flipped up to act as the backsplash.

Scrying

Scrying

Scrying, from the Old English word descry meaning “ to make out dimly”, is the divination of distant or future events based on an analysis of reflections in water, on polished metal, or on precious stones. This was practiced by early humans, who probably interpreted these phenomena as a vision of the spirit world. Scrying became widespread by the 5th century AD and was later condemned by the medieval Christian church as the work of the devil.

One of the earliest written works of scrying comes from The Shahnameh, a historical epic work written in the late 10th century. Used in pre-Islamic Persia the epic gives a description of the Cup of Jamshid or Jaam-e Jam, as a cup of divination which, according to mythology, was long possessed by the rulers of ancient Greater Iran. The cup was filled with an elixir of immortality and was used for scrying. Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda explains that one could observe all the seven heavens of the universe by looking into the elixir and the whole world was reflected in it. In popular stories such as The Heroic Legend of Arslan, the cup is depicted as a crystal ball. Helen Zimmern’s English translation of the Shahnameh uses the term “crystal globe”.

In 1958, Classical Greek archaeologist, Sotiris Dakaris discovered a scrying center near the Dodona oracle. This temple was described by Homer and Herodotus, as a place where people would sit in complete darkness while awaiting their turn in front of the oracle. An extensive maze led to a long hallway where the ‘gazing’ would take place. Dakaris found the remnants of a bronze cauldron ringed with a banister which made it appear that people stand around the cauldron and gaze into it’s contents for enlightenment or visions.

Graham Sutherland

Graham Sutherland, “Estuary”, 1946, Oil on Canvas

A neo-Romantic inspired by the pastoral subjects of Samuel Palmer, Graham Sutherland’s haunting paintings captured the rugged beauty of the countryside and the oppressive forces of creeping industrialisation upon it.

For much of the 1930s he chose to paint the Pembrokeshire landscape, attempting to express ‘the intellectual and emotional’ essence of the place. By using dramatic shifts in light, unnaturalistic colouring and animal skulls, he would transform the countryside into a bleak, primordial world in which man and nature were at odds with one another.

Estuary (1946) was one of the last paintings the artist made before fleeing the sulphurous realities of post-war Britain for the sunny environs of South of France. His palette was already changing from the tempestuous greys and ochres of the Welsh countryside for the scorching yellows of the Riviera.

Stockholm Subway System

The Underground Art of the Stockholm Subway System

Certain stations in Stockholm’s T-Bana system, primarily along the city’s Blue Line, are singularly spectacular due to the city’s geology. Due to characteristics of the bedrock beneath the watery city, instead of boring, the metro’s stations and tunnels are simply blasted away – oddly fitting in the birthplace of Alfred Nobel. As a result, the system’s stations are grand cavernous spaces not wholly unlike certain Washington stations in scale, but, with the bedrock left exposed, they feature an eerie, cave-like atmosphere.

T-Centralen is the metro’s central station, located directly under downtown, where the system’s three lines meet. The older station, servicing the Red and Green lines, is rather utilitarian. But the connected Blue Line platforms form an extraordinary cavern covered in abstract patterns in bright blue and white designed by Swedish artist Per Olov Ultveldt in 1975.

Kungsträdgården station  takes a different tack, giving the sense of a Roman archaeological dig. Water drips down the walls behind statuary. Walking across a bridge near one entrance to the station, you look down into an overgrown garden of columns and fallen finials. The bedrock walls are left mostly exposed, hidden only by bold murals in red and green and black and white.

Solna Centrum station, farther outside the city center, is blindingly red. As seen in green and black murals along the track’s edge, Solna Centrum is meant to evoke the country’s spruce forests and the towns that harvested their lumber.

The Open Shirt

Photographer Unknown, (The Open Shirt Reveal), Selfie

“In the eyes of others, a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own, he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet; the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever.” 

—W. H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand

Børge Bredenbekk

 

Børge Bredenbekk, Untitled, (Birds in Flight), Drawing on Paper

Born in 1975, Norwegian Artist Børge Bredenbekk grew up in Stavanger and studied for a BA (Hons) Art and Design in England 1993 to 1997. He started out working with design and illustration for large clients in Switzerland and New York. Bredenbekk then worked from his home in Oslo and Fredrikstad with a focus on drawing and printmaking.

Børge’s work combines different technical skills with a keen eye for storytelling, carefully considered compositions and bold visuals. His work is divided in two styles and embraces craft and execution. His drawings are usually pencil and charcoal based and his graphic work inspired by 1930s aestethics and social realism.

 

 

Christer Karlstad

Paintings by Christer Karlstad

Christer Karlstad was born in Raelingen, Norway and lives and works in Drammen, Norway. He has studied at The Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts and Glasgow School of Art. His works have been acquired by Kistefos-Museet, Norway’s central bank, Statoil and Arts Council Norway, and has been commissioned by Refsnes Gods.

Norwegian painter Christer Karlstad’s constructed and ambiguous scenario freely engages in myths, symbols and archetypes, as this is how he sees and understands the world.

Zane Grey: “It Was a Wonderful Country That Faced Him”

Photographer Unknown, (Middle of the Field)

“It was wonderful country that faced him, cedar, piñon and sage, colored hills and flats, walls of yellow rock stretch away, and dim purple mountains all around. If his keen eyes did not deceive him there was a bunch of wild horses grazing on top of the first hill.”

― Zane Grey, Valley of Wild Horses

Fabrice Le Nezet

Sculptures by Fabrice Le Nezet

Fabrice Le Nezet is a director, designer and visual artist obsessed by urban culture. Based in London, in the past few years he’s been exploring the intersection of fashion, architecture and toy design through the use of raw materials like cement and metal. His work is immediately recognizable for its pure, graphical aesthetic combined with a playful quality and trompe-l’œil effects.

In the past Fabrice has directed various TV ads for important brands. His background includes studying science and maths, followed by digital art and today he pursues his interest towards crafts and artisanal techniques of working materials at 360°.

The five stones suspended by metal images are from his “Measurement and Elasticity” series of work in concrete and metal bracing. The four  images with the colored backgrounds are from the “Fashion for Concrete” surreal runway show, modeled by fashionable totems, each with its unique personality, with a clean silhouettes and great attention to detail.

A Tree and Its Roots

Photographer Unknown, (A Tree and Its Roots)

“The whole world is, to me, very much “alive” – all the little growing things, even the rocks. I can’t look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life – the things going on – within them. The same goes for a mountain, or a bit of the ocean, or a magnificent piece of old wood.”

― Ansel Adams