Month: September 2016

Maciek Jasik

Maciek Jasik, “Secret Lives”

Maciek Jaskik is a photographer and pyrotechnician from Gdansk, Poland and living and working in New York City. He received his Bachelor of Arts from John Hopkins University in 2000 and has since been in many photographic exhibitions. He “seeks to understand society’s relationship with the natural world and explore ideas of identity, gender and the self while working in a parallel world of endless color and bewildering physical phenomena.”

“The modern world has separated us from the origins and uses of fruits and vegetables; we know them only for the flavors and textures they provide. Until only very recently, each held its own mystique, mythology, symbolism and connection to the culture and afterlife.

This series aims to reintroduce these mystical, invisible qualities to fruits and vegetables that have been lost amidst the clamor of nutritional statistics. Each offers its own indelible powers beyond our narrow habits of thought.”

Collection: Wooden Masks of the World

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Collection of Wooden Masks of the World

Masks in various forms (sacred, practical, or playful) have played a crucial historical role in the development of understandings about “what it means to be human”, because they permit the imaginative experience of “what it is like” to be transformed into a different identity (or to affirm an existing social or spiritual identity). Not all cultures have known the use of masks, but most of them have.

Leanne Staples

Leanne Staples, Title Unknown, The Fire Escape

Leanne Staples is primarily a street, social documentary, urban landscape photographer & artist. She was given her first camera at the age of 12 by her father. For many years her concentration was mainly as an architectural photographer. It was, as she has said, “an obsessive pursuit for an unreal purity.” One day, after being annoyed by people walking into her shot, she decided not to fight it anymore, to shoot people passing by the buildings. Without knowing it, that began her venture into street photography!

She started out in film and after some skepticism about digital, she finally made the transition in 2006. A self-described gonzo photog, you can find her on the streets with camera in hand searching for the perfect backdrop in which to shoot. A few things that she is always seeking out are shadows, reflections, patterns, motion blur, clouds, graffiti, interesting people and of course architecture.

If reflagging, please credit Leanne Staples. Thanks.

Paul Miners

Paul Miners, “White Tiger”, Date Unknown, Colored Pencils on Paper, Private Collection

Paul Miners was born in Auckland New Zealand and grew up in Hamilton, New Zealand. After winning various art awards at college, he was offered an apprenticeship as an Illustrator. It was while attending trade school that Paul Miners stumbled across a life drawing class where his talent started to develop.

In late 1999 he moved to Sydney Australia to further develop his talents and career. Over the past few years Paul Miners has expanded from the more traditional style of painting to digital painting.

Although Paul Miners excelled in painting and understanding the human form, the wild side of nature interested him the most. He has won various art awards with the most recent being an Honorable Mention for his entry ‘White Predator’ in the Museum of Computer Arts  Summer Art Festival in 2010.

Reblogged with thanks to https://melimelo85.tumblr.com

Chris Koelle

Chris Koelle, “The Ascension”

Chris Koelle (visual artist, illustrator, printmaker, designer) has worked on a wide variety of projects including graphic novels, illustrated books for grownups, award-winning documentaries, cassette tapes, vinyl records, zines, more documentaries, some other books, a few logos, a motion graphics film, an art book thing that came with a rock ‘n’ roll album, some event posters, and a few other things. Chris is a member at The Printshop, Greenville’s first and only community printmaking studio.

Christian Rohlfs

Christian Rohlfs:  “Roman Builders”, Oil on Canvas, 1867, Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster, Germany

Christian Rohlfs was a German painter, one of the important representatives of German expressionism. Initially he painted large-scale landscapes, working through a variety of academic, naturalist, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist styles. Meetings with Edvard Munch and Emil Nolde and the experience of seeing the works of Vincent van Gogh inspired him to move towards the expressionist style, in which he would work for the rest of his career.

In 1929 the town of Hagen opened a Christian Rohlfs Museum. In 1937 the Nazis expelled him from the Prussian Academy of Arts, condemned his work as degenerate, and removed his works from public collections.

Reblogged with many thanks to http://varzim.tumblr.com

The Bone Shadows

Illustration from Werewolf: The Forsaken, Second Edition

The Bone Shadows (First Tongue: Hirfathra Hissu)

The Bone Shadow is a hermit and shaman, a hunter of things that cannot be slain with mere fang and claw alone. They trap ghosts and bind spirits, they cast out angels and speak the language of the dead. They have a reputation for strangeness, but it’s a product of their greater understanding of Shadow. Spirits and other ephemeral beings obey bizarre laws and compulsions, and to the Bone Shadows these things are natural, instinctive.

Taboos have power, in the keeping and the breaking, and the Bone Shadows know how to call on that power. While Ithaeur of all tribes can command and use spirits, the Bone Shadows do more than command. They curate, managing the boundary of worlds in the name of Father Wolf, seeking to understand the secrets beyond the visible in the name of their tribal totem. They seek out that which is unknown, study and catalogue and bind it away or cast it out.

Kenneth Erik Moffatt

Kenneth Erik Moffatt, “God and Goddess of Teviot with Their Kelpies”

Kenneth Erik Moffatt is a sculptor and free style carver of wood living and working in Teviothead, England. He works directly into the wood, without any  preparatory drawings, adding to the carvings as his inspiration dictates.

Top Three Photos: Roof Corbel, Oak. The head of the River God Teivi, crowned with the moon and oak leaves. Interwoven in his flowing hair, are two leaping salmon, based upon “Border Reiver” graffiti, from the walls of the prison cells in Carlisle castle.

Fourth and Fifth Photos: Roof Corbel, Oak. The head of the River Goddess, embodiment of the Celtic Goddess Sulis, crowned with the Moon, hazel leaves and nuts, and adorned at the throat with hazel catkins. Also present are her two attendant spirits, a bird, and the mischievous squirrel “ratatosk,” one of the inhabitants of the “Tree of Life.”  The nine sacred hazel trees, are representative of the spring where the waters rise in Scottish folk legend.

Bottom Two Photos: Roof Corbels, Oak. Kelpies. Water Horses.

Marina Bacigalupo

Marina Bacigalupo, “Walter and Benjamin” (From the Hito Series), 2005

Martina Bacigalupo was born in 1978 in Genova. After reading literature and philosophy in Italy, she studied photography at the London College of Printing. In 2005 she won the Black & White Photographer of the Year Award, and joined Reflexion Masterclass in Paris.

For the past four years Martina has been working as a freelance photographer in East Africa, mainly based in Burundi, working on personal projects and collaborating with different international NGOs (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, Care, Handicap International).

Martina was selected for the 2008 Joop Swartt Masterclass and won the Amilcare Ponchielli Grin Award in 2009. In 2010 she was awarded the Canon Female Photojournalist Award.

Paul Klee

Paul Klee, “Dream City”, 1921Watercolor and Oil on Canvas, 48 x 31 cm, Private Collection

Paul Klee was born in a family of musicians in late 19th century. Klee himself was a musician and practiced violin as a warm-up for painting. Also known as a Swiss painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and writer, Paul Klee’s work has contributed much to the history of art in 20th century. He experimented with new artistic techniques and expressive power of colors. Most of his paintings depict his intellectual curiosity and his detailed knowledge of music, philosophy, and nature.

Death in June, “Runes and Men”

Death in June, “Runes and Men”

Death in June are a neofolk group led by English folk musician Douglas Pearce, better known as Douglas P. The band was originally formed in Britain in 1981 as a trio, but after the other members left in 1984 and 1985 to work on other projects, the group became the work of Douglas P and various collaborators. Douglas P. now lives in Australia.

Over the band’s three decades of existence, they have made numerous shifts in style and presentation, resulting in an overall shift from initial post-punk and Industrial Records influence to a more acoustic and folk music-oriented approach. They are sometimes considered controversial. Douglas P.’s influence was instrumental in sparking neofolk, of which his music has subsequently become a part.

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