Tag: art history

Manfred Kleinhofer

Manfred Kleinhofer, “The Guardians of Time” Series

Manfred Kleinhofer is an Austrian painter, sculptor and photographer living in Linz, Austria.

Drawing on religious and supernatural phenomena, the Guardians of Time are stone statues that are cloaked in hooded robes and situated to seem like they are moving forth in some kind of ritual. In some cases the figures stand alone; in other instances, they are grouped together as if whispering to each other.

Kielnhofer places his statues in public places like ancient castles, old mines, plazas, and parks. They are installed and moved without fanfare, heightening the eerie, mystic aura they give off. The first of these mysterious figures was created in 2006. Since then, Kielnhofer continues to create and install these statues all over the world.

Patrick Arrasmith

Six Illustrations by Patrick Arrasmith

Patrick Arrasmith is a California transplant who’s been happily living and working in Brooklyn, New York for over 13 years. After graduating from the California College of the Arts with a degree in illustration, he was lured to New York by a scholarship from the Society of Illustrators. He specializes in scratchboard illustration, and his work has appeared in a range of media, from the New York Times to HarperCollins books to Shiner beer bottles.

Reblogged with thanks to http://littlelimpstiff14u2.tumblr.com

Josh Brandao, “Blackened Wings”

Blackened Wings: A Film by Josh Brandao

Taking visual inspiration from old Russian Constructivism Posters, Blackened Wings tells the tale of a young boy overcoming bullying and oppression. The film showcases a collection of Fashion Artefacts by designer Chiara Pavan, as well as pieces by Givenchy and Vivienne Westwood. Winner of “Best Creative Concept & Best Costume Design” at the Miami Fashion Film Festival 2014 and Winner of the Top Prize “Coupe D’Or” at the Fashion Film Festival Chicago, 2014.

(Source: https://player.vimeo.com/)

Michele Petrelli

Michele Petrelli: “Yellow City”, “Gray City”, “Red City”

Michele Petrelli is a contemporary Italian artist. By trade, he is a visual designer, CAD modeller, creating photorealistic renderings. He partecipated to important national and international contests (design, architecture) and art exhibitions in Italy, creating both virtual installations and real paintings.

His virtual installation “Attraction”, which was selected for the first 30 finalists of the “Brain Project.eu International Visual Arts Competition”, a competition with artists from 55 different nations. In 2007 this artwork was displayed in an exhibition in Trieste and published in the event’s catalogue.

Agostino Arrivabene

Agostino Arrivabene, “Giorgio e Cief”, 2007, Oil on Wood, Dimensions Unknown, Private Collection

Born in 1967, Agostino Arrivabene is a visionary artist who paints surrealistic works. Influenced by Symbolist artists such as Gustave Moreau and Norwegian figurative painter Odd Nerdrum, his work features landscapes, portraits, and allegorical paintings often with apocalyptic themes. Arrivabene currently lives and works in a rural farmhouse In Gradella di Pandino, near Milan, Italy.

Arrivabene uses antique painting techniques to create a foundation from which metamorphic figures emerge in moments of creation. The time-consuming labor of grinding pigments and layering paints is evident in the complex, heavily textural works. In the late part of 2018, he began a new series of paintings using natural canvases , conglomerate mineral and woodland findings, to add natural textures to his surreal works.

Kinuko Y. Craft

Kinuko Y. Craft: Illustrations

Kinuko Y Craft is a graduate, BFA 1962, of The Kanazawa Municipal College of Fine and Industrial Art (known in Japan as The Kanazawa Bidai). She was born in Japan and came to the United States in the early sixties where she studied design and illustration at the Art Institute of Chicago. Subsequently, she worked for a number of years in well known Chicago art studios.

By the end of the decade Craft’s work was in wide demand and she began her long and successful career as a free-lance illustrator. For most of this time she worked in editorial and advertising markets where her work regularly appeared in national magazines and newspapers. Since the mid 1990’s, Kinuko Y Craft has concentrated on fantasy book jackets, poster designs and children’s picture books.

Nicky Barkla

Nicky Barkla, “The Third Eye- Darren Brown”, Anaglyph

Anaglyph 3D is the name given to the stereoscopic 3D effect achieved by means of encoding each eye’s image using filters of different (usually chromatically opposite) colors, typically red and cyan. Anaglyph 3D images contain two differently filtered colored images, one for each eye.

Derren Brown is an English mentalist and illusionist. Since his television debut with Derren Brown: Mind Control in 2000, he has produced several other shows both for the stage, and for television in both series and specials. He has also written books for magicians as well as the general public. He makes clear in his performances that all of his apparent abilities, which manifest on stage/screen as feats of memory, intuition, mind-reading and control of other objects/people, are achieved through a variety of psychological means, such as hypnosis, suggestion, cold reading, misdirection, and showmanship.

Brown came out as gay in 2007, and is in a long term relationship. He came out late in life—his parents were not practicising Christians, but they sent him to Bible classes from age 5, believing it was the right thing to do. In an effort to deal with issues of self-esteem and sexuality, Brown became a committed Evangelical Christian in his teens in order to present a confident, asexual, character. After he came to the conclusion that his belief in Christianity had no basis, he instead turned to the character of the eccentric, caped magician to fulfill his role in life.

Alessandro “Sasha” Benedetti

Alessandro “Sasha” Benedetti, “Ligurian Wave”

Alessandro Benedetti, known as Sasha, is a IENI-CNR researcher and lives in Bonassola on the west coast of Italy near Genoa. He is a great lover and connoisseur of Ligurian waves and sea storms and a passionate photographer. The village in which he lives allows him to give free rein to this passion. His photography is available in a book, Wave Watching, published by Casa Editrice Hoepli, an Italian publishing house based in Milan.

This book made possible by the collaborative team of Sasha Benedetti, Stefano Gallino, and Luca Onorato was publshed in November 2011. It is still available through HOEPLI.it.

Arantzazu Martinez

Arantzazu Martinez, “The Fallen Angel”, Oil on Linen, 45 x 29 Inches, , Museo Europeo de Arte Modemo

Arantzazu Martinez is a Spanish artist who received her BFA at the Fine Arts University of the Basque Country. She later attended the New York Academy of Figurative Art for her classical art training. She currently resides and works in Madrid, traveling often back to New York. Martinez has recently exhibited her work in New York at the 2019 IBEX Masters Exhibition, the largest showing of super-realistic, figurative, contemporary art in the world.

Angelico and Isais Jimenez

Angelico and Isais Jimenez, Mythical Mexican Beasts, Carved Wood

Angelico and Isais Jimenez  are the sons of Manuel Jimenez, the founder of the Oaxaca School of Mexican carved and painted animals. Though relatively unknown outside of Mexico, their work is excellent and available for sale.

Further information on their work can be found at: https://www.fofa.us/woodcarving/2

Jean Dubuffet

Figurative Art of Jean Dubuffet

French painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet was one of the most influential and prolific artists of the 20th century. The founder of an entire art movement, ‘Art Brut,’ Dubuffet tore down the boundaries of the established art world and opened art up to self-taught outsiders. Join us, as we take a look at one of the most important artists of the 20th century.

Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was born on July 31, 1901, in Le Havre, France. Raised in a middle-class family of wholesale wine merchants, he began painting in 1918 at the age of 17 and moved to Paris that same year to study painting at the Académie Julian. He was described as a rebel, one who resisted authority, which became evident when he dropped out of art school after just six months.

It wasn’t until his visits to Algeria between 1945 and 1947 that he created Art Brut. Inspired by the constantly shifting, nomadic tribes of Algeria, Dubuffet decided to create an artistic movement that would lie outside the boundaries of the art world and would exist ‘without walls.’ This new Art Brut, or ‘raw art,’ placed emphasis on art created outside the established art scene, including pieces produced by untrained amateurs, children and psychiatric patients. Dubuffet would go on to emulate this expressive and untutored style in his own work.

According to Dubuffet, Art Brut was more precious than art created by professionals because “These works are created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses – where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere.” He argues, “We cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, fallacious parade.”

Ilene Meyer

The Surreal Artwork of Ilene Meyer

Ilene Meyer (1938-2009) was a self-trained oil painter whose work combines realism, fantasy, surrealism, and psychedelic colours and patterns. Her art was used on the cover of books by science fiction writers, including Philip K Dick.

She was a painter who created stunning magic realist, fantastic and visionary works, often involving continued themes of checkered planes, geometric objects, animals, sea creatures, flowers, fruit and other aspects of the natural world, real and imagined, swirled into cascades of looping forms as if pulled by strands of liquified gravity.

Ilene Meyer played with the influence of other artists and various genres in her paintings. She wore her fondness for the work of Spanish Surrealist Salvador Dalí on her sleeve, making playful homages to many of his themes, particularly from his later “Atomic” period. She became internationally recognized, and her work is exceptionally popular in Japan.

Harry Malkin

Harry Malkin, “Heavy Metal”, Graphite and Charcoal

Harry Malkin worked as a sculptor and painter since he was made redundant from the coal industry in 1985 after spending twenty years at Fryston Colliery, most of which was on the coal face. Since that time he has had a number of solo exhibitions including one at the Royal Festival Hall.

The most recent exhibitions were a memorial to five soldiers killed in the Afghan war and an exhibition to the miners of Allerton Bywater Colliery. The later was unveiled by the leader of Leeds City council and attended by over two thousand people following a marching brass band. This was televised by both Yorkshire TV and the BBC North.

Aztec Sun Stone

Aztec Sun Stone, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City

The Aztec Sun Stone (or Calendar Stone) depicts the five consecutive worlds of the sun from Aztec mythology. The stone is not, therefore, in any sense a functioning calendar, but rather it is an elaborately carved solar disk, which for the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican cultures represented rulership. At the top of the stone is a date glyph (13 reed) which represents both the beginning of the present sun, the 5th and final one according to mythology, and the actual date 1427 CE, thereby legitimizing the rule of Itzcoatl and creating a bond between the divine and mankind.

The stone was discovered in December 1790 CE in the central plaza of Mexico City and now resides in the National Museum of Anthropology in that city. The richly carved basalt stone was once a part of the architectural complex of the Temple Mayor and measures 3.58 metres in diameter, is 98 centimetres thick, and weighs 25 tons. The stone would originally have been laid flat on the ground and possibly anointed with blood sacrifices.