Jim Campbell: art and pixels

A man runs. He falls down. He struggles back onto his feet and he runs some more. It’s a simple narrative. Even without much detail, you can understand what’s going on. Pause the video, though, and the scene isn’t nearly as clear. Movement makes up for the lack of other visual information. Your brain can read and understand a video at much lower resolution than it would need to make equal sense of a still frame.

Meet Jim Campbell, a former Silicon Valley engineer turned visual artist. Inspired by early Bell Labs experiments with pixelated images, and by his own engineering work with digital filters, Campbell makes art that toys with the human brain.

Much of the inspiration for Campbell’s current work comes from a story in that magazine, written by Bell Labs’ Leon Continue reading Jim Campbell: art and pixels

London Art Fair – artists we enjoyed, Doyle & Mallinson

We strolled through the London Art Fair for the fourth consecutive year and as always stumbled upon remarkable artworks from ever so talented artists.

In this series, we will tell you why we liked a particular piece from these artists as well as posting more works. We hope you will also enjoy it as we did.

Feel free to comment too at the end of this article. Let’s get started….

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Shaun Doyle & Mally Mallinson

We stumbled upon the piece called “Sumo Ergo Sum(I shop therefore I am)” – cast bronze, edition of 9, H 42.5 x W 45 x D 56cm.

Doyle & Mallinson | Art-Pie
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The skeleton sculpture, like any other ones to be honest, tickled our eyes right away.

Looking at the skull face expression, it was clear to us that it conveys a strong social message which was confirmed after reading up about the artists – keep on reading below.

About the artists

Our work deals with political and social thought. The forms we use to articulate our ideas often come from popular culture or are second hand, borrowed from another source. The way we put things together is witty, cheeky and aggressive; it mirrors the way we talk to each other. Context within our work is deliberately inconsistent. That inconsistency is our attempt to accommodate the messiness of the real world and allows different audiences different readings.

The lived-in, shabby aesthetic employed reflects the environments that excite us – the underfunded regional museum, the car boot sale, the dump; places where value systems are fluid, more confused or don’t exist at all. In these situations, forms and ideas have the potential to acquire alternate meanings and take on a new life. Through re-imagining objects and their identities we explore the processes of cultural transformation that take place after an object or idea has served its initial purpose. This re-cycling is a means of distilling useful agents; elements approaching redundancy are stripped down, re-formed and re-packaged. The results challenge the cleaner more commercial concerns of some other art forms and celebrate the possibilities of extreme behaviour and belief.

Other works from this artist

Click to enlarge

Doyle & Mallinson |Art-Pie

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Doyle & Mallinson |Art-Pie

Group show at The Rag Factory

Room 1: LAVA Showcase featuring: Ashes57, Forged Signatures, Lucas, Neas, Emma Dexter, The Krah, Stik & Otto Schade.

Room 2:: Art Splash Charity Auction Help our friends Eska and Pikto raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Free entry | Original art and prints for sale | Music from LAVA DJs + special guest TBA .

The artists: The Krah, Stik, Otto Schade, Ashes57, Forged Signatures, Lucas, Neas & Emma Dexter.
The dates: preview on the 3/11/11. The show runs until the 6/11 (daily, 12-7pm)
The address: The Rag Factory | 16-18 Heneage Street | London E1 5LJ

Group show at The Rag Factory

Fintan Magee – graffiti artist into rubbish

We met Fintan Scott-Magee originally from Brisbane and try to find out a bit more about his liking, it seems, for rubbish and bins in his art.

A-P: Tell us about yourself in a few words?
FINTAN MAGEE: My name is Fintan Magee, born in Brisbane Australia. I have been writing for 10 years now but I started to move away from traditional letterforms about 4 years ago and started to paint more canvas and street art. Really I’m just trying to have as much fun as possible with my art while I am still young and stupid enough not to know better.

A-P: What is your process/approach when making graffiti/streetart/art?
FM: I prefer to paint strait onto walls using oils, acrylic and of course spray paint. I like to paint in abandoned buildings a lot so I can relax and paint for as long as I want, the problem is my city is growing very quickly and becoming so developed that there is a shortage of empty and forgotten spaces. In my city almost everything painted on the streets is buffed within a week so I don’t really do many paste up’s or stickers any more, they say my city is clean but I just find it sterile.

A-P: Bin bags, rubbish seems to be an element that you like, why is this?
FM:The rubbish is just something thats developed over the last few months because I was painting still life images of things that have been forgotten or left behind on the streets, I guess I like to add depth to what may be considered bland or boring subject matter and not worth painting. I believe that we live in such a throw away and progressive society now that we overlook the beauty in many things that we consider expendable.

A-P: Where/what do you look for inspiration?
FM: I guess I look everywhere for inspiration, I think as an artist its important to take in the simple things around you, popular culture, nature, the city, your friends, etc. Keep looking and you will eventually find inspiration and influence where you least expect it.

A-P: Any upcoming shows/projects?
FM: I am travelling to Sydney and Melbourne in June for some group shows and to do some walls, I also have a Solo show at Jugglers gallery in Brisbane in August and another solo show in Melbourne’s Rtist gallery in November. After that I think another overseas trip is on the cards, possibly to the Americas. I have been back in Australia for two years now and I am starting to get pretty itchy feet.

Thank you to Fintan for taking time for this interview

Pictures below of some of Fintan’s works. More on this website: www.fintanmagee.com

Clerkenwell design week – Sarah Wiestner's installation

The Clerkenwell design week is back again from tomorrow, the 24th May, and will result in an exciting buzz where art meets design and vice versa. Not less than 60 showrooms and a pile of events (over 150 events) such pop up exhibitions, installations, talks, performances, music and workshops, the area is where to be for the next couple of days.

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Sarah Wiestner

One of the exhibitions that got me excited at this year’s Clerkenwell design week, is Sarah Wiestner’s axcrylics mirrors, MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) and LEDs lights installation or make over of the infamous House of Detention known to be haunted. The prison was demolished in 1890, but an entire underground section survived and lay undisturbed until the bombs of the Blitz saw it reopened as an air-raid shelter. After World War II it was again largely forgotten until, in 1993, it became a museum.

How Sarah plays with mirrors and make the space transparent is often deceived or shaken by the encounter of a dead end paths. Many openings were sealed off last century. The LEDs lights give back the light to this place once in a the complete dark. I have not been yet but can already sense a very interesting and exciting mix of elements and feelings.

Read more
> The website and blog of Sarah Wiestner (some awesome stuff) – http://maisdsarahwiestner.blogspot.com
> Cklerkenwell design week – http://www.clerkenwelldesignweek.com
> The House of Detention – http://www.london-ghost-tour.com/houseofdetention.htm

Summer party at Black Rat Press

Black Rat Projects would like to invite you to our Summer Party. On Saturday July 16th during the day we are teaming up with Cargo club next door whose expert chefs will cook up a bbq for BRP’s guests. This is a day for all the family: Matt Small will be doing one of his legendary workshops for the younger audience (if there’s space grown-ups can join in too…). To book for your kids email becca@blackrat.com with an optional £10 donation to ZAMCOG charity.

The day will mark the release of Lucas Price’s new print “Telepathic Heights”. The new edition (each one is uniquely hand coloured) will be hung among works by BRP friends, new and old, including: Swoon, Matt Small, Giles Walker, Candice Tripp, ROA and Brian Dettmer. Best Ever and Barcelona based artist Ruben Sanchez will be painting live on walls nearby.

The show will be a review of this year’s projects, and an ode to the artists who have made the space what it is, as well as a look forward to future projects as we welcome ROA, Candice Tripp and Brian Dettmer into the fold.

Join BRP as we celebrate summer on Saturday July 16th from 2-5pm! Invites will be sent out this week

Words by Black Rat Press

Find below the link of ROA show review at BRP earlier this year plus a couple of pictures that go with it – can’t wait for the next one!

ROA at BRP

ROA at BRPROA at BRP

Gabriel Dubois at Stolen Space

Gabriel Dubois is back to Stolen Space gallery after having taking part earlier this year to a group show – read about it here and his new works for his debut solo show – Kykkeliky are bold, this is the least you can tell about them.

German-Canadian artist, Gabriel Dubois grew up in the streets of Vancouver and started to drop graffiti on urban spaces of the Chinatown area. However what I was seeing all around me were far away from it: large wooden panels with bright coloured lines that seem to run at each other or from each other while meeting a multitude of geometric shapes on the way. Such works can quickly turn into a big mess but Gabriel Dubois succeeds in keeping some harmony of this buzzing gathering of elements.

Gabriel Dubois’ visual language is rich like the colours palette used. His pieces are vibrant and complex it seems but looking at it a bit longer and you may see some logical juxtaposition of those lines next to that series of circles.

Gabriel Dubois is a big fan of turning discard objects of modern culture into art and here into something alive. This is why you will find stuck into one of his pieces a cut-out of an old magazine representing a car. His abstract approach inspired from his numerous travels to places like Sri Lanka, India or Japan is the expression of his keen interest of hand painted signs he picked up at a very early age.

You will also notice that wooden (his surface of choice) structure standing at the entrance of the gallery (see pic below) which is another angle to Gabriel Dubois’ art practices.

Related link
> Sculpture and paintings by Gabriel Dubois on Boom

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