Lego art: be prepared to be amazed

When Ole Kirk Christiansen came up with the idea of that brick we call LEGO, I can say with confidence that he was most probably miles away from thinking that one day, people all aver the world would use his brick, and in some cases, ton of them to create pieces of art.

There is even today some sort of art movement that has sprung. How about that?

One very recent example of the frenzy that surrounds LEGO and art can be this life-sized Star Wars X-Wing fighter that was made from 5,335,200 individual bricks. Yes you heard it, over 5 millions of brick were used. It was 11 feet tall, 43 feet long 44 feet wide, and weighed almost 46,000 pounds. This is, as of today the largest model ever built.

Brick X wing | Art-Pie

But while some art purists may argue that the Brick X Wing is not really art but more a clever engineering poroject, and we would tend to agree, some other artists we feel, have really taken the brick and turn into an art medium.

Nathan Sawaya is certainly one if these artists (we already published something about him) and has gained a recognisable art LEGO style with his Dali-esque statues that are intricate and perception-bending. We have included some of Nathan Sawaya’s works at the bottom of this post.

Other interesting artists are Katie Walker who builds mosaics, we have included one example below.

Katie Walker
Katie Walker LEGO | Art-Pie

Nathan Sawaya
Nathan Sawaya | Art-PieNathan Sawaya | Art-Pie

Nathan Sawaya | Art-Pie

Nathan Sawaya | Art-Pie

ROA at Form gallery

ROA - Paradox at Form galleryROA is an artist that we are very familiar with being that he was one of the first artists we followed while in the UK. We lived around his street works and would see some of his iconic pieces on a day to day basis. We even attended his first ever solo show at Pure Evil Gallery in London. So we were extremely excited to hear that he would be extending his tour to Australia.

The focus of ROA’s work of course is monochromatic animals of epic proportions that are typically inspired by the wildlife in the regions that he visits. Australia is home to an enormous amount of native animals that cannot be found anywhere else in the world, so you could imagine that there was plenty to inspire a unique body of work.

The show was hosted by Form Gallery, a large space in Perth CBD. The installations were designed to lead you through a specific path so that you could view and interact with all of the larger pieces. At the entrance to the gallery was a ten foot high Kangaroo with two rotating doors mounted in the piece that lead you into the main room where there was a series of smaller yet still impressively interactive works on offer.

Something that was unexpected was the second large installation at the rear of the gallery, a desert bone yard of sorts, featuring walls of and a floor of red dirt synonymous with Western Australia.

ROA must have been under an incredible amount of pressure putting together this show in only 3 weeks and creating all the original pieces of art on location in Perth. The collection of recycled materials used for the pieces was just another beautiful part of the show which we later found out were mostly harvested from old warehouses in the Midlands. Yes, this Belgian artist really connected with this space and Australian culture.

This show runs all the way through to January next year, so if you find yourself on the other side of Australia, go check it out.

Check out the full photoset on flickr

ROA - Paradox at Form gallery

ROA - Paradox at Form galleryROA - Paradox at Form gallery

Architecture by Filip Dujardin

Architecture is often looked over isn’t it? But when you come across architects such as the belgian artist and architectural photographer Filip Dujardin, you have to share a bit of love and make you aware of his works.

He just had a show at Highlight Gallery in San Francisco and we hear that the works focused on “fictional buildings that Dujardin has created using a digital collaging technique from photographs of real buildings around Ghent, Belgium.”

One will classify these as “absurd“, as the “René Magritte and Raoul Servais” of architecture.

What do you reckon?

Filip Dujardin | Art-Pie Filip Dujardin | Art-Pie Filip Dujardin | Art-Pie Filip Dujardin | Art-Pie

First seen on Slamxhype

Static at Whisper – Moments of clarity

StaticLondon gallery, Whisper, is proud to present its new exhibition opening in April 2012, ‘Moments of Clarity’, by the creative duo STATIC – an artistic extravaganza, showcasing an exciting collection of new layered acrylic works, as well as a variety of live art events.

STATIC is the creative output of East London based artists Tom and Craig, who have been working as one since 2006. The combination of their backgrounds in Graphics and Fine Art allows for their collaborations to create an award winning aesthetic that fuses elements of urban art with fine art.

‘Moments of Clarity’ debuts an evolved body of work from the artists. This exhibition will showcase STATIC’s new ‘layered’ work, which toys with light, reflection and transparency to create unique pieces mixing screen printing and stenciling on layers of glass, Perspex and aluminum. This practice results in ‘floating’, deconstructed portraits and multi-layered symbols and patterns, in which hope, dreams and escapism are visualised.

Words from Whisper Fine Arts gallery

Private view on the 26/04/2012 | Show runs until 26/05/2012

Video teaser below

The Curious Art-Pie Show

We had a great time and exhibited awesome works from drawing to sculpture in the hope to find emerging talents. We were very pleased with what we got in the end.

The Curious Art-Pie show | Art-PieThis show was generously sponsored by Curious Duke Gallery and consisted of an online public voting contest: anyone could submit one artwork ranging from paintings to sculpture.

We also asked a panel of judges that consisted of well known and established artists – Dan Baldwin, Pam Glew, Dave White and Andrea Tyrimos, and we got out 22 artists to exhibit their work last February 2014.

The response was overwhelming and the quality of the submissions was remarkable. Even better, a massive crowd turned up at the opening making this show a real success for us Art-Pie as the curator and organiser to Eleni, the owner of the Curious Duke Gallery who signed up a couple of promising artists.

Have a look at the Facebook photo album of the opening as well as the Twitter thread for #capshow14

Here are some of the artists that featured in the show

March Atherthon (catch22)

The Curious Art-Pie show | Art-Pie

Samantha Gare

BUY this print from our shop

The Curious Art-Pie show | Art-Pie

Stephen Whatcott

BUY this print from our shop

"The Pontiac" by Stephen Whatcott | Art-Pie

Jason deCaires submerged sculptures

Art can do good, Art does good. We all know that.

How about underwater sculptures that provide places for marine species to live and thrive? This is what Jason deCaires Taylor‘s sculpture work is all about. One will call the artist “eco-sculptor”. Round of applause for the artist.

And we are not talking about a few sculptures spread at random on the sea bed, no but instead we are looking at complex, vast and thought through installations 100% environmental friendly and favorising the growth of marine life

First seen on Juxtapoz

JASON DECAIRES TAYLOR | Art-Pie
JASON DECAIRES TAYLOR | Art-Pie
JASON DECAIRES TAYLOR | Art-PieJASON DECAIRES TAYLOR | Art-Pie
JASON DECAIRES TAYLOR | Art-Pie
JASON DECAIRES TAYLOR | Art-PieJASON DECAIRES TAYLOR | Art-Pie

Central St Giles – urbanism at its best

I did not expect to walk through what, actually, turned out to be a truly enjoyable experience. I am talking here about the new urban development named Central Saint Giles, comfortably wedged between Bloomsbury and Soho in London.

I suspect the sunny weather that day helped here, but I was truly amazed by the imposing and colorful buildings that make up this very modern workplace, which includes office space, shops, restaurants, cafes, apartments and an outdoor public piazza. Bright green, yellow and orange are the colours used for the huge facades, which clearly make them stand out amidst the surrounding urban buildings.

While enjoying a walk on the spacious and bright piazza, I was happily surprised to encounter a couple of sculptures, one of which is by the artist Steven Gontarski; a five-meter-tall piece, adding another layer of colour to the landscape.

Urbanism like this can be beautiful, by either inspiring the architect (Renzo Piano) or being integrated into it.

http://www.centralsaintgiles.com/

Central Saint Giles

Ob 08 by Steven Gontarski
Central Saint GilesOb 08 by Steven G0ntarski

Central Saint Giles

STREET ART