Shintaro Ohata is one of these artists who will show you something new, who will inspire you, either through a raw and obvious talent or/and because something gets taken to the next level, high, so high it is not reachable by the common creative soul.
Painting meets sculpture or is it rather sculpture redefines painting, I am actually not sure. I am looking at Shintaro Ohata’s works with interest. I then learn that the sculpture elements in his work are actually made of polystyrene and the actual painting is mainly made of acrylic.
This series of works depicts every day scenes of people going about their business but these become much more than that under the artist’s direction. The 3D effect that is created by the sculpted elements, mainly humans or animals, is disconcerting and confuse you as to what you are looking at – a sculpture with a painted background or a painting which includes a sculpture element.
The fusion of the two mediums is pretty remarkable here. Kneel down and look straight and you might not realise that there is a sculpture element, so much so that painting and sculpture elements are binding each other but take a few steps back and the 3D angle is now clear and the artwork has got a completely different feel to it.
We cannot wait for Shintaro Ohata to have a show in London
3D is spreading fast in the movie industry and everyone seems to embrace that technology and I certainly am. But I appreciate even more when it comes into some illustrated art.
Meet Dutch freelance artist Ramon Bruin and his new series of astonishing 3D pencil drawings. I do not need to say much about those, they are just out of this world. But what I would say is that these were made only with pencil, yes just ordinary pencils. Ok add a touch of genius from the artist and boom, see below.
“Lacan revises and enriches the myth of Narcissus, so passionately in love with his image that he plunges into the water and is drowned.”[1]
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Bathroom, (c)2011 Hayley Harrison
The mirror holds peril. Revealing truths unwanted or enticing the loss of the self to an objectified world. The creation of our self-identity begins with how we respond to our image in the mirror in infancy. We either recognize the ‘other’ and begin the process of socialization or we retreat to find the maternal object and become locked in the death wish.[2] Psychoanalytical theory is of course more complex and involved than that simple description. But the significance in the simplified description is the relationship of self to object. We begin to understand we are an object which occupies space, distinct from others or we seek the comfort and reassurance of objects to satisfy our longing, beginning to see everything as an object available to satisfy us.
In Kleinian theory, the ‘internal object’ is “a mental and emotional image of an external object that has been taken inside the self. The character of the internal object is coloured by aspects of the self that have been projected into it. A complex interaction continues throughout life between the world of internalised figures and objects and in the real world…the state of the internal object is considered to be of prime importance to the development and mental health of the individual.”[3]
Her, (c)2011 Hayley Harrison
We are bound to objects as a means to understand the world, ourselves and the complex relationships we have throughout life. Any kind of exploration of self and identity must perforce include a discussion of objects. This ‘Me’ of Mine has delved into several aspects of this ‘object relationship’, through the work of Kate Murdoch and memory association with personal identity development, Annabel Dover and the complex personal codes and emotions imposed on objects, Cathy Lomax and objects which represent self-image and emotional states and now with the work of Hayley Harrison and her use of objects as an expression of an inner self:
“I think we have to be in the ‘right’ place both internally and externally and that’s when a conversation occurs. For me self-recognition through the external is experienced in its ‘purest’ form when we are here, now, rather than through our pasts or futures. We can be taken off guard by something, something perhaps poetic that throws us into the present. Whatever that something is, we just have to come into relationship with it. When we experience one of these rare conversations between the internal and external I believe we come back to ourselves, much like Jacques Lacan’s famous discourse with the sardine can. Ultimately within these moments we are looking into a mirror.”
When Quiet British Accent started working as a duo, someone told them that sport had no place in art. Since then, they seem to be hell-bent on disproving this through their textile and graphic slogan art.
The couple’s recent exhibition at Core at Nolias Gallery in London had two themes. They took the ‘sport in art’ argument as a call-to-arms and used risograph prints and vintage football shirts as canvases for their DIY sporting aesthetic. This theme expanded to include the powers (both real and imagined) of heroes to their fans. Not necessarily football heroes either, as Quiet British Accent place football within wider popular culture.
The following pieces are appliquéd textiles on vintage football shirts and risograph prints.
Andy Warhol Says Hello
Andy is smiling down at his still-pervasive influence over us all. Any connections to Warhol’s ‘Chelsea Girls’ film, or echoes of Campbell’s Soup cans in the shirt itself, are purely intentional.
What Would Johnny Rotten Do?
The ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ mantra applied to an Arsenal-supporting popular culture hero, crediting him with a deserved influence.
Sport& Art Don’t Mix
A poke at the proclamation Quiet British Accent are often faced with since deciding to limit themselves to working within the world of sporting culture.
I Don’t Know About Art, But I Noel What I Like
Yes, that Noel. QBA treat art the same as they treat football and music. Not belittling music at all, but putting it on an equal footing with art.
Hello Boys
The duo’s first large scale piece of work is stenciled onto giclée prints and hijacks a famous advertising slogan to give it social clout, mocking the echoes of sexism and homophobia in the sport.
“Reified people proudly display the proofs of their intimacy with the commodity. Like the old religious fetishism, with its convulsionary raptures and miraculous cures, the fetishism of commodities generates its own moments of fervent exaltation. All this is useful for only one purpose: producing habitual submission.”
Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, p.33
White 12 (L’Atalante), (c)2011 Cathy Lomax
My first question was what exactly is a ‘reified person’? “In Marxism reification is the thingification of social relations or of those involved in them, to the extent that the nature of social relationships is expressed by the relationships between traded objects,” I found that definition in Wikipedia, it made an impression on me once before and I wondered if it would shed light on what Debord might mean as a ‘reified person’.
Some possibilities perhaps:
1. a person who worships someone in the public eye turning them into an idol and collects all manner of idol memorabilia
2. a person who takes on the attributes of a worshipped idol in the projection of a personal identity
3. a person who expresses personal identity through the outward display of status brands
4. a teenager
5. each and every one of us in the Western World (I cannot speculate here on other cultures)
As I wrote the first three, I realised the fourth and fifth. Some of these possibilities present themselves through the work of Cathy Lomax and other artists in This ‘Me’ of Mine such as Annabel Dover and Kate Murdoch, though, in their work, not as idol worship but the simple expression of social relationships through objects or the exchange of objects. This idea of ‘reified people’ is implicit throughout my interview with Cathy Lomax, The Perfect Wrapper.
Muslin, (c)2008 cathy Lomax
Jane Boyer: Your work often deals with pop idols (Sixteen Most Beautiful Men, Dead Filmstars) and iconic film imagery (Film Diary, The Count of Monte Cristo). Curiously though, it’s not pop culture which is your subject, but the fascination, escapism, hero-worship and fan-love we’ve all experienced. What fascinates you about our psychological propensity to fascination and ‘longing for something unobtainable’?
Cathy Lomax: I think that pop culture in general is just a wrapper for supplying the things that the market demands – i.e. what we want. These things do not change much; they are excitement, desire, escapism etc. So with this in mind I let myself lead the direction of my work by following what it is that I am drawn to. I do not like to think that I am in any kind of elevated position in my commentary on my subjects; I am in and amongst the subject matter. Looking deeper into what it is I am interested and fascinated by, it is apparent it is something that I do not actually want but rather that it is something I can think about and live out in my head – probably because this is the safest way to do it. This is what led me to the Film Diary as film for most people is the most intense way to experience other lives and worlds.
