Category Archives: CONTEMPORARY ART

SEPE’s art

November 21, 2014 Pierrick Senelaer Leave a comment

At first glance, I thought I was looking at some Ian Francis‘ work but no this was in fact from a Polish artist called SEPE or Michal ‘SEPE’ Wrega. I instantly found the artist’s work remarkable and as Ian Francis’s work, you are drawn into the scene and want to get a feel of what is actually going on.

SEPE’s work above all focuses on figurative paintings and, unlike Ian Francis, has got an urban edge. You will notice that the king looking character in “Plagadaru” (see below) wears the famous 3 bands tracksuit bottom. Reading about SEPE’s biography, I am not surprised to read that he was raised in traditional graffiti movements back in Poland where he still lives. Addeed to that a strong interest in book illustration and then some studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Lodz, you get a very original art style.

Definitely an artist that goes into our favorites list.

Plagadaru – Mixed Media on Canvas | 100cm x 120cm

Gold Rush 1 – Mixed Media Painting | 50cm x 50cm

Jumpers – Mixed Media on Canvas | 100cm x 120cm

CONTEMPORARY ART, IN THE NEWS

THE UMBRELLA REVOLUTION AND ITS REBELLIOUS ART

October 2, 2014 Pierrick Senelaer Leave a comment

The umbrella, as a symbol of the protests that are going on in Hong Kong, resulted from police pepper spray, used against activists, who used it as a shield. In no time, this was picked up by creatives, artists or just supporters who via that object, represent their support to the cause through art and imagery.

The Umbrella Revolution was born

#OccupyCentral and its demonstrations began peacefully last week but turned more intensive at the time where we are writing this article. The uprise is about activist who are calling for democracy in Hong Kong and free elections in 2017 (See more photographs about the events on the Mashable website).

We have collected a fe examples of the art and imagery incorporating the umbrella and other symbols of resistance on social media.

Another symbol widely used is the the yellow ribbon, which protestors are using as a symbol of democracy and suffrage and we found this awesome piece below

More imagery/art from protesters and artists below

BLOG, CONTEMPORARY ART

The Meeting place by Paul Day

September 18, 2014 Pierrick Senelaer Leave a comment

Of all the public art on display at the St Pancras station in London (UK), one piece stands out.

I am talking about the bronze statue called The Meeting Place that proudly stands at the south end of the upper-level beneath the station clock. The numbers: 9-metre (29.5 ft) high, 20-tonne (19.7-long-ton; 22.0-short-ton), impressive isn’t it? But have you been near it and noticed the frieze, a myriad of smaller sculpture works all around the plinth?

No? I did and was genuinely seduced by it.

This whole sculpture is the work of British artist Paul Day, and is intended to evoke the romance of travel through the depiction of a couple locked in an amorous embrace. However this is for the main part of the work, the part that everyone can see from the window of the train…. but, what about the work located at the pedestal? At first glance, there is nothing romantic.

The frieze was actually added by the artists in 2008 and caused a stir as it was branded as ‘controversial’. It indeed originally depicted a commuter falling into the path of an underground train driven by the Grim Reaper (understand ‘Death). The image was one of many featured on a frieze for a controversial sculpture planned for St Pancras in London.

A spokesman for the company said: ‘The frieze as originally suggested will not go ahead and work on it has stopped.”

In his defence, the artist replied that the image was created in a tragi-comic style meant to be a metaphor for the way people’s imaginations ran wild. He added: ‘The imagination and real life are often intermingled.”

Day revised the frieze before the final version was installed and it can be seen today. No trace of Grim Reaper but a multitude of faces with strong or bold expressions, often hard to pin point. Are they sad, happy, tired, pained? I do not know, but what I do know is the artist mastered conveying feelings in this work.

Have you seen this work? What do you think?

If you’ve not seen it, please do as it’s worth the trip. Enjoy the photographs below in the meanwhile.

CONTEMPORARY ART

Forgetting Mechanisms

June 17, 2014 Jane Boyer Leave a comment

I recently posted the opening clip for the cult movie Paris, Texas, directed by Wim Wenders and written by Sam Shepard, on the RECURSIVE blog in response to something I read from Difference and Repetition by Gilles Deleuse,

Bledne kolo (Vicious Circle) by Jacek Malczewski

“For it is perhaps habit which manages to “draw” something new from a repetition contemplated from without. With habit, we act only on the condition that there is a little Self within us which contemplates: it is this which extracts the new – in other words, the general – from the pseudo-repetition of particular cases. Memory, then, perhaps recovers the particulars dissolved in generality…It is in repetition and by repetition that Forgetting becomes a positive power while the unconscious becomes a positive and superior unconscious (for example, forgetting as a force is an integral part of the lived experience of eternal return).” (p.8-9).

I find this compelling and very true in the sense that normal forgetting moves information into the subconscious where it ruminates and comes back out in a creative interpretation. At least, that has often been my experience with a forgetful mind. As an artist I don’t want to copy the work of others, but I can’t help absorbing the visual stimulation of other’s influence. I rely on my ‘forgetting mechanism’ to make something new – at least I always hope it does.

But in a film like Paris, Texas, the forgetting is a looping trap that neither removes pain nor finds relief. It is not a positive force, but a negative destruction. That’s why repetition is a double-edged knife, both positive and negative, and why Nietzsche’s ‘Eternal Return’ contains the unending and unbroken circle of experience, passing through pain to find salvation.

I’m disturbed by reading of huge increases in prescription pain killer use and a rise in heroine deaths in the US. What would Nietzsche and Deleuse say about that I wonder?

[Image: Bledne kolo (Vicious Circle) by Jacek Malczewski]

CONTEMPORARY ART

When do you take warning from your habits?

June 1, 2014 Jane Boyer Leave a comment

Parc_del_Laberint_d’Horta_-_Hermit’s_cabin_-_The_monk I’m a terrible creature of habit. I like my routines because they free up brain space for more important stuff – the stuff where I can be really creative and unpredictable. Mostly, I live in harmony with my habits, enjoying their usefulness and the comfort they bring, but there have been times when my habits have given me cause for alarm.

This is the topic of the latest RECURSIVE post: Where does it turn?

Discussion topic 3: WHEN DO YOU TAKE WARNING FROM A HABIT?

Pop over to RECURSIVE to find out about a fascinating study from MIT which finds that habits are formed in the prefrontal cortex of the brain and not in the subconscious. Then join in the discussion by leaving a comment.

Art-Pie