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

ART-PIE

I was meant to post up the pictures from Dan Baldwin’s work at Signal, his first solo show with the gallery which happened last month.

I have inserted below what Signal says about the artist – Dan Baldwin’s colourful and deceptively alluring work has attracted the attention of international critics and buyers over the past few years. His images seem to speak of the innocence ‘gone wrong’ – whether this is societies or more personal wrongs. His work also have humour and wit in their playful use of familiar, sometimes kitsch, imagery.

Related links
> Signal gallery
> Dan Baldwin website

Brooklyn-based street artist Specter is one of these very active artists who always come up with new projects. You may or may not like what he does but you have to give him credits for always keeping his creativity flame burning like Hell.

Pure Evil gallery is currently hosting his first UK solo show where Specter using garments such as scarfs or bandanas in his new portraits.

Here is what Specter says about it – “the story behind the pieces is that these are portraits of people who have influenced me artistically but instead of painting their faces I am painting fabrics that I feel represent them. I basically close my eyes and these images are what appears.”

The show only occupied the front room in the gallery, in other words the number of artworks is rather limited. I was quick to go round then and to be honest did not feel loads of excitment about what I had just seen. While I agree that the use of garments is an unique portrayal approach, it is most definitely not the most emotion-trigger one which I believe portaits should be all about: hard to feel sadness or joy looking at a piece of checkered shirt.

Solid drawing and painting skills though and a great attention to detail.

The show runs until the 24th August.

I cannot resist to include a few photos of Specter’s installations and street artwork which is known for in the US. I could not described better what his work is all about than what I read on the Pure Evil website:

He evolves the subject matter by interlacing influences from the environment he chooses to adorn, incorporating characteristics from the surrounding neighbourhoods, architecture, local business and social economic classes; transforming the unwitting publics’ understanding of the space.

Through graffiti influence, he became obsessed with art in public spaces, where he sees potential inspiration and appropriate location to express his creativity. His aim is to deconstruct preconceived perceptions and draw attention to the neglected and less desirable issues, the non-sensational stories of the undervalued detritus of our culture we seldom hear about.

ART-PIE

Related links
> Specter’s art: www.specterart.com
> Make It Fit” Various & Gould exhibition at Brooklynite gallery (New York)

Photos from the show at Pure Evil below as well as Various street installations and artwork from Specter below