Thomas Allen at Foley gallery
Foley Gallery is very pleased to present Thomas Allen’s solo exhibition Paint by Numbers.
Inspired by a View-Master and “pop-up” books as a child, Allen became interested in recreating these three-dimensional experiences by using old books and pulp fiction paperbacks as still life subjects.
In producing his new series of photographs, Paint by Numbers, Allen has gone to the hardware store and has selected standard paint swatches to use as his primary generative medium. As announced at Allen’s 2009 solo show Epilogue at Foley, Allen has parted ways with his signature use of cutting from book illustrations.
Utilizing wit to illustrate titles such as Birthday Cake, Carnival Candy, and Sweet Tea, Allen playfully employs the idea of color with historical and cultural associations. Titles offered in the paint swatches are implicative: his deftly cut figures reference popular subjects, each of which are enlisted by the name of the paint sample they are carved into.
Allen selects figures such as Donald Trump or Gene Wilder, subjects able to perform the lexicon of narrative titles like Blowfish and Golden Ticket. In the process of assemblage, Allen is able to create narratives that reveal the constructed nature of images and incorporative aspects of collage, photography, and montage.
What – “Paint numbers” by Thomas Allen
Where – Foley gallery 59 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002
When – Until 24/01/15
Omen514, Boe x Irony & STMTS street art
Part of our 3 street art works series you should see today. Omen514, Boe x Irony and STMTS.
Omen514 – located in Windsor (Canada)
Boe x Irony – located in London, Blackstock Road (England)
STMTS – located in Athens (Greece)
The Memory Industry
“One of the reasons I source mainly from newspaper, television and internet imagery is because the way we interact with these media shapes so many of our opinions about the world around us. Most of what I know about the world has been drawn in a fairly disjointed and fragmentary fashion from this huge, seemingly ever present sea of information.
The sheer amount of available knowledge is so overwhelming that I end up feeling always frustrated that I know nothing about anything. Not knowing what I should be spending my time getting to know, I end up with a constant sense of only ever partially understanding even the most important current and historical events.
I am impelled by a great fascination but end up mostly confused about which direction to allow my fascination to lead me in the time I have. Although partial understanding can be frustrating and isolating, it does carry its own qualities. As events become jumbled and confused in our minds a kind of magical haze is thrown over everything. We start to create our own narratives, filling in the gaps between what we pick up from various sources with any number of unreliable memories and opinions.” Darren Nixon
Darren’s central theme of ‘not knowing’ brings up issues of ‘not remembering’ and when applied on a global scale, this “magical haze” created by the fragmented reality of media overload, threatens our formation of collective memories; memories we experience as part of a culture and a society, memories which connect our identity to the cultural experience of a larger social group.
In art since 1900, Benjamin Buchloh makes this encouraging statement in the final roundtable discussion, “The Predicament of Contemporary Art”: “…the effort to retain or to reconstruct the capacity to remember, to think historically, is one of the few acts that can oppose the almost totalitarian implementation of the universal laws of consumption…”
However, he concludes with this condemnation, “…to deliver the aesthetic capacity to construct memory images to the voracious demands of an apparatus that entirely lacks the ability to remember and to reflect historically, and to do so in the form of resuscitated myth, is an almost guaranteed route to success in the present art world, especially with its newly added wing of “the memory industry”. Chilling.
Read more of my interview with Darren Nixon, Joining a Conversation Well Underway.
Dale Grimshaw at WellHung gallery – win a signed poster
We are looking forward to Pride & Prejudice, the new show from Dale Grimshaw at WellHung gallery and guess what? We have two signed posters of the flyer show (see left) to give away to two of our readers so get involved and refer to panel on the right.
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23 MARCH – 29 APRIL
Private View: Thursday 23 MARCH 6-9pm
Well Hung are delighted to announce
More recently, Dale has become involved with the political struggle to free West Papua from Indonesian occupation.
Due to Dale’s involvement with this Campaign his latest work is moving towards a subtler and more emotively lead approach to painting.
Dale’s work has always been boldly figurative and has been inspired by his strongly held humanitarian beliefs. However, this political message is always achieved by an emphasis on powerful direct emotions and a deep empathy for his subjects.
Background
Dale Grimshaw was born in Lancashire, in the North of England. During a difficult childhood, his drawing and painting became extremely important to him. He developed his skills at college, firstly with an Art Foundation course at Blackburn College and later to Degree Level, studying Fine Art at Middlesex University.
Dale Grimshaw has a successful gallery career, having exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, including five solo exhibitions with Signal Gallery, London. His exhibitions have been widely recognised in the press and online, articles have been published in The Independent, Juztapoz, Art of England Magazine and Widewalls. His works are collected internationally, alongside celebrities including Adam Ant and The Prodigy.
More recently Dale has been invited to festivals nationally and internationally as well as painting many iconic walls across London, where he lives.
Private view from 6pm until 9.30pm is on Thursday 23rd
Underwater painting photographs by Mark Mawson
British photographer mark mawson explores the synthesis of color, ink and water in his series ‘aqueous II – the sequel’.
That means it has produced these amazing shots where the electric imagery follows the journey of paint as it plunges underwater — the submerged forms exposing the aftermath of mixing, dropping, and spinning various colored liquids in water.
The result is frozen motion, capturing billowing, hypnotic shapes and silhouettes swirling and rippling through a vast dark background. the photographs illustrate a variety of illusions — sunken mushroom clouds ballooning in space, vibrant jellyfish-like figures, and ghostly pigmented lines.
Ralph Lauren ART STARS contest – creativity needed
Ralph Lauren launches an open-call competition with a chance to win a commission-based award and placement within a mentorship program with some of Europe’s top talent! Continue reading Ralph Lauren ART STARS contest – creativity needed
Nick Gentry at Whisper gallery
We are big fan of artists using what they can find around them to help them making art or in Nick Gentry’s case, using floppy disks to be his support for his art as well as being integral part of his end product – mainly portraits.
Nick Gentry uses wood panels layered with floppy disks which he might paint or not, but one sure thing is that they are fully integrated in his pieces. Using the round bit of the floppy disk as the eyes is a recurrent occurrence in his art. Nick Gentry portraits all these imaginative or not, I do not know, characters which behind that scruffy brush stroke comes to live.
The show at Whisper gallery is now over
Street art encounters from Shoreditch
No words needed, just pictures. I snapped these on my way to blackall street art and all his creativity.
Best designers toys from New York Comic Con 2012
New York Comic Con 2012 has just happened and we are bringing you our top 5 favorites toys designs – this event is the East Coast’s biggest and most exciting popular culture convention.
Comics, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, toys, movies, and television fans are mad about the stuff on display.
New York Comic Con is the second largest pop culture convention in America and the only one that takes place in the comic book, publishing, media, and licensing capital of the world — Gotham City.
Artist: Dai Tran
“Pandit” and “Bitsumo”
Dai Tran’s big-bellied custom action figures “Pandit” and “Bitsumo” — one a sumo wrestler and the other a panda — have a mythic rivalry that plays out on the graphic t-shirts he’s created for complimentary apparel line, as well as in his line of figurines.
Artist: Kaitlin Juarez and Maxwell Yax
“Madknits”
A certain ARTINFO editor (who will remain unnamed) couldn’t resist buying one of these heartbreakingly cuddly monsters herself. Each one is handmade, and comes with a backstory about their assimilation to planet Earth, based on the Madknits comic series.
Artist: Smoko
“Toast USB”
We wish we had the whole set of genius 4 GB toast-shaped USBs for our office. “Butta,” “Ry Ry,” “Crisp,” and “Tato” fit into a toaster hub, which also includes an SD card reader and works with any flash drive.
Artist: Mr. Munk
“Buddha B Pissed”
According to its creator, this trio of Buddha action figures — complete with big block heads and crazy eyes — was sent out into the world to rid it of its evils, absorbing bad energy and repurposing it.
Artist: Pete Fowler/Molvox
“Tribes of Monsterism Island Vol. One”
The natural earth tones used by artist Pete Fowler for his “Molvox” series of devilish tribesman are perfect; details like the felt applique on a textured helmet and the toothy face painted on another figurine’s jacket make his little guys unique finds when bought
Taken from the Blouin Artinfo website, check there for photo credits