Graffiti artists, put your cans away, this train ain’t your usual moving canvas

September 18, 2017 Pierrick Senelaer Leave a comment

It is already early evening but you just have enough time to jump on that bus and get your favourite spray cans from your local art supplies shop.

Should the shop be closed by the time you get there, Bombing Science online shop will be there to the rescue, you happily reassure yourself.

You like painting on trains, very much so. But the Genbi Shinkansen train is not or should not be one of them since artists have already been there and have made it beautiful.

The world’s fastest art appreciation

Genbi Shinkansen | Art-Pie — Click to enlarge

“The world’s fastest art appreciation” is what East Japan Railways, the train operator running the service, calls it.

The high-speed Genbi Shinkansen opened last year on the Jōetsu Shinkansen railway line but we only learned about it recently.

The train carried out three round trips daily on most Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, and while speeding through Japan (up to 210km/h), it gives its commuters displays of prominent contemporary artworks throughout its carriages.

Seven of the carriages in fact are used as “rolling art spaces”. All seven show a different artist and which gives passengers a vast choice of material to enjoy.

Even better, not only the indoors are used to display art. Indeed the windowless carriages of the Genbi Shinkansen’s are wallpapered with striking photographs of Niigata’s Nagaoka Fireworks Festival by photographer Mika Ninagawa

Art on display in each carriage

You can enjoy art throughout the entire train. Lose yourself from one end to the other and enjoy modern art created by prominent artists.

Kids have not been forgotten and should find joy in the specifically designed playroom where they can interact with modern art first hand.

We have included below photographs of our favourites carriages

Car #11

The artwork on display was conceived by incorporating the unique space, light and speed of the Shinkansen, and built around the themes of bountiful harvests, festivals and light. Take a seat and experience an amazing moment of change in which you discover the immensity of the light that surrounds us in the world.

Car #13

We selected this carriage because the art is mainly about landscapes and here at Art-Pie, we appreciate very much the subject. Sip on a coffee while looking at artworks inspired from the GENBI SHINKANSEN route, a traditional thoroughfare in use for centuries around the city of Joetsu with Mikuni Kaido being the name of an ancient highway in Japan.

BLOG, DIGITAL ART

Three of the best painting apps available today

September 2, 2015 Pierrick Senelaer Leave a comment

For a long time, artists have had to rely on their desktops and laptops to do work. Even with the dawn of smartphones, which are now as powerful as some PCs that were released over a decade ago, people still preferred working with their traditional computing devices. That all changed, however, when tablets were popularized by Apple. Now, professional artists can work in the comfort of their own home as well as on trains or buses when they need to do some work en route to the office.

If you’re in the business of producing art for a living, and are a tablet user, here are three apps that you might want to consider using.

Tayasui Sketches
Let’s start with the one of the most basic apps out there. If you don’t need a lot of advanced tools for drawing on your tablet, TayasuiSketches can be a good app for you. It is very easy to get used to, with over 8 essential brushes for users to choose from including watercolors, charcoals, and pencils. It’s free but those who are willing to pay for its premium fee get two extra brushes. It’s also a great tool for creating quick sketches and portraits.

We included a few examples of what can be achieved with the app

ArtFlow

ArtFlow is being marketed as a tool for kids but with over 70 paint brushes to choose from, it can easily become a professional’s best friend. It even has support for pressure-sensitive pens to help artists turn their tablet into a proper digital canvass.

What’s great about ArtFlow is that it supports high-resolution digital canvasses for up to 4096×4096. If you’re planning to use this resolution, however, make sure to keep an eye on your battery life. The last thing you want is to loose unsaved work. Alchemy Bet, an associate of the software company that runs Spin Genie Slots, suggests that people should check for apps that are running in the background and close them to save battery life. If possible, artists should only rely on WiFi and not data to save on juice since most tablets have short battery lives especially Apple products.

We included screenshots of the app

Procreate

Now this is for the seasoned veterans out there. Procreate is a fine app from world-renowned app maker Savage Interactive that allows people to create quick and accurate drawings of highly-detailed and striking artworks. It has advanced features such as GPU accelerated filters, and even a 64-bit support for high-end tablets. Check out the artworks that you can create with Procreate and see just how amazing this app is for work and leisure.

We included screenshots of the app

Do you have a favorite painting or drawing app that you use for work? Share them with us in the comments section below.

PREVIEW

Transcend, a show by Tom French at Lawrence Alkin gallery

April 27, 2016 Pierrick Senelaer Leave a comment

TRANSCEND by Tom French | Art-Pie — Click to enlarge

Following his 2014 sell out show, Tom French returns to Lawrence Alkin Gallery with his latest body of work, Transcend. Evolving from French’s Duality series, the exhibition continues to incorporate figurative elements and the artists’ signature use of illusion, while embracing abstraction more than previous works.

About the artist and this show

In the slant towards abstraction, French allows for his work to be interpreted on multiple levels. He commented: “Abstraction is less obvious, so the images are open to a wider range of meanings and interpretations. It’s intended to offer the viewer a more personal experience – different people will see different things and read the images in their own ways.”

French is fascinated with exploring the relationship between the conscious and subconscious and this is communicated through his paintings. The figurative elements of his work represent the conscious, with characters absorbed in their own actions. The abstracted portraits in which they sit representing the subconscious, the instinctual yet hidden human drives that shape and determine the blissfully unaware subjects and make up the bigger picture.

“These latest paintings are formed through a more abstract, improvised and free flowing approach. For this series I worked straight onto canvas with only a very loose idea of the outcome. This allowed the images to naturally evolve, while I intuitively worked out placement and composition as they progressed.”– Tom French 2016

BLOG, STREET ART

Stickerbomb skulls

September 1, 2014 Pierrick Senelaer Leave a comment

We were delighted to receive in the postStickerbomb Skulls, the latest stickers book of the superb collaboration between Studio Rarekwai and publishers Laurence King. This book is part of the ever growing Stickerbomb series which includes 5 other similar books : Stickerbomb, Stickerbomb 2, Stickerbomb XL, Stickerbomb Letters and Stickerbomb Monsters.

I do not know for you guys but we like skulls ,we are not some sort of human Predator, no. We just like skulls being used in art and even more in stickers. You can imagine our excitement when we found out that this latest book theme is about… skulls!

This book contains just shy of 190 original and fully peelable from an impressive range of artists from the 5 continents. Here in only a few names for you Dscreet (Vatican city), ITI (Romania), Mr Four Fingers (UK), Plot (France) and SKUL (Singapore)

The Stickerbomb Skulls book has now been released and copies are available to buy online on Amazon (see left) and in major bookstores so grab your today

IN THE NEWS

The APART London summer show

August 12, 2011 Pierrick Senelaer Leave a comment

35 artists got together for this exhibition held in this very good venue situated right on Malborough street (w1).

Watch the video of the show or even better, get yourself down there, the show has just been extended until the 31/9/2011.

Where – 55-57 Great Marlborough St, London W1F 7JX

CONTEMPORARY ART, REVIEWS

Slinkachu X Andipa Gallery "Concrete Ocean".

March 19, 2011 chasinghosts Leave a comment

Slinkachu takes figures from miniature train sets and painstakingly modifies them so that they can be used as part of his almost invisible world.

He creates comical, satirical and sometimes slightly dark scenes with these figures, places them all over the world, shoots them with spectacular quality and then leaves them to become part of the scenery.

The first of this series was “the little people project” the photos were formed into a lovely little hard cover book produced in 2008. I purchased a copy of it and was suitably impressed with the content and quality of print.

This left us very excited for the new show “Concrete ocean”, hosted by the Andipa Gallery in South Kensington. It had been two years since Slinkachu hosted a show in London and when it comes to most artists after such a period of time you would expect to see significant progression in their body of work. This however was not the case with the Slinkachu show, but it really didn’t matter. The gallery was laid out with huge high quality prints showing the detail of the characters and the photographs almost bring them to life. The large prints were accompanied by very small location shots to show you just how much they disappear into their surroundings.

Andipa Gallery is a large space located in a very upper class area, totally different to the Hackney / Shoreditch spaces we are used to attending, yet it seem more than suitable for this body of work, it was extremely well organised and the 3d installations were well spaced so you could appreciate the minute detail.

It would come as a surprise to us if this show did not make you smile, laugh and sometimes feel just that little bit sad.

Check out our huge collection of shots from the evening here:

BLOG, STREET ART

Mehdi Ghadyanloo’s street art illusion

July 3, 2014 Pierrick Senelaer Leave a comment

Meet Mehdi Ghadyanloo, a proficient street artist from Teheran, Israel.

The artist style is ‘illusion’ and his works always need you to look again and again to understand what it is all about but that illusional aspect is most definitely why so many people appreciate it.

Surreal scenes are often depicted in his murals such as a man floating up into the sky and holding on helium balloons.

Mehdi Ghadyanloo is a painter and designer based in Tehran, Israel. His street art is extensive. What makes his artworks particularly intriguing is that they are full of dimension that tricks the brain.

GRAFFITI

Art on the wall – Great eastern street (London)

July 14, 2010 Pierrick Senelaer Leave a comment

I always expect to see new stuff painted on the walls of Great Eastern street, this street would be probably top of the chart of creativity in London.On my way to Signal gallery to see the new Baldwin show, I had the camera in one hand and the eyes looking around. Continue reading Art on the wall – Great eastern street (London) →

PREVIEW

The London Original Print Art Fair

May 5, 2016 Pierrick Senelaer Leave a comment

Held at the Royal Academy of Arts, the London Original Print Fair offers an opportunity to view works from all periods of printmaking, from the earliest woodcuts of Dürer, to the latest editions by contemporary masters.

The intimate, boutique Fair provides a friendly atmosphere for both budding collectors and seasoned print enthusiasts to engage with dealers and artists.

The London Original Print Fair brings together 50 print specialists from across the globe in London’s favourite boutique art fair. Works of art for sale span 500 years of printmaking: from old and modern master prints to the latest editions by today’s leading artists.

The London Original Print Fair’s dealers, galleries and studios offer a wealth of expertise and knowledge to engage with collectors both just starting out, and those building on established collections. This year is the Fair’s most international yet: alongside the UK’s very best dealers and print publishers are galleries and studios from three continents.

Artists represented at the Fair include Rembrandt, Goya, Whistler, Picasso and Warhol, alongside the latest work by Michael Craig-Martin RA, Bridget Riley, Sir Peter Blake and more.

CONTEMPORARY ART, REVIEWS

This is England 2010: quirkiness on Bayswater road

October 25, 2010 Pierrick Senelaer Leave a comment

Creativity is something to promote whenever you can, quirkiness is always something that will please the eye and mind of someone looking for something different. Takeshi Mazdakes is certainly one of these artists pushing the boundaries and being after something unique. He might just be achieving this with his exhibition ‘This is England 2010’. Continue reading This is England 2010: quirkiness on Bayswater road →