Acrylics and paint brush techniques by MWNYC Continue reading Tutorial: acrylics and paint brush techniques by MWNYC (video)
Tutorial: acrylics and paint brush techniques by MWNYC (video)
Splatter series from Hua Tunan
Chinese Art has been pushing its way through Europe and America lately and many movements and talents are starting to emerge from it. One of this very skilled and inspiring artists is Chen Yingjie (aka: Hua Tunan) who lives in the coastal city of Foshan, China.
With a background of classical Chinese painting and illustration, Hua Tunan has diverged into a remarkable and unique street art style. His art is a perfect example where two radically different styles – Classic Chinese painting v. Western Graffiti are married to give eye watering results. Hua Tunan would use ink painting, drum rhythms and a variety of cultural symbols.
Pictures of the ‘splatter’ portraits series are shown below. Look closer and what might appear as a splash to you actually reveal a face or shapes. The color palette is another remarkable thing in Hua Tunan art. Thumbs up all round.
D*Face, from stickers design to art galleries
Some of the most iconic art to hit the streets and cover the walls of London is the work of an artist known as D*Face. From the skeletal bust of Marylyn Monroe to the irreverent images of Queen Elizabeth II, his distinctive style is easily recognised by its characteristic blend of skateboard punk and Pop Art.
D*Face is a British street artist, who over the years has experimented with many art mediums. Starting with stickers, posters and sidewalk graffiti, his portfolio later included bold artwork emblazoned across buildings in countries around the world.
His enthusiasm for skateboard graphics started at a young age, fuelled by American street art magazines and films. After a failed attempt at a photography course in college, he switched to an illustration and design course where he blossomed and started freelancing with his skills.
Still experimenting, he drew dysfunctional characters on stickers. The stickers were plastered across parts of London where his quirky designs came to the attention of the public. When he branched into street art his reputation became established.
D*Face kept his identity a secret until 2008 when he admitted to being Dean Stockton, a revelation he felt necessary as he was getting older. With his work appearing in galleries, there seemed little point in maintaining the subterfuge.
His style is most recognisable when he uses cultural icons such as Andy Warhol or Marylyn Monroe, but it is obvious he has drawn inspiration from Roy Lichtenstein’s Pop Art work. The themes are very similar but the comic book style of Lichtenstein’s 60s world is overshadowed by D*Face’s darker images. His ‘Kiss of Death’ is a great example of a Lichtenstein transformed into something more sinister.
In many of his works, D*Face encourages the public to do more than see the art itself but also to look around and consider the commercialised surroundings of their environment. Fame and celebrity are often both symbolised and ridiculed at the same time in his art.
Despite the subversive bias in his work, the D*Face brand today has reached a level of commercial success that would have been hard to imagine when he started.
Stockton, as the public persona of D*Face, also paints on canvas and is well known for the effects he accomplishes through screen printing. In 2010, two large statues dubbed Zombie Oscars appeared in Los Angeles, declaring that ‘beauty is one snip away’. Clearly, D*Face is not restricted to 2D nor has he lost his sense of irony.
Lego Terracota Army comes to life
Take two thing a large number of us have manipulated once in their lives: LEGO and chalk. Take it further and create something too amazing for not writing something up about it. Dutchman Peter Westerink and a few other helping hands must have astonished a few by-passers with their 100m2 3D creation depicting a army of LEGO men Terracotta style.
You will see below, pictures showing the steps these guys has to go through. Oh and did I mention that it took 6 full days to a crew of four artists (Leon Keer, who also came up with the design, Remko Van Schaik, Ruben Poncia and Peter Westerink) to get this leaped out if the concrete floor. No surprise that the Sarasota Chalk Festival in Florida was chosen, imagine doing that at Glastonbury festival where it is very likely to rain and wash out a pile of efforts.
A grid is first laid out using chalk, then painted over with white paint before being removed and a mammoth task begins: filling.
Peter and his crew (and many other artists) are part of Planet Streetpainting is a collaborative of international street painters
The Rise and Decline of Young British Artists
It is now almost 25 years since we first heard about the “Young British Artists”, a phrase popularly abbreviated to YBAs. Of course, the graduates from London’s Goldsmiths College who began their commercial careers by exhibiting in dilapidated warehouses and empty factories – most notably Damien Hirst in the 1988 Docklands exhibition Freeze – were not initially known by this term. Continue reading The Rise and Decline of Young British Artists
Etam Cru, Anthony Lemer and Cix street art
Part of our 3 street art works series you should see today. Etam Cru, Anthony Lemer and Cix.
Etam Cru – done for the Richmond Mural Project in Richmond, VA
Anthony Lemer – located in Clermont-Ferrand (France)
Cix – located in Mexico
MadC, Pixel Pancho & Zase x Dekor street art
Part of our 3 street art works series you should see today: MadC, Pixel Pancho & Zase x Dekor.
MadC
Pixel Pancho
Zase x Dekor
Ross M Brown’s solo exhibition CONCRETE MYTHS
Ross M Brown has a new solo exhibition at Lacey Contemporary Gallery called – Concrete Myths.
This new body of work was created following a research trip to the derelict Haludovo Palace Hotel on Kirk Island, a 1970s luxury resort designed by Modernist architect Boris Magas.
Brown depicts the dilapidated location in a series of large scale paintings that often reference formal tropes more commonly associated with Modernist abstraction.
Ross M Brown’s work channels the experience of architectural space through the medium and history of painting. Exploring subject matter found within abandoned Modernist architecture, the artist layers disparate approaches from the history of painting producing a palimpsest of diverging and converging painterly approaches.
Relating to the urban ruin as a hybrid space where divisions between past and present, architecture and nature, order and disorder have become blurred and indistinct, Brown employs a painting process which pits rigidly constructed perspective against the fluid materiality of poured, smeared and dripped paint.
WHAT – Concrete Myths by Ross M Brown
WHERE – Lacey Contemporary gallery, 8 Clarendon Cross, London W11 4AP
WHEN – 17th June (preview) till 4th July 2015
Architecture by Filip Dujardin
Architecture is often looked over isn’t it? But when you come across architects such as the belgian artist and architectural photographer Filip Dujardin, you have to share a bit of love and make you aware of his works.
He just had a show at Highlight Gallery in San Francisco and we hear that the works focused on “fictional buildings that Dujardin has created using a digital collaging technique from photographs of real buildings around Ghent, Belgium.”
One will classify these as “absurd“, as the “René Magritte and Raoul Servais” of architecture.
What do you reckon?
First seen on Slamxhype
The White Canvas project
This project is focused on using anything but a traditional canvas to create art. It looks at connecting with the surroundings and use anything and everything to help you make your art.
Events and paint jams will take place and took place this summer which the video below will show you. To coincide with the events, limited edition prints will be released as t-shirts.
In last summer’s event, David Walker, Mr Jago, She One, Will Barras and Bue the Warrior produced great works on retro furniture, car parts and more.
Do not miss the WCP Gallery event where you’ll be able to see some of the works produced for the project. Preview on Thursday 13/10 – 81 Leonard street | EC2A 4QS. The show runs until the 17/10/11.
http://whitecanvasproject.com/wcp-gallery-event.html
