Acrylics and paint brush techniques by MWNYC Continue reading Tutorial: acrylics and paint brush techniques by MWNYC (video)
Tutorial: How to transfer paint into a deodorant can (spray paint)
Should you want to use deodorant cans to spray, here is how.
‘Brushes’ iPhone app: painting at the touch of your finger
If you read my post about digital painting, you may have got that ART-PIE believes in the ‘get your hands dirty’ approach when it comes to make art. Get your brushes, pencils, spray paint cans, anything and everything and get physical with the whole lot to get that unique feeling of satisfaction when finally the idea that was stuck in your head for a while is now right there in front of you and ready to be seen by others. Continue reading ‘Brushes’ iPhone app: painting at the touch of your finger
Tutorial: David Samuel’s graffiti tips (video)
David Samuel gives is graffiti tips via the program Blast (BBC)
Alex Daw at Eight club by Hang-up
Be ready for what should be another good show by the folks at Hang-Up in Shoreditch. They are presenting again Alex Daw whose last year show sold out. This year the second solo entitled Proper-Gander in a rather unusual subterranean members club in the city called Eight in a show opening on the 6th December. Continue reading Alex Daw at Eight club by Hang-up
Franz West dies at the age of 55
The artist Franz West has died. For those familiar with the artist or keen on sculpture, this must feel like the art world has lost one of its valuable creative thinker. The trademark of Franz West’s work was largescale bursting with colours sculptures often querky in their shapes and defintely surrealist.
West’s artwork would be made out of plaster, papier-mâché, wire, polyester, aluminium and other, ordinary materials. He had a go at paintings first but rapidly turned his interest to collages, sculptures and in particular portable sculptures called “Adaptives” or “Fitting Pieces”, environments and furniture.
“It doesn’t matter what the art looks like but how it’s used” Franz West.
As a tribute, we have included picture of his most iconic sculptures. Franz West was definitely original with hus approach to sculpture and our pavements and park will be more sad now.
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.
Democracy Outside – street performances and activism
Words by Clare Cochrane
Democracy outside or street performance that blurs the boundaries of art and activism, and makes social movement real
A group of people show up in a public space with a banner, placards, leaflets, and a loudhailer. Two people each take a placard and stand a few feet apart, stretching the banner between them. The group stand between the placards, and one person calls out a question about a current political issue through the loudhailer. The huddled people look at each other, and start to move, some towards one placard, marked ‘No’, some towards the other, marked ‘Yes’. The loudhailer is passed around and people take turns explaining their point of view. As the dialogue progresses, people move about, shifting their positions. Slowly passers by gather and join in, and the space for re-imagining democratic exchange grows, as we open our imaginations in response to one another’s questions and reflections, and play at politics together.
Opening up public space is right now more urgent than it has been for some time. As the journalist Anna Minton has documented, we have seen an increasing and increasingly rapid privatisation of public space over the last decade or so, – it as as though we are witnessing a 21st century wave of enclosures. In Oxford, where Democracy Outside was first developed and performed, Bonn Square in the city centre has been declared a ‘licensed venue‘ , so that spontaneous public art and political protests are no longer legal there. The irony is strong: Bonn Square, the traditional site for political gatherings in the city, was named for democracy after the capital of the new West Germany when the two cities were twinned in the early cold war; it hosts the city’s war memorial listing men who died in the first world war too young to vote when the franchise stood at 21; and today it’s the preferred ‘hanging out’ location for excluded, disenfranchised youth who feel unheard and ignored.
Street art has long had a vital role to play in opening up public space. Yes, it brightens up a dull place, but it also demonstrates that it is possible to think beyond what is presented by the authorities. Engaged performance can go further – breathing life into an anaesthetised space. Participatory performance, involving the spectators as performers, as actors, goes another step further still. So much public space has been etherised, deadened, and depoliticised – whether through privatisation or, as in Oxford, through deliberate attempts to stifle and ultimately mute spontaneous expression. People using such spaces become numb, paralysed, stupefied.
Democracy Outside shows a way to change this – in Democracy Outside the spectator / participants break the stupefying spell, activate their imaginations and themselves, and with their voices break the silence. It opens up the public space and invites the public in to experience the possibilities for open democratic dialogue – and to feel how it it is to literally change one’s point of view – to break free of the old back and forth, black vs white of prescribed political exchange.
The artist Shelley Sacks has offered a redefinition of ‘aesthetic‘ as meaning ‘enlivened being’. The challenge is to create, in our anaesthetic public realm of commodified communication, de-politicised debate, and deadened senses, a place where people can be in this (beautiful) state of awareness and connectedness.
James Baldwin said “artists are here to disturb the peace”: if peace means the peace and quiet of deactivated, desensitised space, then this has possibly never been more necessary than it is at this moment in time. Artists and creators – we have a job to do! Let’s do Democracy Outside!
Democracy Outside is touring England in June and July – for more details and to join the dialogue online go to https://network23.org/demo2012/.
Still Here – a decade at Lazarides
‘BACK TO WORK’ by Ben Eine and Kaspersky Lab
Cybersecurity brand Kaspersky Lab announces a significant new creative collaboration with London-based Street Art luminary Ben Eine
‘Back to Work’, an artist film exploring Ben Eine’s art practice commissioned by Kaspersky Lab.
Specially commissioned artwork by Ben Eine will feature on the 20th Anniversary edition of Kaspersky Lab’s market-leading Kaspersky Total Security v.2018 internet security product
Celebrating the 4th year of Kaspersky Lab’s support for the Moniker International Art Fair, the world’s largest Urban Art event, Ben Eine’s creative partnership with Kaspersky Lab was showcased through a large scale installation at the Moniker Press Preview on Thursday 5th October
Eine’s specially commissioned artwork includes a new typographic ‘K’ produced exclusively for Kaspersky Lab.