Miss Van – Twinkles at Magda Danysz Gallery

One of the first stops on our European tour is Paris, France.

We spent the first day just walking the streets taking as many shots as we could of the amazing amount of street art. On the second day we made way to the Magda danysz Gallery to check out the latest show from Miss Van entitled ”Twinkles”.

The gallery is a huge space, set over two floors with a series of stretching white wall.We are familiar with Miss Van’s colourful street work featuring her trademark female figures. This show was a step in sightly different direction with the ground floor focusing on a series of works with a distinct Victorian feel, dark tones set in very heavy wooden frames.

The first floor has a carnival theme, still darker imagery yet a little more colour than the works you see on other floors. Some other reviews have pointed out that the difference in themes is due to the fact that the body of work is combination of paintings from earlier shows mixed with some later works.
This didn’t bother us, as this was the first show from Miss Van that were able to see, we enjoyed seeing the progression of themes over a few years work.

This show is very enjoyable, if not slightly dwarfed by the sheer size of the gallery, yet well worth checking out.

The show runs until the 30/4/2011

When: 19/3 till 30/4/11

Where: Magda Danysz gallery (Paris)

View all the pics on our Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasingghosts/sets/72157626300739007/

HORFE at CELAL gallery

To celebrate the release of Beats&Drips 2 boxset, Sofarida has invited Horfé to Celal gallery for their 1st solo show in France.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasingghosts/sets/72157626310867397/

The shows runs until tomorrow so hurry.

Also included, a teaser video of Horfé’s first solo exhibition in Paris, Celal gallery, jump

Music « Beaten thursdays » by Prefuse 73

Beats&Drips Part2 // HORFE : Passage

Where: Celal gallery

Opening: until 09.04.11

galeriecelal.com
sofarida.com
chasinghosts.com

Erik Sommer or painting with cement

Mediums you can use to paint are countless, it is only down to the artist to use them or not. Meet Erik Sommer and his very original and unique way of painting with cement. We talked to Erik to find out a bit more about him and his work.

ART-PIE: How did you come to use cement in your work?

Erik Sommer: I’ve been using cement in my work for several years. I like its urban grittiness, especially as I live in NYC and am surrounded by buildings and cement. My work is about the passing of time, and beauty and chance and control. It is about capturing the passing of time, and the beauty found within its accidental natural effects.

A-P: Most of the work I can see from your website are using mixed medias? What are they?

Erik Sommer: Most of my work is mixed medium on canvas. I use cement and plasters, acrylic pastes, gessos, some acrylic and oil pants. Most of the materials are home modeling materials which happen to be white, which make the most recent pieces white, although I do use colors as well. The various layers of material act as different stages of time. The work is very three-dimensional and comes off of the canvas. It is very industrial and physical.

A-P: What are your inspirations?

Erik Sommer: I like everyone from Rudolf Stingel, to Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Andy Goldsworthy, Basquiat, etc.

Any upcoming shows?: I am represented in NYC by Rooster Gallery, and am beginning to work with Arch 402 in London as well. I have a piece in a group show/ auction with Arch 402 in April, and then hopefully will be doing more with them later this summer. My next solo show with Rooster in NYC will be next year.

Related link
Erik Sommer’s website – www.erikjsommer.com

Artocracy in Tunisia, a project by JR

JR’s latest project involved six Tunisian photographers who traveled the country upside down and took 100 pictures of unknown Tunisians. The aim was to get a representative sample of the Tunisian population from all ages and backgrounds.

Images from the project below.

Artocracy, a project initiated by Slim Zeghal and Marco Berrebi and created with the group of Tunisia

Photographers: Sophia Baraket | Rania Dourai | Wissal Dargueche | Aziz Tnani | Hichem Driss | Héla Ammar.

More on the project here – http://www.jr-art.net/

STREET ART ENCOUNTERS