Artist Denis Medri gives us his vision on how would several Star Wars characters look like if they were from the Eighties. This series is awesome and Denis, beyond is obvious pencil drawing skills, managed to cleverly transpose two worlds miles apart.
Have a look at the pictures below along with the artist’s comments –
“of course Luke is inspired by Marty McFly form Back to the Future… Leila is the classic 80’s chick…”
“Here is Han and Chewbie ,and the Millenium Falcon/Trans AM”
“Of course in this new re-design the Droids have to be the classic Nerds… is R2-D2 the East European nerd student that made an experience in USA of course only C-3PO understand his words..”
“Yoda is the old sage asian Coach, and Kenobi is the kind history & Literature’s teacher…”
“In this my new version of SW , Vader isn’t the Luke’s father, but is the classic bullit of the High School, that try to bring Luke to the “dark side” and been bullit too.. He is the “chief “of a motocross crew of bullit ( like “Karate Kid” or “Lost Kids”) He wear a jacket like Micheal jackson on “Thriller” in a total black look Boba Fett is his “sidekick” wearing his classic 80’s glasses and we have 2 twins that look like Trooper”s style.”
“Palpatine is the evil Principal, Jabba the fat bastard Janitor and Tarkin the severe Mathematic-Science’s teacher”
Street sculptor and photographer, Slinkachu has been busy putting together his new show, Global Model Village, which opens September 27th at Andipa Gallery in London. It will feature a mix of installations placed in different cities around the world over the past couple of years.
But that is not all since the show coincides with the launch of his new book also called – incidentally also called Global Model Village which collects together 50 different installations left in cities such as New York, Moscow, Cape Town, Paris, Beijing, Hong Kong and of course London.
Slinkachu followers will have seen most of the images but it is worth noticing that the sets of photographs from his last show at Fame Festival in Italy and from his solo show last year in Germany may be less familiar so get preordering the UK version, or see the Slinkachu website for other countries
Global Model Village opens on the 27th September 2012 at Andipa Gallery, London
Untitled Nude, (c)2011 Shireen Qureshi, oil and charcoal on canvas
I recently interviewed London artist Shireen Qureshi for This ‘Me’ of Mine. Her ‘Untitled Nude’ is a compelling expression of the struggle in the violence of existence; of being flesh and bone. We discussed an interesting point of the Deleuzian ‘event’…
Jane Boyer: Deleuze suggests we are an event; meaning that out of a chaos in which conditions have come together to form a ‘one’ or have passed through ‘a screen’ which allows something rather than nothing to happen.[1] There is a sense of ‘event’ in your tableaus and the figures are that ‘event’, as if we are witnessing the coalescing of a self, how do you see this? Do you feel the passage of time is relevant to the self?
Shireen Qureshi: It is interesting that you suggest that we are witnessing the coalescing of a self in my work because in my mind I am more interested in breaking down the body, of rupturing boundaries. I often initiate a painting by making it look real and then trying to break it down, by overlapping bodies or breaking apart skin and bone, I suppose in that sense the aim for me is towards chaos rather than from it. But I think that this is a very interesting idea, especially the sense of an ‘event’ you describe in my work, forcing my viewers into the role of witness. I think that if the paintings have created any sense of inescapable drama pinning both my figures and viewers in place, then this is an achievement in itself. From my point of view, the passage of time is interesting because it is within a space of time that metamorphosis and transformation can occur. I would like to create a sense of movement, an undulation within each of my paintings as if they were bubbles of captured space and time. I think that time is inescapably relevant to the self because it is within time that a self is built or deconstructed, subjected to the violence of existence, and within which the self moves, inevitably, towards death.
Fall, (c)2010 Shireen Qureshi, oil on canvas
Whether we think much about it or not, we live every moment of our existence with the thought of our extinction – every one of us could cease to exist at any moment. This latent threat is one aspect of the ‘violence of existence’ mentioned by Shireen. From her point of view the violence exists in the visceral reality of living in flesh and bone, a violence we understand first hand. Often through serious illness or accident, the loss of loved ones or violent personal threat we realize the fragility of our existence and the latent threat of our extinction become a conscious reality. Once aware of this imminence our sense of self undoubtedly alters; we become a self with limited time.
The visual breakdown of bodies, flesh and bone is an interesting interpretation of this psychological awareness of our mortality. The ambiguity of whether the bodies in Shireen’s paintings are coalescing or breaking down is indicative of the struggle in the moment of ‘difference’ described by Deleuze, and as such, is also the ‘violence of existence’ Shireen speaks of. Deleuze said, “Indifference has two aspects: the undifferentiated abyss, the black nothingness, the indeterminate…in which everything is dissolved – but also the white nothingness, the…calm surface upon which float unconnected determinations like scattered members: a head without a neck, an arm without a shoulder, eyes without brows. The indeterminate is completely indifferent, but such floating determinations are no less indifferent to each other. Is difference intermediate between these two extremes [the undifferentiated and the determinate]? Or is it not rather the only extreme, the only moment of presence and precision?”
Hand in Hair, (c)2010 Shireen Qureshi, oil on canvas
He continued, “There is cruelty, even monstrosity, on both sides of the struggle against an elusive adversary, in which the distinguished opposes something which cannot distinguish itself from it but continues to espouse that which divorces it.”[2]
Living is difference; it is the precision of presence. Living with the imminence of our extinction is the violent struggle of divorcing that which continues to espouse us; a struggle “within which the self moves, inevitably, towards death,” as Shireen says.
Read more of our interview, ‘Straight from the Nerves’ on the This ‘Me’ of Mine blogsite.
Tunisia has been the stage lately of a surge of intolerability towards creativity and especially towards anything to do with a spray can. As a result, the French-born Tunisian graffiti artist El-Seed took action.
The result is Tunisia’s largest mural but what matters above all is the the location; he painted on the country’s tallest minaret, at the Jara Mosque, located in the industrial city of Gabes. Pictures after the fold.
Here is what El-seed says about the project “I decided to do the mural because it was close to my heart. It had been a while I had wanted to paint a wall in Gabes,” the artist told Ahram Online.
“The primary purpose was, and is, to inspire people to get together and build community around positive action,” El-Seed told Ahram Online via email. “
The mural, which has been embraced with open arms by the mosque’s Imam, was painted on the 57-metre high minaret, and is meant as a message of tolerance and mutual respect.
El-Seed got interestd in the art of graffiti back in 1998 in Paris, where he spent his childhood. Later, when he moved to North America, he started combining graffiti with his passion for Arabic calligraphy (usually associated with the Quran and religious scripture). The artist likes to mix traditional script and contemporary pop-culture, giving birth to a distinctive urban graffiti.
Now in its summer break, the London art scene has slightly slowed down and galleries are either busy relaxing or putting altogether their next shows. One of these that has caught our eyes and attention is the “Hide and Seek” show by Malika Favre at Kemistry gallery.
This show is for the minimalistic art enthusiast and if you love prints, you should definitely come and see Malika Favre’s Hide and Seek show and become fascinated by the story of a furtive yet sophisticated woman very much looking like the elegant woman you would find strolling on the Champs Elysees in Paris. Malika Favre is from France and you can clearly feel a Parisian looking woman influence in her character.
The video that has been put together for the show – see below, is a real treat and is as funny in a way as intriguing. The woman keeps popping out of different patterns which are cleverly mixed together to lose viewers into them and thus increase the surprise effect when the woman appears.
From Kemistry gallery “Fascinated by patterns in everyday life, urban surroundings and architecture, French born Malika Favre has put together Hide and Seek, her first solo show in London. Malika’s work is bold and minimalistic, exploring the relationship between positive and negative space.”
From the artist “there is such beauty and intrigue in those repetitive concrete balconies, I felt like creating a series of abstract prints based on the architectural patterns that no one really notices.”
The 8 high end screenprints will be available for purchase at the gallery and online, each print is limited, signed and numbered by Malika Favre.
Malika Favre “Hide & Seek” | 6th Sept — 29th Sept 2012
Private View: Thursday 6th September 18:00 —21:00 | 43 Charlotte Road| London EC2A 3PD
, or see the 
The result is Tunisia’s largest mural but what matters above all is the the location; he painted on the country’s tallest minaret, at the Jara Mosque, located in the industrial city of Gabes. Pictures after the fold.
Now in its summer break, the London art scene has slightly slowed down and galleries are either busy relaxing or putting altogether their next shows. One of these that has caught our eyes and attention is the “Hide and Seek” show by 