►Guy Denning - Self-reflective emotions

►Guy Denning (born 1965) is an English contemporary artist and painter based in France. He is the founder of the Neomodern group, a member of Stuckism International, and part of the urban art scene in Bristol.
Hailing from Bristol, and now residing in France, Guy Denning has taken the urban art world by storm with his beautiful, often haunting works. His androgynous figures, with their strange and often ethereal beauty, form a statement about the modern obsession with the fantasy of youth, beauty and cosmetic surgery as a surreal substitute for real life. 

Denning is often viewed as an enigma. Sexual and temporal politics, objectification, and isolation are themes which are widely explored in his work, illuminated through the carefully honed juxtaposition of shape and shade to create a mood as well as a theme. The paintings blend the smoothness of classical form with harsh yet truthful statements about contemporary issues that plague Western Society.

Denning's early work included an interest in the work of Franz Kline and was characterised by powerful, expressive brushstrokes in mainly abstract paintings. More recently he has combined earlier influences with an increasingly figurative style of painting. The human figure features strongly in his latest work and he uses this subject matter to convey powerful emotions, often with political overtones. The Icarus series of works is an example of this approach. Structurally his work is very dynamic showing a concern for strong draughtsmanship with a spontaneous application of colour. He does not work to set motifs, but makes paintings and drawings from observation and photographic reference.

Guy Denning uses not only powerful brush strokes to express his emotions deeply but also scratches the paint to show the audience the intensity of the emotions he is trying to portray with his artwork. Guy Denning's Requiem 2 is a good example of this. Denning's work involves other techniques such as blacking out eyes and mouths maybe to emphasize Denning's theme of darkness, horror and maybe even despair. He also sometimes uses stencils and collaged text. A question that is often asked about Denning's work is whether it reflects his own emotions and feelings or is the artwork simply presented the way it is to emphasize the condition of the subject.
He has stated that his work has been significantly informed by the subject of war "When I was about 11 or 12 I came to France with my parents and they took me to the war cemetery at Verdun. It was the most significant thing that ever happened to me."
From 1992, he has exhibited across Britain.Since 2007 he has exhibited also in the United States of America, Italy and France. In 1997, he founded the Neomodern group. In 2004, he founded the Bristol Stuckists group. His work appeared in the Triumph of Stuckism exhibition at Liverpool John Moores University as part of the 2006 Liverpool Biennial. The show was curated by Naive John.

Artist's Statement…
"The visual arts are the focus of culture; they are the most important road leading humanity away from its old home of 'nature'. From the earliest finger scratched image in the dirt, to the cave paintings of Lascaux to the iron 'angel of the north' they represent our fundamental desire and drive to replace the natural chaos with a cultural order. The visual arts so often have served spiritual ends because of this representation. At its basest level artists take dirt, model it and make significance. It is no coincidence that the state funded galleries of the world have taken on the presence that only religious buildings once had.
Art isn't about communication. It's about the search for significance and control in a world of anonymity and chaos."

►Waves & Particles

►"The "Waves and Particle" paintings developed from an attempt to pull back and understand the bigger picture. I formerly had defined my work as integrating natural and man-made forms. Now, I see them as more similar than not. Now, I'm painting a universe of energy that occasionally articulates itself as form.
I believe that mark-making; painting, drawing, sculpting, et al, personifies both the wave and the particle. Energy and matter; the artists' loaded brush touching the canvas.
My paintings continue to evolve, but the name of the series, "Waves and Particles" still define what my work is about." - Howard Hersh

Artworks | Howard Hersh
Artwork series: 'Waves & Particles'
http://www.howardhersh.com

Video/Graphic | Mirjana Milosavljevic
http://www.wix.com/thedivineart/mirjana

Music/Composer | Vito Palumbo
Composition: Concerto Barocco - II tempo
http://vitopalumbo.com/

►Awaiting Metamorphosis

►There is considerable emphasis on and appreciation of wit, including visual metamorphosis, consisting of sequential motions, photos, graphic elements in which one thing evolves into another. Here, in a series of seemingly logical steps, a photography is transformed into a metamorphosis...

Photography | Nuccia Cammara
Photography series: 'Awaiting Metamorphosis'
http://www.nucciacammara.it/

Video/Graphic | Mirjana Milosavljevic
http://www.wix.com/thedivineart/mirjana

Music/Composer | Vito Palumbo
Composition: Quadro sinfonico concertante per pianoforte e orchestra - I tempo
http://vitopalumbo.com/

►Valentina Brostean - Wonderful grotesqueries

►Born on October 24th,1983, in the town Novi Sad, Serbia. Valentina's interest in art began at an early age. Her entire childhood was spent drawing, illustrating and painting. After finishing elementary school and high school for design she continued her education on faculty for applied arts 'Academy of Art Novi Sad" on section graphic design and from year 2008 she is a student on Master studies on same faculty with a major in "book graphic and illustration".

Heavily inspired by urban culture and the pop surrealism movement, Valentina Brostean has developed a unique and very personal style.She has an eye for the strange beauty in the grotesqueries of life. Inspired by the relationship between dreams, natural world and the emptiness of consumer culture, she creates and brings unique characters to life from her imaginary world.

Her body of work is built of melancholy interaction between man-made status symbols and frozen moments of the utopian childhood memories. Strongly focused on figurative narration her characters simply reflect us – modern society without its masks, without the fake presentations that make us acceptable to whatever group we are a part of.

Artist's statement:
"I have always had an eye for the strange beauty in the grotesqueries of life; This appreciation is now very evident in work that I am making. Inspired by the relationship between dreams, natural world and the emptiness of consumer culture, between safe childhood playing to everyday marks of reality I bring and create a new type of creatures in my imaginary world. It is a whole range of characters from the ones in darker corners of the streets of soulless cities to the safe and pure creatures from imagination in my wonderland trying through them to prove that I have never grown up, or at least have never lost touch with my innocent childhood self.

My body of work is built of this melancholy interaction between man-made status symbols and frozen moments of the utopian childhood memories. In my work I often flirt with different typefaces, superimposing pieces of print on top of my illustrations, or using them as part of the drawings. I often use draws in black ink on top of these collages, using all kind of hand written scribbles often, which pull the focus of the work back from the adult world to the realms of childhood. This experimenting with more text and new techniques led me to emerging of very personal style.

The characters i paint may seem like some creatures from another dimension, real but unreal, sometimes very closely connected with childhood, playful and inventive, sometimes abandoned and tragically sad and full of misery. But i think they are simply us, modern society without it’s masks, without the fake presentations that make us acceptable to whatever group we are a part of. Yet the only place where we are truly revealed the way we really are is one from the inside. We all share feelings of fear and loneliness. We all sometimes feel ugly and insecure.

If you examine my work closely, you might come to the realization that my creatures are really kind of self portraits, set in a fantastical landscapes of imaginary world which echoes of her own… a bitter, yet sweetly coated prescription for modern life."

Valentina has been invited to participate in collaborative art projects all around the world in diverse solo and group gallery shows. She has more than ten years of experience with several agencies doing illustration projects, print and educational work. She is now working as independent artist focusing on her personal expression through painting and collaborating with talented people on various projects – anything where she can apply her creativity. Her work has been featured in numerous magazines for visual culture.

►Valeria Prieto - Playing with the sky

►Valeria Prieto, based in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, studied graphic design at the Institute of Architecture, Design and Art at the University of Ciudad. She’s been teaching contemporary art and illustration at elementary, middle and high schools in Mexico since 2002. She also serves as a photographer and collaborator in short films and animations.

"Those images were shot with Sony Cyber Shot TX5, and then I selected some vintage images/elements to add more life into them. Sometimes I use a peephole and a crystal with cuts to get various background effects and I like to merge several photos into one.

I have loved photography since childhood. One of the best things I’ve seen in the city where I live (city of Juárez, Chihuahua, MX) are the sunsets, so I love to take pictures of them because every day it is different, especially in winter the sunsets are so colorful that I don’t need to apply color correction. I like to play with the shots by adding items such as musical notes and birds on electric wires, buildings or images that may become part of those great scenarios."

http://valeriaprietophoto.blogspot.com/

http://mimodusvivendi.blogspot.com/ 

 

►Ford - Environmental conservation award

►These print advertisements from Ford (Brazil) were created for the 15th Environmental Conservation Award with a tag-line... "Those who help nature end up helping themselves."

►Minh Dam - Amazing watercolors

►Minh Dam is a professional watercolor painter and amateur photographer. He was born in Hanoi in 1984 and has lived in Poland since 1991. He graduated in 2009 from the Architecture Faculty at Warsaw University of Technology and now continues with his Master’s studies there.

Besides teaching drawing and watercolour at Lineare, he is also a member of the founding committee of the Association of Polish Watercolor Artists and Vice-Head of the Scientific Group on Drawing at the Architecture Faculty of the Warsaw University of Technology. Minh Dam’s work has been displayed in many exhibitions across Poland and Europe.

http://minhdam.com/en/home.html

►The Copper Horse - Windsor great park

The Copper Horse, Windsor Great Park | LivingDesign

This impressive statue is located at the end of the Long Walk in Windsor Great Park, Berkshire, England. The Long Walk runs around 3 miles (5km) from the Windsor Castle ending at Snow Hill where The Copper Horse statue is located. The spot provides an excellent view back to the Castle and surrounding areas. The park which served as a private hunting ground of Windsor Castle for many centuries is largely open to public now and an attraction for photographers like me.

Unlike my previous morning photography walk, this was late afternoon/early evening and the statue of George III appeared to be making some sort of statement in front of the setting sun.

The statue, commissioned by George IV, bears an ironic inscription: ‘the best of fathers’ in Latin. Like so many father-son relationships in the Hanoverian family, George III and George IV were known to have despised one another.

►Nicholas Alan Cope - Thematic photographer

Photography by Nicholas Alan Cope

Raised in Maryland, Nicholas moved to Los Angeles in 2004 and attended Art Center College of Design. Since graduating Nicholas has worked for a number of commercial and editorial clients while also working on personal projects. His most recent work focuses on form and volume.

►Luca Pierro - Photograph as a surrealist painting

►Luca Pierro was born in Cantù (Italy) in 1978. At the age of thirteen he got his first camera, a Polaroid, and falls in love with photography and art in general, under the influence of parents and, in particular the mother, a painter. 
At the age of sixteen test the first experiments in the darkroom. Captured images come alive with the first SLR, a Pentax ME Super, “stolen” to his father. At nineteen he moved to Rome to undertake university studies. During this period, while continuing to love photography, he devoted himself to music, his other great passion. 
In 2009 he won second prize in the photography competition held by Ichnusa on Sardinia. 
In 2010 he won first prize at MostraMi in Milan. 
He currently lives and works in Cagliari.

The works of Luca Pierro express a micro and macro cosmos where the figure of the artist - who is also the photographer - forcefully enters the scene. The portrait's protagonist is the same photographer. 
His shots have the intent to escape the "already seen" to "the already done". He explores new and unspoiled paths, from the point of origin of man himself, with the use of natural elements such as: flour, land, water, clay and so on.
All elements that lead back to "Mother Earth". For the artist is important the traceability of the material used to leave on the surfaces portrayed. 
The body becomes the vehicle of expression. The artist undermines the concept of traditional portrait (beautiful) to introduce viewers to new dynamics. 
Offers us portraits full of meanings, sometimes with a strong provocation. Some of them put us in touch with the contemporary research in experimental theater. So the artist is able to establish with the viewer an involvement immediate and spontaneous. 
"His image, his body, they become expressive material," we see the real "Metamorphosis", with which he conveys his art. 
The colors used are essential. The careful study of light evokes her strong spirituality. 
Represents a new and exciting proposal, a new study, which began long ago, the ancient land to the tensions raised by modern man, immersed in a in a culture dominated by technology.

"Luca uses natural substances such as water, flour, talcum powder or sugar to create artificial images, creating unique works of art. As a surrealist painting, the works of this extraordinary self-taught artist certainly deserve to be discovered."

Artist's Statement...

"The people who see my work think they are photoshoped. Actually, they are not. I try to reach the effects, textures and lights with the least amount of manipulation as possible so I use a lot of materials like flour, milk, water and other. For the lighting, I usually use a single flash with an umbrella reflector.

The intention is to express a micro and macro cosmos where the figure of the artist can forcefully enter onto the scene. My figure represents a man, "the man," involved with materials. All the elements that can lead back to "Mother Earth." In this way, the body becomes the vehicle of expression. The traceability of the material used on the body surface is important for me. Equally important are the light and dark. The contrast between these two elements evokes the struggle between life and death.

My first inspiration was my mother. Thanks to her, I learned to appreciate painting and art. I do not have a specific artistic reference. Rather, I try to be attracted by what I see and to elaborate it in my inner world. I remain, however, always fascinated by the work of some great artists. I love the use of light in Caravaggio, the reinterpretation of the real in Magritte, and the human despair in Bruegel.

I have no advice to give. I can only say what is right for me. Try to figure out what you have inside. All images, colors, emotions are already inside of us because they are part of our human nature. The trick is to find a way to release this inner world."