For a number of years, the underlying theme in the work of Alet Pilon has been the’ balance of power’ between man and beast. Typically, she has tended to see man as dominant and animals as defenseless and vulnerable, prompting her to attempt, in her work, to dismantle the might of man and emphasise the power of animals. Alet Pilon was strongly affected by her short stay at Het Vijfde Seizoen, where she saw that not only animals are vulnerable, but that people can be vulnerable as well – and perhaps to an even greater extent. As a result, she decided to revise her point of departure, making the demarcation between man and beast – between ruler and victim – vaguer, whilst the urge for life continued to manifest itself. (via Het Vijfde Seizoen)

” My work aims to transport the viewer to a magical place in a distant land that inspires a visual story. I focus primarily on the female enigma, maidens of myth and mystery, and each representation that I have made depicts another side of a who a woman can be. The halos make reference to mythical beings who live in close harmony with nature. Rabbits often feature in my work. In folkloric traditions they are an archetypal symbol of femininity, associated with the lunar cycle. “A rabbit in the moon,” they say.” – Lauren Schofield

Charles Avery (born 1973) is a Scottish artist from Oban. He currently lives and works in London. Since 2004 Charles Avery has devoted his practice to the perpetual description of an imaginary island. Through drawings, sculptures and texts Avery describes the topology, cosmology and inhabitants of this fictional territory, from the market of the main town Onomatopoeia to the Eternal Forest where an unknown beast called the Noumenon is held to reside. The project can be read as a meditation on some of the central themes of philosophy, of art-making, and on the colonization and ownership of the world of ideas.

Impressive large-scale mural by UK-based street artist Phlegm for All Rights Destroyed Festival in Oslo, Norway. Love it!

Nashville, Tennessee-based painter Alex Hall creates beautiful, delicate paintings, leaving me wanting to see what he does next. He says, “My new series ‘Relativity’ depicts individuals floating in time and space. I chose to paint the figures with no distinct faces so they would relate to every man and every woman. This particular series is a very honest representation of where I am currently in my own life. Having recently graduated college and being thrown off my feet into the real world, I was extremely overwhelmed. I still was not sure what path to take or which way to go in life. I began to realize that most people are familiar with this feeling of uncertainty. With that idea, I sought out to create a series that was a visual representation of an emotion that has been universally felt by all people: A sense of uncertainty, and ultimately struggling to achieve a balance in life.”

Wim Botha was born in 1974, graduated from the University of Pretoria in 1996, and lives in Cape Town. He has received a number of prestigious awards, winning the prize for best artwork at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees in 2001; being named festival artist at the KKNK in 2003; sharing the first annual Tollman award in 2003; and winning the Standard Bank Young Artist award in 2005. His work has featured on major international group exhibitions of the work of African and South African artists, including Africa Remix (2004-2007) and Personal Affects: Power and poetics in contemporary South African art (2004-2006). Other group shows include The Rainbow Nation, Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague (2012); the Göteborg Biennial in Sweden (2011); the 11th Triennale für Kleinplastik in Fellbach, Germany (2010); Cape ’07 in Cape Town (2007); Olvida Quien Soy – Erase me from who I am at the Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (2006); and the 7th edition of Dak’Art, the Dakar Biennale (2006). (via STEVENSON)

For the past 12 years UK caricaturist, cartoonist and illustrator Jonathan Cusick has worked for many prominent clients, winning a number of illustration and cartoon awards along the way. Notable clients include prolific illustrations for the Radio Times (over 70 issues), a weekly caricature for The Times’ TV review on Staurdays, and the cover of the 2010 QI Annual. High profile UK advertising campaigns include Cadbury sponsorship of Coronation Street on ITV. In 2013 an ad campaign featuring Jonathan’s caricatures runs across the USA. He has also designed characters for a Hollywood film. His caricature art has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, London (in the BP Portrait Award), The Mall Galleries (with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters), and Chris Beetles Gallery. A solo exhibition was held at the Coningsby Gallery, London, in 2005. His work has regularly been selelcted for the Association of Illustrators Images annuals, for which he has also been a judge, and also Luerzer’s Archive 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide.

Sachiko Abe has featured in numerous international exhibitions and residency projects presenting; Cut Papers, a body of work first shown publicly at including PS1 in New York in March 2004 following her residency there. Since then she has shown most recently at Knstnernes Haus, Oslo, Norway, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main, Kyoto Art Centre, Kyoto, and Baltic Gateshead. Her work for A Foundation will encompass, performance, drawing, film and sculptural installations using cut papers accumulated over the last five years. Her practice explores duration, repetition and constraints. This is a paradox as she first started creating artworks after leaving the Self Defence Forces in Japan because ‘the life of artists seemed so free.’ Her work since 1997 has explored the regimes of subjectivity, which are imposed by society, most explicitly in her series of performance works, Elevator Girl Friend in which she acted outside of the conventional behaviour of the demure elevator assistants who were a common sight in big department stores. Abe says of this work While the job sounds boring, it was a “dream job” for young girls because it was believed then that only the most beautiful and elegant person could be assigned to be an elevator girl.” Her more recent performances continue to explore notions of disquieting routines that provoke anxiety and touch us in ways we cannot explain. In Cut Papers Abe invites the audience to experience an intimate space in which the constant snipping of scissor blades is the only measure of time passing. At Foundation Liverpool Abe will perform for the duration of the Biennial but be warned Abe says. “My work is neither beautiful nor meditational.”

Lovely series called Birds Of Aperture by Chicago-based photographer and designer Paul Octavious.

Ken Unsworth was born in Melbourne in 1931. He studied at the University of Melbourne, Melbourne Teachers College, and the National Art School, Sydney. He has held several teaching positions, including Lecturer in Sculpture, Sydney College of Advanced Education. Unsworth has had numerous solo exhibitions, in Australia and overseas, including a major survey exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1998. His works have been included in the Mildura Sculpture Triennial, 1973 and 1978; the Australian Sculpture Triennial, Melbourne, 1981, 1984 and 1993; Australian Perspecta, Sydney, 1981, 1985, 1987 and 1988; and the Biennale of Sydney, 1976, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1990 and 2000. He has also participated in major international exhibitions including the Paris Biennale, 1985; Magiciens de la Terre, Paris, 1989; and the Biennale of Istanbul, Turkey, 1995. In 1978 Unsworth represented Australia at the Venice Biennale. Unsworth has received numerous awards including the Bi-centenary Sculpture Competition.