Here’s another hyper-realistic silicone sculpture from multidisciplinary artist Patricia Piccinini. Her attention to detail and passion for her craft have always impressed me. She’s one of the best!
Bryan Drury was born in 1980 in Salt Lake City, Utah and relocated to New York in 2001. He received his MFA Cum Laude from the New York Academy of Art in 2007 and BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art in 2005. He has exhibited and received awards throughout the US and Europe. Select recent highlights include: The American Academy of Arts and Letters selected Drury for their highly prestigious annual Invitational Exhibition 2011; the artist was profiled and reviewed in the April 2011 issue of The Art Economist magazine as part of their “Artist To Watch” section. Drury’s painting “Ali” was included in the exhibition “Now WHAT?” at the Norton Museum of Art, Palm Beach FL, the curators from the Norton Museum selected “Ali” as one of the twenty most engaging works exhibited during Art Basel Miami in December 2010.
” My figurative sculptures are investigations into how humans interact socially and within personal relationships. They are reconstructions of the emotional and intellectual mechanisms that people use to cope every day. My objective is to suggest memory narratives and psychological connections. Myths and fairy tales, family and friends inspire my characters. Some of the figures emit various toy sounds when certain buttons are pushed, pulled or squeezed. The work involves taking apart found objects, combining human and animal forms. The tactile materials such as Raku clay and stitched fibers come together and become a hybrid of the old and new. I find that these elements highlight contradictions such as humor and fear, beauty and decay, the antique and contemporary.” – Rhonda Gushee
Loving this giant sculpture of Confucius, which is made of silicone, steel, carbon fiber and acrylic by Zhang Huan. ‘Q Confucius is Zhang’s thought-provoking examination of how China’s spiritual culture has changed as the country has experienced a heightened profile in the global community. Zhang asks how China will adapt to a future without religion as rapid social reforms take shape.’
Tim Hawkinson is known for taking a simple proposition to great extremes. He has a predilection for readily available materials – found, everyday objects, and often his own body – as material, reference, and model. He has a persistent fascination with perception, time, scale and the “primitive” or rudimentary. His process can be long and arduous, labor intensive, and repetitive. Play and humor emerge. Since the mid-1980s he has brought the most inventive and varied materials to life in a wide-ranging body of work, taking the ordinary into new and unexpected realms. (via Stuart Collection)
For an artist reinterpreting the still life paintings of the Dutch Golden Age, in a new medium, Kevin Best could not have been born in a more appropriately named country. New Zealand was named in 1645 after the Dutch province of Zeeland. Kevin takes us back to that golden era, he has amassed an extensive collection of items which featured in the original paintings, giant glass Roemer’s, delicate “Kraak” porcelain, German Westerwald jugs, agate and silver knives, silver cups and 300 year old bronze candlesticks that have miraculously survived many attempts to be turned into cannon. What he can’t find he makes, acquiring skills as a wood tuner, carpenter, set painter and jeweller. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the significance of every item in each work and how they interact with each other to form a narrative that had a deep significance in a time of great wealth and fear. A narrative that resonates to this day. Each work can take weeks or months to complete; his meticulous technique was learned at The Australian Centre for Photography.
Use your dirty laundry as a punching bag. The Punch Bag Laundry Bag is big enough to hold a heavyweight load of washing & tough enough to take a beating. Rocky trained by punching frozen beef, now you can use your dirty laundry for your work out. Hang the bag in your wardrobe or the corner of your room, until you’re ready to take your laundry to the cleaners, literally! Ideal for boxers, trousers and shirts, there’s even enough room to throw in the towel.
” I consider these masks as an experiments with identity, especially in the rituallistic way. The bearer is intended to accept his new archetypical identity and immerse oneself in his role. Animal masks resemble rather skulls or remains or abominations, they bear shamanic, dionisian or satanic symbolism, the form, material and overal execution is primitive, harsh and expressionistic. They are made to inspire the inner forces of man and allow behavioral self-expression through identity alternation (alcohol or drug use advised). Cardboard is used due to its good availiability so one can improvise and create new in a while for a new roles and make-up rituals. Some of them are fragile and therefore disposable. They are primarily intended to have fun with them.” – Jozef Mrva
I came across the work of the ridiculously gifted artist Steve James. I expect we’ll see a lot more from him soon.
