Liu Wei‘s sculpture Indigestion II is a monumental poo. Spanning two meters, it’s a man-sized statement of rejection. Crafted with comic exaggeration, Liu’s turd is both repulsive and compelling; leaving no detail to the imagination, Liu offers ‘too much information’ in the details. On closer inspection, half digested kernels emerge as hundreds of toy soldiers, spilling forth in an unmistakable sentiment of protest.
The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, located at the northern edge of the Michigan State University campus, is influenced by a set of movement paths that traverse and border the site. The vitality of street life on the northern side of Grand River Avenue and the historic heart of the university campus at the south side generate a network of paths and visual connections; some are part of the existing footpath layout, others create shortcuts between the city and the campus side of Grand River Avenue. Architects: Zaha Hadid Architects
‘ Allison Schulnik choreographs her subjects in compositions that embody a spirit of the macabre, a Shakespearian comedy/tragedy of love, death and farce. The subjects often stare back at the audience and study them as they are in turn studied, aware of their ancestors from the Grand Theme works of the past, the genre paintings that inform them. Although a haunting sense of foreboding, discomfort and unease is palpable, a sense of understanding, compassion and hopefulness for her cast of characters is still evident in the heavy impasto paintings. Her sculptural use of oil paint references her clay-animation background, as a motion-like sensibility affords her paintings unparalleled depth and energy. Born in 1978 (San Diego, CA), Schulnik earned her BFA in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia (CA).’ (via Mark Moore Gallery)
Kevin Francis Gray is a London-based sculptor working in cast resin, bronze and marble. His works merge classical forms of old masters with a gritty, urban aesthetic. Figures cloaked in modern-day street wear are given a meditative, somber quality. Gray’s sculptures project a sense of nobility and admiration for an often marginalized and consciously melancholic inner-city youth subculture.
Jessica Drenk was raised in Montana, where she developed an appreciation for the natural world that remains an important inspiration to her artwork today. Tactile and textural, her sculptures highlight the chaos and beauty that can be found in simple materials. Drenk’s work is also influenced by systems of information and the impulse to develop an encyclopedic understanding of the world.
For this purpose, I use pieces of glass in which I apply a self-created silver procedure that reflects partly like a mirror. I personally call it “Liquid Mirror Paintings”. – Paulo J.Futre
Daniel Maidman is a painter who applies a classical grounding to a contemporary sensibility. His art has been shown in juried exhibitions in New York, Washington, DC, California, Ohio, Missouri, and Oregon, and was selected by the Saatchi Gallery to be displayed at Gallery Mess in London. His art and writing on art have been featured in ARTnews, American Art Collector, International Artist, Poets/Artists, Manifest, The Artist’s Magazine, The New York Optimist, and the publishing arm of SUNY-Potsdam. He blogs for The Huffington Post. His writing on Da Vinci is currently taught at DePaul University and Roosevelt University. His paintings range from the figure and portraiture, to still lives and landscapes, to investigations of machinery, architecture, and microflaura. His images occupy a spectrum from high rendering to almost total abstraction.
Marela Zacarias is a contemporary visual artist. Her work combines painting and sculpture and is characterized by an interest in site specificity, the history contained in objects, and current events. Zacarias’s wall and free standing sculptures are constructed from window screens and joint compound and painted with original patterns and geometric abstract shapes.
