Tuesday 15 April 2014

Ten decades twenty photos

Photographer Anna Lisa has explored the themes of society and culture in these 10 sets of photographs. In each pair, she recreates both the culture and counter culture of the past ten decades. A very innovative and enjoyable concept, she has not only replicated the style and clothes of the decade but also the development of photography and the general feel of the era.












Saturday 8 February 2014

Jane Perkins, an artist based in the UK, brings a new element of fun and life to her artwork by incorporating found material, beads and buttons of bright colours to recreate artwork by masters of the past. Perkins asserts on her website that she enjoys art which is fun and unexpected, and that is certainly what her artwork conveys. 

My personal favourite is her recreation of Gustav Klimt's The Kiss and Monet's waterlilies.








There are so many more on her website so check it out!

Thursday 19 December 2013

The truth about beauty ads

Anna Hill, 24, is an art student studying at East Carolina University. For a project she undertook in class, Anna investigated how women are being fooled by advertising corporations into buying their products by stimulating desire for what we haven't got (and what is impossible to obtain), and simultaneously creating anxieties about the features we were born with and we live with. 


Using photoshop, Anna has created a selection of 'mockvertisements' - that is, a bunch of adverts created as a parody to the ones we see everyday in so called 'glossies', a term coined by feminist theorist Imelda Whelehan to describe magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Glamour that promise an attractive and shiny lifestyle within their pages. Anna picks up on the fact that advertisers use Photoshop way too much and the women displayed to promote the products are not real and buying the product will not make you look like that. 

Anna describes her unexpected reaction to the images:

"One thing I noticed when I was doing these that when I suddenly went back to the unedited [image], it looked so wrong and kinda gross," Hill said. "It made me extra aware of how skewed my perception was after looking at the edited ones for a while."

So there we go, despite Anna knowing that the images she created were completely fake, she still felt increased anxieties after looking back to the natural shots, replicating what women all over the modern world feel at looking at what is advertised as the desirable woman, when really she doesn't exist at all.




Sunday 29 September 2013

An (A)lte(R)na(T)ive investment

Investing in any market or scheme is undoubtedly unpredictable and comes with a great number of risks. Stocks and shares are volatile, and with this to consider some investors are now focusing their assets on alternative forms of investment, perhaps most interestingly in works of art.


Pros in the field of art investment, or the ‘investment of passion’ as it is often referred to, have a few rules when it comes to buying and selling art. Firstly, as with all types of investments, you shouldn’t expect a fast return on your buy. Art insiders would recommend holding on to the artwork for at least 5, if not 10 years, to allow for the artist to develop in the industry. This brings us to the second rule; ensure you purchase an artwork which you enjoy. When at art fairs or auctions buy what catches your eye, not what you think will impress others. The work is going to be with you for up to (if not longer) than a decade, so you want an artwork that you can look at on your wall and take pleasure in. 
An excellent example of how art investment works is the case of Peter Doig’s The Architect’s Home in the Ravine. The huge oil painting was bought for a mere £280,000 in 2002 by Charles Saatchi, who then resold the artwork in 2007, after the artists reputation soared, for £2.7 million. The buyer from 2007 put the painting in Christie’s February auction this year and it sold for just under £7 million. That’s an unbelievable 2300% rise in value in just over a decade.
Peter Doig’s The Architect’s Home in the Ravine
However with the positives you also get the negatives, as with all investment there are substantial risks involved. Taste in art changes over time, so what is popular one year may not be the other. As well as this, if the artist’s reputation is badly damaged, the price of the artwork will subsequently tumble. Take for example well-known Australian artist Rolf Harris who has a large contract with Whitewall galleries.  In spring when sexual allegations against him were first released, people started selling his work on eBay for low prices because they feared if he was charged the art would be worthless. Now Harris has been charged, it is still unclear what Whitewall are going to do in reaction, but price slashing will almost certainly be the first step, if not removing his art from galleries nationally altogether.
One of Harris' paintings
 To wrap up, art investment can absolutely reap the benefits, but it requires a lot of research, as well as the equity to invest in the first place. But with the correct amount of planning and in a decade or 2, perhaps you could be the next Saatchi?

Thursday 12 September 2013

Mica Angela Hendricks - Collaborating with a 4 year old

Hello everyone! Sorry I haven't been on here for a while. Summer has been very busy, I went away with my parents to Greece, and then shortly after went with a couple of friends to Thailand for 3 weeks, then almost as soon as I came back started an internship at a Financial PR company called Abchurch which has been going really well.

But I just had to blog about this latest craze which is sweeping the likes of Reddit, Tumblr and the general social media sphere. Mica Angela Hendrick, a graphic artist (check out her blog here), on the 27th August updated her blog with her latest collection of artworks to share with her followers. These were slightly different to previous works of hers because they are not entirely her own, she collaborated with her 4 year old daughter. 

Hendricks explains the collaboration delightfully, describing how she received a brand new, squeaky clean sketchbook in the post and she started sketching an old movie still (she claims are her favourite photos to draw). Her daughter came up to her and insisted on finishing the drawing. Hendricks thought to herself that she'd just let this drawing go, but by the time her daughter had finished she'd fallen in love with the finished piece. 

Hendricks draws the head from 20s, classical Hollywood movie stills, and then her daughter completes the drawing by adding the body and the background. The finished figure could be anything from a dinosaur to a stick insect. Hendricks and her daughter also both jointly add colour, her daughter being a little more free with her markers, and Hendricks a bit more tidy with acrylic paint. 


The pictures are quite lovely! Combining old traditional style with the young, free imagination!



Tuesday 16 July 2013

Alana Dee Haynes

Alana - who calls herself Dee - combines photography with drawing, creating beautiful images. The majority of Dee's work concentrates on human flesh, and she adds her personal touches through drawing, almost like tattoos, to the print. The effect is really quite impressive.











Wednesday 19 June 2013

Summer Exhibition - Royal Academy REVIEW

The Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy is now in its 245th year, a very traditional exhibition, widely regarded as outdated and old fashioned by critics however in recent years, the people at the Royal Academy of Arts have tried to mix traditional artworks with slightly more modern pieces. This year, the artwork still mostly revolved around painting and so called 'wall art' rather than installation, and there was also a distinctive lack of film. The exhibition showcases over 1000 artworks from artists who have submitted from all over the world, from the likes of the well known Albert Irvin and Grayson Perry, to the not so well known new artists.

I went to the exhibition with a friend from my course, we firstly went to the wrong Royal Academy building but were kindly directed by security to the right space. The exhibition is held amongst the richer sites of London, behind the wealthy shops of Regent Street and the Piccadilly Arcade, certainly putting the visitor in the right frame of mind and outlining certain behaviours for the exhibition. 

In the courtyard, builders were still working on erecting a grand sculpture in the front, slightly disappointing considering the exhibition had already been open a couple of days. However, a large wall sculpture, 15x23 metres, by El Anatsui adorns the front of the exhibition and makes a very impressive sight before entering the Royal Academy.



Entering the Royal Academy brings the visitor straight into the ticket hall, be prepared to pay up to £10 for your ticket with concessions for students, OAPs and children, not too pricey for an exhibition in central London. The exhibition itself was quite impressive, though I do think some of the artworks were a little too expensive for what they were... but I suppose that's the art world for you! I have sneakily taken photos of the highlights of the show, much to the contempt of the gallery staff (sorry).

Untitled by Mimmo Paladino Hon - one of the most expensive pieces at the RA exhibition reaching over £100,000
My favourite piece from the exhibition is by Barbara Macfarlane, titled Copper Spires III (below). The artwork from a distance is resonant to a map of London and the Thames river,  but the closer you get to the piece the more abstract it gets. Using the colours of the British flag, Barbara creates an impressive and busy, patriotic and exciting artwork.



The sculpture below, titled Nike by James Butler, reminded me of the Victory of Samothrace sculpture in The Louvre Paris, before I'd even read the title. Both sculptures are of the same subject, the Goddess Nike, and Butler has clearly been inspired by the world famous sculpture with his attempts in creating a newer version. The Victory of Samothrace was made in 2nd century BC, using the traditional material of marble. Butler's Nike is also made from a traditional material, bronze, but Butler has coated the sculpture in silver. The metallic shine of the silver gives a more futuristic and contemporary look on the old style. Butler's figure is also more streamline, the only recognisable features of the sculpture being the wings and the outline of the goddess' figure. Butler's piece is resonant to Umberto Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, another modern take on the Victory of Samothrace through the Futurist movement in 1912. The Futurist's said that a speeding car was more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace, therefore Boccioni has combined the features of both a motor and a sculpture to create a fusion of flesh and metal, an impressive hybrid of man and machine. Unique Forms... was cast in bronze, like Butler's sculpture, and Nike feels like a step onwards from Boccioni's piece. 

Nike - if you'd like one it's yours for £17,000
Victory of Samothrace
Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

I was happy to see multiple work by Albert Irvin being displayed at the exhibition, a clear example of British abstract expressionism and home grown talent. Irvin is a member of the Royal Academy and has been since 1998, now in his early 90s, he still creates artworks today in his London studio.



Another artist I am always impressed with is Chuck Close. Close is an American photorealist painter with a difference, he paints the majority of his images using thousands of dots of colour, which from afar create a hyper realistic portrait. Below is the piece exhibited at the Summer Exhibition. 


Another piece by Chuck Close in his classic style
A closer example of his style - truly incredible!
Below are a couple more artworks I picked out from the thousands displayed that I felt really stood out. Below is an oil painting by Peter Wylie called Goldfinger Seven. It shows a block of council flats in England which have become part of the landscape in most cities and towns. Photo realistic, I felt it was a shame that it was displayed so high up and in the corner as it didn't seem to be getting the attention it deserved. This is similar for most of the artworks displayed at a height, but I suppose also the only way to display over 1000 artworks is to pile them over eachother.


£14,750

The last painting which stood out to me before we left is by Issa Salliander, titled Maobino 0.1 (below). This is because it reminded me of a similar artwork by Jenny Saville, Stare, and Saville is one of my favourite artists. Both paintings show a similar subject, a young boy staring with glassy eyes, and neither are painted in a conventional sense. I would not be suprised if Salliander cited Saville as an influence for the piece.

Maobino 0.1 (£3,400)
Stare
Grayson Perry's tapestries were the cover image for the catalogue for the Summer Exhibition, and Perry had a whole room dedicated to his tapestries at the Royal Academy. This is quite an achievement considering the Royal Academy is intended to showcase a years worth of artistic talents and most artists are lucky enough to have one artwork submitted each year. Perry's tapestries are bursting with colour and activity, each figure within the artwork as if they are charactures of who they are meant to represent. Yet the tapestries have fairly dark and sorrowful morals behind them, for example the image below illustrates a woman remembering holding a man in her arms while he died from a car crash. Perry's tapestries are impressive and each one in the room complimented the other nicely. He was ultimately the star of this years exhibition.


Grayson Perry room
On the layout of the artworks, the curators were clever in that they used the elaborately decorated door frames of the Royal Academy to frame the artworks, as demonstrated below. It feels as if great care was taken to ensure the artworks were placed in exactly the right spot to maximise the effect. Some walls in the exhibition, there was no piling artworks on top of one another, but most walls were piled high with artworks. This does feel very powerful when first walking into the rooms, however it is a shame that the ones at the top were hard to see. However this is the style of the Royal Academy and has been for almost 250 years, it is part of the tradition of the show.




Most walls were painted white, but interestingly the room in the middle which had an added emphasis on architecture and construction was canary yellow. I can imagine that this is because the drawings and plans displayed were predominately white and therefore to make them standout the wall was painted a contrasting colour.



The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in all was a good show, and it was good for me to see new and upcoming talent, as well as admiring artworks by already well established artists. On the other hand, the show felt too small, despite there being over 1000 artworks, because they were piled so high on top of eachother I felt as if I didn't get the full effect of too many, considering Grayson Perry had a whole room dedicated to 6 or 7 tapestries, and some artists had their work squeezed at the top near the ceiling. I intend to visit the 'Not the Royal Academy' art show at the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery in London in the next coming weeks. This exhibition is showing many artworks which did not make it into the Royal Academy's, with many critics giving it the thumbs up and saying it is better than the RA show, it is certainly not to be missed, and interesting to compare.

The Summer Exhibition is on till the 18th August

Not the Royal Academy is on till the 17th August