Playful isometric tape street art from New York based Aakash Nihalani. Aakash has been doing these temporary pieces for years in New York to give people as he says ‘momentarily escape from routine schedules and life’. You can see loads more of Aakash Nihalani’s geometric style paintings and sculpture on his site below.
Optical illusionary sculptures from Argentinian Artist Leandro Erlich. Leandro is influenced by Jorge Luis Borges, Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Luis Buñel and David Lynch, he uses cleverly placed mirrors to create a mind melting result.
“Erlich creates spaces with fluid and unstable boundaries. Before one tries to make sense of his sculptures and installations, one senses the uncanny. A single change (up is down, inside is out) can be enough to upset the seemingly normal situation, collapsing and exposing our reality as counterfeit. Through this transgression of limits, the artist undermines certain absolutes and the institutions that reinforce them.” Sean Kelly Gallery
Leandro Erlich is represented by The Sean Kelly Gallery, New York and Ruth Benzacar Galeria de Arte, Buenos Aires. The Bâtiment (‘Building’) sculpture is currently on show at 104 Centquatre Paris until 4th March 2012.
via Broadsheet
Mosh scene paintings from Chicago born New York Based street artist, realist painter Dan Witz. Dan Witz paintings have been shown in galleries worldwide; including: Jonathan LeVine Gallery, in Chelsea, New York; Stolen Space Gallery, London, England; Carmichael Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Addict Galley, Paris, France; White Walls, San Francisco, and DFN Gallery New York.
“Dan Witz is known for hyper-realistic figurative painting, with a career spanning over three decades in both studio work and street art interventions. Applying old master techniques, he achieves impressively convincing trompe l’oeil illusions of light, shadow and depth in his finely rendered portraits, landscapes and still lifes.”
Dan Witz’s new book “In Plain View: 30 Years of Artwoks Illegal and Otherwise” is available here. Watch the video below about his recent street art show ‘WTF’ at White Walls, San Francisco at the start of 2011.
Calligraphic paintings and concrete sculptures from Cuban raised, Miami born, New York based Artist / historical transcriber / visual raconteur José Parlá.
“Parlá concentrates on the problems inherent in the change of context from the street to the galleries that few of the old school writers had successfully negotiated. A notable exception is, of course, SAMO, who later painted under his given name, Jean-Michel Basquiat. Parlá’s work takes off from and expands on these roots.” Joan Waltemath, Brooklyn Rail
An interview with José Parlá and Ann Binlot from The New York Times is available here and another from The Block Magazine here.
“I’m interested in bringing the energy of the city inside the gallery,” José Parlá
Watch his video below.
Some fantastic work from Belfast raised Brooklyn based Artist, Illustrator, print maker, designer and writer Oliver Jeffers. Oliver Jeffers’s diverse portfolio spans figurative painting and installation to illustration and picture-book making. He has exhibited in New York, Dublin, London, Sydney, Washingtone DC and Belfast.
As an Illustrator Oliver has worked with clients The Guardian, United Airlines, Lavazza Coffee, Newsweek International, Her Royal Majesty the Queen of England, and the Irish Times for which he received the Gold Icad Award for Illustration.
His successful picture books are published by Harper Colins UK and Penguin USA. Working in collaboration with Studio AKA, Oliver’s second book Lost and Found was developed into an animated short film narrated by Stephen Fry, which has received over sixty awards including a BAFTA for Best Animated Short Film.
“In some ways, Jeffers’s drawing is childlike – almost schematic – but it is never demeaning or condescending. Together, the plangent simplicity of the drawing and the powerful emotions of the boy make these stories genuinely moving. With a gentle humour and an airy touch, free of extraneous detail, he celebrates the emotional freedom of the child whose imagination is not yet weighed down by the limitations of reality.” Joanna Carey The Guardian 2009
His new book ‘Stuck’ (which I would recommend as a Christmas present to any little person) is available here and his paintings are currently on show in the ‘Holiday Group Show’ at the Bertrand Delacroix Gallery New York. His presentation for Offset in 2009 is available here.
Some amazing large scale hydrological paintings from Brooklyn based Artist Alyssa Monks. Alyssa Monks works in the field of photorealism, yet revealed in the detail of her paintings is a playful abstraction created with thick strokes of paint within a restricted pallet. The result being beautifully intimate depictions of human flesh in contact with water, steam and glass.
“When I began painting the human body, I was obsessed with it and needed to create as much realism as possible. I chased realism until it began to unravel and deconstruct itself. Realism and Abstraction are in a symbiotic relationship they need each other to exist and eventually become the same.”
Alyssa Monks is currently represented by David Klein Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan and is currently exhibiting her work at Art Miama, Florida untill December 4th 2011.
Retrospective exhibition of controversial Italian born artist Maurizio Cattelan’s work at the Guggenheim, New York. Famed for his disturbingly hyperrealistic sculptures, most notably that of Pope John Paul II killed off by a meteorite.
As the name alludes the exhibition contains ‘All’ Maurizio Cattelan’s work since 1989.
Hailed simultaneously as a provocateur, prankster, and tragic poet of our times, Maurizio Cattelan has created some of the most unforgettable images in recent contemporary art.
A fantastic documentary I saw a while back.
“Stella Artois and Mother provide a brief, but inspiring glimpse behind the rare profession of sign painting in the documentary film “Up There”.
The film was shot over two months telling the stories of the New York Painters who are struggling to keep this advertising method alive. Directed by Malcolm Murray, produced by mekanism and based on an original concept developed by the advertising agency Mother NY.
surface & surface 