Tag Archives: artist

Sep4

two birds.

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Two Birds

M.C. Escher, Regular Division of the Plane (Birds) no. 18, India ink, pencil and watercolor, February 1938

About Two Birds

M.C. Escher created his iconic interlocking motif Two Birds in 1938, exploring how repeating, interlocking geometric shapes can fit together without any gaps. His fascination with interlocking figures began in 1922 when he visited the Alhambra, a 14th-century Moorish palace in Granada, Spain. He spent days sketching the complex, colorful tile mosaics that covered the walls and floors.

 Though the Moors avoided depicting living creatures due to religious tradition, Escher adapted their mathematical tile designs to feature recognizable animals like birds, fish, and reptiles.

Escher had no formal training in advanced mathematics, but he intuitively grasped geometric symmetry. By 1938, works like Two Birds and related prints such as Day and Night, marked his deep dive into tessellations – where a single bird shape serves as both the primary figure and the negative space outlining its counterpart. 

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‘mighty is geometry; joined with art, resistless.’

-Euripides

 

 

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Source Credits: Artchive, Wiki Art, M.C Escher, The Graphic Work, Royal Publishing House

Aug28

‘i, kusama, am the modern alice in wonderland.’

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Yayoi Kusama, an icon, rebel and visionary, passed away this week

 

10 interesting facts about Yauoi Kusama

  1. Yayoi Kusama arrived in Seattle in 1957 with two kimonos and 200 paintings. This is the first city Kusama visited when she moved to the US.
  2. Kusama was pen pals with Georgia O’Keeffe, Richard Nixon, and the President of France.
  3. She partnered with Louis Vuitton to design a clothing line in 2012.
  4. Narcissus Garden, a rogue performance piece by Kusama, was installed outside of the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966 with the support of one of the curators, however she was asked to leave the premises.
  5. She was making Pop art before Andy Warhol.
  6. Assemblage artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell and Kusama had an intimate friendship that prompted his mother to dump a bucket of water on them once when she caught them kissing.
  7. The quintessential polymath, Kusama has published numerous literary works.
  8.  A firm believer in love forever, Kusama performed a gay marriage way before gay marriage was legal.
  9. In 2016, she was ranked as the most expensive living female artist on aggregate.
  10. Yayoi Kusama produced art work for more than six decades.

    Kusama was an avant-garde artist who died at the age of 97. She worked across painting, installation, and sculpture, and has covered rooms, trees, and buildings with her iconic imagery. Kusama started painting her famous polka-dotted sculptures in the 50s which put her problems into perspective. “I wanted to examine the single dot that was my own life. One polka dot: a single particle among billions,” she said.

‘more and more, i think about the role of the arts, and as an artist,

i think that it’s important that I share the love and peace.’
-Yayoi Kusama

 

 

 

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source credits:galerie, chelsea werner-gatzky

Jul28

it’s not safe to talk.

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‘It’s Not Safe To Talk’, David Hayward, Sumi ink and watercolour on paper

 

 “It’s Not Safe to Talk”, it’s origin story – A woman contacted me to say she saw a young bright maple tree surrounded by dead and dying trees as if they were trying to silence it. She heard, “It’s not safe to talk!” How I feel! She said keep shining. So I painted it.
(Ink used to make calligraphy) – David Hayward

 

It’s not safe to talk, but as long as we talk, we’re alive.

 

Bio from the artist: I’m a lot of things. Pastor turned artist. Cartoonist. Writer. And other things I’m still figuring out. To be all these things is simply to be human. Complex, meaningful, creative, curious, and evolving. – DH

 

Jul7

bringing stone to life.

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Japanese artist Akie Nakata (known as Akie) turns found rocks into realistic animal paintings

 

 Akie has a unique way of looking at the world. While many would simply pass over a rock or a stone, Akie is able to see their potential. For the past nine years, she’s taken ordinary stones and transformed them into something magical using paint. Under her watchful eye, these rocks become highly realistic animals that fit into the palm of your hand.

Using only acrylic gouache—no pen—and working with tiny brushes, Akie carefully brings each animal to life. In reality, the creative process begins from the moment she spots a rock. Its natural shape helps inspire what animal it will become. “Stones have their own intentions, and I consider my encounters with them as cues to go ahead and paint what I see on them.”

From cuddly dogs and curious cats to various frogs, birds, and mice, there is no animal that Akie can’t make magically appear before our eyes. Her talent has garnered her a huge following on Instagram and Facebook, where the stones she makes available for purchase are usually snapped up quickly.

Occasionally, Akie will also post before and after photographs of her rock art. When viewed side by side, Akie’s work is even more impressive. Natural markings might become eyes and a pointed edge may transform into a nose -with Akie, anything is possible. For the artist, it’s all about bringing the animal to life and hoping that its future owner will enjoy it as much as she does.

“To me, completing a piece of work is not about how much detail I draw, but whether I feel the life in the stone.”

 

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“0ne eye sees, the other feels.”

― Paul Klee, pioneering Swiss/German artist

 

 

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source credits: my modern met, j. stewart, facebook, instagram

Jun15

blue whispering day.

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Choy Moo Kheong (b.1950 Singapore)

Blue Whispering Day, 2022.

Acrylic on canvas

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Choy Moo Kheong (b.1950) is a self-taught artist from Singapore who is inspired by the romanticism of nature. At the age of 28, he taught himself how to paint. Combining his talent, creativity and determination, he succeeded despite the odds. He held on to his dreams and was rewarded when his works begun to be accepted and exhibited.

Since then, his work has been exhibited in France, Switzerland, Brunei, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. Besides attracting international and local private collectors, his work has also been collected by many private organizations such as the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, the Canadian High Commissioner, Glaxo Holdings in London, the New York Institute of Finance in Singapore, the Sultan of Brunei, JP Morgan Singapore and the Gulf International Bank.

May27

night rain.

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Kasamatsu Shirō (Japanese, 1898–1991)

“Night Rain at Shinobazu Pond”, 1938, Woodblock Print

 

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‘rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth without rain, there would be no life.’

-john updike

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Shiro Kasamatsu (笠松 紫浪, Kasamatsu Shirō; was a Japanese engraver and print maker trained in the Shin-Janga and Sosaku-Hanga styles of woodblock printing.

Kasamatsu was born in Tokyo in 1898 and apprenticed at the age of 13 to Kaburagi Kivokata , a traditional master of Bijin-ga, pictures of beautiful women. Kasamatsu however took an interest in landscape and was given the pseudonym Shiro by his teacher, which he used as a signature mark in his prints. Kasamatsu exhibited his paintings in government sponsored juried exhibitions. He completed his first woodblock prints in 1919 for Shozaburo Watanabe after the publisher saw his paintings on exhibit. Almost all the woodblocks were destroyed in a fire in Watanabe’s print shop following the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. Around 50 prints were published by Watanabe by the late 1940s. Kasamatsu began to partner with Unsodo in Kyoto in the 1950s and produced over 100 prints by 1960. He also began to print and publish on his own Sosaku-Hanga style and produced nearly 80 prints between 1955 and 1965.



May16

georgia o’keefe, up close and personal.

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georgia o’keefe musem visit

her story, her words, her art

visitors given the opportunity to see things closely

 create them in georgia’s style

some add a bit of humor to their response

georgia lived a life on her terms, full of color and beauty.

Apr28

thirsty?

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Painting by Emma May Riley, ‘Glass of Water’ 2013.

Oil on Canvas.

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‘reality leaves a lot to the imagination.’

-john lennon

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Emma creates still-life realism paintings. The works all have a common theme, to connect with simple pleasures that are in fact commonplace and often overlooked in todays fast-paced society. She aims to create art that is interactive, creating a physical and emotional response in the viewer. Emma is from Devon, United Kingdom

Feb10

secret mall apartment.

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Secret Mall Apartment takes you inside the wild true story of a hidden apartment built in a shopping mall.

The 2024 documentary, now streaming on Netflix  revisits the artists who built a secret apartment inside the Providence Place mall in Providence, R.I. The eight Rhode Islanders hung out/lived in the 750-square-foot space on and off for four years, from 2003 to 2007.

The group of artists came up with the plan after real estate developers tore down their artists’ commune about a mile away from what would become the mall. In addition to being a statement against the developers, the space was also used as an art collective for local artists planning projects.

The story went untold for years, but the eight people got together to tell their wild tale in the documentary, Secret Mall Apartment. “This is an insane climb up the cultural ladder — from absolute obscurity to something where so many people have at least the option of seeing it,” they told Boston.com in January 2026.

To document their piece of performance art, they bought cameras from the Radio Shack and filmed their journey.

“The archival footage is just incredible,” Secret Mall Apartment director Jeremy Workman told Columbia University School of the Arts. “They filmed everything with this tiny ridiculous camera they bought for $129 at Radio Shack, and it was small enough to fit in an Altoids case, which made it easy for them to film constantly.”

Workman has said that as he worked on this film, he “quickly learned that they created the secret apartment to make a statement against gentrification. They had lost their homes as a result of development, and this was their unique personal way to show developers that they weren’t going anywhere.”

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I was fascinated by their story, where the idea sprang from, and how it grew over time. The things they were able to pull off at the mall and the art they created outside in the world away from the mall were extremely creative and amazing. It’s an unusual documentary that asks the question about what is art and what is real life? The line is often blurry.

‘art hurts. art urges voyages- and it is easier to stay at home.’

-gwendolyn brooks

 

*Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) was an American poet, author and teacher,  famous for being the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize.

source credits: Boston.com, Dwell Magazine, Rhode Island Monthly

Feb1

brave new world.

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 Eva Jospin creates magical forests out of cardboard

 

A few panels from the Forest series–

there are 50 panels that slot together to create a maze. Tar on plywood.

 

‘creativity takes courage.’

-henri matisse

 

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Eva Jospin, born in 1975 in Paris, is a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. For the past fifteen years, she has been creating meticulous forests and architectural landscapes, which she explores through various media. Whether drawn in ink or embroidered, carved from cardboard or sculpted in bronze, her works evoke Italian Baroque gardens, the rocaille decorations of the 18th century, and artificial grottos.

link to her full bio:

https://www.galleriacontinua.com/artists/eva-jospin-320/biography

 

 

 

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source credit: art, artists, artwork, ann klefstad