Cameo brooches by Jess Quinn
I don’t know why, but I think Marie Pascual will like this. =]
My name is Erika Iris Simmons and I like to take things- random things- like what you would find at a garage sale or in a thrift store- and make them into composite art. Most of my pieces become portraits of people associated with the item I’ve chosen. I don’t really add any paint or pigments… I usually just take things apart and re-arrange the pieces, cutting away portions when necessary. A lot of my art is made with cassette tapes and old film reels in a series I call “Ghost in the Machine.”
Oh, wow, lots of new followers! Hi, you guys!
Swarm by David Adey
“Skin is extracted from various fashion magazine ads using a collection of craft punches. Pieces are assembled with pins on a foam panel”
Whoa. This is beautifully intense.
My apologies for the giant post of drawing a days I was too scared to show but it is the right thing to do. This was my time of somewhat abstraction. I was obsessed with this crumbled up brown bad and started to draw pieces of it everyday.
I think it is understandable why I felt too shy to post these. I was inspired by David’s work and decided to give blind contouring a go…Oh boy, David I really appreciate what you do.
holy moly. some drawing a days. I don’t know why I never post them. Maybe because I feel like they are not as good as my paintings. These are a few body studies. I went to the wednesday night figure drawing club thing one time. Some are what I got online but oh dear that is a bad idea. Bad idea to search “naked body” or even “nude body” on tumblr so I stopped! Learn from your mistakes!
Multiple shadow house, Olafur Eliasson (2010)
A simple, purpose-built structure, the work Multiple shadow house consists of multicolored lamps in rows shining onto several large projection screens. When a body enters the space and begins to interact with this light installation beautiful and subtle overlaid visions of their shadow fan across the screens – as they move around forward and backward the image is thus altered and can be manipulated. In this way the project is a creative collaboration between the artist, viewer, space and technology. via
This is awesome
Gallery Report number 2. It is late I know but it is better than not posting anything at all! Happy Summer!
Thinkspace Gallery is probably my all time favorite gallery in Culver City. All of the artists that are featured there are great. One is particular by the name of Yosuke Ueno. Yosuke is a Japanese based artist who goes by the name of spaceegg77 who shows work in Asia, the United States and Europe. His first solo show was held in Yamaguchi when he was 16 years old. Some of his new works focuses on the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last year on March 11th. His art deals with the fact that the Japanese people distinguish their life as “before March 11th“ and “After March 11th”. Ueno’s art deals with the illusions that had been created in his art unintentionally “after March 11th”.
The first thing that attracted me to his work was his color palette. He uses many colors at once but they are not overwhelming. Unlike all the other artists that I usually am attracted to, he doesn’t paint realistically but more anime character like with human like eyes. It is very Japanese pop-like. He works both really big and really small with oil on canvas and on wood panel as well. His paintings are very surrealistic and seem to take the audience on an adventure. Hidden symbolism of skulls and swans make you wonder what kind of messages he wants to expose.
This is a quote from him taken from an interview talking about his work. “I always start new work without any detailed designs. My hope is for a piece to complete itself beyond my imagination. I sometimes say that artists are parallel to scientists. Scientists have no way of knowing the result of an experiment beforehand. The same can be said about creating art.” - Yosuke Ueno
He creates these baby-like swan creatures that he then names “Soul White”. The paintings are very beautiful and cute but when you read the name you wonder if it is creepy instead. He also creates these giant marshmallow figures sitting in this huge area filled with what looks like candy but is actually flowers.
This artist inspires me to think outside of my comfort zone and I am more than excited to start painting and working again.
Gallery Report 3!
Brittney, Jade and I went to Culver City for our crit club and we checked out some galleries. One of my all time favorite galleries in Culver City is the Thinkspace gallery. They always have a variety of artists there and not too long ago they showed both of the artists that I presented in my presentation last week. Matt Doust and Pakayla Biehn who are 2 of my inspirations in portrait work.
The first gallery that we walked into was the Koplin Del Rio, I love the architecture of that gallery because it looks like an abstracted world in my eyes. The space is a mix of straight and diagonal walls and every turn is a new discovery. The artist that was being shown was Shay Bredimus who is also a tattoo artist. What is interesting is that he uses actual tattoo ink and charcoal on drafting film. The effect he gets is very nice; it is a mix of shiny and matte at the same time. I remember walking into the gallery with Brittney and asking each other “what is he painting with?” and “what is he painting on?”
Not knowing what his work was about, I thought that it was based on how different and beautiful the women in different countries all over the world are portrayed. Finally we got to pick up the booklet at the front desk and found out that it was on the sister cities but we were all confused on what he was trying to show. Luckily the art dealer walked in as we were looking around and we asked her the question of what the series was about. She then told us that the series that was being shown is called “Kotomi” and it casts female personifications of the 12 sister cities in Los Angeles. Interestingly, though the works of the classical training in portraiture of Shay Bredimus, he adds aesthetic influences from Japanese tattoo and Ukiyo-e prints. So I asked one of my Japanese-speaking friends is “Kotomi” meant anything specific in Japanese but all she said was that it is only a Japanese female name.
He only uses Black Tattoo ink and charcoal on all his works so they are all in black in white. Except for some portraits that are a bit grayish because sometimes he dilutes the ink with water. I’m very interested in his works and also very influenced because he paints with such fluidity and freedom with all his big brush strokes and his drippings. Funny that he is a tattoo artist as well since he much almost always work very tightly. His portraiture is so precise and seems flawless and putting a tiled element around them and sometimes on the faces keeps them from being boring.
The variety of his works and his portraits is what brought me in but after talking a bit with the art dealer and looking at his works some more in the abstract architecture of the space, it was much harder to leave without fully absorbing the work presented in front of me.
