by Vivianne Lapointe On 1 February, Raoul and Davide Perré AKA How & Nosm unveiled their latest body of work at Jonathan Levine Gallery’s new pop-up at 557 West 23rd Street in NYC. You’ll find the artists’ signature reds and blacks as well as their trademark themes in “Late Confessions,”…
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“All it cost me were pens and time,” says Shantell Martin of her Brooklyn home and studio. From the baseboards to the ceiling, the space crawls with a hand-drawn mural of Martin’s own design. The artist explains that she rents from a couple who support Martin’s scribbling habit so…
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Walking into the gallery space, the whirr of two continuous projectors greets guests alongside indistinct color images that shower the room from a twirling projector. Every few seconds, four snaps are heard corresponding with sequential flashes of light. The interior is dark and filled with a thin smoke that…
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Steel kimonos, diamond-plated skateboards and hand-anodized aluminum paintings
The anodization of aluminum—a process common in everything from carabiners to satellites to medical equipment—is yet another factory method to fall under the provenance of fine art. Miya Ando‘s work, created through a process of dip-dying aluminum blocks in electrically-charged vats, are nothing short of industrial watercolors. “I like this ability for a plate of metal to evoke soft imagery and ephemerality,” says Ando. The process hardens supple aluminum, adding to the rigid surface the artist’s own subtly colored gradients. Ando explained this process and more during a recent stop at her Brooklyn studio.
The descendent of swordsmiths-turned-priests, the half-Japanese Ando brings her family’s unconventional origins into her art. “Furisode Kimono” is a 180lbs sculpture made of steel squares that have been soldered together with sterling silver rings. The process for this work is different from the aluminum pieces, using heat rather than anodization to achieve the gradient. In both, the effect is permanent and established within the properties of the metal. “It’s embedded; you can touch it and it won’t come off,” explains Ando.
When tasked with describing her anodized work, Ando says, “They’re paintings that use sculptural materials.” The planar works have a texture and visual weight that communicates heft in spite of the light and airy gradients. While the highly finished pieces indicate a degree of precision, Ando’s process is largely self-taught. After gaining access to an industrial facility, the artist began to hand-dye plates in anodizing baths—a process that made quite a sight for on-site workers.
Past work from Ando has included skateboard decks cut from diamond-plated steel as well as bioluminescent leaves. She also gained praise for a monumental piece honoring the World Trade Center that was made of steel salvaged from the towers’ supporting structure. Her fascination for materials bred the recent release of the “Iron and Silk Scarf“, a chiffon scarf printed with the image of one of her metal works. Ando is currently working on a new series will feature buddhist prayers scratched on aluminum with a tungsten carbine pencil.
Miya Ando’s work can currently be seen at New York’s Sundaram Tagore as well as Madison Galleries in La Jolla, CA. See more images of the studio in our slideshow
Phenomenological art from a Detroit native
Discovered on our recent trip to Re:view Gallery in Detroit, Greg Fadell is an abstract artist hell-bent on taking messaging out of art. His massive grayscale aesthetic channels the rawness of abstraction and makes for a piece that is nothing if not experiential. The brother of Tony Fadell—former iPod designer and inventor of the Nest Learning Thermostat—Greg Fadell seems to share his brother’s desire to innovate and change. We recently caught up with Fadell in his Detroit studio, situated in an old public school building that has been converted—in that patently Detroit sort of way—into a movie theater, Montessori school and studio space.
The concept for Fadell’s current series, “Nothing”, came during a Parisian sojourn. Walking down the street, he came across a building undergoing renovation. The windows had been whitewashed for protection, and Fadell became obsessed with the spectral quality of the material. With his elementary command of French, he was able to ask the owner, “Qu’est-ce que c’est le blanc?” or “What is the white?”
Fadell went on to buy the substance, a fine powder, and develop his own paint using polymers and an acrylic base. Applying the paint with homemade brushes, Fadell quickly realized that the paintings lost depth from layering day after day. “I have to work wet, so once I start I cant stop,” he explains. With nearly two gallons of paint used for each work, it’s surprising that the works dry perfectly flat. The difference between white-on-black and black-on-white pieces is vast—white produces a cold color temperature while black is notably warmer.
The result of his effort is a painting that has a great degree of perceived depth, yet on close inspection appears to be a digital print. The sharpness disappears and the lines becomes noisy and indistinct. The effect is so convincing that a New York gallerist once accused Fadell of photoshopping his work. Her mind was changed when the piece was reversed and the paint-covered edges could be seen through the floating frame. Following this, Fadell learned the importance of showing his hand, and now exhibits the series unframed.
There is a lot of theory behind Fadell’s work, mostly surrounding the phenomenological notion of art as experiential and viewer-informed. This makes the work essentially irreproducible online, where the enveloping effect of his floor-to-cieling works is lost. Fadell is adamantly opposed to cleverness, and the title “Nothing” is more of an invitation to viewers rather than an artist’s statement. “There’s all this issue art,” says Fadell. “I have enough issues. I don’t need to create any more. I wanted to create something that allowed the viewer to bring their own impressions to it.”
An artist like Fadell is a rare phenomenon in the art world. Painters are increasingly a dying breed as concept art moves from the fringe into the mainstream. Mostly, his point of differentiation goes back to his years of skateboarding before skate culture had developed. Back when the sport was new, Fadell explains that there was nothing preset, no sense of what he was doing or why. “It’s like detroit,” he says. “I saw opportunity and potential in skateboarding.” That spirit eeks into his works, which have a spirit and energy that extend outside of time and place.
The artist’s latest print series blends graphite drawing with 3D digital sculpture
Haunting curvilinear forms dominate the work of Sougwen Chung, an artist with international roots and a flair for outspoken minimalism. Her most recent series—produced as a limited-edition print run for Ghostly International—portrays four natural phenomena with subtle coloration and high contrast. The individual members of “Étude Op. 2 No.1-4” take the names “Flight”, “High Tide”, “Cocoon” and “Bloom”, and lie somewhere between representation and theory. Viewed together, they communicate a congruent narrative and aesthetic in spite of their abstract form.
“The form and composition of each piece are informed by textures and elements within an original series of graphite drawings,” Chung tells CH when asked about the process. “Elements are deconstructed and then sculpted in a 3D digital environment. The final pieces are a result of a multi-disciplinary approach to improvisation and experimentation.” Ultimately, the blend of mediums and abilities brings about sci-fi worthy, otherworldly shapes.
A departure from her previous print series for Ghostly “Étude Op. 1”, “Op. 2” rejects the minimalist, hand-drawn look for “darker palettes and more iconic motifs.” “‘Op. 1’ was deliberately austere and minimal, celebrating pure form and visual rhythm in the way only black and white images can,” Chung explains. Both series showcase Chung’s talent for visual edginess and slick dynamism—which goes a long way towards explaining her commercial successes. If Chung’s look is minimalist, then it is a minimalism in crisis, full of movement, transition and graphic energy.
“Étude Op. 2” and the earlier series “Op. 1” are available from the Ghostly online store starting at $60. See more images of the two series in our slideshow.
Daniel MacDonald breaks into the art world with otherworldly lights
Self-proclaimed computer nerd Daniel MacDonald marks his foray into the art world with Shio (or “shio” as MacDonald prefers it visually for balance), a series of glowing, orb-like sculptures covered in intricate fractal patterns of crystalized sodium. Each piece a link back to MacDonald’s childhood visits to Yellowstone, shio—the Japanese word for salt—grow gradually in his studio as salt water flows over structural skeletons made from fabric and translucent plastic. As the salt begins to stick to each frame, tiny nodules form and build upon each other until miniature stalagmites cover the shio in an infinite array of shapes, sizes and combinations—a process that takes around a week to complete. The resulting sculptures are striking and otherworldly, characteristics magnified by the colored LED lights that illuminate them from the inside out.
MacDonald’s artistic process is at once innovative and ancient. Sculptures similar to shio have been formed by the hands of nature for millennia in the proximity of hot springs and geysers, and no one is stranger to the miraculous structures that come to life deep underground in caves. What’s rare is an artist who strives to mimic the forces of nature in a way that’s efficient and original, especially where high-pressure mineral formations are concerned, but MacDonald messed around with sodium chloride for weeks until he could produce objects that were startlingly beautiful.
He describes that process with integrity and humility, betraying both his passion for the project and his unassuming attitude towards the art world and its larger cultural significance. “I don’t feel that shio as art is really about commentary,” says MacDonald. “Its simpler and more pure than that. It is a product of a highly specific, but simple, ethos. Shio is fundamentally about optimism and enthusiasm for the unknown and unexplored, and that is what I want it to bring to people’s lives.”
As for his transition from software designer to artist, MacDonald recounts, “I developed the technique and the process for several months before I finally admitted to myself that what I was doing was what other people call art or design. I remember literally having this identity crisis where I had to come to grips with the fact that I was producing beautiful things, directly from my own aesthetic design sense, with few constraints other than my own taste.” But as his sense of beauty grew out of years spent designing software, that aesthetic was neither culturally nuanced nor highly developed. Instead, his fresh outlook allowed him to translate raw software instincts to the physical realm like letting a “really complicated control system run open-loop.” The feeling, he says, “was awesome.”
Now its time for Shio to officially enter the art world with increased production and a more streamlined manufacturing process. MacDonald created a Kickstarter project page to help his dream become a full-blown reality, one in which he can be free to experiment with different growing techniques in his “nursery” and explore the effects of coloring the sodium mixture. As for future aspirations, he hopes to one day create huge glowing tentacled chandeliers or even 8-foot-high spiny, gourd-like sculptures. To check out the different Shio species and mutants, visit MacDonald’s website.
We visit the NYC fashion designer to talk about the process behind lace collaging
Designer Samantha Sleeper brings a fresh perspective to the art and fashion world with her eco-conscious technique of lace collaging, in which she uses remnants of the intricate fabric to create one-of-a-kind handmade pieces. On a recent visit to Sleeper’s studio we got a firsthand look at her design process and talked to the designer about the inspiration for her Fall/Winter 2012 collection, which is comprised of elegant downtown wares like motorcycle jackets, lace pockets for toting small bottles of whiskey and exquisitely crafted cocktail dresses.
For Fall/Winter 2012 we looked at different types of fairytales—a lot of the more traditional with darker undertones, and this idea that in all of these there’s a turning point of a girl lost in the woods. So we picked our linings to be a wolf print and a flannel, and that idea of playing on the hunter and the hunted—which one are you? Since all those stories end up getting super dark and twisted—these girls are getting poisoned or eaten by animals—we asked how she protect herself in modern day. So, we reinvented some of our favorite motorcycle jackets with boxier versions, and used things that were really heavy and thick, just trying to pick fabrics that have a lot of texture and tooth to them. Also, picking pieces that are reversible was really important to me, too, because they always have a duality in character.
When I was at Parsons my senior year there’s a competition and it’s called Solstiss. So, basically, they sponsor two senior thesis collections, they provide all the fabrics and lace for them and the winning student receives the scholarship. I ended up winning the award, so they took me to France and I went to Lyon and Caudry to visit the mills. That summer when I went to France, I began to understand just how detailed lace was, it was made on lever looms the same way since the 1800s in a family-owned mill in Caudry, a super-small town where everyone basically works in lace. When you see the “Welcome to Caudry” sign it’s this stone hedge that has lace laser-cut into it.
The lace was more about this technique and this way of creating a fabric that’s different than a brocade or a cotton loom— the method of making it was so beautiful and the pattern of it can be modernized and that’s sort of what I thought when I was leaving. It was clearly such a dying art. I had never seen—besides hand-woven carpets—fabrics that were still made in the traditional techniques on a mass-market scale. So, I knew that I wanted to do what I could to incorporate it into as many of my collections, even just to keep it around.
Also, the lace is crazy-expensive because it’s so labor-intensive, so I would get all these headers, which are these small pieces that you get when you’re ordering yardage, when you’re thinking about ordering it. You can’t make these 8.5 x 11″ pieces of fabric into a dress, but because they all have their own organic shapes and their own language of what’s going on I started to cut them up and collage them together to create yardage. Then it was like an oil painting, which is what I studied at Art Institute of Chicago before I went to Parsons. I realized because lace is so thin and there’s opacity in random areas you can start to layer them to create depth—it was beautiful, you were literally painting on the dress form and I had never seen another fabric that would allow me to do that in that way.
What I love so much about fashion is the opportunity to transform someone into the type of narrative they want to create for that day and so I try to create pieces that are really special and transformative. We try and keep our silhouettes really clean and understandable and it’s about what’s happening in the fabric, and so we definitely do it by hand and a lot of it has to do with not wanting to waste anything. Lace is the only fabric that I could collage seamlessly, everything else needed another use, so we started to incorporate that because I really hate being wasteful. Every little thing we put in the bin we can find a use for. Some people call it being a pack rat.
For fall my girl is very edgy and pretty downtown. We made this pocket for a little take-away bottle of Jameson, one of those personal bottles, thinking about what a girl at a concert might need. Sorry, Mom! And again, I love having special detailing on the inside, just finding ways to make every seam special. We have a reversible dress—you unzip it all the way down and it’s very clean and then inside all the seams are bound in leather. So it’s a nice rocker downtown vibe.
Samantha’s is currently working on her Spring/Summer 2013 collection, and her Spring/Summer 2012 line is available for purchase on her website.
Animal-human hybrid stickers invading Parisian streets and a gallery
While marketing and mainstream communications campaigns have derived branding inspiration in the comic-like cartoon style of street art, and the values attached to its culture—freedom, community, transgression—the paradox still exists to see it framed and sold through traditional art channels.
We caught up with street artist Rafael Suriani at his recent show, “Collages Urbains”, at Cabinet d’amateur gallery in Paris, where he told us more about street art and his relationship with the medium.
Suriani’s mark features animals, surviving and thriving in the streets for its powerful and highly recognizable aesthetic. In his half-human-half-animal figures, the animal faces act as liberating masks, allowing the artist to express social criticism in an elegant way. The vibrant, seemingly playful creatures refrain from getting too serious and maintain a suggestive tone that avoids the obvious.
The stickers are the result of a double-binding process that first assembles man and animal, then adheres the resulting figure to the wall. In the past, Suriani has drawn from his Latin-American heritage, playing with shamanic mythology figures such as toucan or jaguar. In his recent series, on the other hand, he is more interested in urban domestic animals such as cats and dogs—according to the artist, the convention that they tend to resemble their owners offers a metaphoric way to talk about us people. Recently Suriani made a series of French “Bulldogs” as a special dedication on London walls, using this breed to cartoon and make fun of some French characteristics. Each dog expresses a different state of mind—humor, spirituality, criticism or beauty.
Suriani uses the rare technique of hand-painting every poster he sticks on the streets. Making each sticker is the result of a process involving selecting photos from the Internet, cutting them in Photoshop, then screening and painting before cutting the final product. Such repetition lies at the heart of street art practice, which is often based on plastering as many spots as possible, invasion-style.
When considering the ephemeral fate of the piece of work destined for degradation of the elements, police destruction or theft from passers-by, the time and effort for such little reward seems remarkable. Suriani explains, however, that the fleeting nature of his work is freeing and allows him to be audacious with both subject and technique. To him, because there is no pressure or constraint, that achievement is rarely a failure.
In the end, the piece of art is not the only sticker by itself, it is the sticker in its context, seen as a whole on the wall with the daylight shining on it, the motorbikes parked against it or the branch of a tree creeping across. Rarely is the work’s time spent on the wall its only life, after all, with the rise of dedicated photographers immortalizing the scenes for the Internet.
Suriani claims his intention to step into the city’s landscape by bringing much-needed beauty comes with a positive message. Rather than being aggressive or controversial, Suriani takes pleasure in having people on the street enjoy his figures. His work is bound to the city—physically, geographically and socially—compelling the public to refresh their view of their surroundings and drawing their eyes to the places that typically go unnoticed. As an architect, Suriani has found a way to unveil the city and change people’s perception of the scenes they see everyday without truly seeing them. The choice of venue is very important, based on aesthetic consideration with attention to the context and surroundings like the location.
Hailing from Brazil, home to a strong and lively street-art culture, Suriani’s passion makes sense. In his native Sao Paolo, a young city constantly changing and under construction, street art is welcome and considered as a positive contribution to embellish the city. Far from being forbidden, stickers can last as long as two years years. There, the practice is often connected to a more political involvement such as a protest against real estate speculation or to support immigration, and Suriani has brought a bit of this spirit to France, where he participated in a campaign by the French Aids support league Act Up as part of a collective huge fresco.
In fact, Suriani reflects on his practice as a means to get to know Paris and socialize within the community when he moved from Brazil—one bound by a lifestyle of taking risks, celebrating fragile achievements and maintaining that cherished sense of freedom. The community has certain rules about never judging the quality of others’ work and paying the proper respect to the established know-how. Contrary to Brazil where street art involves only young artists, in France people from all ages work on the walls. While collective projects sometimes happen when a whole group invades a venue, one-to-one interactions are more common. Stickers posted in response to others have been known to spark a friendly dialog and lead to real-life meetings.
As for the transgressive aspect of the street stickering, Suriani sees it more like a tricky game, avoiding the police and trying not to get caught—even though he always works during the day, his favorite being Sunday. He also notes the difference between temporary, removable stickers and permanent paintings on walls and surfaces. For Suriani, the key to street art is freedom—no diploma is needed, anybody is welcome to participate regardless of means or resources, and artists are at liberty to experiment and constantly change their style.
The idea of presenting a gallery, then, presents that paradox. But, Suriani explains, in the end it’s not about street art in a gallery. Having been painting, drawing and cutting since he was a child, he brings his authentic artistic process to this show. A mix of original and existing pieces, the series simply presents the language of street art in a different venue.
Taboos, tattoos and Native American beadwork from a Japanese artist
A serial experimenter, Eri Imamura‘s work marries disparate elements of mythology, Native American beadwork and tattoo culture to create life-sized textile sculptures. Collectively, they deal with man’s delicate relationship with nature, his propensity for materialism and Japan’s collective suffering following the 2011 earthquake. Found at La Lanta Fine Art, each of Imamura’s pieces uses symbolic imagery to communicate a statement, with proceeds from the sales going to support the relief effort. “Justice” addresses the problem of nuclear energy in Japan, with a man brandishing a sword that points either to a white snake or the nuclear symbol. “Fate” posits that Japan’s second nuclear disaster could be punishment for wrongs against the natural world, and “Freedom” lightens the series with a prayerful hope of regeneration and freedom from desire.
Intrigued by the artist’s fascinating process and cultural ambition, we caught up with Imamura to learn more about her work.
I went to New Mexico to study Native American culture as well as beading at the Institute of Native American Art in Santa Fe. In Japan, Native American art and culture are very popular and there are a number of books focused on Native American philosophy and spirituality. I found a significant connection between both cultural traditions. In Shinto, Japanese find the deities (Kami) everywhere in nature: trees, stones, water, clouds, wind, space and animals. Native Americans likewise find sacred elements such as spirits in nature.
Japanese tattoo is a remarkable Japanese tradition. It is said that the tradition began more than a thousand years ago. Originally tattoos were a symbol of bravery and manhood that were used among artisans, carpenters, firefighters, and gangs. Nowadays, mostly those who rule local communities, gangs and firefighters have tattoos. They wear tattoos as a symbol of their spirituality. Usually they don’t show off their tattoo except during special occasions such as festivals because the tattoo is for their own spirituality.
Also, I see some kind of creative freedom in tattooing and Japanese taboo underground culture. I’m very interested in the twisted fact that we keep a very pure and original Japanese cultural element within one of our biggest taboos. Japanese tattoo is a taboo tradition. In this taboo art form, I can free myself from narrow-minded Japanese cultural rules and traditions and gain courage to speak out and make changes in society. I believe that taboo can be a creative power of change.
I use two thread spot stitch appliqué techniques. I first thread the beads and tack down them with a second thread into the shape I want for the textile. It’s very time-consuming work. It takes me months to finish a piece. In that way, I think it is similar to Japanese embroidery, or Sashiko. Both are time-consuming and because of that both are meditative works.
Images by Josh Rubin
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