Hasta La Ideas

Graffiti depicting gangly imaginary creatures by street artist Phlegm is currently on show at an east London gallery (+ slideshow).

Sheffield-based Phlegm normally paints giant murals of fantasy beasts and scenes on walls and sides of buildings around the world.

However for this exhibition the street artist has created reliefs of his typical artworks indoors, as part of a large-scale installation made from wood, clay and plaster at the Howard Griffin Gallery in Shoreditch.

“Phlegm creates surreal illustrations to an untold story, weaving a visual narrative that explores the unreal through creatures from his imagination,” said the gallery’s owner Richard Howard-Griffin.

The imagery shows greyscale fantasy figures with exaggerated limbs set amongst woodland animals, ropes and snares.

A group of the humanoids appear to be gripped by the tentacles of a monster and one is in the process of being consumed.

The artist has also illustrated a bestiary – a compendium of beasts – displaying bizarre half-real, half-imagined creatures in specimen jars on wooden shelves.

A boat loaded with these jars is being unloaded by a team of the long-limbed figures further into the space.

The embossed paintings and sculptural elements emerge from a patchwork of reused wooden boards, which have been installed across the gallery walls.

The Bestiary exhibition opened earlier this month and continues until 4 March. Photography is by Marcus Peel.

More information sent to us by Howard Griffin Gallery follows:

The Bestiary

A bestiary was an illustrated compendium of animals, half real and half imagined, setting out the natural history of each beast within and its moral significance. A bestiary was not a scientific text and while some beasts and descriptions were quite accurate, others were completely fanciful. Such bestiarys belonged to the ancient world and were popularised during the Middle Ages as didactic tools.

For The Bestiary, Phlegm creates a modern bestiary within his own universe through an immersive and large scale installation in wood, clay and plaster. Here Phlegm presents a taxonomic categorisation of his creatures and collects them in one place for the first time. Within the expansive sections of the installation, and working in bas and high relief, Phlegm displays a series of works akin to the Lascaux cave paintings. Inspired by the bestiarys of old, these works contain untold fables and narratives.

Phlegm Biography

Phlegm is a Sheffield based muralist and artist who first developed his fantastical illustrations in self-published comics. His work now extends to the urban landscape, and can mostly be seen in run-down and disused spaces. Phlegm creates surreal illustrations to an untold story, weaving a visual narrative that explores the unreal through creatures from his imagination. His storybook-like imagery is half childlike, half menacing, set in built up cityscapes with castles, turrets and winding stairways.

At other times the city itself is the setting for his long limbed half-human, half-woodland creatures. In this dream world a viewer comes across impossible flying machines and complex networks of levers, pulleys and cogs, set beside telescopes, magnifying glasses and zephyrs. Working solely in monochrome, his fine technique and intricate detail can be seen as a curiosity cabinet of the mind. Each drawing forms part of a grand narrative that extends worldwide, in countries including Norway, Canada, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, USA, Belgium, Poland, Italy, Slovakia and Spain.

Some thoughts by Richard Howard-Griffin

Artists like Phlegm are very interesting as they are helping to redefine the dynamics of the art world and causing a revolution in the delivery of public art. High level globe-trotting muralists like Phlegm are reaching huge audiences around the world by painting on an unprecedented international scale. The international breadth and scope of Phlegm’s mural work is staggering as is the quality of the work itself. Artists like Phlegm are not dependent on the patronage of traditional art institutions, museums, critics and curators for their success. By painting outdoors on a grand global scale they have effectively cut out the middle man, it is a democratisation of art. These are the artists that we represent at Howard Griffin Gallery.

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exhibited in east London appeared first on Dezeen.

The curving lines of this steel wire chair by French designer Constance Guisset are intended to represent fabric draped over the seat and back (+ slideshow).

Bent steel rods that form the surfaces of the backrest and seat of Guisset‘s Drapée chair appear to gather in one of the seat’s front corners.

“I am very much interested in fabric and soft materials,” Guisset told Dezeen. “A drape is fascinating because it recalls fluidity and a certain impression of movement. I wanted to recall this movement with a few lines, as if a fabric had been left on a chair frame.”

The frame is made in two sections; a front piece with angled legs and a rounded back that are joined at the rear of the seat and held in tension by the steel wires.

The designer worked with a metal fabricator to develop the position of the lines, which were originally drawn using computer-modelling software but required an iterative process of refinement in the workshop.

“As the chair is made of free-form wires it was quite a challenge to make it comfortable and rigorous,” Guisset recalled. “After each wire was welded, we tested comfort and observed the shape, unwelding lines as many times as necessary and doing it again. In the end we spent three full days in the factory, just for a tube frame and 16 lines in wire!”

The chair is designed to be used in homes or restaurants and therefore needed to be lightweight so it can be moved easily, and stackable for saving space.

“It was a real desire to make it strong, comfortable, stackable and light at the same time,” said Guisset. “It was also about visual lightness that is a deep aspiration in my work. As it is built with just a few lines of tube and wire, physical lightness is a natural consequence.”

The product is available in black, white, gold and pale blue finishes. A separate cushion pad features a pattern that replicates the lines of the seat.

Guisset’s promotional photography presents the product alongside marble statues wearing the sorts of draped fabric garments that inspired the design.

“I often visit museums and take pictures of draped sculptures,” said Guisset. “I feel a very soft sensuality in them, so it was quite natural for me to use some antique and Italian sculptures. I wanted the pictures to express the freedom, lightness and dancing qualities of the object. The drape was highlighted by the sculptures’ presence.”

Drapée was exhibited by French design brand Petite Friture at last month’s Maison&Objet fair outside Paris.

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designed to look like draped fabric appeared first on Dezeen.

Questo è ufficialmente il primo post della Milan Design Week 2014. In zona Ventura Incipit Lab presenterà le opere dei giovani designer Ilaria Innocenti con al collezione di ceramiche Muselet, Philippe Tablet e il suo acefalo salvadanaio Luis, Tommaso Caldera con la classica Pita. Dall’8 al 13 aprile.

With a woven, plastic-thatched seat and wooden sliding arms, the traditional campsite folding chair is one of the more nostalgic pieces of outdoor furniture. Yet its bulky design and cheap materials make it prone to breakage—not to mention hair-snagging and finger-snipping. To address…

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8 bits, 3 Dimensions est le nom de cette collaboration entre les artistes Adam Lister et Isaac Budmen. Reprenant des classiques de la culture classique ou populaire, les 2 artistes s’amusent à créer le même visuel en 2D sous la forme simplifiée, mais aussi une version imprimée en 3D. Un rendu surprenant rendant hommage à Superman ou encore Mona Lisa.