Great New Artists

The NoHo Scene Festival is happening on October 5^th this year from 11am until 5pm featuring art, music, theatre, dance, acting, art workshops and screenings. I’m assuming this happens in LA or Hollywood or somewhere else I can’t get to by then. You have to wonder about their slogan though, if it really is more fun than you can fit in a day why don’t they make it longer?

The artists village part of the festival will feature exhibits by Danz Art & Deb Ash, Vera Arutyunyan, Thom Bierdz, Ralph Berko, D.V.L. Productions, Fine Art Fire, Felicite Imam’s Fine Art Prints & Cards, Ruggiero Photography and many more

I seem to do a lot of writing about architecture in this blog don’t I? It just seems strange because that was my least favorite thing to have to read about in art history. Anyway, I found this website and I thought this architecture was brill besides the fact that one of the pieces hey designed reminded me of when Edina’s minimalist friend was coming to see her in Ab Fab (which has nothing to do with this, sorry). Koji Tsutsui has one of the coolest websites I’ve ever seen which is really why I liked his work. It’s showcased in the simple way that I would like to be able to see all artists work but so many sites are all over the place or complicatedly artsy.

As if this blog wasn’t strange enough already you’ll have to forgive me for finding some of the strangest chairs I’ve ever found. Yes I said chairs.

Trendhunter Magazine published an article called “50 Outlandish Chairs” which included chairs from Mario Philippona, Pharrell and Michael L. Wendell who designed my personal favorites the milk splash chairs. Not only because of the unique idea but because it was pulled off incredibly well. When I first saw it I didn’t think it was a chair I thought it was just a cute photo manipulation done for an ad. They would look cute in a Got Milk kind of ad actually.

Finally I have come full circle with this blog and have returned to the reason I started it: To showcase great new digital artists. This time it is Lithuanian born Natalie Shau. Not only is she the same age as me (23) but she uses Photoshop which as strange as it may sound is a rarity in digital painting these days.

She uses a variety of techniques in her work including photo manipulation, digital painting and integration of 3D elements. Her work has been compared to Tim Burton by some but since I like to compare everything to his stuff I’ll just say it’s a little dark. I love her fairy tale series but I won’t hate anyone who counts anything else as a favorite because it’s all brilliant.

Another day of writing about art and oh the places I would be right now if it weren’t for time, distance and money. However I have to admit that this one is over and has been for some time.

The World Bodypainting Festival took place in Daegu, Korea in August and the winners were incredible. I have been fascinated with bodypainting for some time now ever since I found out that one of the main characters in the second X-Men movie was built around it.

Their website has a behind the scenes video shot at the festival that shows some of the artists and models at work and a lot of the stuff that went into the shows.

On its website Scion Space states that it is “Dedicated to fostering independent artistic expression,” and it plans to do that by hosting The Art of Music exhibit which begins on September 6 and runs through the 27 in Culver City, CA. If it weren’t for time, money and distance I would be there in a heartbeat, it combines three of my favorite things art, music and cars.

I never thought I’d live to see a car company host an art exhibit but apparently this has been going on for quite some time and the website lists an impressive number of past shows. Why am I just now hearing about this?

What is it about Brazil lately that keeps giving us great art? Carlo Giovani is a sculptor who works with paper. Others may call him a paper engineer and if I were being technical I would too but upon seeing his work I prefer sculptor because he is truly an artist.

His website features the best of his package design, scenes like the Paper Forest which tells you it’s purpose point blank with a big sign in the middle that reads “In Nature Everything Turns Into More Nature.” He also does great masks and people and what he calls “Other Characters” which are caricatures of people and animals.

Painter Vladimir Kush has the kind of surrealist mind that I have always wanted. His ideas are amazing and articulate blending fantasy and reality so seamlessly you actually start to believe that these things could happen.

Not only does he paint things like ships with butterflies for sails but he also points out the everyday things that children use when they are playing pretend like a bed sheet as a substitute for water. His work is relatable even to those viewers who don’t like or have never been exposed to surrealist art. Personally he reminds me of Tim Burton with his super slim figures of people and the way he switches textures like in the painting of a row boat being rowed through a wood grain river.

Talk about Star Trek the immersive cocoon is coming in 2014. Designers are developing it right now and it sounds like Second Life for the real world. Among other things it will be used for education and is touted as something that will “revolutionize the way we interact with computers.”

What interests me about it is the fact that it operates sort of the same as SL as in players would go in and be able to touch what they see and get information about it. What’s weird about it is that users will also have to walk in place inside it to get anywhere. Of course it will also be used for games but there are a million other possibilities for it too.

Paul St. George is an artist based in the UK who creates work based on unusual sources. His exhibitions include Supermoments—which is based on what people see when we the lights are turned out in a room; the amazing Telectroscope—based on plans for the device by his great-grandfather; Sequnces—a traveling exhibit of chronophotography; Rabbitduck—which has to be seen, and several others all of which explore the ambiguity, presence and unreality of the world around us.

You can read about the artist and his exhibits here and you can read about the Telectroscope here. As a matter of opinion I think his work is a good example of art bringing people and the world together.