Moebius

Jean "Moebius" Giraud is a prolific illustrator created and influenced countless works within our fantasy and sci-fi culture today. He worked on preliminary designs for such films as Alien, Tron, The Abyss, Masters of the Universe, The Fifth Element, and Willow. He has been a direct influence for major works such as Blade Runner.

Concept art for The Diva in Fifth Element (1997)

The style of his illustration is known as well for his rich imagination as the superb color use and attention to environmental detail.


Moebius is renown for his comic strip "Fort Navajo" and spinoff "Blueberry", and also for teaming with Stan Lee to make the “Silver Surfer: Parable,” published in 1988.


Moebius unfortunately passed away last year while fighting an illness; he was 73 years old.

It's Arbus TIME!

Artist of the week: is the lovely Diane Arbus!

Famous black and white photographer, she used 35 mm black and white film to capture her subjects which consisted of bizarre portraits. She loved to take photographs of "outsiders" aka strange stereotyped people or emotions and events. She created silver gelatin prints of her 35 mm film. She had some harsh critics claiming she was just winging it, but I think that's part of the charm. 

I find her pictures stunning. She captures this unusual moment that makes you observe every detail. It's shame she committed suicide in 1971. I think she would have continued to create wonderful photographs. Or maybe she wouldn't have been able to handle this modern world? Either way, I'm glad she used film because it's a permanent way of remembering her. 

Lesseus Woods

Architect Lebbeus Woods (1940-2012)  was an architect that dedicated his life to pushing the potential of architecture.  Even though few buildings wear his name he had an enormous influence on the field of architecture.  Much of his work were drawings of free thought that included recognizable areas destroyed by natural disaster or war and renderings of future cities.  Many pieces of his work is to be shown at SFMOMA this year.  

MICHAEL HUSSAR-CREEPTASTIC!

MICHAEL HUSSAR- I had a book of his work about 3 years ago and sadly let someone borrow it, never to be seen again. I love his work for the obvious dramatic antithesis of fashion and beauty. All dressed up and nowhere to go. It's stands as a reminder that nothing is ever as it seems. There is always some ugly underneath that is not shared. Also, they seem to have a nastalgic feeling of times past with sexual and religious references like the old Masters. While working in a very classical style he comes off very contemporary with his added grotesque, emotional and dramatic and truly dark and sometimes suicidal themes.

Matt Wisniewski

There is not much about the Matt Wisniewski, besides the fact that he was born in Philadelphia in 1990, and therefore is as young as many of the students here at Savannah College of Art and Design, and currently lives in New York. In an interview with “Design Tonic” online, he discusses about his process and says that he enjoys layering on top of his image and lightening and multiplying in Photoshop. He then begins to clean things up and match and contrast various parts. Currently still a student at New York’s Rochester Institute of Technology, he prefers to work with Photoshop rather than working with a paintbrush, although he has the technique down- as he has told other interviewers. As he has said before, “Photoshop is a lot more forgiving than traditional media. I can easily fix mistakes or experiment with an idea and completely erase those changes if I feel they don’t fit,” he said in an interview with LightBox. 

I chose to use his pieces of work for the last entry because they have always inspired my projects, especially since they have some sort of metaphorical meaning behind them, in one way or another. They are beautiful, simple, natural, yet modern.

-Ally Parfene

Maurizio Cattelan

A myth is a foundational narrative that may be based in truth or fiction but either way it tells a story of who we are. Thus self-consciousness is constructed by a shared narrative and helps us to give shape and even name our identity. If we think of identity in the usual terms of religion or nationalism, some examples of these mythological narratives include the King James Bible or the story of George Washington cutting down a cherry tree. But in the art world, there are strains of mythology that are built on identity formations like artist, curator, or critic.
But Cattelan also challenges more traditional mythologies such as Christianity. His Untitled, 2009, a taxidermied horse on its side with a wooden sign reading INRI staked in its flank, was placed in a dark gallery of dreamy Magritte paintings. This obviously references the Latin acronym inscribed on Jesus’ cross declaring him to be king of the Jews. But placed on a dead horse, a symbol of foolishness, what does this mean? In the Menil’s comment book there were some Christian visitors that were very much offended by this work, assuming that is was heretical along with Untitled, 2007, a sculpture of a woman face down and crucified in a shipping crate.

http://dailyserving.com/2010/06/maurizio-cattelan-is-there-life-before-death/

Visions of McKean

Dave McKean is an English illustrator with style notable for its mass inclusion of drawing, painting  photography, collage, found objects, digital art, and sculpture. Thus, his visual style can hardly be identified according to the attributes of any one medium. Often times, his work forfeits any grounded realism and instead abstractly depicts a mood or atmosphere by seaming together various imagery almost like a crooked quilt.


Cover for Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman"

His work has been used for numerous book covers, and was notably seen in comic books such as Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum.


McKean's portrayal of Joker in "Arkham Asylum"

In 2005, he directed his first feature length film, MirrorMask, produced by Jim Henson Studios, with screenplay written by Neil Gaiman.

Scene from McKean's 2005 "MirrorMask"

He is currently writing and directing a new film, Luna, stated to be released early this year.

Corey Barksdale

Corey Barksdale is a local Atlanta artist who uses great textures and colorful elements. He mainly focuses on jazz and dance and creates paintings from normal canvases to huge murals. 

Joanna Zjawinska

Joanna Zjawinska was born in Poland where she began to paint at the early age of six. She earned her B.A. degree in 1972 from the School of Architecture in Warsaw. To follow her own dream of being an artist, Joanna then studied at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts where she perfected her unique style of oil and watercolor painting. In 1978 she was awarded a masters degree in Graphic Design with honors in painting from the academy which is one of the most prestigious school in Europe. In 1979 Joanna came to San Francisco with her husband, Mark, and daughter, Sonia, and formally launched her career.

Joanna’s paintings transport us to worlds of fantasy and elegance in images that explore complex, passionate relationships. Inspired by artists such as Vermeer, Degas and Sargent, Joanna expresses her passion for life, her family, her homeland and her adopted home. Her world is feminine and seductive.

Where her early paintings were filled with beautiful and chic people, theatrical scenery and voyeurism, her current work tells a simpler story. Still influenced by cinema, fashion and music, Zjawinska strives to create beauty in face and form, in landscape or abstract setting, and this theme remains integral to her work. She relies on strong composition and a deeper palette to create visions of mysterious women who seek and reveal passion.

http://angelakinggallery.com/joanna-zjawinska

Brett Manning

Brett Manning- I was first introduced to her work in Blue Canvas magazine. What drew me to her was the hair,  the beautiful textile designs and the overall feeling of home and comfort. She captures soulful moments in dreamlike  over tones. In an interview in Blue Canvas she said that, "the textures and patterns represent all that I love about life. They are comforting and warm, suggesting something warm, suggesting something to wrap yourself in, reassuring and repetitive but also ever changing."

"SLEEP SWEET"

"TIME DOES NOT EXIST"

 

Marc Quinn Planet

Now on permanent display at the Gardens by the in Singapore.  The sculpture was created in 2008 and is a depiction of Quinn's son as a sleeping baby and appears to hover above the ground.  The sleeping child fabricated from painted bronze and steel, designed to give the impression of being weightless and suspended in mid-air - despite the fact it weighs seven tons and 10 meters in length.

 

Giuseppe Licari’s Humus 2012

Humus 2012 by Giuseppe Licari
Ceiling construction, trees' roots, halogen lamps - dimensions variable 

Giuseppe Licari’s Humus 2012 presents these chandelier-like objects in a modern room filled with society in which these people can observe the root of the problem, literally. The installation is titled ‘humus’ because it “refers to the soil layer that is essential for the growth of trees and plants” which Licari said when asked. Typically when invited to view a presentation of artworks, the pieces are placed against the walls or even on the floors, however, in this case- the viewers had to flow about, trying to view the roots from above. It was as if they were trying to view this underground secret lair. This has much to do with the relationship between humankind and nature, and viewing the growth between the two and our relationship with nature itself. 

-Ally

-Bruno Zhu-

My search on random artists has brought the photographer Bruno Zhu to the blogging world of class ARTH 340.

He is a current photographer- based in London. He takes pictures of ordinary things in hopes of capturing something more like a pattern or something unexpected. He blows them up to a large C-photo print. It almost looks like a documentary- except the artist would disagree. His claim is he isn't too concerned with timing or location. He tries to see something in the mundane. Whatever you see, this is his artist statement and more of his images.