Men are strong, brave and dependable. Women are caring, loving and understanding. Those are easy to understand rules. Another set of rules determines that male artists get to paint monsters and gruesome images filled with torture and pain. Female artists on the other hand get to paint cute animals or, should they be politically active, perhaps a homeless or starving child. But not nightmares. That’s not in the female art-domain. Sarah Folkman doesn’t care one bit about those conservative and backwards ‘rules’. She paints your nightmares like the best of men. She even paints the nightmares you weren’t aware of you ever had them. … oh, and a couple of cute animals don’t hurt…

However, don’t let the ‘cuteness’ fool you. You’d better take these pets seriously. As in a David Lynch movie, or a Gregory Crewdson photo, there is always a hidden layer of suspense. Like a mortal threat buried just beneath the surface of the beautiful and tranquil lake.

Sarah is currently (till June 21st) exhibiting her work at the Corey Helford Gallery, in Culver, California, with colleagues Karen Hsiao, Jason Shawn Alexander (whose works pretty much ‘rock’ as well), Miso and Melissa Forman. You can check out some opening photos at the Juxtapoz website.

A thing I really should’ve find out is whether or not the artist Sarah Folkman is also the singer and songwriter Sarah Folkman of the trophop band T.H.C. . Should’ve, could’ve, but didn’t. Guess I’m just not a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer music…. Go check out her art!

We’ve known it for a long time and we stood by, watching it happen. The Chinese are coming. And they’re ready to take over. Bad news? Not really. Okay, so there’s a lot ‘not quite right’ yet about China and the Chinese politics… that does not mean it’s all bad over there. And you certainly can’t blame all Chinese. Especially not the Chinese citizens I would like to discuss here; Chinese artists.

Fact: China is a big place. And there are a whole lotta Chinese people. So, statistically, there should be quite some very good Chinese artists among them. for the last couple of years we’ve been seeing more and more of them, their works are no longer a rarity in Western contemporary art galleries. And that’s not just because the works are, by default, politically charged since they’re from China (although it does help: paint a building with some Chinese writing on it and the work immediately gains in meaning when it is shipped to the western hemisphere, deny it as much as you like).

Too much talk, not enough images. For your enjoyment, some images of talented and hyped Chinese painters. (click on artist’s name for a link)

Liu Weijian

Zhou Zixi

Yue Minjun

Liu Xiaodong

I, for one, am a pleased person. I’m not sure if you have noticed it yourself, but we are currently living in a figurative era. Paintings depict something. The abstract painter is, on the average, persona non grata for the time being. Of course, as always, there is a big difference between the large, international galleries in the cosmopolitan centers of the world and the smaller galleries in the faraway rural towns where the well meaning, moderately talented, paint dripper can still find clientèle. And there are still a couple of abstract painters that are simply good enough as an artist to still cut it, but over the whole: figuration is king. And I, for one, am absolutely thrilled.

Obviously, not all figurative painting is good. I have seen more less-than-mediocre paintings of cows, flowers, Tuscany hills and ocean sunsets than I can handle but still. If those painters would have been guilty of abstract paintings, matters would have been much worse. Three types of abstract painting I find particularly annoying and why they are so enormously outdated:

1. Paintings about painting
Marshall McLuhan may have said (in one of the most mis- and over-quoted phrases in history) that ‘the medium is the message’, over the whole I’d still say that the medium carries the message. Obviously, this whole thing about investigating ‘the medium of paint’ and ‘interactions between painting and audience’ is a phase we had to go through, after all; knowledge is power (another over-quoted phrase). All the research into to painting as a medium that needs to be done, will be conducted by the people at Talens and their competitors. Artists may move on to different pastures.

2. Painting your personal inner-life
Granted: most artist are selfish narcissists and believe that their deepest emotions and feelings are important and unique enough to be shared with the world. However, the more talented artists have discovered that they can take their art a bit further than by merely splattering a visualisation of their inner-life on a canvas (or chopping it out of a piece of lumber). It also gives people who don’t give a toss about your difficult childhood or pains of existence something nice to look at while you engage in your public self-help therapy. So it’s just a nice thing to do.

3. Painting the soul of things
Artists that make abstract works because they aim to paint the souls of their subjects should hand over their brush and go hug a tree somewhere. Furthermore: painting the soul of an onion is very, very rude towards the onion.

I know, there is still a lot more abstract painting going on out there, a lot which I have no appreciation for whatsoever either. But especially these three have lost their conceptual basis as well. There just not worth doing anymore since it has all been done many, many times.

Figurative painting
Actually, this posting has not said much about why figurative painting is good and a lot about why (most) abstract paintings suck. I apologise. A painter communicates in a visual way and should use a language that the audience is used to. If a writer wants to get a message across, he/she doesn’t write in a made-up language (except for certain poets, but that kind of poetry has been sufficiently dealt with, sort of like abstract painting). Creating a scene in which your public can recognize something to make them perceive the world in a different manner, that’s what I consider a work of art.

Finally…
About this unkind post. Should I have hurt your feelings, please feel free to make a sad painting. Should I have merely annoyed you and you feel I am a completely stuck up son of a something… you might be right. Feel free to leave a comment. I’ll approve it.

I know for a fact that a lot of artlovers out there are mostly interested in art featuring women (as the Guerilla Girls pointed out: 83% of all nudes in the Met feature women, whereas only 3% of all artists featured in the Met actually are women). Looking at the tags and search queries people use to get to my blog clearly points that out. The popularity of the picture with my post about the work of Eric Bailey, which is still one of the most popular posts I’ve written is also a clear indication in that direction.

BLK/MRKT gallery in Los Angeles always seems to showcase artists that I, and this is truly a matter of personal opinion, think are more or less brilliant and quite inspiring (at the same time, I must admit I have never actually physically been there yet… they say their coffee is great). A recent virtual wander about on their website revealed to me the magnificent works of Canadian artist Ben Tour.

We are very familiar with the use of the female figure in art. Porn did not only help the VHS system be victorious, but the (ab)use of the nude female body has made a good living for many painters, sculptors and other artists. They figured out a long time ago that sex sells. But the female nude is no longer synonymous with ’sex’. Works by South African artist Marlene Dumas are often so confrontational and graphic that her works are uncomfortable to even look at. Her works make clear, even more than a photograph could, how women can be exploited and degraded in this oversexed world. The audience feels even more embarrassed by watching her works than they would be when they had rented a piece of ‘adult entertainment’. Another artists that has been on top of the artistic food chain for quite a while is Lucian Freud. Freud also paints nudes. And, of course, also female nudes. Just as with Dumas’ works, his nudes aren’t meant to sexually arouse and they don’t.

Ben Tour’s work is very different from both artists mentioned. His works breathe that ’streetart’ atmosphere, and the way he incorporates letters and numbers give his works the feeling of even deeper lying mythical meaning. The serie that touched me most was his blue wash series. Tour has painted several women with crayon and ink that are both beautiful and tragic. It’s uneasy to look at them. And you just know that pretty girls aren’t supposed to look like that. that;s not the image Hollywood has taught us. Pretty girls have fun. But Ben Tour will have none of that. you just hope that the artists comforted them after he took their misery and poured it out on paper.

Ben Tour’s repertoire goes a lot further than these ‘tragic sirenes’. All his works seem to have a sort of lightness in colors, you feel you can see right through them. For me this also meant that I actually looked into his works. The way he chooses his subjects and compositions make that his works look both very contemporary (like I said: streetart feel) as well as timeless. You can’t date his works. But then , that only helps to see his works as instant classics.

A quite nice read, the Ben Tour interview on fecalface.com.

And a movieclip by WalrusTV featuring some of Ben Tour’s works, can be found here.

This morning I watched a DVD made by the German broadcaster ZDF; the future in 50 years time. Although it didn’t go into the matters quite deep enough (in my humble, geeky opinion) it was a very enjoyable pastime. And I cannot deny the fact that I learned a thing or two, and was inspired by one or two others. So, no bad. One thing that does sort of annoy me about those recreational and educational films, is the need for a storyline that really gets in the way of the stuff you’re actually interested in. The storyline is usually bad, the acting is actually appalling. (For those of you that have seen ‘What the bleep do we know‘, you will know what I mean. Interesting science; horrible acting, stories, SFX et cetera).

But it’s not my intention to write a documentary review here. The central thought of the DVD ‘the world in 50 years’ go me to thinking about the question what art would be like in 50 years time. A couple of posts ago I argued that painting will undoubtedly still be around, for obvious reasons and I would imagine so will music, theatre and other forms of live performances. I would expect that recorded music will by then serve as advertising for bands that you might want to go see live. You may download 3D images of sculptures and perhaps various forms of advertising will make the new Hollywood blockbuster available to you for free. Cinemas may struggle when home-cinema sets increasingly get better and allow you to download Rocky 214 in a couple of seconds time with the click of a button.

All that is about survival of the current artforms. The emergence of new media will probably also give rise to new forms of art, that we may not even dare imagine right now. 30 years ago; who would have imagined any digital art, let alone ‘internet art‘. Or 150 years ago I do not think that someone that predicted photography as an artform would have been taken seriously (catching an image on a plate? Are you mental??). One new technology that is sure to lead to new works of art, perhaps even a whole new category of art, is the possibility of creating 3D worlds that you can actually emerge in. And by that, I do not mean that you would have to put on special glasses or something. You just walk into a gallery (or not even that) and a 3D environment would be projected around you that you can interact with. I guess it is also quite safe to assume that the new artists of the future will at this moment be educated to become game designers. They have an understanding of interaction and the technical knowledge to build their visions.

Technology will surely play an increasingly important role in the world of art, as in all other aspects of life. And art wil play an important role in advancing art as well, pushing scientists forward by thinking up new dreams and creating new visions. To boldly go where no one has gone before… and beyond…

With new found arrogance I once again proclaim myself to be an artist. But an artist who sometimes unleashes the geek inside. That may mean, reading popular science books on quantum mechanics, or hooking up my PSP to the WWW, but it sometimes means I run out and buy myself a copy of Wired Magazine. Goody! Sometimes it can be thoroughly fulfilling to read about which earplugs for my mp3 player I should buy (I just use the ones that camewith the iPod, or how an oilrig drills the ocean (even though I am totally against that, save the environment people!). The january 2008 copy of Wired was even more fulfiling than others. Not only did it include an article about French cinema genius Michel Gondry (Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind among others) it also featured a small article about an artist I had never heard of before; Scott Listfield.

My first thought was: why, o, why can’t I remember seeing his stuff in Flash Art, Frieze Art, Modern Painters or whereever? Beacuse his works are brilliant. Totally in line with what I wrote in my two ‘Love the paint’ postings. Lushly painted, energetic sceneries that suck you in and then surprise you with all those things you didn’t see at first. Which is very, very clever. Because his compositions are actually very well balanced. Never too much information that would just give you a headache. They would actually be very comforting in the background of a waiting room for a doctor or dentist. Only at that second glance -and he will get that second glance- can his paintings give you that nagging feeling of discomfort I admire so much in paintings. Others don’t make you feel uneasy at all, but have a wonderous air. A bit like watching a Michel Gondry film or video.

Scott Listfield’s paintings have a message, but my personal bet is that is not a message of doom and anger, but amazement over he world that surrounds us. Hence the astronaut that pops up in all paintings. In Wired the compared this with the -kidnapped- garden gnome some backpackers take along to take pictures of durin their travels. Scott Listfield admist feeling like that astronaut every once in a while. An out of place spectator in a world dominated by bizarre little things like Starbucks, Blackberries and primary elections. I april he’s got a show opening up at ArtCenter/ South Florida in Miami Beach. I don’t think I will be around for that one, but I am truly jealous if you’re able to go see it. For those of us that can’t… there’s always the possibility to buy a giclee print of one of his works online.

In my previous post, I wrote about the wonderful works of Dutch painter Aaron van Erp. In this one I want to bring your attention to another star on the rise of the Dutch artscene; Marjolijn de Wit. Even though van Erp and de Wit may not appear to have much in common on first sight, my believe is that they actually do. De Wits style seems to be a lot more realistic than the obviously comical style in which van Erp makes you laugh about tragedy and drama. But both artist possess that quality that makes you watch again, they both prevent the eye from wandering. And both painters rewards the viewer for giving their works a second look, revealing hidden meaning and making you see the bizarre scenes they have created.

A thing shared by both painters is an apparent love for paint. The paint is not carefully, mechanically placed on the canvas, but it is ’smeared on’, the paint is lushly welcomed on the canvas, creating lustful paintings. (if ‘lustful’ is not a word… it should be one…) It is quite bizarre to think that de Wit, while an artstudent, didn’t actually want to be a painter, but a sculptor. However, she has been discovered by the artworld (making my prediction that she’ll go far, a very safe one indeed) and next year she’ll have an artist in residency at the Dutch Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Besides solely being a very gifted painter (as if that weren’t enough), de Wit is also a very conceptual artist, who just happens to work with paint. There are a lot of different suspected meanings in every work. Paintings that are somewhere in between a still lifes and landscapes. A regularly recurring ‘icon’ for example is a television. Could this be her way of commenting on the way people see reality nowadays? Through a television screen? Or how about the painting of an attic where we see discarded jerrycans and an apparently melting iceberg. What would the message be of this work? There is so much to see in her paintings that they make great subjectmatter for debate and philosophy and at the same time they are absolutely beautiful enough for a lot of people to be willing to do so.

Once in every while you see a painting and you know in an instant; the artist just loves paint. Give ‘em half a chance and they would have paint for breakfast. In this particular case I saw paintings by a young Dutch painter (undoubtedly heading for greatness…), Aaron van Erp (1978). He stands out, not only because of the way the brushes the paint on the canvas (which makes the artlover really hungry for more) but also because of his choice of subjects. Seemingly everyday scenes turn out to be quite bizarre and… ‘funny’. Which isn’t a bad thing considering the subjects..

Aaron van Erps works are part of the collection of no less than Charles Saatchi and this December he will have a soloshow in the citymuseum of The Hague (something I’ll definitely be going to). What is it that is so appealing about paintings with titles like ‘Terrorist with corpse and shopping cart’ (thumbnail to the left), ‘PSV man with decapitated chicken’? As van Erp puts it himself: “it’s possible to laugh about horrible things”. Some of his subject are horrible, they could have given Francis Bacon nightmares. But at first glance, they don’t seem horrible.

With the title and with van Erps seemingly naive way of painting it takes the initial effect of horror away. And that’s a good thing, effect-wise. In my previous post I wrote about the works of Kendrick Mar. A parallel between his and van Erps work is that they both may have seen the (actually quite dreadful) film ‘The devil’s advocate’. At one point Al Pacino, playing the devil, says to his protegee, Keanu Reeves; “what makes me so good is that they never see me coming”. Van Erps and Mars works do exactly that. You get drawn in by a cute and appealing iconic figure (Mar) or a beautifully, lushly painted, slight bizarre scenery (van Erp). Then you look further and the sadness or even horror, strikes you with double force: “what the hell am I looking at!?” Right after that, appreciation sets in. Or, perhaps, even admiration. Isn’t it fantastic that a painter can do all that with an image?

One thing I’ll always remember from artschool is the morning when I walked in and the painting I was working on (A Baconesque image of an industrial chicken ‘production-line’) was suddenly gone. It was on the wall when I went home on friday, what happened? I asked the teacher where it was and she told me that students that were taking lessons there after I left had asked if it could be taken down. It made them feel depressed and nauseous and they could no longer focus on their work. Obviously, I was thrilled. It wasn’t an image of severed heads or explicit sex or anything, but still it had enough power to give people an actual physical response. Sure, it was a negative one but the way I see it, that’s still way better than leaving your viewers indifferent to what they see. Something that’s merely ‘pleasant to look at’ is, in my humble opinion, not art, but craftsmanship. Anyway; I managed to write a whole lot about me in a post that is actually dedicated to the art of Kendrick Mar. But, as you will read later on, it was relevant.

Kendricks works give me a physical sensation. Looking at his works make my stomach twist and turn. I would never want to see anything he makes, if his works weren’t so incredibly beautiful and well painted. Seemingly simple shapes, forms and minimal composition mare the reason that his paintings are very accessible, from a distance. If you look at the thumbnails you might even think you’re looking at the website of a Hallmark greetingcard collector. But when you move in closer, things get more interesting. The iconic puppets and figures that seemed to have been copied straight out of cartoons or toy-stores are not the straight lined, cheerful little people you’d expected. The minimalistic backgrounds are not uni-coloured, boring shapes, but vibrant and energetically painted. You can see red shining through the grey, adding to the magnificent malaise. Without losing any of its charm (cuteness) the figures represent emotions like fear, distress, sorrow or sadness. The works represent the artists own emotional states. in present or in the past.

The paintings feel like nostalgic childhood memories, but not the one-dimensional happy ones. Growing up can be a scary, confusing and lonely experience. And that’s exactly what Kendricks paintings make me feel. I want to jump in and comfort the figures, tell them everything will be alright. I just want to look at the works over and over again, hoping that things have gotten better for the cuddly figure, loving the feel of nostalgic sadness. So, part of me wants to help Kendrick, but I won’t. Because that might mean he will not make those beautiful works ever again.

If you would like to know more about Kendrick Mar (believe me, you do), there’s an interview with the artist on the creepmachine website, or alternatively visit kendrickmar.com for some works.

Guilty as charged; up until I read about him in Juxtapoz magazine, I had never heard of the guy. Which is both a bit strange (since his imagery is very familiair to me) as to be expected; streetartist don’t sign with their name, address and phone number, for obvious reasons. I am guessing that most of you will never have heard of him either, mr. Shepard Fairey, but there’s quite a good change you have seen his work somewhere. Actually, if you have never seen a sticker of André the Giant (’Obey Giant’ to avoid confusion with the WWF legend) or any other ‘Obey’ signed work before, you must have been living on the moon.

The Obey sticker campaign can be seen as an Phenomenology experiment, Phenomenology being “the process of letting things manifest themselves. Ever since Shepard first drew the Obey Giant (While attending the Rhode Island School of Design, he was teaching a friend how to make a stencil and saw André the giant’s face in the paper. His friend said something like “no way, that’s stupid” to which Shepard replied with “What are you talking about? André’s posse is the new shit.” The rest is history.) the estimate that over a million stickers with his image have been produced. The bulk of these can be found on walls and in toilets around the globe. The stickers can be ordered through his website and so you can easliy become apart of this still emerging André the Giant craze.

Even though the Obey Giant may be his most known claim to fame, in my humble opinion, it is nowhere near his best work. In the works he does now you can still clearly see that it’s made by a king of streetart. On the streets an image gets very little time indeed to make an impression, it has to grab you in a second. That’s just what his works do, they grab you straight away, lure you in and then.. erm… ’sprinkle you eyes and imagination with visual magic. Even though the works can now be viewed and bought in respected art galleries, you may still find them on the streets around the world, put there by Fairey himself. The work seem to be made to get a message, or a worldview across, not to be pleasing. The fact that they’re beautiful to look at it is just a plus.

As can be expected, Shepard works a lot with aerosols and stencils. The way he then limits himself in the use of colours an still get a lot of visual power across is intimidating. His works show depth, urgency and intelligence, which i something a lot of other ‘gallery artists’unfortunately miss. If you want to see Shepards works; go outside. If you want to buy some to be able to look at it ll the time, early 2008 he’ll open up his own gallery in LA. If that’s a bit too far; he sells new works online every week and you can also get you Obey Giant sticker there. Start posting!

(never over other people’s work though, it’s against his streetethos….)

As an extra bit of service to all those visits this posting seems to get all of a sudden (and only since two weeks… odd):
Can’t get enough of Shepards works? There’s a whole lot of them on this Flickr page…