Collage and A Return To The 70's

I haven't seen Colin Barnes for a while. It appears he's been working on a solo show about to happen in London. Check out his website here for a sneak peak of what's in store. Intuitive art meets 1970's aesthetic meets not what you were expecting from this grass roots hip hop man. His work is clean and minimal with no heavy underpinning, simply beautiful images. The layering of subject and texture requires them to be experienced first hand to be fully appreciated. Watch this space for details.

Art London 2009

While I have experienced ArtChicago for many years, last week was a first for ArtLondon. A much smaller version than it's midwest sibling, it proved to be a lot more enjoyable and the gallery rep's were equally more receptive. Below are my top 6 favorites from the fair...

Luciano Ventrone oil on linen

Steven Nederveen mixed media

Yuko Moriyama-Wiffen graphite on paper

Pamela Stretton inkjet fragments

Anne Penman Sweet oil on canvas

Anish Kapoor

and 6 more that I just couldn't leave out...

Mack MacKinnon
John Monks
Steven Marshall
Sherry Karver
Emily Allchurch
Helen Sear

Undeniable Beauty In Solitude

Quiet still scenes people inhabit without being present. The signs we as a populus are leaving on the earth are ever more exposed in Ward Roberts images. High rise apartments, supermarkets, salt mines and forests all have the stigma of the human race. Possibly these are premonitions of a future world without us or may be they are the feeling we are experiencing today. As technology advances, we use it more as a second limb than an additional tool. We spend hours online, in chat rooms, yet still cannot connect to those we pass on the street everyday. Roberts captures our attention with classical lines and form, drawing us in with an awkward tension as to where all the people have gone.

Harmony Through Technicolor

Blip from Sean Mullen on Vimeo.

Gnomes & Magic

It really is saying something when the most memorial part of a film is the advert before it starts. Sad but true is this fact with Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince. Cinematography and direction is sublime with vistas of dark and wondereous lands and double entendre's falling like wild fire in this coming of age of our hero. Unfortunately it's about 1 hour 20 minutes too long, for all the story line that's covered. I have been told by those who have read all the books, that this sets up the story for the next installment...an extra 25 minutes at the start of the next film would have been more than sufficient.



The traveling gnome advert for Days Out Guide however was fantastic. Yes, yes, I remember the gnome that caught the traveling bug in Amelie. May be not a solely original idea, but most definitely perfectly executed. Which is half the struggle. My suggestion, save the cinema ticket for the next installment and watch the ad online now.

Awe Inspiring Hubble

Check out Don't Panic a great resource for anything and everything creative from typography to photography to illustration to dance, it's all here. At the moment they have a great article about some of the amazing things the Hubble Space Telescope has given us over it's unexpectedly long life. Below is the image of the space shuttle Atlantis flying in from the sun, on the last of it's service mission.