Illustrator Mário Fonseca starts with a photograph, then builds up an illustration layer by layer, starting with traditional art tools, then moving to the computer. The results are extrodinary compositions of line and color, techno-realistic versions of Mike Giant’s illustrated women. See the extended for another example of Mário’s work.
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Month: July 2009
Pretty empty
If I remember the story correctly from high school history class, the Spartans punished their wrongdoers twice: once for doing something wrong, and once for getting caught. Last week French street artist Zevs was arrested for pouring paint on a Chanel logo he had just slapped up outside a Giorgio Armani store in Hong Kong. A friend videotaped the mischief. He was arrested immediately thereafter and pled guilty to one count of criminal damage. If there’s any justice in this world, he will be punished thrice: once for his criminal act, once for getting caught, and once for wasting everyone’s time with art that is, at best, pretty nonsense, as in the painting above, and at worst is repetitive, boring, and with only the slightest hint at meaning — bad graffiti carried out by a malicious, OCD-suffering retard all juiced-up after reading though his stack of Adbusters.
Big Head
by Bob Dob.
Green-eyed Susan
In his paintings, Swiss artist Oliver Zappelli mixes religious mysticism with monsters, hypersaturated colors with hyperexplicit sexual imagery. “Love in the flowers” (shown above) is more whimsical than explicit, more nature than Nativity, and much the better for it.
Unexpecting
by Ana Bagayan.
Untooned roundup
Art has been about re-mixes for centuries. The retelling of famous stories, painting, and repainting what is essentially the same bouquet of flowers or bountiful still life of food, the same battles, over and over. Another trick is to take an icon from one context and put it into another. Paint a sculpture, sculpt a painting, create an opera from a talk show.
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Celestial Tree
By Robert Venosa.
Hop out of bed, kick an elf in the chest
In Todd Schorr’s epic battle work, Clash of Titans Clash of Holidays, the two most infamous pagan symbols from Christianity face off in what could only be an old rivalry between icons who share a cultural and calender space that’s just a little too close for comfort. Note that baby Jesus seems to have chosen with his stomach.
Photoshop of horrors
In recent years, a number of fine arts photographers have begun to work more in front of a computer than behind a lens. Unfortunately, the vast majority of their creations are unexceptional pieces that are scarcely more impressive than what you can find at Photoshopping contest websites, except that, perhaps in attempt to distinguish their serious art from the dabbling hordes, their images tend to be utterly lacking in humor or nuance. Dominic Rouse’s black-and-white photo collages, often depicting ancient beauty in decay along with a cluttered assortment of generic symbols, are no exceptions.
The attic’s filling up, I crack the basement door
Travis Louie creates portraits of monsters, done like olde-tyme studio portraits in sepia tone, and most come with their own invented backstory. Shown above: Stack of Demons a k a Mike, Sam & Alex, presented as is.