Gnomes vs. Snowmen: The Battle for Mochimochiland

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Today I was lucky enough to attend the opening reception of Gnomes vs. Snowmen: The Battle for Mochimochiland, a brilliantly inventive and imaginary land created by fiber artist Anna Hrachovec.

The story was charming and told over 45 foot-long panels that are bursting with woollen delights. The details in the panels suck you into the chaotic and extremely cute battle scene. Want to know who won? Well you'll have to go and see it for yourselves! The exhibition runs from November 3 through to November 18th, 2011 at Gallery Hanahou.

Tara Donavan

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Last weekend we managed to catch the last showing of Tara Donavan's exhibition at the Pace Gallery. The gallery space was completely dedicated to her large-scale installation called 'Untitled', 2011.

The Brooklyn artist is known for transforming everyday objects such as Styrofoam cups, scotch tape, pins and drinking straws into huge bio-organic sculptures, and this one was no exception.

'Untitled' consisted of varying sizes of stacked metallic balls, created by folded sheets of mylar and hot glue, to form organic almost molecular structures. Some areas of the sculpture reach 11 feet high. Donovan says of her work, "It is not like I'm trying to simulate nature. It's more of a mimicking of the way of nature, the way things actually grow."

The enormous glimmering balls, that encompassed the whole room, reminded me of Christmas baubles or even one of my cat's toys but on a grander scale of course! The reflective quality of the mylar is important to the visual balance it maintains within the white space, made more apparent when you walk around the piece. Stepping back from it, it was just stunning and so graphic. I have to say I had to resist all temptation to scrunch the balls.

Baseman & Kehoe

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In a strong attempt to crawl back some creativity into my life, after another terrible week at work, I decided to make the most of living in New York's dense gallery area and get some culture. Of course because of work I missed Gary Baseman's opening at The Jonathan LeVine Gallery, so Saturday would be my day.

Luckily for me there were two exhibits at the gallery, Baseman's Walking Through Walls and Andy Kehoe Strange Wanderings. There was a great contrast in the artists' work with Gary's almost monochromatic twilight colour scheme, children in ghost and Halloween costumes vs Andy's autumnal fairytale, Where-the-Wild-Things-Are-esque beautiful and painstakingly detailed paintings. Both equally lovely in different ways.

So if you're in the hood, please go and check it out. The exhibitions are on from March 5th to April 2nd, 2011.

Seasons Greetings!

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Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays or whatever you celebrate this season, and what better way to do it than with some talented designers.

In order of appearance (left - right):-
1st row: Adrian Johnson’s ‘Six Geese A-laying’; Darling Clementine's 'Candy Cane';
Tom Gauld's '4 calling birds' & Rob Ryan's G2 Christmas card.

2nd row: Jotto Seibold's 'Olive the other Reindeer'; Craig Ward's 'Season's Greetings'; Alison Carmichael's 'Baubles' & Christoph Neimann 'Let it Dough'.

3rd row: Yulia Brodskaya's bookcover for the 2009 Neiman Marcus 'The Christmas Book'; Kate Sutton's 'Robin'; Jessica Hische's '6 Geese are Laying' from her personal project & Frode Skaren's 'Opposites' Christmas card.

Have a great one everyone!

Sweet Treats

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Today is my birthday, and those that know me, know that I love cake - I mean really love cake!! So I thought I'd give you all a sweet treat from the British artist Sarah Jane Szikora. Sarah's humorous and quirky paintings focus on larger than life ladies, skinny males, gingerbread men, edible treats and cats - each painted with a palette taken straight from the sweetest sweet (candy) shop. For me she shares a few similarities to the British institution, that is Beryl Cook, as both of their styles strongly feature subtle British humour and rotund ladies. I thought it was the perfect post for today - British and charming!

Scott Campbell - at the OhWow NYC

If You Don't Belong, Don't Be Long at the Oh Wow Gallery is Scott Campbell's first solo exhibition in New York.

I last posted about Mr Campbell on 24th February 2010, and I was delighted to hear he finally had an exhibit in town.

While at the exhibition I got chatting to the curator about the way he works, in particular I wanted to know if he uses real dollar bills as I had seen a photograph of him with a sheet if dollar bills in the New York Times. It turns out they they are real dollars, Campbell contacted the treasury and requests full uncut and unwatermarked sheets of dollars, they cost a little more than face value. These uncut dollars allow him to work in a larger scale and more refined due to the crispness of the sheets, making a nice contrast to his beaten up used dollar stacks.

The exhibition had only been open 2 weeks by the time I went to check it out and all but 5 pieces had sold!



Since the exhibition I've had the pleasure to meet 2 lovely people who have had tattoos done by the talented Mr Campbell and they are faultless and beautiful.

The exhibition runs from 29th April - 30th May 2010.

Scott Campbell - tattooist

When I was searching for images for Scott C. when I re-stumbled across this Scott Campbell, the tattoo artist who creates astonishing laser-cut etchings in stacked $1 dollar bills. He's been on my list to blog for a few months now but keep getting side tracked! It seems fitting to blog about him now, being that he is another talented guy with the same name as the previous post!

Scott is a Louisianan born, New York-based tattoo artist (sculptor, painter, illustrator and photographer...phew!). He creates these immense pieces of art by drawing onto each dollar bill layer, he then cuts them up and glues them together in stacks of 100 one dollar bills - an expensive hobby! He exhibited these dollar sculptures in 2008 at London Lazaride's gallery, called Always Almost There.

"Campbell has the taken the blue collar grit and lore of tattoo culture and extracted a visual language and wit that are supremely refined and deliberate. He has an uncanny ability to tell a story with any medium, flesh or otherwise." - OHWOW Gallery

Close up images via Ian Cox

Missed Connections

Craiglist's Missed Connections are a good read on their own, but with Sophie Blackall's help they are a delight! For those not familiar with Missed Connections, they are online postings where strangers try and reconnect with someone they had a chance encounter with. They are usually romantic call outs of missed opportunities however Sophie has turned them up a notch by interpreting and bringing life to these random interactions. She has created a very funny series of paintings which are beautifully imaginative and very endearing, click on her blog here to see them. Here are the ones that tickled me the most (click on each of them to appreciate their loveliness):




Sophie Blackall is an Australian who as she put it "moved to New York [Brooklyn of course!] on a whim with her amenable husband and indifferent small children in 2000." She has also illustrated many children's books amongst many other things. She also keeps a blog which she updates showing the latest things she is working on, check it here.

If You Could - Exhibition

If you are in London this weekend then go and check out the If You Could...Collaborate exhibition at the A Foundation Gallery, Rochelle School, London E2 from 15th — 23rd January 2010.

If you could is the brain child of art directors Will Hudson and Alex Bec and this is their 4th annual exhibition. There are some amazing and hugely talented designer/illustrator partnerships and I'm absolutely gutted to be missing it, especially as Craig's work is being exhibited. Here are some of the great collaborations (there are about 33 in total):
Craig Ward, Sean Freeman & Alison Carmichael / Oliver Jeffers & Aaron Ruff / Fontaine Anderson & Deanne Cheuk / Mario Hugo & Micah Lidberg / Anthony Burrill & John Griffiths / Marion Deuchars & Margaret Calvert / George Hardie & Leonardo Sonnoli & Sara Fanelli / Rob Ryan & Michael Marriott / Jim Stoten & Andy Rementer...to mention a few!

The exhibition is a chance for creatives from all four corners of the world to partner (with a person of their choosing, regardless of their discipline) and get out of their comfort zones. It has no doubt challenged the way the artists usually work. There was no brief for this project, except to design something a little unexpected. I can't wait to see photos but here are a few tasters of the Ward, Freeman & Carmichael collabration - a type triptych of laser cut wood...

Check out the If You Could website for more photos.

Bill Turnbull

British fine artist, Ben Turnbull (not to be mistaken for the BBC journalist and presenter of the same name), recently had an exhibition at Eleven gallery in London, I Don't Like Mondays. He also had a feature in Wallpaper magazine and on It's Nice That.

It is his wood carvings that attracted me to see more of his work. I've always had a fondness towards school desks, I even own the 1950s twin lidded school desk with ink wells that I sat at during primary school. In the late 80s, our school decided to get rid of the "old fashioned" furniture and replace it with horrible plastic stuff, and so my parents bought it for me. I love the feeling of being sat at it and freely graffiting!

Anyway, back to Ben...his most recent work is a reflection of America's fascination with gun culture: it's a beautiful juxtaposition of school children innocence (and their boredom doodles) against the sad reality that guns and harmful weapons have infiltrated our societies. They are all aptly named Lesson 1, Lesson 2 etc.

I also like the fact that he has used salvaged school desks, as their pen-marked scribbles and markings make for great backgrounds and canvases. There are seven desk tops in total including weapons such as western styled guns, grenades and futuristic/space-age guns. The weapons are intricately part-carved out of the desk lid and they gently surface out of the woodwork. I don't know what technique he has used to create these works of art, but it's impressive. I even like his signature that is carved on the bottom left of the canvas.

He is definitely out to shock, turning the innocence of boys toys and school life to the dangers and corruption of firearms. He explains why toys are central to his work: ‘Force fed on violence, abused by a controlling superpower and blackmailed through patriotism, the public are ultimately as disposable as the toys they once played with’.