Artist Spotlight - Mr. Bingo - Hate Mail *Bonus! Jill Wignall*

Apparently drunken tweets are good for something. What started as a whim inspired by boredom (The first person who replies to this tweet I will send an offensive post card to.) turned into a new project when the tweet got 50 responses within a minute. What is it, you ask? Mr. Bingo sends you Hate Mail!

More after the jump!

Illustrator Rami Niemi - Art Directors Club Annual 91

As I've been getting ready for my senior show, I've also been keeping my eyes peeled for good posts for summer when I hope to be blogging a whole lot more. I wanted to take a moment to share these illustrations from Rami Niemi for the Art Directors Club Annual 91. I was giggling too much not to share.

See more after the jump!

Artist Spotlight - Thomas Lamadieu - Sky Art

Thomas Lamadieu, also known as Roots Art, is a French artist who re-imagines the patches of sky within the confines of buildings that create the space.

Read more after the jump!

Artist Spotlight - Keng Lye - Alive Without Breath

For those of us lucky enough to have functional eyes (or glasses, like me), we sure rely on them a lot. (At least, I know I do) I mean, if we didn't, there's wouldn't be the whole "I'll believe it when I see it" saying. Now check out that turtle above. As realistic as that seems, it's not real. It's actually a three-dimensional painting in resin. Inspired by japanese artist Riusuke Fukahori, Keng Lye creates these paintings with layers of resin and layers of paint. That picture above is actually when the work was in progress. Here's the finished piece:

This series of three dimensional paintings is called "Alive Without Breath." By layering epoxy resin and acrylic paint, the animals (usually fish) are painted meticulously, layer by layer, the sandwiched slices revealing slightly more about each creature, similar to the function of a 3D printer. I love that this rides the line between painting and sculpture. Check out some pictures of the process below!

In progress

Artist Spotlight - Alison Moritsugu

As I was going through boxes at my internship, I found a gallery handout for Alison Moritsugu and I instantly wanted to do a post on her. This was the installation that had me so enamored:

I nearly exploded with excitement! My friend Sam and I have had several conversations about landscape painting. You can be a great artist and a skilled painter or drawer, but landscapes often run the risk of being repetitive and boring. Alison Mortisugu has totally rocked the landscape here. What makes this landscape so much more than a lighthouse or barn? 

The fragmented "canvas" (by the way, doing this on tree cookies? love, love, love) is awesome. This fragmentation of the picture allows the viewer to "fill in the blanks" creating a more visually stimulating experience. I love that the tree branches twist and turn through the piece. 

I don't know if you can tell, but the pieces of wood extend out to different lengths, creating more of a space for those who are seeing this in real life. 

Doesn't this picture just make you want to walk around the installation, looking at it from every angle? (That's how it makes me feel!)

This picture above is part of her log series, a sort of extension from her landscape series. This is what she has to say about it: “There is also a kitschy tradition of painting on log slices, which I like, I think that these works subvert painting and turn it into something else.” She had previously been painting on wood panels and had been looking for a way to make her paintings more of an object. She saw a wood pile and a lightbulb lit up! Something else that I enjoy about her landscape and her log series is that although they are a beautiful piece of art collectively, they are also small pieces of art individually. 

Wai Hookahe, 2007

Mixed media, 38" x 46½" x 46½" deep

If you're wondering a little bit about her... Alison Moritsugu was born and raised in Hawaii and left the islands after high school. After graduating from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, she earned a Master of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York. On return visits to Hawaii, she noticed the drastic changes to the local landscape. She not only has done the fragmented lanscapes but she created amazing wallpaper that features flowers and plants native to Hawaii. 

If you look within the design of the wallpaper, you can see the silhouettes of plants and animals. But she employs imagery as social commentary, picturing plant life that has driven out native forms in vivid colors, while the extinct and endangered plants and birds are seen as white contours. Here is a detail of that: 

In 1999, she created a piece for the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. I was 9 then and I remember it, but barely. I wish I could see her again, I guess I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for her next show near me! 

Artist Spotlight - Lauren Fensterstock

At my internship, I get a unique (and totally awesome) opportunity assisting artists with their installations. Lauren Fensterstock is one of those artists! I was even able to ask her a couple questions while we were working. Before I get to those, I'll give you a little peek at what she's done in other institutions.

Yes, that's paper.

Yes, it's hand-curled and formed.

Yes, it's amazing.

For the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Lauren Fensterstock did her largest installation ever! It's called "Celebration of Formal Effects, Whether Natural or Artificial" and in it, she's created three separate gardens using ornately quilled, cut, and sculpted black paper. As beautiful as those pictures above are, it's nothing like being there in person, especially when I feel like I've been stuck inside for ages because of the Wisconsin winter. 

Fensterstock has been inspired by victorian art practices (like quilling) and more importantly, nature. She gardens at her home in Maine, and through her garden discovered a connections between natural and fabricated in her garden. She set out to create a "wild, overgrown" garden. When done, her garden looked "natural" yet did not have any plants that were native to Maine. 

In her art, this natural-yet-not look is also employed. The ribbons of paper look like they fit right in with the curling petals and quilled leaves. 

I was only able to get a couple pictures of the one at JMKAC, so here's one of those...

Here's a picture from the arts center for a less instagrammy view of the exhibition currently on view.

jmkac.org

It's on view through August 18th at JMKAC, so check it out!

Amy Wilson Faville - Carts

One of the great strengths of good art is the power of perspective. You may look at something every day, pass it by and not give it a second thought. Amy Wilson Faville's Carts takes the beauty of mixed media and brings new light and a new perspective to the national crisis of the homeless. 

Wagon Train - 2007

These carts are based on the actual shopping carts of the homeless in San Francisco’s Mission District. 

Fixie - 2009

You can see more of her series "Carts" here.

Magic Carpet Ride - 2007

In an interview, Faville discusses how she lets her surroundings inspire her work. She moved from San Francisco to Oakland last year and started a different but similar project:

 "Since moving to Oakland a year ago, I've been photographing the things that people dump on the sidewalk. I'm interested in the narratives suggested by the contents of these piles (a teddy bear, a bolt of fabric, a suitcase, a seemingly new Ikea couch), and in the tableaux created by heaps of discarded belongings in the midst of a street, which I see as a metaphor for economic and societal collapse. I use these photos as references for paintings (oil on canvas). Translating the images into paintings allows me to make them more beautiful and seductive, enticing the viewer into looking at (and thinking about) something they might ordinarily turn away from. "

Caravan - 2007

 She also said that through these projects, she hopes to turn images of squalor into images of splendor. I think these are awesome. I also like how she changes the mood of each piece with the background tone. 

Artist Spotlight - Jessica Drenk

How can we turn a pencil like this into art?

No, I'm not talking about drawing!

I'm talking about Jessica Drenk's crazy awesome pencil sculptures!

It's so amazing to me when someone can take something as common as a pencil and turn it into an intricate, beautiful sculpture. 

According to her website:

In 2009, Drenk received an Artist Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, funding the installation of Archaeologica at the Mesa Arts Center in Mesa, Arizona.  In 2006, Drenk was awarded the International Sculpture Center's Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award.  Her work has been pictured in Sculpture, Interior Design, andCurve magazines and seen in shows at the International Grounds for Sculpture in New Jersey, the Albuquerque Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art, the International Book Fair of Contemporary Creative Books in Marseilles, France, as well as galleries and art fairs across the United States. 

I love this picture she posted on her website, because it really gives a good look into the process of making her sculptures. You can see at the top that she starts with regular pencils and then sands them to create a beautiful form. It does look pretty messy though! I wonder how long it takes for her to get the graphite out of her hair. 

Really inspiring! I wonder what other common objects people have turned into beautiful forms. 

Artist Spotlight - Jeanne Opgenhaffen

At first glance, what do these pictures remind you of? What do they look like they are made of? Close up of skin cells, repeating patterns in nature? Paper sculptures?

Remarkably enough these pieces by Jeanne Opgenhaffen are handmade, colored, porcelain tiles. Her large murals are created my thousands of tiles, overlapped in different shades and tones. 

According to her website, Opgenhaffen draws inspiration from the earths layers and rock strata. She attempts to bring movement into her pieces, like breeze blowing through a field. I really see that in her work. You can tell she is inspired by the natural world: rocks, the earth and geology. 

She is based in Belgium and continues to create her murals, along with other realms of ceramics. Living and working in Belgium, Jeanne has been exhibiting her internationally recognized work with natural and colored porcelain since 1980. With awards and exhibitions in Australia, Germany, Egypt, England, Isreal, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Belgium, Slovaikia, Taiwan, and USA. 

"THE RIVER AS WILD AND BEAUTIFUL AND TORRENT AS ANY ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET PICKED ITS COURSE, ONCE AGO AND BEGAN ITS MASTERWORK"

I really like how Opgenhaffen uses color and the layers to create a sense of depth within her work. I keep looking at the picture above, expecting it to move and change.

 This piece is called "As Darkness Falls"

Characters and numbers

Commission from the Flemisch Community 1997. The mural work is an installation of a mass of printed porcelain cuttings, where in digits and characters appear, signs, figures and contrasts of dark in a sensible field of white. Like inscriptions on a noble support.

It's this kind of abstract work that really stirs me. I love the simplicity, the beauty and the subtle connection to the natural world.

Artist Spotlight - Levi Fisher Ames

I love small things. I love things displayed in boxes. 

As a result, I love Levi Fisher Ames' menagerie of carved animals.

Ames was born in 1840 in Pennsylvania and moved to Green County, WI while young. In 1862, he joined the Union Army's Thirty-seventh Regiment of Illinois Volunteers. He was wounded, discharged and rejoined three months later. His records indicate that he was hospitalized for much of his three-year enlistment. Afterwards, he moved to Monroe, WI where he lived for the rest of his life. 

Although he was a carpenter before the war, he honed his whittling skills while hospitalized and continued to work as a carpenter and artist after the war. 

This is where things get interesting, in my opinion.

So Levi Fisher Ames carves and carves and has all these creatures and makes all these boxes for them and then makes bigger boxes for the little boxes and then he travels around Barnum and Bailey style and calls it a museum and charges 10 cents for people to look at it... and it worked! People paid! 

Something that I think is pretty remarkable is that the pieces within have never been separated. Ames felt that it was a set and refused to sell off creatures from it. Eventually, Ames died and his sons inherited the menagerie. During the Depression, they sold the whole thing to a pawn shop. However, they were able to get the whole museum back intact a few years later. Now John Michael Kohler Arts Center is taking care of the zoo and it will surely not be separated then. 

Here's a book, if you wish to learn more! 
http://www.jmkacstore.org/levifisheramesmenagerie.aspx

Artist Spotlight: Mary Nohl

The Fox Point Witch!

Just down the road from my university, down a curving hill and past the blue waters of Lake Michigan lies the Mary Nohl Art Environment. (Also known as The Fox Point Witch's House and the Mary Nohl House) 

Born in 1914, Mary Nohl graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago and taught in junior high schools around the area and eventually opened her own ceramics studio for 10 years. 
After her parents died, Mary Nohl received an inheritance which allowed her to create a massive collection of folk art, including statues and architectural features. After Mary Nohl's death, the Kohler foundation acquired the property and began cataloging the hundreds of pieces that she had made from 1961-2001, the year of her death. Although she donated many of her pieces to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center when she was alive, they've also acquired her house after her death and are working hard to preserve and conserve it (as well as make it available to the public - fingers crossed!)

The whimsy of the home jumps out at you when you drive by. The house has bright, wooden reliefs of blue, turquoise and red.  The house is surrounded by concrete sculptures with different natural elements mixed in- like driftwood, rocks from the beach and glass. She drew much of her inspiration from the lake right outside her house. One of the things I admire about Mary Nohl is her perspective that everything could be a medium. She transformed everything from her lawn to the inside of her house; making it go from drab to expressive. The house is a private residence and the other people in the neighborhood don't really like having people hanging out and looking at the house. That's why it isn't open to the public, unfortunately. 

Although she is most known for her concrete sculptures outside fo her home, she also worked with...

Wood
She carved faces out of wood and made them into a playful fence. She eventually hung the wooden faces from the trees surrounding her yard, because vandals were stealing them.

Metal
She created jewelry! Often depicting people in boats, likely inspired by her home on the lake. You can actually still buy her designs at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center store page.

Woodcut & Printing

In the book Mary Nohl: Inside and Out, there are many pictures of her woodcuts. I was unable to find any pictures online, unfortunately. They are of people and rooms and streets, likely to be Maryland; where she was an art teacher at the time. If you look at Van Gogh's bedroom painting, they look a little like that. With wiggly, expressive lines and energy bouncing from the images. 

Ceramic

After she traveled and taught, she became a potter and opened her own studio and sold her own designs. You can see the clear beginnings of her whimsical style that would later define her concrete works: curious faces and expressive bodies.

This is an intern for the Kohler Foundation making an inventory of some of the ceramic items in Mary's home after her death. 

Mary Nohl also painted, drew and experimented with all sorts of mediums in between. She truly is an inspiration to artists who want to try everything. There is much more that I can say about Mary, but instead I will end with a quote from her:

"No amount of disorder will induce me to give up my front row seat on the changing moods of Lake Michigan- the ice hills against the blue water in the winter, and the afterglow of the sunsets in the summer, and the infinite variety in between."