Ideafixa.com is a cool publication. It’s an e-mag that publishes bimonthly on specific themes. Issue 8 is Self-Portraits. While that has all the hallmarks of student disaster, the quality of the work is very impressive. The depth of the collection is fantastic, you just keep turning page after page after page. A lot of the work comes from South America and it’s refreshing to get exposed to the talent of the South. There is also a bio section for some of the artists which makes for some interesting reading. They work on a submission policy and the next theme is Food. So get out your pencils, camera, wacom, emo, etc and try and overwhelm the curators with your genius.
A friend asked to see some art that I reckon is fairly decent at the moment. Instead of hiding it in an e-mail, let me share with everyone. I’ve blogged about most of these people or sites before but there’s no substitute for an easy to click blog post to get motivated to look again. So, in no particular order, here’s some food for thought:
Serious Painting
Painting removed by artist’s request
John Copeland – Probably my favourite painter at the moment.
Jeff Soto – Giant robots and rainbows never looked this good. Jeff’s work has been translated into a short film by 3 Legged Legs. It’s amazing to see this fine-art-street-type style in motion.
Ashley Wood – Famous for concept art, comic books and being a “little” brash at times. He paints on real boards and sells the original pieces to collectors. He qualifies as a real artist.
Interactive Media
Hoogerbrugge – A Netherlands artist who uses drawings of himself to lay waste to the repititions of modern culture. Or something like that. This music video is the quick sampler of his work but check out the website for classic focussed Hoogerbrugge.
Kooky
Michel Gagne – This is his 6th book, Frenzied Fauna: From A to Z.
ICanHasCheezBurger -The meme called Lolcats is something that many would not consider to be art, but it has been accepted adopted by the masses and shares some of the traits of art: visual aesthetic, an underlying theory, self-imposed executional rules, a sense of history. Is it -ism or is it -crapism? Will people in 100 years time have retrospectives of Lolcats? And in case you think I’m writing total rubbish look up the definition of Art.
Yes, there is no technology in this post more interesting than pencils and brushes. Which is why this stuff is amazing. John Copeland is the kind of painter I wish I could be. Aware, talented and prolific. I was blown away by his figure work and the painting above betrays his sense of humour [edit: image was removed by artist’s request]. There’s a great interview with him at Fecal Face which reveals of few of his opinions and he talks about his Journals (which are art pieces unto themselves). If in doubt about your creativity, draw on paper.
Excerpt from Fecal Face about his Journals: Barron Storey got me started on those in 96, and I’ve been keeping them ever since. Small scale intensive sketchbooks where each page is made into a finished statement. Best part of that practice is the discipline and learning to follow through with each page till it works, experimentation and play. Anything goes in those, so you learn to play with images while working hard.
the bruise is a magazine.
the bruise = sound + image + word.
the bruise likes you.
the bruise seeks your input.
the bruise will never hurt.
the bruise believes in art as a powerful and unifying tool for mutual support.
The Bruise is an interdisciplinary, collaborative research and production environment that will explore the intersections between art, sound, interactivity, intermedia and virtual space. The Bruise is your friendly contusion, your fibrous abundant quota. We go 50-50 with you. We seek to share, support and exchange ideas, images, sounds in the spirit of the FREE CULTURE – The mission of the Free Culture movement is to build a bottom-up, participatory structure to society and culture, rather than a top-down, closed, proprietary structure. A good example is the current “open source” development. What is posted on The Bruise will never be for sale or valued monetarily within the planned economy. The Bruise wants your to participate and help establish in a different paradigm – New World Economy, one that supports the nurturing of a sustainable ecology, human rights, and a culture not rooted in domination, egotism, and competition.
JPG Magazine is for people who love imagemaking without attitude. It’s about the kind of photography you get when you love the moment more than the camera. It’s for photographers who, like us, have found themselves online, sharing their work, and would like to see that work in print.
JPG Magazine was created by the husband and wife team of Derek Powazek and Heather Powazek Champ. It’s a quarterly printed publication devoted to brave new photography that takes submissions over the internet and prints on good old fashioned paper. It’s printed on demand by the good folks at Lulu, who put out a lovely press release when we launched.
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