Marco Tempest: The magic of truth and lies (and iPods)
Marco Tempest - the magic of the future today
Marco Tempest began performing at a very young age and by the age of 22 had captured the prestigious New York World Cup of Magic. This launched him into the international spotlight.
He now has a full diary and a nomadic itinerary that sees him appearing throughout the year at shows and major events right across the world (including a TV series in China).
He calls himself a virtual magician and refers to his work as “Magic for both sides of your brain” and sees the magician as being “the one who makes dreams real first, before technology can get there…”
Marco embraces the latest technology recognising its potential in the creation of this magic. He uses his skill as a communicator and performer to combine high-tech computer-generated imagery, video, music and stagecraft to create his own memorable unique and magical moments for his audience.
Watch and enjoy.
Read MoreShea Hembrey: How I became 100 artists
“Seek” is a new international biennale consisting of hundreds of works of art, by 100 artists with widely varying approaches, styles and techniques.
On this level it works as an intriguing exploration of interesting work by unknown artists from across the world, selected by curators Calinda Salazar and Fletcher Ramsey.
The surprise comes when you realise that they all work together as a single artistic statement, skillfully created and curated by a one artist, with plenty of warm wit and humour for good measure.
The artist, Shea Hembrey, (born 1974) grew up in rural Hickory Grove, Arkansas in a family of farmers, factory workers, hunters, trappers, musicians, and cockfighters.
His interest in nature and an early fascination with birds (as a teenager he was a licensed breeder of migratory waterfowl) led his explorations as an artist on a journey to try to appreciate the influence of nature on humans and to understand how they have learnt from it and appropriated its forms for their own development.
Folk and Faith and Free Association
He has produced works on folk and faith healing inspired by his healer grandfather, and his view of art was profoundly changed while studying Maori art while he was a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar to New Zealand.
Hembrey focuses his concentration on a single project at a time allowing his research into the subject matter to direct the media and methods of the final product. His fascination with birds led to his exhibition “Mirror Nests”, a series of metal replicas of bird nests exhibited at Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology observatory.
Exploring the self-obsession of modern art elitists, the visual language of different cultures, social stereotypes and the variety of methods artists choose to express themselves as individuals resulted in his current “Biennial” – “Seek: 100 in 2011—The Inaugural Exhibition”.
“I love contemporary art, but I am often frustrated at the contemporary art world and the contemporary art scene.”
After travelling around Europe to see the “major art exhibitions that have the pulse of what is supposed to be going on in the art world, I was struck by going to so many one after the other with some clarity of what it was that I was longing for.”
“Two of the main things: I was longing for more work that was appealing to a broad public, that was accessible, and the second thing was: more exquisite craftsmanship and technique.”
The Mimov Test and the Three H’s
After considering what the ingredients would be that he thought would make a perfect Biennale, “I decided: I’m going to start my own biennale. I’m going to start it and direct it and get it going in the world… I have to have some criteria of how to choose work.
Amongst all the criteria I have there are two main things, one of them I call my Mimov Test – I imagine explaining a work of art to my grandmother in five minutes, and if I can’t explain it in five minutes then it’s too obtuse or esoteric and it hasn’t been refined enough yet, it needs to be worked on until it can speak fluently.”
“My second set of criteria would be the three H’s, which is : Head, Heart and Hands. Great art would have Head; it would have interesting intellectual ideas and concepts. It would have Heart in that it would have passion and heart and soul, and it would have Hand in that it would be greatly crafted.”
Read MoreCan Art Change the World?
Parisian photographer and street artist “JR” has undertaken many projects that have spanned the planet, using giant billboard sized monochromatic photographs in unexpected places, in positions of high visibility.
He started out as a graffiti artist in Paris, but after finding a camera on the Metro, began taking photographs documenting his friends painting graffiti on the rooftops and walls of the city..
He now mixes the two mediums of photography and graffiti, calling himself a “photograffeur”, posting giant black and white photographs in public places.
Can Art turn the world inside out?
The Largest Illegal Photo Exhibition in the World
His “Face 2 Face” project was dubbed “the largest illegal photo exhibition in the world” in which the border wall which runs the length of the disputed area between Israel and Palestine became a gallery of giant portraits of Jews and Palestinians of all denominations and types, grinning and pulling faces into the camera and posted side by side along large stretches of the wall.
Part of this is a giant triptych of a rabbi, a priest and an immam wearing intentionally comic expressions. The message is simple but powerful: there is far more that unites humanity than that which divides it. “It’s about breaking down barriers,” JR says. “With humour, there is life.”
Women are Heroes
His more recent “Women are Heroes” project took him to meet, work with and photograph women in slums and war-torn, poverty stricken communities across the world, using art as a medium to reaffirm the positive, creative side of humanity.
“They keep on asking you: what is the purpose of your project? Are you an NGO? are you the media? … Art. Just an artist…
Some who understood the project will explain it to others: to a man who did not understand I heard someone said:
“You know, You’ve been here for a few hours trying to understand this thing with your fellows. During that time, you haven’t think about what you’re going to eat tomorrow. This is art.”
“Women are Heroes” created a new dynamic in each of the communities and the women kept that dynamic after we left. For example, we created book, not for sale, but that all the community would get but to get it they would have to make it signed by one of the women…
Its really important point to me is that I don’t use any brands or corporate sponsor, so I have no responsibility to anyone but myself and the sisters…
They made me promise… please, make our story travel with you…so I did…look… that’s Paris, that’s Rio… that’s London… New York…”
Turn the World Inside Out – Participate in a Global Project
His latest project is one that everyone can participate in:
“I wish for you to stand up for what you care about by participating in a global art project, and together we’ll turn the world.. INSIDE OUT.
When we act together, the whole thing is more than the sum of the parts.
So I hope that together we will create something that the world will remember, and this starts right now, and depends on you.”
Use the link below to find out how you can participate.
Read MorePhoto Realism Speed Painting by Chris Scalf
Photo Realist Drawing by Chris Scalf
“I did this as an exercise for the purpose of, quite simply, practice. It’s been a while since I attempted anything photo-real… It’s very good to do this kind of thing because it strengthens your freehand drawing abilities, as well as developing an eye for detail.
Freehand drawn in photoshop cs2 (from a reference photo off to the side) with a wacom tablet.
time-lapsed… real time was about 3 and a half hours. “
Why “photorealism”, Why not just use a camera?
The answer is simple. I’ve made the point many times in my replies, comments and descriptions. But I’ll make it clearer here for those who do not understand: It’s for practice. It is the same as a musician practicing scales, so that he can write better songs…Or even a musician who plays a song from another famous musician on a CD– also to make himself better… To inspire/aspire to become better at the craft/skill.
It’s the same with the art. Sure I am just acting like a human camera and re-creating every detail and color I see– but that’s where the conditioning is. Same as that musician that is replicating the sounds of a scale or someone else’s song. (Why not just say to the musician, “why bother playing that song? Just put in the CD?” )
The fact that it is all freehand and controlled by my judgement makes it so valuable to attempt…. I have to be able to see and recognize exact tones of color, and be able to recreate it with extreme accuracy from scratch. I must be able to recognize every detail and the consistency that makes that detail REAL. It strengthens my abilities to be able to create works of art that come from my imagination.
Aside from practice, it is also a very commonly sought skill in the commercial trades to be able to mimic real-life with art. In addition to that, it does entertain the majority.
So there you go.”
| About: Chris Scalf |
Aelita Andre: the World’s Youngest Professional Painter
They say you’re never too young to make a start, and one Australian artist has certainly proved the point with the opening of her latest exhibition, this time in New York…
At four years old, Australian abstract artist Aelita Andre is the youngest professional painter in the world. She has been compared to Jackson Pollock, Wassily Kandinsky and Salvador Dali among others.
Aelita Andre – the pure pleasure of creation
Aelita had just turned two when her first solo show opened in 2009, featuring all the works she had painted as a one-year old. The show at the prestigious BSG gallery in Melbourne, Australia attracted
worldwide attention. The BBC London rang to congratulate her on her second birthday for her immense achievement, the Chinese press called her paintings “the work of a master”, 60 Minutes called her “the next big thing” and the Australian media dubbed her “Pee Wee Picasso”.
While still only two years old she was invited to Hong Kong where she staged a solo exhibition and painted live for over an hour in front of more than 60 Chinese and international media crews, after having been scheduled only to paint for five minutes.
Aelita is currently living in Melbourne, Australia with her parents Michael Andre and Nikka Kalashnikova who are of Russian origin and are both artists.
On one occasion when her father put one or his canvases on the floor to paint, Aelita crawled onto it and began dabbing and smearing paint across it with such conviction that her father just left her to continue, and placed a second canvas next to it for his own work.
Her works are vivid, expressive and full of energy and she is obsessed with painting. She runs around demanding “painting! painting!” and “kist! kist!” which is the Russian word for paintbrush. Her work has been featured by every major TV network and her paintings which are so admired by viewers continue to ignite heated debates around the world, about art.
Aelita has painted over 200 paintings, many of them large canvases. She paints with dedicated single-mindedness, but also with obvious joy and pleasure. Her world is explored through an “innocent eye” that opens a bright sunlit window into the primal and subconscious creative process.
She has a Solo Exhibition on currently in New York that opened on June 4th and runs to June 25th 2011, at the Agora Gallery, Chelsea, New York.
Aelita Andre – website:
http://www.aelitaandreart.com/aelitaandre/Home.html
Her works are available to buy at: http://www.art-mine.com/artistpage/aelita_andre.aspx
 003003:Best Friends Dolls – Pillow/Cushion by RainbowZebra Created by RainbowZebra Artist Elena McMillan — Part of a project by RainbowZebra Artists to raise money for charity. |
