My great grandmother recently passed away, she was one of the few heroes in my life and I always looked towards her for some type of peace and humor. We’d had no spats, but when it concerned music. Her record collection was massive. Billie Holiday, Chaka Khan, Marvin Gaye, Hall & Oates, Jennifer Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Ray Charles. My grandmother had at least five-hundred records of classic soul and R&B tunes, and when I attempted to compete with her, I’d lose. Not just lose, but get berated with comments on why the music was not good. “There’s no soul. Where’s the fun? Where’s the mystery, Myles? Where’s the story? Where’s the personality?” She was right. There was none. Until one day, in my sophomore year of high-school I played a song I fell in love with a song called “Bonafied Lovin’” by Chromeo.
Speakerfoxxx is that woman, taking on the male-dominated world of DJing, doing it well, and not giving a fuck about anything else unless it’s on wax.
Jeremy Fish is a modern day Griot. Instead of West Africa, his storytelling stomping grounds are cities across the world where you can almost always find someone wearing a t-shirt he’s designed.
Freshly defected from the acclaimed Inglewood hip-hop duo U-N-I, Thurz bombs the system with a bucket of wheat paste and pages from Ice Cube’s 1991 manifesto.
My assistant Rico and I are downtown this morning in Atlanta’s original commercial district, the historic Farlie Poplar. We are here to meet an already fairly popular up-and-comer in the ever-burgeoning ATL art scene, PaperFrank. After only three public shows, this 20-year-old visual artist is literally on the cusp of explosion.
Once upon a time, two star-crossed lovers meet and make beautiful music together. They share these 60’s-tinged melodies with their friends and before they know it, fame and popularity is birthed. They’re on NPR, Nylon Magazine and even Vogue talking about their trippy music that was just a haphazard, little project to get away from the boredom from film school. Now they live as 21st Century’s John Lennon and Yoko Ono, without those pesky other insects, side-by-side with label-mates like Lily Allen, Ke$ha and Beyoncé.
With a seamless merger of sincere substance and pop’s palatability, Taxicab Racers are barreling onto the electro-rock scene like a gypsy driver at LaGuardia Airport. This Nashville-based indie band has recently signed licensing deals with MTV and the Press House, so it won’t be long before we’re nodding along to their tracks in our living rooms and movie theaters. But with all of the up-and-comers in 21st century pop music, why would Art Nouveau choose to cover an unsigned band currently on their first multi-city tour? Because Taxicab Racers embody what so many burgeoning artists lack: a humble self-awareness personified through a progressive and unique sound.
“Our place does not have phone or internet.” Judging by this comment from visual artist Ted Coconis, it’s understandable if you’ve concluded that he has either retreated into Amish country or fallen into one hell of a time warp. From his secluded studio in a beautifully bucolic stretch of Maine, the prolific and influential illustrator laughs incredulously at the idea of being tethered to technology past and present. “We’re solar powered, so there’s no traditional electricity available. No cell reception anywhere near either, so we’re basically incommunicado.” While the thought of being unable to access social networking platforms like Twitter or Facebook for more than an hour would equate to torture for many, this is splendid solitude to 84-year-old Coconis. “I deal with the outside world when I go to town every few days. It’s a bit of a nuisance for others, maybe, but it suits me just fine.”
Oskar Brent Lawrence Malone. The four names named boy. Masked somewhere underneath this monstrosity of a title is your typical tortured artist, living in a damned state of puzzlement and isolation that can only truly be escaped through the execution of artwork. Primarily focusing on photography, Malone captures his idealistic reality with overlying shades of beauty, simplicity, and tranquility. His collection presents a mass of untold stories with no beginning or end, placing his subject somewhere in the midst. In this aspect, certain attributes of his work otherwise mimic his reality.
Although she is the go-to illustrator for magazines and children book publishers, Nata Metlukh has a dark side. Separate from her commercial work which finds the San Francisco based artist designing for clients, Nata’s personal sketchbook series paints an entirely different portrait of the artists. Art Nouveau recently caught up with Nata to talk about her work, commercial art vs personal art and more.
Marcelo Daldoce started painting at 16. Three years later he dropped out of school to as he simply puts, “stay home to paint by myself.” “I always liked to draw when I was a kid, but I never really thought about pursuing it,” the artist explains. “In high school, a friend suggested I apply to a Magnet School for the arts. I guess when I actually got accepted I realized I could make a living with art.”
Imagine there’s this sad soul whose never seen Greg Gossel’s work. Let me paint that person a picture. The Minneapolis based artist combines expressive interplay of words, images and gesture through a combination of mediums including silkscreen, transfers and found objects. Consider it visual intertextuality. With every piece is not only adding to the dialogue of contemporary art, he’s commenting on it, by the images he uses or doesn’t use.
