It’s been a year since Randy Conner’s first solo exhibition. With no definite plans for a new exhibition, he’s still creating daily. So much his friends tell him he has mental problems. His approach could be called “anything goes,” whether he’s achieving realism or using his “anything goes” approach, Randy does whatever he wants to do. “I think everyone should just do whatever they want to do. Saying, ‘It’s supposed to be done this way or that way’, that’s just dumb. It’s so limiting, and it makes art boring,” Randy explains.
In this entry of our Poptimism series, self-taught artist Randy Conner tells a story about his current life to his five-years-ago self.
The brilliant combination of Western infatuation and Haitian ideals lands us in the sketch-ridden hands of illustrator Serge Gay Jr.
This Friday, February 24, The Active Space in Brooklyn, NYC will open their latest exhibition “Dreaming Without Sleeping” featuring the work of Criminy Johnson. The show allows viewers to glimpse the artist’s view of our waking world: a bent, slightly pessimistic and occasionally hostile place populated by animals and people who are often reluctant to be interrupted by the viewer.
As a professional writer and avid traveler of North America, I often take advantage of the cheap deals existing for the most-traversed of all American flight routes: ATL to New York City, which could be to any of that area’s three major international airports. The World’s Busiest Airport saw over ninety-four million visitors pass through her gates and concourses in 2011, while I was a year removed from the utter nightmare that bartending on the Delta Concourse in Atlanta was. Back to town – back to the central city – where the Capital of the South has made great cultural strides since the Olympics swept through in 1996.
One of Miami’s most lovable street artists is set to open his latest solo exhibition Ahol: Full-Time Feb 17 at Mercenary Square in Little Havana. His first exhibition in two years, Full Time finds the artist saluting the working class by visually and sonically documenting the decay of society. Tuning inward, he focuses on fruitless jobs he’s worked while juggling being an artist. This is Economic states and shapes. This is the American Dream of epic proportions. We sat down with the artist, to talk more about his show, the art scene in Miami and his take on the low brow art vs high brow art debate.
Renzo Razzetto Never liked painting, or working in color for that matter. But who needs paint or color when your work is as arresting as Renzo’s. The Florida based artist, emphasizes spontaneity of invention, the value of the instant, and a lot of kicks in a lot of behinds, sacred or not. If you are not satisfied, whistles are for sale at the door. Straight to the Pointillism. It’s Renzo’s technique that add a certain wow factor to his pointillist collages.
The Perfect Cherry Blossom is a symbol for flourishing spring and peace, but also the name of one of the most advanced and violent Japanese Bullet Hell Games. A video game made by gamers for gamers from a time before the gaming industry turned into a home entertainment device. Artists Keiichi Tanaami and Oliver Payne explored this game in their latest series of work.
“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I’ve ever known.”
– Chuck Palahniuk from “Invisible Monsters”
We kissed Elizabeth Winnel and we liked it. The Toronto, based painter received a BFA from in illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. Her current work begins each painting with a layer of drips, splashes and bleeding, the ‘associative layer’ binding form and color for emotive effect. The second layer depicts herself in vulnerable and often erotic poses. The aim is not self-objectification, but reflection and analysis. In her paintings she endeavors to make apparent the dichotomy of interior and exterior in relation to her self-image. Take a closer look at some of her work below.
Olek‘s first solo exhibition in the UK, opens this Thursday, January 26 at Tony’s Gallery in London. Entitled I do not expect to be a mother, but I do expect to die alone, the show runs through March 23, and features a bevy of her signature crocheted mixed media sculptural environments which according to the artist, “tell a story that’s a reflection of life, love trust and lust in our trying modern times.”
The silhouette or shadow of any particular culture is ever changing and can be misleading if judged just by what you see on the wall. If the sun is too high, the shadow stretches. If the pose is just right you might appear more statuesque. In our world, the media is the mirror and the flashlight that all too often simplifies and reveals these shadows and silhouettes for what they really are. There seems to be no group more simplified or more revealed in the past few years like gay men, specifically black gay men.
Art and Aesthetic Aces: Scott G. Brooks Finds Beauty in the Grotesque
Scott G Brooks lives and works in Washington, DC. His subject matter ranges from simple portraiture to intricate narratives. In his paintings, he takes social, psychological, and political issues and injects them with a dark sense of humor. Anatomical distortions separate the figures from the photographic ideal, which gives him the freedom to create his own distorted reality. His work is described as twisted and offbeat, sentimental, and disturbing.
Read More