When you add credibility to it, Pop is not such a dirty word anymore. If you ask me when add a little bit of indie the shine isn’t so overbearing. That’s exactly what Atlanta based artist Chris Hamer did when he dubbed himself and his work UrbnPop.

Living in Atlanta for so long, even before I could put a face to a piece, I’d seen Chris’ work sprawled across walls around town just as much as I saw them donning walls in galleries such as Kai-Lin Art Gallery. Take a closer look at Chris’ work below.

American Icons, a recent solo exhibition by Hernando Alzate was nothing new under the sun. But that isn’t saying much. What is new these days? All forms of creation rely heavily on the work made before it. However, what American Icons lacked in new ideas, it made up for with visually stimulating images and an in depth process that if anything is a technical achievement. In one piece, he’ll evoke the pop masters of the past, Warhol and Lichtenstein. In another he nods to the pop master of the present, check out his Mr. Brainwash nod in the above image.

While strolling through Coconut Grove, Miami’s equivalent to New York’s East Village, we came across Cristina Chacon Gallery. Inside, were about 12 pieces that included imagery from classic pop figures like Frank Sinatra, Muhamad Ali, John F. Kennedy and more. Even Mr. Brainwash’s now iconic image of Madonna, from her 2009 greatest hits compilation Celebration, shows up in one of my favorite pieces in the show.

While true to form, most Neo-Pop artists include pop fixtures of today’s scene, including themselves, see Fahamu Pecou, Hernando focuses on pop culture fixtures of the past. American Icons uses Neo Pop elements to, in his words, “revive the emotional experiences connected to legendary figures of our recent history.”

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Back in the big city since 2009 from a stint in Asheville, another hot Southeastern art hub, Atlanta-native PaperFrank may currently be best known for his sticker asking: You Mad?! – with the “o” appearing as a less-than-pleased toothy bunny.

Strolling the urban core of the city together heading South, Frank says, “I was graduating high school and heard from my guidance counselor about Miya Bailey, who’d also graduated from Asheville High School. I came down to his tattoo shop in Atlanta looking for work, and he turned me away. I always liked graphic T-shirts, so my best friend and I started a clothing line called Paper in early 2009, looking to support myself.”

That clothing line’s website is: www.simpleaspaper.com and new designs should be available soon, though Frank admits he hasn’t updated the site in a while. He’s been too focused on learning the tattoo trade as an apprentice, but also a “natural.”

I ask about his blossoming career as a painter, and he responds: “In Asheville, I was drawing but not really doing art like that. I moved to Asheville in 9th grade, and I’d win scholastic awards and the class superlatives for most creative. Then I realized I needed to capitalize on my talents and started painting and doing graphic design a year ago.”

Now, we’ve reached the post office, where Frank is mailing a painting purchased off www.PaperFrank.com yesterday to Maryland. “Drugs-Money-Crazy-Insanity” subtle in black-on-black of background, while pretty brunette with swooshing arm draws with crayon a pink and white bunny with a knowing grin. It’s lovely.

Over half his audience is out-of-state currently, but he also has a strong local following. His first solo show at the New Era Flagship Store downtown finally drew the attention of fellow alum Miya Bailey, who better-late-than-never hit Frank on Twitter and inked him as a tattoo apprentice at City of Ink in the artsy Castleberry Hill section of Atlanta. PaperFrank’s second show was held at the tattoo parlor, announcing he’d joined the team. His third show was at the fabled Apache Cafe’ in South Midtown. Remarkably, he sold out of paintings at all three.

CBD – the central business district is suddenly and inexplicably flooded with hundreds of corporate types, prompting a postal worker to say to us in her sweet voice: “They are having a block party, and we weren’t invited.”

Some artists, like PaperFrank, create their own art world invitations. Watch him!

This artist profile and much more in the new issue of Art Nouveau Magazine, via Magcloud.

Paul Leli is an artist that has recently caught my attention. The 26-year-old artist, is based in Toronto, Canada, but that doesn’t stop him from creating jaw-dropping portraits of pop icons from around the world. Paul Leli is painting celeb reality with a hint of awesomeness. Take a closer look at some of our favorite pieces from Paul below.

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Just in time for Spoke Art’s Quentin vs. Coen Round Two, opening June 2nd at the new permanent gallery space in San Francisco, comes the latest from Australian artist Rhys Cooper.

Entitled “Quentin’s Angels (of Death and Violence), these three prints represent “the good” and are the first in a continuing series created exclusively for Spoke Art by Cooper. Each print is hand numbered, comes in an edition of 125, and is only $30 a piece. As an added bonus, there is something very special about this edition, we can’t tell you much, but let’s just say that the folks who pick these up won’t be disappointed…

Prints are available here. Quentin vs. Coen Round Two opens June 2nd at Spoke Art Gallery in San Francisco.

The force is strong with this one. On June 1, Artist/graphic designer PaperFrank will debut new works in an exhibition entitled “Afro Picks and Bunny Suits 2″ at Archive Gallery. All work and merchandise will be for sale. If you’re in Atlanta and want to know where the art scene is heading, you need to make it out to this show.

Sponsored by Art Nouveau, Rock Smith, City of Ink & Atlanta Got Sole.

About The Artist: 20 year old City Of Ink tattoo apprentice, PaperFrank is a self-taught artist, graphic designer based out of Atlanta who specializes in super flat acrylic paintings and digital work. His works usually revolve around his fascination with bunny rabbits and how they can represent many things. PaperFrank uses many bright colors and “child friendly” illustrations to display thoughts and emotions.

Click here for everything we’ve got on PaperFrank.

Click here to RSVP for the opening on Facebook.

During his 2010 residency at the McColl Center for Visual Arts in Charlotte (North Carolina), Fahamu Pecou created a collection of four series of works under the title Hard 2 Death. Now the works have been presented in his first ever French exhibition at Backslash Gallery.

Fahamu Pecou is questioning the idea of the boundary between self-protection and self-destruction. Each series of work offers some sort of an answer: the recent trend for trousers worn below the hips, conflicting attitudes, sex and violence, a return to childhood expressed in fashion and a taste for a certain type of car, and the relationship between men and women. The artist proffers his own definition of the permanent sense of violence felt by these young members of American society.

 

- Backslash Gallery

Hard 2 Death runs through May 28. From June 9 through July 23, the gallery will be exhibiting works by Astrid Kruse Jensen. Take a closer look at Hard 2 Death below.

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As an art editor I receive countless submissions. A majority of them aren’t for Art Nouveau. Sometimes it seems as if artists aren’t reading the site. If you browsed through Art Nouveau for two minutes you’d get a pretty solid gist of the type of work we are looking for. Thank whatever or whomever you pray to that Yis Goodwin aka NoseGo knew who he was submitting to. The Philadelphia based artist recently introduced his artwork to us and we’re glad to share it.

Vibrant, authentic, street and contemporary, Yis’ work has a visual feel that I compare to a mix between Jean-Michel Basquiat and Blaine Fontana. There is a unique mix of play, pop, art history and illustration that will attract any contemporary art buyer or lover. His designs feature an assemblage of patterns, vibrant colors and characters derived from his imagination and his surrounding environment.

Yis holds a B.F.A. in Film and Digital Video from the University of the Arts and also studied illustration at Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Fleisher Art Memorial, and The University of the Arts. Take a closer look at some of Yis’ work below.

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On April 14, Art Nouveau Magazine presented Want To See A Sad Boy Smile? Pay Him, the debut solo exhibition by artist/designer GreatEclectic at Studio 900 in Atlanta, GA. GreatEclectic gave viewers a glimpse into his elaborate rants and musings on fame, power, money, love, the rise and the fall and our generation’s obsession with celebrity. His signature aesthetic evokes a unique combination of pop culture semiotics and art history paired with a vibrant narrative. Works in the exhibition range from mixed media collages, to drawings, paintings and photography.

Want To See A Sad Boy Smile? Pay Him is arduous. It is bright. It is delusional. It is hidden in prismatic view. It is seeing roses through Reagan-colored sunglasses. It is waking up to the first Pink Friday after Sunday mourning. It is the scene sweet-tooth before and beneath the staid urban decay. It is everything in one place, in distorted focus, for no other reason than for you to see it; because we’ve been blinded by the guided light, because we need to throw shade if only to stargaze again.

“Money is my Bitch.”

The show began with looking at the idea of money across social, political and personal landscapes. Upon entry, viewers were bombarded with my affection for all things mass produced as the almighty dollar followed them throughout the exhibition. A constant reminder sitting heavy on their shoulders.

Viewers were lead from this room to a room featuring personal works that feature myself in situations I’ve been in the past three years. From life to love, from near death to love loss, this is my life. I look at it like a visual postcard from the crazy life I’ve led.

“Want To See A Sad Boy Smile? Pay Attention.”

Looking at money from a personal stand point, whether it be motivation to prove old flames I still have a trick or two up my sleeve or to satisfy urges I have, money and fame became intrinsically involved with one another. This moved into questioning why money evades most and is seemingly an exclusive handout for a handful of greedy individuals. I began to look at the idea of money, and specifically what one will do for it. I couldn’t decide if politicians or celebrities would go to the lowest extremes to get ahead.

“Give Me Pound, Give Me Pound, Give Me Euro, Give Me Yen.”

I’m no Debbie Downer. I consider my best friend to be Benjamin Franklin. Money like most things, has it’s good and bad qualities. Like everything else, it all depends on what you’re willing to sacrifice for a goal. The main room was a look at the idea of money and it’s connection to fame. In the main room, celebrities run amok in bright landscapes. Whether it’s looking at the bright side (a youthful gold teethed Jay-Z smirking like he just made his first million) or the dark side (Britney Spears, half of her head shaven, slapped across the phrase ‘Rich People Don’t Get Sad’), this is my visual representation of our generation’s obsession with fame.

These days, fame is something you can achieve from behind a computer screen. If you have a Twitter of Facebook page, you’re famous. So how do you discern what is talent in a scary time when Snooki from Jersey Shore makes more in speaking engagements fees than Nobel Prize Winner Toni Morrison. How do you discern celebrity when a sex-tape with Brandy’s brother can make you famous and be the start to your career as a pop singer? #OOMF is not thinking right. And Want To See A Sad Boy Smile? Pay Him was my attempt to make sense of the muddled concrete jungle that is our popular culture.

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It’s officially spring. The birds are chirping. Pimps and players are flirting. And the girls? Well depending on who you ask, they run the world. It wouldn’t be spring without a tribute to the girls, girls, girls.

Art Nouveau’s Spring issue, entitled Girls, Girls, Girls is a tribute to the art of vintage pin-ups. You can see traces of the influence in just about every contemporary art form, in music they are barbies and Katy Perrys, in film there is always a new hot ‘it girl,’ in art, well you’ve seen pin-up tattoos on everyone from soccer moms to the typical biker guy.

For this issue, we’ve compiled pieces, artists and editorials that both evoke the art of the pin-up and push the art direction of the vintage style into new heights. On the cover Greg Gossel,  probably at the forefront of the surge in pin-up art talks about his upcoming show in San Francisco and more. Elsewhere, Lady Aiko, Marcelo Daldoce, J*DaVeY, Oscar Olima, Adrienne Raquel, Alice Vandy and more provide the visual and sonic soundtrack that is sure to keep you stimulated–no pun intended.

Click here to view the entire issue and purchase a copy or two.

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For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been meeting some interesting artists in the most inconspicuous ways. Take for instance Monica Ellis. Just the other day, my friend and I were killing some time because we had to wait for the restaurant to buzz us when they were ready for us, so we wandered around because the place was too crowded, and we stumbled upon a local art gathering. I believe the venue was called Salt and it was art featured by Alejandro.

As I looked at the art, I saw there were wine bottles standing ever so nicely on a desk and a girl sitting there. I moseyed
towards the table and spoke with the girl at the table in which she offered me some wine. With my internal mission accomplished, I continued to talk to the girl when I found out her name is Mon (short for Monica) and she was an Art student who recently graduated from SCAD. She gave me one of her business cards and I was interested in the drawing covering one side of the card. It was a picture of Jesus on the cross with a Taco Bell wrap behind it. I asked her the meaning, and she told me it was because of her heritage of being Mexican with a Christian faith. I definitely thought people should see it.

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I’ve never met GreatEclectic, but I know him quite well. I’ve never felt more innately connected to someone with whom I’ve never shared conventional contact; but that is the beautiful mystery that is the Great Mister Daye. He conveys and connects with the world and the one individual alike, because he is his work; as with any masterpiece, that connection lives in the unconventional void – where authenticity cannot be barred by limitation, and catharsis cannot be marred by sterile sanity. He lives in his work – it is in that shared space where I feel, and it is in that shared experience where life is present.

As an anydenizen: Kendrick is a Southern boy, a neer-do-welLOL (<– ;o)), a halogenic hipster setting up art-camp in the Peachtree.

As an artist: GreatEclectic blends the most abstractly familiar elements of life – love, envy, wealth, wrath, perception, desire, greed, necessity, lust, identity, indulgence, ideals, ego, morals, said bankruptcy, and fears – with the rawest veneer of famous faces. His pieces are pastiches – whole in-and-of themselves but even more so in context of one another. Pop & Politics are alive and well-contented bedfellows in this world. The personal space stands as the pre-eminent public place of judgment. Shadows dance in rigid rhythmic formation with neon strobes. The entire world coalesces into a kaleidoscopic cultural landscape… where we are presented with our own selves from before the mass-mediated mirror of Pop life.

It is arduous. It is bright. It is delusional. It is hidden in prismatic view. It is seeing roses through Reagan-colored sunglasses. It is waking up to the first Pink Friday after Sunday mourning. It is the scene sweet-tooth before and beneath the staid urban decay. It is everything in one place, in distorted focus, for no other reason than for you to see it; because we’ve been blinded by the guided light, because we need to throw shade if only to stargaze again.

His art lives, loves, laughs, lauds, lambastes, legislates, and promulgates on behalf of true Pop. It unravels the American tapestry because we were wound too tightly; it dims the lights because they blind so brightly; it hearkens to the dawn though it heralds nightly; and all it takes is a liberated lid to refresh the mind and see what I see: if you want to see a sad boy shine – pay him; if you want to see a sad boy smile – pay attention.

‘Want To See A Sad Boy Smile? Pay Him’ opens April 14 from 8pm-12am at Studio 900 in Atlanta. Click here to purchase work from the show.

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