Fernando Vicente is an artist from Madrid who made a name for himself in the art world back in the eighties when he started to combine illustration and traditional painting. Ever since he has enjoyed a successful career as an artist as well as art director and he has worked for several big agencies over the years. Among his clients you’ll find Rock De Lux, Cosmopolitan, Vogue and Playboy. Enjoy!
Clemens Behr was born in 1985 in Koblenz, Germany, but is currently based in Berlin where he studying Fine Arts at UdK Berlin. However, much of Behr’s time is dedicated to travelling and creating his huge 3D installations in both public and interior environments. For his sculptures he uses things he has found and recycled as well as basic building materials, whatever that mixes with the urban cityscape. With a background in graffiti Behr’s style is street smart, but his influences also include origami, spontaneous chance and a deep interest in the environment where his installations are displayed. We love it!
Canadian artist Martin Ouellette’s paintings are inspired by photos of common objects decaying in the urban landscape. With his work he has set out to find the beauty in the banal as he observes the transition from mass-produced objects to trash. His vibrant paintings are full of details; worn out magazines, wires, rusted nails or wooden poles layered with staples and torn up paper, but one thing is sure, if anyone can make decayed objects look like a work of art, it’s definitely Martin Ouellette.
Arian Behzadi is currently a Biological Sciences major with an emphasis in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior at UC Davis. In between classes he does personal and commissioned visual design work. He has always found parallels between art and the sciences so a lot of his studies find their way into his artwork. Aside from design work, Arian interns at the Same Day Surgery Center at the UCD Medical Center and does research at the Carraway/Sweeney Cancer Lab. Sweet!
Illustrator, designer, publisher, filmmaker and photographer Gildo Medina was born in México City in 1980 and studied at the prestigious Central Saint Martins in London. Nowadays he lives in Paris, where he has worked for brands like Coca-Cola, Louis Vuitton, Sony Music and Paco Rabanne Parfums doing a bit of everything, but what we like the most are his pencil illustrations.
Born in 1976 in Marseille (France), Gaëlle Villedary is an artist who loves to experiment with materials and create spaces that allow the viewer to interact. A good example of this is her eco-friendly installation in the village of Zhozhak, a small community located in the south of France. She was invited there for the celebration of the ten year anniversary of the initiative Art and Nature Trail, and Villedary decided to create an organic carpet that ran through the village to join the natural areas that are located on both sides. One of the objectives with the project was to show the path of development of the modern village, closer to nature, more active and harmonious use of natural resources, but the the installation also represents the rebirth of life on the road.
The Hidden People crew has just got home after a few intensive days in Amsterdam spent at 5 Days Off, a booming festival devoted to electronic music and mixed media art. Sweet lord!
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Conor Harrington is an Irish artist whose work could be described as an incredibly successful collusion between fine art and street techniques. According to Conor himself, central to his oil canvasses is “the male figure, referring to the masculinity of urban culture”. The images you see up here are from ‘Dead Meat’, his most recent show which opened the other week at Lazarides Gallery in London and runs through April 12, 2012. Stop by if you’re around!
David Cooley is a native Californian and self-taught artist. He creates stunning mixed media paintings using acrylic, pen, spray paint, resin and fabric. He’s inspired by textiles and patterns and his work often uses fabric for the background of the piece, which he often sources from the internet and various other obscure sources where one can find fabric featuring dinosaurs, kittens, martini umbrellas, and things of a similarly peculiar nature. What makes Cooley’s art stand out, literally, is his way of using acrylic paint to create three dimensional diamond-shaped spikes that protrude from the surface of the work creating a startling visual effect upon first viewing. We love it!
Japanese scientist/fisherman/artist Iori Tomita is the man behind this curious collection of see-through animals, which form part of his project called ‘New World Transparent Specimens’. The specimens are created using a preservation and dyeing technique usually only used for scientific purposes, such as examining the skeletal system and the underlying biological makeup. Tomita uses an enzyme to dissolve the natural proteins in the flesh. He then injects red dyes into the harder bones and blue dyes into the softer cartilage, thus highlighting usually unseen internal structures. The dead creature is then preserved in a jar of glycerin. Tomita started to create these transparent specimens as pieces of work to help people feel closer to the wonders of life and say that there are no limits to how people may interpret his work – as academic material, a piece of art, or even an entrance to philosophy. Magic!
As I look at the drawings of London-based artist Mark Powell I find it impossible to keep my thoughts from wandering. There is something magical about his work – so simple, yet extremely intriguing. Powell draws portraits of old people on the back of aged envelopes and other ephemera using nothing but an ordinary Biro pen to do so. Read more…
The fine art of Japanese painter Takato Yamamoto explores themes of darkness, bondage, vampires, metamorphosis, love and death. The perspective is always calm and serene – never depicting violence – rather, it is impending or just completed. Yamamoto was born in Akita prefecture in 1960 and after graduating from the painting department of the Tokyo Zokei University, he experimented with the Ukiyo-e Pop style. Later on he further refined and developed that style to create his ‘Heisei Esthiticism’ style. His first exhibition was held in Tokyo, in 1998.
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