London: Mark Jenkins – BRD SHT

June 11, 2018 butterfly

American artist Mark Jenkins returns to London for his third solo exhibition with Lazinc Gallery.
The show follows Jenkins’ success of his recent art installation, Project84, atop of London’s ITV building, raising awareness of male suicide.

Together with his collaborator, Sandra Fernandez, Mark Jenkins creates sculptural street installations that take the form of life-sized bodies, often interacting with the surrounding environment.
The physical casting process ordinarily uses either Mark or Sandra’s own bodies, essentially cloning themselves out of many layers of sellotape to create dark humoured and often sinister sculptures and place them within the public space. The work is intended to explore the conventional process in which we experience and view artwork and the pedestrian boundaries between art and life.

“BRD SHT, the show’s title, nods to a license plate in the film Brewster McCloud. In the film, it was a murderous substance and while I understand here in the UK it’s good luck, for me I’ve always thought about the frequency birds do it as a condition for reducing weight to allow flight. It’s a useful metaphor to understand that our own ability to sustain flight mentally is a matter of reducing our own emotional baggage, or shit if you will.” – Mark Jenkins

The exhibition features nine sculptures, three canvases and works on paper, as well as an installation on the gallery front of a fisherman figure hanging from the balcony.

View the full set of pics here

Mark Jenkins – BRD SHT
Until 30 June 2018
Lazinc Sackville
London

Paris, Shows

Paris: Miss Van Retrospective at Galerie Openspace

June 8, 2018 butterfly

OpenSpace Gallery in Paris is paying tribute to leading female urban contemporary artist Miss Van with a special Retrospective. The exhibition, curated by Samantha Longhi and Nicolas Chenus presents more than 90 works from 2003 to today, and is running until June 14th.

Spanning across 15 years, the exhibition showcases her prolific body of works on paper, wood, and canvas. It’s quite an emotional journey which present her incessant sources of inspiration and Miss Van’s signature female characters set in diverse oniric situations.

Upon entering the gallery, early works with acrylic on canvas, are featured along side the most recent oil paintings Gitanas series.

Key highlights include her little madonnas or ‘Virgen’, Princessas, Bailerinas, Twinkle, a room dedicated to circus with artworks from here 2008 ‘Still Little Magic’ series, as well as the ‘Atame’ painting who graced the cover of the Juxtapoz magazine.

On the lower ground space hosts the ‘Hypnotic flower’, a wooden installation that was featured at the MOCA in LA in 2011 for Arts in the Streets and her masks series.

The evolution of body of works is simply spectacular. Her lolitas have blossomed into sensual Gitanas with a stunning colour palette and precision of the brushstrokes.

View the full set of pics here

Miss Van Retrospective
Until 16 June 2018
OpenSpace Gallery
116 Bd Richard Lenoir
75011 Paris

Shows, streets

La Rochelle (FR): Graffs on Tour(s) with the CMN

June 3, 2018 butterfly 1 Comment

The Centre des Monuments Nationaux (CMN) is France’s biggest cultural and tourism operator. Its mission is to preserve cultural heritage and provide public access to 100 national historical monuments throughout France.

After having archived and documented graffiti on the national monuments as traces of history and archeology for decades, and referenced graffiti on thirty historical monuments, the CMN has decided to focus its 2018 cultural season on historical graffiti with a series of exhibitions and events called “Sur les murs, histoire(s) de graffiti“ on nine of its national monuments curated by Laure Pressac .

From 31 March to 25 June 2018 the historical sites of La Rochelle Towers present “Graffs on Tour(s)” with a focus on historical graffiti as well as artistic interventions by contemporary artists. Over 600 graffiti have been recorded, engraved in the walls of the Rochelle Towers, as testimony of imprisoned sailors during the various wars.

Following a month residency, internationally renowned graffiti duo Lek & Sowat (covered) have created a series of contemporary installations in the Saint Nicolas Tower and the city of La Rochelle, which we will focus on in more details shortly.

To kick start the cultural season with the Quinzaine du Numerique (QZN), five artists including Philippe Boisnard (FR), Vincent Dubois (FR), Collectif Impact (FR), Julia Masvernat (AR) and Julia Suero (AR), invaded the Lantern Tower by creating a transmedia journey with digital installations, visual mapping, videos, and sound installations.

Through the ascending progression of the Lantern Tower, this transmedia path evokes the transition from figuration to abstraction as well as the transformation from analog material into digital material.

Upon entering the tower, visitors are given a booklet and at each stage of the journey, the public can discover more about the architecture of the building, historical graffiti and artistic installations and interpretations of the QZN.

On the second floor, Collectif Impact highlights the most important graffiti (depending on their quality, size and state of conservation) with visual mapping on the prison doors, while a life-size projection features testimonies of the past left by sailors, pirates and prisoners. A dark room reveals invisible graffiti using black UV light.

On the third floor, also nicknamed ‘dorm room’, graffiti are even more prolific. Through lighting effects, Vincent Dubois presents selected graffiti in a museum setting, with audio creations by Julia Suero for a full immersive experience.

A room with interactive games and books let you discover more about the history of graffiti.

The fifth floor features the first dungeon of the nineteenth century. Artistic installations by Julia Masvernat and Julia Suero invite the viewers into an oniric journey with ‘Magic Lanterns’ . Through a projection, shadows reminiscent of historical graffiti evolve on the walls of the room.

For many years the Lantern Tower was a place of confinement, and graffiti are traces left by these isolated and immured people. Philippe Boisnard ‘s installation is a 270 ° mapping on the sixth floor of the Lantern Tower, which poetically and graphically opens horizons through these walls. Each stone has been visually mapped and transformed into a new skyline, a distant desert, burning fire, depth underwater. Through computer generated images, the prison walls disintegrate and show the viewers how imagination can go beyond confinement.

Stay tuned as we continue our visit of the CMN Cultural season
“Sur les Murs, Histoire(s) de Graffiti”.

Graffs on Tour(s)

Until 25 June
Saint Nicolas Tower
Lantern Tower
La Rochelle

Paris

Paris: BLO – ‘Anywhere, Out of this mind’

June 2, 2018 butterfly

Berlin based artist BLO, from the Da Mental Vaporz crew, is currently showing a new exhibition entitled Anywhere, Out Of This Mind at Galerie 42b in Paris.

The new body of work features a series of oniric painted assemblages with a mix of grayscale abstract shapes and surrealist female portraits. The figurative intertwines with the abstraction of lines and textures. Painted figurative cut outs inspired by found contemporary images are pieced together with energetic abstract brushstrokes. Playing with textures, focus and blur, light and shadows, it creates a dialogue between the real and subconscious.

A seductive choreography is set up by a series of assemblages, contrast and accumulation, layering of paint, erosion of textures and images. A dialogue is established between actions and reactions. Energetic abstract brushstrokes recall the gesture of the tag which blends with finesse and elegance onto the female body while silk and drapes bring elegance, lightness and sensuality to the female figures. Mastering anatomy and pose with great detail, the cut out paintings bring our focus on hands, legs, a mouth while the woman’s face remains blurred, as to transport us into a nostalgic and dreamlike world.

We asked BLO a few questions to find out more.

How long have you been preparing for this show?

BLO: After a year experimenting with abstraction, and following my artistic residency in Perpignan (FR) in November/December 2017, I decided to return my focus to figurative painting while exploring fragmented compositions. So, I have been preparing for my current show for the past five months.

What is the inspiration behind the exhibition title Anywhere, Out Of This Mind?

BLO: The title of the exhibition is a reference to a poem by Baudelaire, Anywhere Out Of This World, with the last world being replaced by ‘mind’, as an invitation into the subconscious world.

What are your sources of inspiration and creative process?

BLO: Based on contemporary photography and textures I have observed in the urban environment, I created preparatory collages on paper that served as first sketches for my canvasses and then let my inspiration flow on canvas until I am satisfied with the composition.

What materials did you use?

BLO: For the first time, I have used very little spray paint. I focused on acrylic, oil paint, using pigments, varnish, and different types of inks and enamels to create a variety of textures on canvas.

Some of your artworks are purely in black and white while others are colourful. Can you tell us more?

BLO: After the past two years, I wanted to create grayscale paintings again as a tribute to drawings, specially ink drawings, with a focus on textures.