Lek and Sowat Sandcastle for the LaBel Valette Festival

August 8, 2022 butterfly 1 Comment

Marking the fifth anniversary of the LaBel Valette Festival in France, artists Lek and Sowat have given a new identity to this 19th century castle, by painting all its surfaces and transforming it into a monumental sandcastle.

Located in Pressigny-les-Pins, around one hour from Paris by train, Château de la Valette sits on just under 100 acres of wooded land and is comprised of the castle, a chapel, and two three-storey dormitory buildings. After the colourful works of Okuda (2018), 3ttman (2019), the giant calligraphy of L’Atlas (2020) and the optical illusions of Astro (2021), this mythical duo open the LaBel Valette festival that will take place on August 26 and 27, 2022.

The LaBel Valette Festival, organised by UAC (Urban Art Crew) and U2A (Urban Art Agency), will take place on August 26 and 27, 2022 at La Valette estate in Pressigny-les-Pins.
The two days programme includes graffiti battles, a musical production competition, live painting, workshops as well as a series of music concerts. Full programme here

Check pictures of the work in progress below:

Lek and Sowat were struck by the intense history of the ‘Domaine de La Valette’. Firstly belonging to the estate of a Count and a Countess, it then became property of Franco, followed by the Spanish republicans. It was later transformed into a college, then fell into abandonment. And was bought by an individual. The castle holds eventually a strong position of Street Art in France thanks to the LaBel Valette Festival project.

The artistic duo decided to work around the image of the sandcastle, which refers to the ephemeral nature of Street Art, and pixels, which evoke the aesthetics of the 80s.
Using bright blue and neon colours, they painted 10 000 square meters to transform the castle entirely.
Lek and Sowat ’s Sandcastle illustrates this year’s theme of the festival “Believe in your dreams”: A sandcastle can be erased by the rising tide but is rebuilt thanks to the venue of a new artist. A sandcastle is fragile, requires attention and commitment. It is imagined, hoped for, then built.

Paris, Shows

Animal Secrets by Mark Ryden (Perrotin Paris)

July 22, 2022 butterfly

Perrotin and Kasmin are presenting a jointly organized exhibition of new work by American artist Mark Ryden (b. 1963, US). Running until 30 July, ‘Animal Secrets’ comprises 10 paintings and 12 works on paper that further develop the artist’s series of portraiture, featuring mysterious and mythical creatures created during lockdown.

Conceived alongside the artist’s most recent exhibition at Perrotin Tokyo, the resulting gallery of enchanted characters embodies the artist’s meticulously-realized signature blend of archetype, kitsch, and narrative mysticism.

Mark Ryden’s imaginative artistic play manifests itself through deep layers of meanings and connotations: mythology and folklore mingle in this baroque universe as if to better explain the secret order of the universe.

His interest in the subject of animals as spiritual entities was first explored in his series. For his exhibition ‘Anima Animals’ in Shanghai gallery, Mark Ryden completed his paintings in early 2020, just as the entire world went into Covid lockdown. During this time of isolation in his Pacific-Northwest studio, Mark Ryden began a new series that further explored his reverence for these animal beings that act as guides through a landscape of the unknown. The figures in these paintings are neither human nor animal, they are spiritual entities that create a bridge between the human and animal worlds in which so much disharmony exists.

The artist’s practice is an ode to craftsmanship and refined materiality, from exquisite pictorial imagery to lavishly carved and embellished frames. At the same time, the artist probes into the invisible and secret order of the universe and interprets the life of things that are filled with
spiritual essence.

Mark Ryden explores intimate anxieties and archetypes with a pop surrealist vision. Aesthetics juxtaposed with a certain folkore, taste for the bizarre, his style is distinguished by a remarkable technical mastery, with intricate details and symbols.

Several works in the exhibition are presented as ‘tavolettas,’ a handheld form common in Italy between the 14th and 17th centuries for devotional instruments of consolation.
The Tavoletta series’ composition resembles a full-face representation of Christ and other saints in the tradition of byzantine icons and late medieval portraiture.
A figure rendered in a symmetrical pose in the center of the picture directly looks at the viewer. This time-honored, artistic craftsmanship elevates heavily sentimentalized elements of American tradition and antiquity, collected as though for a cabinet of wonders. The laborintensive canvases deftly rework centuries of art history, combining the grandeur of Spanish and Italian religious painting with the layered richness of Old Master compositions.

Ryden’s enigmatic characters dwell in harmony with nature amidst idealized landscapes. His tranquil sceneries evoke the nostalgia of Romantic imagery with a dream of the lost Golden Age from classical antiquity to the present day. The power of this iconography is in its simplicity and balance, where an unavoidable piercing gaze of the mythical entity entices the beholder into a silent conversation. A longing for harmonious coexistence with nature, with each other, and oneself.

The friendly surroundings, pastel colours, fluffy coats, pale children with large melancholy eyes, reveal worrying signs. The perception of the half-unveiled mystery becomes a lyrical invitation to dream. The reminiscences of childhood and the mystical essence of cruel tales constitute the essence of a form of pantheistic spirituality through which, under the brush of the painter, the human being tries to reconcile with nature.

Animal Secrets become spiritual guides to connect us with the surrounding world with a sensitive, humanist philosophy.

Animal Secrets, Mark Ryden, Perrotin Matignon, 2bis avenue Matignon Paris 8.

France, Museum, Shows

Hisham Echafaki – Mirabilia Naturae at Musee Jean Larcena

May 26, 2022 butterfly

The Museum Jean Larcena, in Val d’Ocre, Burgundy, France, is pleased to open an exhibition of works by London based artist Hisham Echafaki entitled Mirabilia Naturae ( Wonders of Nature), curated by Butterfly Art News. The exhibition runs until 19 June 2022.

Hisham Echafaki is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist who has been exhibiting internationally for over fifteen years. The artist’s style is a mix between realism and surrealism and sometimes uses the trompe-l’oeil technique.

In 2013, for the David Bowie exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Hisham Echafaki produced an anthropomorphic portrait of the singer composed entirely of 66 animals with a surprising trompe-l’oeil effect to celebrate the 66^th Birthday of the singer.

In 2019 Hisham Echafaki was invited by the Musée de la Poste in Paris to illustrate the facade with a 13-meter fresco retracing the history of mailboxes and artistic movements.

The artist will well appreciated with the local residents of Val d’Ocre as in 2018 he painted a giant fresco featuring an Iberian tortoise to warn about this endangered species. The mural has been the mascot of Val d’Ocre since.

MIRABILIA NATURAE – Wonders of Nature

From the end of the XVII th Century, explorers illustrated their discoveries of new animal and plant species and named them in Latin.

With the exhibition ‘Mirabilia Naturae’, Hisham Echafaki pays tribute to these ancient explorers who show us the wonders of nature, and transports us to a universe where the beauty and diversity of fauna and flora are celebrated in all their patterns and colours.

The series on display includes works on canvas, works on paper and multi-dimensional paintings on resin or plexiglass.

Beyond aesthetic imagery and the celebration of the beauty of nature, the themes of the exhibition highlight issues of biodiversity, the conservation of threatened species and habitats, and the impact of Man on the evolutionary changes of animal species.

In parallel with his paintings, Hisham Echafaki has also created a particular and very meticulous technique of painting on resin and plexiglass whose rendering is three-dimensional. His almost realistic animal works are based on multiple superimposed and meticulous layers of paint, resin, creating an effect of perspective.

This series of multi-dimensional works attempts to capture the beautiful complexity and diversity of the animal world. Detailed pieces can take up to 15-30 layers and several months to complete.

Whether based on real or imaginary specimens, butterflies, fishes or bees are immortalized giving the optical illusion that they could have been living creatures. Presented as “faux taxidermy”, animals often have anthropomorphic features on their wings or bodies with recognizable patterns from art, design, science while others, such as aquatic creatures, are just more realistic.

Hisham Echafaki would like to thank all the people that helped him on this exhibition: local residents of Val d’Ocre, the core team of the Museum with Francoise Richez, Patrice Lagrange, Sylvie Marchand, Bernard Curnier, and also Bassim, David Chaumet and Butterfly who worked on the preparation of the exhibition.

Here are some pictures from the set up and the opening:

London, Street, streets

Yoko Ono – Imagine Peace

March 6, 2022 butterfly

Fifty-three years after Bed-In, Yoko Ono is staging a global intervention by pausing commercial advertisements on the world’s most prominent digital screens to share a message of peace with the global community. An invitation for the world to unite, Ono is broadcasting her powerful, universal mantra IMAGINE PEACE every evening at 20:22.

The public art installation presented by CIRCA in collaboration with Serpentine, will feature local translations of Yoko Ono’s message to the world. Launching 3 March on London’s Piccadilly Lights and screening across the CIRCA network in Los Angeles, Milan, Melbourne, New York, and Seoul every evening throughout March 2022.

IMAGINE PEACE by Yoko Ono

To coincide with this commission, Yoko Ono has created a new time-limited edition silkscreen print, available to purchase for one month only, with 100% of print proceeds to be donated to the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).

Available exclusively on CIRCA.ART from 1 – 31 March 2022.

Rome, Shows

Rome: Damien Hirst Archaeology Now at Villa Borghese

November 7, 2021 butterfly

Archaeology Now is a Solo exhibition by British artist Damien Hirst presenting over 80 works from the Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable series, hosted in the sumptuous halls of Galleria Borghese, in a creative dialogue with the magnificent masterpieces of the museum.

The project stems from one of Hirst’s most original research in the last twenty years, on display for the first time in 2017 in Venice. The artist worked with different materials – natural, technological and precious – with exceptional technique and skill. His works – made from marble, bronze, rock crystal, and semi-precious stones – cross the boundary between reality and fiction, enhancing the desire for the eclecticism of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the Gallery founder.

Hirst’s sculptures come with an elaborate (and untrue) backstory. Purportedly 2,000 years old, they were supposedly uncovered in the cargo of a sunken ship rescued off the coast of East Africa in 2008, part of an underwater archaeology venture funded by the British artist (hence the coral and barnacles encrusting some of the works). The original “Treasures” exhibition, which reportedly cost $65 million to produce, debuted at the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana in 2017.

Curated by Anna Coliva and Mario Codognato Archaeology Now brings together sculptures, both monumental and small, made from materials such as bronze, Carrara marble, and malachite.

Furthermore, alongside the Gallery permanent collection, the Colour Space paintings are displayed for the first time in Italy. Hirst defined them as “cells under the microscope”: They break the idea of a unified image, float in space, colliding and merging with one another, with a sense of movement that contradicts the stasis of the canvas.