Laurie Simmons

American artist Laurie Simmons’ mind-bending work varies from photography, film and even live performances. Her work, as many others that I have looked at this year, blurs the line between reality and fantasy. Her works mainly consist of constructed rooms or locations that are then photographed in a style that makes them appear to be actual locations. Her photo and film works ‘The Love Doll’ show a doll in various poses that make it seem like an actual person (standing by a tree in the snow, or having a bath etc.) These works seem like normal photos that you might find in someone’s holiday snaps but they become damn spooky when you realize that she isn’t real. Another set of photos that are rather relevant to my work on the Guardhouse are ‘Deluxe-Redding House’ and ‘Long House’. These are tiny rooms furnished with tiny furniture that almost look like they are real show rooms.

You can look through her works (and watch some fascinating lectures) at her website at:

http://www.lauriesimmons.net/

Thomas Demand

Thomas Demand, a German sculptor known for photographing 3D constructs that look like real location shots. He works in a few medias, them being Photographs of the ‘sets’ he makes, installations and short repetitive films. All of which either depict places that he himself has never been to, or places that don’t really exist. His ‘Presidency’ works that were commissioned by The New York Times depict the famous oval office in America, a place that most people could recognize instantly but have never been to physically. This work is so highly detailed that it looks like either a photo of the actual office or a film set (which I suppose is the point behind the work really.)

You can check out his website at:

http://www.thomasdemand.info/

James Casebere

James Casebere is an American artist that specializes in constructed photography. His pieces range from table-sized constructs made with simple materials, to large-scale instillations. His works are eerily realistic and it is difficult to tell if the places photographed are real or constructed environments. Some of his works that stand out to me are ‘Interrogation Room’ with its lone chair sitting in the cold, damp confines of the cell creating a rather haunting atmosphere. ‘Cell #1, Cell #2 and Cell #3’ because they are so damn claustrophobic. ‘Tunnel #2’ because the corridor seems to go on and on without end. ‘Yellow hallway #2’ for the way the water distorts the tiled floor. And finally ‘Western street’ because it looks like a creepy little town you might end up in if you were in a horror film (it reminds me of the town in the film ‘House Of Wax’)

 You can see his works (from 1975 to present) as well as other info on his website at:

 http://jamescasebere.net/

Smarter Commerce IBM Advert

I saw this TV-spot the other day and thought it was not only clever but also rather relevant to may work on the Guardhouse. The TV-spot is for IBM advertising smarter commerce and consists of someone putting a box on a counter and the box opens to show various dioramas made of cardboard to help explain points that the advert is making. I thought it was rather well made and inspiring… not interested in IBM so the advert sort of fails in that respect but it was beautifully done considering that it was advertising boosting business revenue etc. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find out who made the advert for IBM.

You can watch the ad for yourself here:

http://www-05.ibm.com/innovation/uk/think/videogallery.html?re=sph

(Go to ‘TV Spots’ and click on ‘Smarter Commerce’)

GuardHouse Cosplay Photo

Not really related to my Guardhouse project exactly but it is such a good piece of photography and cosplay (dressing as a fictional character) that I just had to mention it. The Brazilian Deviantart cosplayer ‘Chris-Rickfield’ has had a few photos taken on location while cosplaying as Chris Redfield (one of the two main characters From the first Resident Evil game that the Guardhouse is from.) The locations he has chosen are eerily close to the actual locations the game is set in and the lighting used gives the photos a rather haunting feel. The costume is impressive, being as accurate as possible and the stances that the cosplayer uses for the photos are spot-on. As I mentioned before ‘Rickfield’ has a few works dressed as Chris Redfield but the one that really struck me is ‘Walking to the Guardhouse’ because apart from all of the reasons these works are so good this one just sums up the feelings of dread and loneliness that embodies the ‘Survival Horror’ that Resident Evil is known for.

You can see ‘Walking to the Guardhouse’ and Chris-Rickfield’s other work at:

http://chris-rickfield.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d41rukh

Miniature Apartment

On my hunt for inspiration for my Guardhouse project I found this amazing miniature version of Monica’s apartment from the American TV sitcom ‘Friends’ by a Brazilian artist ‘Brunasc’ on Deviantart.com. ‘Brunasc’ was kind enough to upload many shots of her apartment showing all of the details she has managed to create, including photos that are smaller than a penny. She also has Work-In-Progress photos depicting her artwork in its various stages of creation. She has stated that her work is entirely made of paper, but I think I spotted some MDF and foam board in there, the majority of it does appear to be made of paper. All in all it is damn impressive and I hope I can make something this realistic.

Check it out yourself at:

http://brunasc.deviantart.com/gallery/34390024?offset=0

Greyson Perry

Greyson Perry visited UEL for a guest lecture and to be honest I thought it was going to be a rather boring experience… I was proved so terribly wrong. Perry was quite frankly bloody brilliant. The lecture theatre was literally buzzing when the lecture started and it didn’t die down until long after the lecture had ended. Perry (who wouldn’t define himself as a potter but an artist that makes pots) showed a slideshow of various artworks (such as the path to becoming an artist headscarf and various handmade vases as well as a beautiful folk art family quilt where if a family member died a member of the family would move a coffin from the edge of the quilt into the cemetery.). Perry talked of his struggle in the art world, as people tend to think that pottery isn’t art and that people don’t expect much of pottery. Perry was kind enough to provide a list of tips for the budding artist, which were:

- Turn up on time

- Be reliable

- Be nice

- Put the hours in

- Don’t overprice your artwork

- Always wear something distinctive at an art exhibition

- Don’t do a fucking neon artwork!

- Put the names of collectors on your artwork

- Make sure people know you’re the artist

- Call it something like ‘drawing of a fat person’ and a fat person may very well buy it

- Sell to journalists

- China don’t like things that are easily faked

- A gift shop

- A sign at your exhibition stating “warning, adult themes”

- A sponsor for any exhibitions

He went on to mention that he is not a fan of graffiti art or manga (which hurt me greatly) or overly realistic because there isn’t really a point anymore as you could just take a photo, and also that there is enough life drawing, we don’t need any more. His lecture also covered exhibitions, saying that people these days want a ‘theme park sudoku’ style experience from an exhibition; they want to be shocked and awed. He then covered artists in general; how he is fed up with people thinking that because they are doing something quirky they think it is art, and its wrong that because we understand conceptual art that everyone is an artist, people also seem to look too hard for meaning in art. The Q&A was also rather enlightening although he specified that we shouldn’t ask him what his favorite colour is. He stated that being famous has ruined being a tranny for him, whatever materials you work with when you are working with them is when you get your ideas, thinking you need money to be an artist is a load of tosh, it’s very tempting when you get a ‘hit’ to replicate it but it’s a bad idea, he happens to be a slight perfectionist that doesn’t learn from his mistakes and hates it when things go wrong in the kiln etc, making pottery is difficult but satisfying but Photoshop is great because it has an undo button. He also went on to say that you can fill a gallery using Photoshop in four months but with pottery it would take 2-4 years and that an exhibition just isn’t going to happen without a sponsor. It was the first time I had ever ‘met’ (been in the presence of) a famous artist and he was just lovely.

Art By Offenders

The art by offenders exhibit was rather surprising as I thought that it was rather unusual to display artwork created by what most people would class as the lesser people of society (I am not one of those people, just so you know.) the works ranged from models to paintings to sculptures, made using a variety of different materials. The art featured in this exhibition was brilliant; ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ by Lee Colin Edwards is a bold painting with the striking use of red. ‘The Wizard’s Spell Book’ was a remarkable little diorama of a wizard’s room made out of a book and furnished with all of the little things that a wizard might have in his house (like a spell book and a wizard’s hat.) ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ by Branislav Stankovic (not sure I spelled that right but I don’t really have a way of checking.) is a rather impressive painting of a tiger, the fur had definition and the eye was bold and striking. ‘Baby Dragon’ was a wooden model of a baby dragon with working joints and flapping wings.  All in all the works in the exhibition were impressive and I enjoyed it more than some of the exhibitions I have been to.

Aoji Gallery

Art Of Japanese Illustration Gallery presented 60 works by 29 artists at the MCM Expo. The art was breath taking and I seriously wanted to buy every piece that was exhibited. The art itself was created using various resources, ranging from traditional tools to digital programs, but all of the works held he delightful charm of the Japanese art style. The subjects of the pieces themselves was very diverse, some works were fantastical scenes or everyday life, portraits and landscapes, coloured and grayscale. My friend and I stumbled upon this little exhibition by chance and I am so glad we did. She even had to drag me away so we could visit the rest of the expo but we passed it many times, and each time my breath was taken away once more. To look at some of this amazing Japanese art visit the gallery website at http://www.artofjapaneseillustration.com/shop/en/

The Wallace Collection

The art in the Wallace collection varied from beautiful paintings, to ornate furniture and china. The paintings were all produced in the 18^th century and the details of the pieces were rather breath taking. The only drawback of the paintings were that the subject matter was mostly game hunting and dead animals (beautiful paintings, but not really my cup of tea as I rather like animals and don’t approve of hunting.) The period furniture was also rather artistic and aesthetically pleasing compared to the furniture produced today, as there were little reliefs and carvings here and there that added an artistic flare and elegance to something simple like a chair or dresser. The various china and other porcelain statues and trinkets were a joy to look at, as they were so detailed and beautiful to look at. The historic London town house that the art resides in is itself beautiful and reminded me of the Arkley mansion from the Resident Evil survival horror game (which was rather handy for a project I am doing, but unfortunately photography wasn’t allowed.) one of the drawbacks of the Wallace collection was that I couldn’t seem to find the names of the artists or carpenters anywhere, this may be my fault but it is a shame as I couldn’t really reference any specific piece from the collection.

The Museum of everything

The museum of everything exhibition no. 4 was hidden in the center of Selfridges. After following the various arrows on the floors and walls we came to what was more of a Santa’s grotto of art than a museum, with over 400 art pieces literally covering any surface and even hanging from the ceilings and up stairwells. The art that was in the exhibition was varied, as the title of the museum suggests there was not a set theme for the work or the technical skill. There was however a theme for the artists themselves as the museum of everything is the only museum to exclusively promote untrained and unknown contemporary artists. The art itself was rather interesting. Some works I appreciated more than others, such as the text based art by Japanese artist Shunji Yamagiwa, where the writing overlapped and distorted. Dan Miller also uses the same text based, distorted writings, this time in English, but some works were easier to read than others. Other works that are worth mentioning are Laan Irodjojo’s painting of a boat that was both bold and rather accurate, William Scott’s various paintings, Tarik Echols’ scribbled font paintings and Marianne Schipaanboord’s watercolour sketchy illustrations.

Gertrude Hermes

English artist Gertrude Hermes worked mainly on woodcuts that where inspired by plants, animals and nature in general. She worked on sculptures as well as architecture and has had her work in many main art galleries around England.

Hermes first studied art at Beckenham School of Art but her interest in woodcuts and carving started during her time at Leon Underwood's School of Painting and Sculpture during the mid 20s.

Between 1924 to the 1930s she focused mainly on woodcuts and founded the English Wood Engraving Society in 1925 with various other artists.

Her work was used to illustrate many books over her career, such as ‘The Complete Angler’ by Izaak Walton, ‘The Natural History of Seldom’ by Gilbert White that was unpublished, T.S. Eliot's ‘Animula’ and the ‘Penguin Illustrated Classics’ series.

Notable architectural works are her mural for the British Pavilion at the World Fair in Paris that she worked on with her husband Blair Hughes-Stanton and a fountain carved from stone as well as a mosaic floor for the foyer of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre.

Her love of nature as inspiration also followed through to her sculptures, her chosen materials ranging from bronze to wood and stone. Some of her smaller animal works also had practical functions as weather vanes, doorknockers, letterboxes and car mascots. Besides animals she also produced various sculptured portraits of musicians, writers and politicians. Two examples are the painter Prunella Clough and the poet Kathleen Raine. In all she created over fifty works.

You can read more about Gertrude Hermes at http://www.artfortune.com/gertrude-hermes/artistbiographies-129443/

Barbara Kruger

Barbara Kruger is an American conceptual artist; her work is mainly black and white photographs collaged together with typed captions with red, black of white text bars that generally state something ironic to do with various topics such as religion, stereotypes and greed.

She first developed a liking to graphic design when she attended Syracuse University in 1964 and after a year she began studying at Parsons School of Design in New York. In 1966 she started working at Condé Nast Publications where she worked her way up the ladder from entry-level designer for Mademoiselle magazine to head designer in about a year. She then worked on layouts, book cover designs and picture editing for various publications.

Feeling her artwork wasn’t getting her feelings across well enough she moved on to teaching at the University of California for four years.

In 1977 she started taking and manipulating black and white photographs, adding her own captions. However in 1979 she moved from taking and manipulating her own photographs to use found images, usually from American media, but still adding her own captions to get various points across either about the government or American culture.

She has produced at least 43 catchy captioned artworks, some of which have been sold on bags, key rings, T-shirts and other merchandise that Kruger herself governs.

You can read through her full biography at http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/Barbara-Kruger.html

Ito Ōgure

Ito Ōgure or better known by his pen name ‘Oh! Great’ (which is a play on how his name is pronounced; Ogure Ito = oh great) is the writer and illustrator of the hit ongoing manga series ‘Air Gear’. He also created ‘Majin Devil’, ‘Tenjho Tenge’, and worked on alternate costume designs for Asuka Kazama for ‘Tekken 5’, Lili in ‘Tekken 6’ and the character design for the bonus character Ashlotte for Soul Calibur IV.

Akira Amano

Akira Amano is a Japanese manga illustrator and writer. Her most famous work is the ongoing manga ‘Katekyō Hitman Reborn!’ or just ‘Reborn!’ which has had several games, an amine series and three light novels based on it. It is currently being published in the ‘Weekly Shōnen Jump’ magazene. This is not her only work however as she created ‘Petit Petit Rabbit’, ‘Bakuhatsu HAWK!!’, and ‘Shōnen Spin’. Her artwork, though not very refined in the beginning chapters of ‘Reborn!’ has grown and evolved much like the characters she has drawn and the situations these characters find themselves in.

Yana Toboso

The Japanese manga artist Yana Toboso is the mastermind behind one of my favorite mangas; ‘Kuroshitsuji’ (literally translates as Black Butler) she both writes and illustrates the still ongoing manga (it is currently on chapter 59) with each new chapter published in Square Enix's ‘Monthly GFantasy’ magazine which she has illustrated covers for in the past. This however is not her first manga, as she has written and illustrated a six-chapter (this is rather short) story entitled ‘Rust Blaster’, which was released in the same year as ‘Kuroshitsuji’. She has also worked on yaoi manga such as ‘Glamorous Lip’ under the penname of Yanao Rock.

‘Kuroshitsuji’ was popular enough to be adapted into a 2 series anime and she was allowed to oversee most of the development as well as draw characters, draw covers for the DVDs, and discuss plot points as the anime loosely followed the manga and had it’s own original plot points. This is rare as most manga writers are hardly involved at all. Her work has been described as both “meticulously drawn” and “incredibly detailed” with care taken in all aspects of the illustration be it the backgrounds or the characters themselves. The way she can capture a character’s emotions in just a few panels is awe inspiring and the plots for her mangas are just as impressive as her illustrations. You can visit Yana’s own blog at http://d-6th.com/blog/index.php (unfortunately it’s all in Japanese and Google translate doesn’t really help but you can get a somewhat garbled hint at what she is talking about.)

Atsushi Ohkubo

Japanese artist Atsushi Ohkubo is the writer and illustrator of one of the most top rated manga; ‘Soul Eater’, as well as the new spin-off series ‘Soul eater not!’ he also wrote and illustrated ‘B.Ichi’, a manga that some of the characters from ‘Soul Eater’ were based on. Before this Ohkubo worked as an assistant on the manga ‘Get Backers’ and illustrated a few cards for a game called ‘Lord of Vermillion’

Tim Burton

Tim Burton is an American illustrator and director. Some of the films he has directed are ‘Beetlejuice’, ‘Batman’, ‘Edward Scissorhands’, ‘Sleepy Hollow’ and ‘Corpse Bride’. He is best known for his film “A Nightmare Before Christmas” because of its unique style. Burton has worked on many usually private illustrations as well as an illustrated book ‘The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories’

The British museum

Visiting the British Museum was rather eventful as there where many various artifacts from different cultures. The Egyptian relics such as the mummified animals and figurines where rather intricate for their time period and their style was just iconic and easily recognizable. The Chinese pottery was all very detailed and elegant in design, the Roman statues where very life-like and their dead eyes seem to follow you. 

London MCM Anime Expo

There was an amazing abundance of contemporary artists that gathered at the October Expo, ranging from comic book writers, printmakers, illustrators and animators to graphic designers; all trying to get their names and their art known.

There where artist tables or stalls lined throughout half of one of the Custom House halls, so many that it was incredibly cramped. The art was displayed in various different ways; somewhere laid out like a market stall, others where in folders and portfolios, and somewhere even mounted up on partitions.

There were an array of different materials used for the art shown at the Expo, from paint on canvas, to inks and watercolours. The styles and various ways the artists used the materials where also rather intriguing.

I had a brief chat with some of the artists displaying their work, one of them being the cartoonist and printmaker Sean Azzopardi, who had his prints and other art for sale. He was nice enough to encourage me in my own works after I showed a lot of interest in his prints.

Another set of amazing artists where the Cosplayers, who dressed themselves up as various characters from Anime, film, games and TV. Although these are generally not defined as artists the work and dedication that has gone into making all of the costumes and props is remarkable and just as important as any other artist’s work. 

Richard Hamilton

English Collage artist and painter Richard Hamilton was the mastermind behind the 1956 collage ‘Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?’ which has been an influence for many works and has been recreated by others and by the artist himself when asked to make a more recent version of the collage using the same concept as the first. I myself as well as the rest of my class have been asked to create our own version inspired by the iconic image.