ARTMATEUR

DRESSED TO

KILL

Portraits by Christian Gaillard

photorealistic Portraits by

Gustavo Silva Nu帽ez

5

Iconoclasts Celebrate Louis Vuitton's Monogram

RETURN TO THE SEA

Saltworks by Motoi Yamamoto

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CONTENTS EDITOR' S LETTER

SW IM M ERS BY GUSTAVO SILVA DRESSED TO KILL

RETURN TO THE SEA

DOODLE ADDICT

5 ICONOCLASTS: LOUIS VUITTON

Credits G it uus o p u b l i p u b l i b u s v i v i d s e n i t, di i consi dem i n vi d C ati del i n di i pat ad publ i s C at, s e t es t at um n o c te n u m p o r h a e h i , d i cavero vati a? X i moventi s et abunt? Mi u esi mort i uspi c aet public ae s s u m a n te re v i ri c o n s e s ta m dum tast et i am et; ni s, ute i n actus, cri t vi l i bul i sses

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{editor’s letter}

In

the 20th century, happenings, artists’ co-ops, galleries, not-for-profits and art periodicals, contributed to the necessary discourse on the landscape of contemporary art.

In the 21st century, the contemporary art dialog is currently dominated by flippers and wealthy, elderly, out of touch men and women who stroll through artist studios, galleries, and art fairs like they are in a shopping mall with utter discontent for the artist.

Artists, you don’t need a gallery! Stop being a slave to an out dated and corrupt system. You are the life-blood of the art world, and you decide whether it lives or dies.

Stop signing with narcissistic galleries and dealers, and deliver the power back to the artist. Cease participating in exhibitions with gallerists and curators who are only interested in maintaining absolute power and the status quo. Artists I encourage you to start curating exhibitions in alternative spaces with your contemporaries and start the necessary dialog with the public and private art community.

Who and what are you afraid of? Have

you ever heard the expression “Build it, and they will come?” You don’t need someone to sell your work to the right wealthy people?

Why can’t you sell your work yourself? There exist important and relevant collectors who keep their ears open and eyes to the street!

Do your job, and they will do theirs. The artists’ expression should be a life’s journey, not a passing trend or a get rich flipper scheme.

How many fearless collectors do you know? I know plenty who are superficial, selfish, and ego driven. I will never cater to the whims and desires of unethical and morally bankrupt individuals. Most collectors, not all, are arrogant and bloated with an eye for the derivative. They are soulless sellouts and stand for nothing more than greed, power and class.

Artists, look to your contemporaries, and search out like minds. Artists with a voice, –thought provoking and fearless; artists who refuse to dumb down their work for consumption by blue bloods, celebrities and flippers. The art world is suffering from a collective “God Complex.”

stop getting

FUCKED and Stand the fuck up!

the time is now! best regards,

Terrence Sanders WWW.A RTMA TEUR.C O M 7

photorealistic Portraits by

Gustavo Silva Nuñez

photo © Gustavo Silva Nuñez.

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A

lthough photorealistic painting is definitely no recent invention, it has been receiving more and more attention from the art world in recent years. Numerous artists whose work is known internationally, such as Michael Zavros, Antonio Santin, Cheryl Kelley and Aristides Ruiz to name a few, like to use real photographs as the basis or the starting point of their paintings, usually with breathtaking results.

In a similar way, Venezuelan artist Gustavo Silva Nuñez paints unbelievably lifelike pictures of people, most of them swimmers interacting with the water around them. With his paintings which are realistic down to the last ripple and gleam of the water, Nuñez likes to take advantage of that trompe l’oeil on his instagram account, where he poses in front of his paintings as if he is touching or applying paint onto real people.

Born in Valencia, Venezuela, in 1980, Gustavo Silva Nuñez has participated in around 40 solo and group exhibitions in his home country and abroad – we should also mention he is the drummer of a band called Punky Brewsters!

F i n d o u t m o r e o n i n s ta g r a m : @ g u s tav o i n u t e r o

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Dressed to

KILL

Portraits of Bullfighters by French Painter

Christian Gaillard

R

egardless of one’s feelings about the traditional spectacle of bullfighting, one cannot but admire the extravagant costumes worn by toreros, which echo the flamboyant style of 19th-century dandies and are meticulously embroidered using shiny golden and silver thread — thus earning them the name ‘suit of lights’ (or ‘traje de luces’ in Spanish).

Ever since the 1980’s, French painter Christian Gaillard has been creating portraits of bullfighters - his subjects include the greatest living bullfighters (some of whom are his personal friends) - in a detailed, almost photorealistic style. Influenced by the style of Spanish master Diego Velázquez, Gaillard’s subjects are placed against a dark background with their backs turned to the viewer, thus making their dazzling costumes the centre of attention.

The paintings also seek to capture the emotional state of the bullfighter, either before he enters the arena, or after facing the bull, covered in blood and being carried by the rest of his company.

Christian Gaillard’s impressive paintings are currently on display at the Connoisseur Art Gallery in Hong Kong, as part of the artist’s third solo exhibition in the city titled ‘De Luz’ (16-28 October, 2014).

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RETURN TO THE

SEA

Saltworks by Motoi Yamamoto

Motoi Yamamoto, Labyrinth Salt, 4x12m Making Mends Bellevue Arts Museum, USA 2012

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A pioneering contemporary artist, Tokyo-born Motoi Yamamoto carves monumental two dimensional sculptures of entire oceans, shattered planets, typhoons, mountain ranges, fractured staircases and vast plains of brain-like coils using just the one medium: SALT.

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lthough striking, his works are far from being merely aesthetic. Every one of the artist’s saltscapes is an experience in its own right, and one of a highly metaphysical nature for the artist as well as the viewer. Yamamoto’s works have been shown across the world from Russia to the United States and his most recent salt Labyrinth will be on show until 9th Novembe 2014 at the Parisian gallery La (Deuxième) Galerie Particulière.

Regarding his work, the artist has said that: ''Drawing a labyrinth with salt is like following a trace of my memory.

Memories seem to change and vanish as time goes by; however, what I seek is to capture a frozen moment that cannot be attained through pictures or writings. What I look for at the end of the act of drawing could be a feeling of touching a precious memory …'' For Motoi Yamamoto, his saltscapes act like a frequency that allows him to tune out of everything around him. Almost like a meditation that is actually part of a never-ending healing process following his sister’s death due to severe brain cancer at the tender age of 24, it seems that it is also the artist’s way of never letting go of this ‘memory’ he speaks of.

While he draws his poetic scapes, Yamamoto seems to enter a trance that takes him far into the depths of his consciousness and into a world of peace and tranquility;

in fact, while he creates, he appears far removed from reality, no matter how many observers surround him.

Each installation is a metaphysical experience, one that hypnotises the viewer, and that puts the world on hold, a restful and peaceful experience where the viewer is completely absorbed in the repetitive ritual of the artist’s hand and awakens only once the final image appears as a whole.

Motoi Yamamoto’s repetitive and very precise ritualistic sweeps of the hand while he traces the patterns on the floor recall the repetition of a monk’s chants during prayer. His works clearly physically recall Tibetan monks’ mandalas, which are colourful sandscapes, also loaded with symbolic importance and intense emotion. Unrushed, the artist seems to trace for the sake of tracing, almost as an obligation in order to remain sane.

The only artist to use salt in this way, Yamamoto’s choice of material isn’t a coincidence. In Japanese culture salt is a highly significant symbol for the source of life as well as being a purifying element and is often used in ceremonies celebrating life and death. Reminding of the temporality of life, regardless of the number of times the artist repeats his saltscapes, the experience remains a transcendental one that is as magnificent as it is temporary.

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Hello, my name is

David Fullarton,

and I am a doodle addict.

They say that sometimes an image is just an image, that it takes a mind to make it more. Thank goodness for the mind of David Fullarton.

With an abundance of textures, words and scribbles, David tells stories. And you can count on his stories to always be outlandish, to always make you think, "How the hell did he come up with that?" That is precisely what I asked him to explain for his feature. In his work, he pokes fun at the mundane and the shortcomings of human character. For that, we love him.

These days, David is keeping busy prepairing for his upcoming art show at Hang Art in San Francisco. It's appropriately titled "Once Again I Fail To Live Up To My Advance Publicity" and opens on April 2nd. If I were you, I'd run over there. A little offbeat humor is good for your lungs.

For his feature, David sent us over 9 never before seen pieces (until now) as an advance peak into his art show.

Enjoy this and the thoughts inside of his head, in his own words.

Norman Rockwell allegedly once said: "If a picture's not going well, put a dog in it." Obviously this is very bad advice, especially for those of us who aren't that good at drawing dogs. But if he had said, "If a picture's not going well, write words over it." that would have been excellent advice, since words can definitely improve how a picture looks.

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FIVE

Iconoclasts Celebrate Louis Vuitton's Monogram N

amed after its eponymous founder, celebrated French fashion house Louis Vuitton was established in 1854. It wasn’t until 1896 however, when Georges Vuitton designed the renowned ‘LV’ Monogram as a homage to his late father, that an icon was born. The Louis Vuitton Monogram is universally recognizable. Acting both as an identifiable signature and trademark that ‘announces’ the product’s origin and so attests to its quality, its Monogram canvas signifies luxury, craftsmanship, innovation, collaboration and artistry.

Over time, various motifs that are integral to the Louis Vuitton Monogram canvas have emerged, including: the shape of a diamond whose sides curve inwards with a four petal flower inserted in its centre, a pronounced four petal flower (the equivalent shape of that found in the diamond) and lastly, a circle that incorporates a flower with rounded petals.

Louis Vuitton’s Celebrating Monogram project is, all in all, a salute to its universal icon. In bringing the six creative iconoclasts - each questioning, nonconformist and boundary-pushing in his or her own way – on board, each were given the freedom to determine and produce whatever they desired (using the Monogram canvas). As a result, each piece of work in the project’s collection has a certain idiosyncrasy that typifies the designer that has created it.

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Frank Gehry’s Twisted Box Known for a number of famous and infamous structures, one of the most notable being the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Canadianborn architect Frank Gehry turned his hand to ''try and make'' a handbag for the Celebrating Monogram project. The end result is an attention grabbing exterior with a dark blue interior designed to give the things in the bag more clarity. With regards to its shape, Gehry has applied his relatively unorthodox and nonconformist approach to create a sculptural object – which he has named the ‘Twisted Box’.

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Karl Lagerfeld’s Punching Trunk German fashion designer, creative director and photographer Karl Lagerfeld has contributed enormously to revolutionising the field of fashion - from appreciating and believing in the importance of ready-to-wear lines - to reinventing brands. In terms of the Louis Vuitton project, Lagerfeld has elevated the sport of boxing to new luxury heights, creating, as he says, ''a huge toy for spoilt, grown-up people!'' In addition to the ‘Punching Trunk’, there is a ‘Punching Bag Baby’, ‘PM’, ‘GM’ and ‘Punching Suitcase’ (which includes leather-trimmed Monogram canvas gloves). Extravagant, maybe a little ridiculous, the whole collection is definitely not for the faint hearted.

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Christian Louboutin’s Shopping Trolley French footwear designer Christian Louboutin and his love for femininity and preoccupation with the contours of the high heeled shoe, evolved at a young age. His passion - which became his profession - has led to the Louboutin brand, an undoubted worldwide phenomenon. Born and raised in Paris, Louboutin decided to focus on something rather Parisian in the creation of his bag for Louis Vuitton - the shopping caddy. Named the ‘Shopping Trolley’, the result is a work of art in itself and combines the Monogram canvas with Louboutin’s trademark red (red-lacquered soles are his signature), golden-brass "trunk" corners and knotted leather ribbons. Extravagant to say the least, this is perhaps not a trolley best-suited for a trip to the organic farmers’ market.

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