VISUAL
2B GROUP ACHIM LIPPOTH ANDY DECOLA ASHKAN HONARVAR BRIAN DONNELLY BRIAN WALKER CARNOVSKY CARSTEN WITTE CHRISTIAN VARGAS DANIEL BOLLIGER DAREK GARCIA DAVID FLORES DIO LAU DYLAN REYES ELIZAVETA PORODINA EMERGENT MATERIALS ERIC CAHAN ERWIN OLAF GASTON BERTIN HAROSHI INTERIM INTERVIEW JAVIER PINON JESSE LENZ JOVEL ROYSTAN JULIAN DE NAVAREZ KAHORI MAKI LEVI VAN VELUW LIZA LACROIX MALIKA FAVRE MARTIN PFEIFLE MATT JONES MATT MIGNANELLI MAY XIONG ME & EDWARD MOONASSI NATE JAMES NATHAN JAMES NERVEGNA REED OLEG DOU ROBERT AMADOR SCOTT MARR SOFTLAB NYC STEPHEN WILKES YOSKAY YAMAMOTO YSA PÉREZ WILL C. SMITH ZACH WOOD
ISSUE ONE
www.theartofreuse.ca
VISUAL
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CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS 2B Group - 071 Achim Lippoth - 061 Andy DeCola - 009 Ashkan Honarvar - 039 Brian Donnelly - 053 Brian Walker - 083 Carnovsky - 013 Carsten Witte - 081 Christian Vargas - 045 Daniel Bolliger - 115 Darek Garcia - 093 David Flores - 101 Dylan Reyes - 135 Dio Lau - 117 Elizaveta Porodina - 085 Emergent Materials - 105 Eric Cahan - 123 Erwin Olaf - 065 Gaston Bertin - 131 Haroshi - 017 Interim Interview - 023 Javier Pinon - 069 Jesse Lenz - 013 Jovel Roystan - 029 Julian de Navarez - 127Kahori Maki - 109 Levi Van Veluw - 089 Liza Lacroix - 021 Malika Favre- 057 Martin Pfeifle - 133 Matt Jones - 111 Matt Mignanelli - 103 May Xiong - 079 Me&Edward - 075 Moonassi - 055 Nate James - 097 Nathan James - 037 Nervegna Reed - 033 Oleg Dou - 047 Robert Amador - 119 Scott Marr - 125 SoftLab NYC - 077 Stephen Wilkes - 041 Yoskay Yamamoto - 121 Ysa Pérez - 051 Will C. Smith - 059 Zach Wood- 019
CREATIVE DIRCTOR / James R. Henderson CONSULTING EDITOR One / Devan Moll CONSULTING EDITOR Two / Carl Arriola CONTRIBUTING WRITER / Jovel Roystan CONTRIBUTING WRITER / Melanie N. Dillard
INQUIRIES: work.thirtyfifteen@live.com
VISUAL
Vis路u路al [vizh-oo-uhl] adj. 1. Based on, designed for, or controlled by the use of sight. 2. Perceptible by the mind; of the nature of a mental vision. 3. Perceptible by the sense of sight; visible: a visual beauty. 4. Producing an image in the mind.
ANDY DECOLA LOCATION // Canada : MEDIUM // Drawing and painting
“As an artist, I’m constantly inspired and influenced by all aspects of popular culture. Whether it’s from television, movies, magazines or social media, they all play a role in the creation and titles of each piece.
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The language of visual culture rapidly bombards us everyday and my goal is to recycle it and re-contextualize it. I like the dynamic created by mixing my source materials, giving my paintings a partial narrative. This leaves the viewers questioning my work and creating their own story.” - ANDY DECOLA
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CARNOVSKY LOCATION // Italy : MEDIUM // Wallpaper Installation
RGB “RGB is a work about the exploration of the surface’s deepness. RGB designs and creates surfaces that mutate and interact with different chromatic stimulus. RGB’s technique consists in the overlapping of three different images, each one in a primary color. The resulting images from this three level superimposition are unexpected and disorienting.
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The colors mix up, and the lines and shapes entwine, becoming oneiric and not completely clear. Through a colored filter (a light or transparent material) it is possible to see clearly the layers in which the image is composed. The filters’ colors are red, green and blue; each one of them serves to reveal one of the three layers.” - CARNOVSKY
JESSE LENZ LOCATION //USA : MEDIUM // Graphic Design
Monsters and Marilyns “CS Lewis once said, “How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been”. This was the primary thought behind the series Monsters and Marilyns. Throughout history Fascists, Communists, Marxists, and Socialists have murdered and oppressed those who were under their rule, yet popular culture and propaganda have tried to make these monsters into heroes and icons. Twisting peoples memories and brainwashing them into an Orwellian nightmare. Andy Warhol’s silkscreen painting of Marilyn Monroe is one of the most iconic paintings of the Pop Art Movement. Not many people know that the painting was meant to show the mask of popularity that a celebrity wears. On the outside there were different shades of happiness, but under all the paint and smiles there was something darker: depression, drug use, and suicide. I took this idea and reinterpreted it to speak truth into our popular culture. The hair and make-up from the “Marilyn Monroe painting is placed on politicians, dictators, public officials, as well as old horror movie monsters that are liars, murderers, and tyrants. By doing this, the statement is made that no matter how much popular culture or the mass media tries to dress up and beautify these people, they are still monsters. My goal is to force people to look past the media hype and celebrity masks of these people and see them for who they really are. Much like in George Orwell’s masterpiece 1984, people are too willing to give up their freedom and liberty to be taken care of and protected by the Government. They will believe anything that they are told to believe even if they know it’s a lie because they do not want to know the truth. As a society, we want to be lied to, we want to think that everything is normal even when it is crashing down around us. We want to believe in people even though they give us empty promises and lies every time they open their mouths. We need to wake up and realize that lying to ourselves does not change reality. We must recognize and accept truth. The truth will set you free, but it will not make you sleep easy at night. Therefore, by linking monsters to the mask-wearing Marilyn Monroe that Andy Warhol portrayed, I demonstrate that things are not what they seem. They are a mask, a lie, a perversion of the truth to allow people to lie to themselves in order to feel secure.” -JESSE LENZ
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“Artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up.� - Quoted from V for Vendetta
HAROSHI LOCATION // Japan : MEDIUM // Sculpture
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Haroshi makes his art pieces by recycling old used skateboards. His creations are born through styles such as wooden mosaic, dots, and pixels. Each element, either cut out in different shapes or kept in their original form, is connected in different styles and shaven into the form of the final art piece.
ZACH WOOD LOCATION // Canada : MEDIUM // Painting
“Rather than painting an image to immediately accommodate an idea, I’m interested in trying to build images over long periods of time. I like the idea of trying to visually represent the evolution of thought. Sourcing culture, personal experience, and personal interpretation of others life experiences to construct a visual ‘relic’ composed of things that once were a part of a different image or concept.
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While these paintings are assembled over long periods of time, they begin to evolve in meaning.” - ZACH WOOD
LIZA LACROIX LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Painting
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“White on white. The blank is colored by a supplementary white.” - J. CAGE
INTERIM
FOOD FOR THOUGHT SEAN BROWN ĭn | tər | ĭm |in-ter-uhm| adj. Meantime 1. For, during, belonging to, or connected with an intervening period of time; temporary; provisional: an interim order..
Approaching an old practice with a new, innovative concept. What comes to mind when you think of thrifting? Exciting and adventurous? Dirty and tiresome? Whether your thoughts on purchasing reused clothes are positive or negative, this group of young adults from Toronto, Canada and their organization, The Art of Reuse, will definitely change your perception about thrift shopping for good. With its pop-up boutique, Interim, (which features carefully hand picked thrifted garments under $50) The Art of Reuse reinvents how second hand clothing is presented, purchased and perceived. So while there are several thoughts and opinions on thrifting, if you happen to ask this group of innovators about their thoughts on the subject, they just might call it art-The Art of Reuse.
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V- What exactly is “The Art of ReUse” and what role do you play within it? Sean- The Art of ReUse is an organization I conceptualized in December of 2009. Our initiative is to re-invent thrift shopping & the connotations it comes with. We promote thrift culture and awareness through our soon-to-be magazine and viral material. However, most of the popularity has erected from our retail muse: The Interim. I founded the company with Courtney Eastman in January 2010. V- How did you and Courtney come up with the idea for this business? Sean- We had been thrift shopping for quite sometime prior to TAOR’s inception. I have been heavily thrifting since 2004 and I introduced Courtney to it in 2008. Originally, we thought it would be dope to give our friends and our community a cool event to showcase and sell some clothing that couldn’t fit us. That soon turned into logos, a brand, a vision and an idea we believed would still exist even when we no longer did. Necessity is the mother of invention. We knew having such extensive retail backgrounds would only aid us in promoting this second hand philosophy we wanted to take across seas. V- That sounds great. It seems like you have a lot of passion for what you do. Sean- Well, that’s the only thing that keeps a vision moving. Your vision is only a vehicle: the means of obtaining what you want. But passion is fuel: without it, you’ll find visions come to a stand still or become outdated. We love every bit of this & to be honest, a lot of it is taking risks but always being prepared for the next step. V- Was opening your first pop up shop in April of 2010 a risk? Sean- Most definitely.
V- We know you sold out of inventory in just 15 minutes. Were you surprised of how successful it was? Sean- I mean, don’t get me wrong, THRIFT SHOPPING ISN’T NEW. What we pride ourselves on is introducing it to a commercial market: people who spend big bucks on clothes. The first shop was the most nerve-racking. We didn’t know what to expect the day of. V- Did you encounter any challenges while trying to modernize the concept of thrift shopping? Did you find it difficult in trying to make thrift shopping appealing to the consumer’s accustomed to massed produced products? Sean- We were definitely surprised because we didn’t think thrift could have that kind of impact on people who regularly shop at the mall. Our customers were as new to the idea as we were. Here’s the interesting thing about the modernizing of it. Most of us in the company have worked retail. Courtney and I have worked at high-end stores. I was buying jackets on my days off for $8 and then going to work selling Nom De Guerre jackets for $950. It was a huge contrast of who I really was. I would constantly take note of the merchandising at the shop I worked at. I thought of clever ways to showcase clothing. The presentation is what partially justifies high-end stores. I worked at a couple high-end men’s stores, so I had ideas of what was required if I ever opened a boutique, but I had no intention of selling jackets for a stack. I had intentions of taking the aesthetic from my retail experiences and prices from the thrift stores to create a new kind of thrift space, know what I mean? It was about merging two ideas and two classes of people to speak to an even bigger one. V- So what started your interest for thrift shopping in the first place?
V- That must have been exciting to find out. Sean- Yeah, well great, great, great, great. We’re related through lineage of last names so my mother says. V- That’s really dope! It seems like you were made for this line of work. So what has been your most favorite find(s) while thrift shopping? Something you still hope to find? Sean- Hhmmm. My brand new 1960, or 1970 something Levi’s feel like they were especially made for me. I wear them everywhere: they’ve aged so well. I‘m big on finding old denim when I hunt now. V- Great denim is hard to come by now-a-days. You’re a lucky man. So, what time period are you inspired most by? Sean- Hmm, it happens in levels and spurts. I’m inspired by old Mase videos. I think what’s given the art of reuse such an interesting personality is the diverse use of inspiration. V- Do you feel your team as a whole is well rounded when it come to cultures? Sean- I’d say so. We come from quite possibly the most multicultural city on earth: Toronto. We’ve been raised around diversity. It’s become our strength. V- Yeah, I’ve been told that Toronto is the best place on earth for an artist. Sean- Everyone is doing something here. So growing up, it forces you to be creative. V- Being apart of “The Art of ReUse”, what has been your most rewarding experience/moment so far? Sean- Inspiring others, making a difference & reaching countries and people through what we love to do. The feeling is indescribable.
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Sean- This older gentlemen I knew wore suits throughout the week, but he wore the crispiest suits on Saturdays. On the weekends, he brought out the earth-toned suits. I asked him one day where he got them and he took me to a local corner store in our neighborhood. That moment probably changed everything. I’m not sure if he’s even aware of it. My mom was also a big thrift store shopper, and that’s what made me open to the concept. According to my British lineage, William Boothe, the guy who started the Salvation Army, is my great great something V- What is your overall goal/mission? Where do you see “The Art of ReUse” in the next 5 to 10 years?
not sure if he’s even aware of it. My mom was also a big thrift store shopper, and that’s what made me open to the concept. According to my British lineage, William Boothe, the guy who started the Salvation Army, is my great great something grandfather (apparently). So, we could say it was self-discovery or fate. It’s up to you.
Sean- We want to be the leading organization of reinventing thrift: what apple is to the future of communication and technology. We’d like to be the first thrift store in a commercial shopping mall. We’d like to have a documentary series of sorts where we could spread our philosophy faster. We want to keep growing, keep innovating, keep creating, keep moving, and to keep opening. V- Definition of Thrift Store - “A shop that sells used articles, especially clothing, as to benefit a charitable organization.” Do you guys give money for a charitable organization? Sean- At this point, we’ve begun our own charitable initiative within the Art of Reuse. Interim is different from the Art of Reuse. Art of Reuse is the bigger picture, while Interim is our proof that the idea works. V- So what is the charitable initiative you’ve begun? Sean- Interim Green. We’re aiming to see it in full operation by next year. We plan to send clothes & goods to the West Indies and Africa. Interim Green is us taking action outside of fashion. V- I know you guys have moved into the e-commerce lane. How did this concept come about? Sean- After six shops, we went back to the drawing board and tried to figure out how to keep things fresh. We had an influx of inquiries from people all over the world about opening a pop up shop in their city, so we wanted a place where we could give access to everyone at the same time. An online destination just made sense. V- It makes a lot of sense, but do you think the online store might take away from the Interim experience? Sean- Well, the online store doesn’t mean there won’t be any more Interim boutiques. The online store is just a permanent access point. V- Oh okay. So will there be multiples of certain items on the online store, or one of a kind merchandise?
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Sean- Still the same one of a kind curations you’ve come to expect, along with housewares and other small things
V- So can we expect to find some limited Interim tee’s on the site sometime soon? Sean- Definitely, along with some new collaborations in the upcoming year which will be available on the site as well. We’ve been studying the online retail market, and we want to approach it differently. V- Was working with the Japanese boutique, Green Angle the first step to being online? Sean- They have a physical store. So the tees were available both in store and online. That was our introduction to an international market. We were talking about doing the first international pop up shop in Tokyo, but this year was too soon. However, it’s quite possible that Tokyo will be the next city we plan to set up shop in. V- That would be a great location for the next shop. How did your relationship with Green Angle and the Japanese market come about? Sean- We connected with them through a wholesale agency in New York. They had inquired about t-shirts in our Spring/Summer lookbook (which was a fictional line at the time). Once I got the second inquiry about the tees (the first being in London), we decided to just produce them. V- So were you guys working with a wholesale agency or did the agency just contact you about some inquires they received? Sean- They just contacted us off the strength of the inquiry. V- You guys have built a really strong following and have many people watching your every move. How do you keep people’s interest? Sean- We just make sure we stay inspired so that we can constantly create. V- Do you feel like you always have to keep coming up with something new every month, even if it’s not an Interim location? Sean- Coming up with new ideas is an important thing when you don’t have a permanent location. We also have to consider the digital
age and that if things aren’t constant, people will loose track and forget our visual conversation with them. I think we’re at a point where people now expect something every so often. It’s important to keep the momentum and to have fresh content. We’ve got a few channels where we distribute content that doesn’t just relate to The Art of Reuse but our own personal works as well, so there’s always lots to look at. V- Speaking of personal works, I have to say that seeing everyone in your camp branching off and doing their own thing is quite inspiring. It seems that you guys have a lot of trust and respect for each other. Sean- We came into this with that trust and respect, so we all just support each others personal endeavors. When you’re in a team like ours, everyone doing their own thing is only better for the brand. V- I agree 100%. Is there any advice that you may have for young entrepreneurs? Sean- I always say there are no rules. There is no guideline to really follow in our day and age because everyone’s story and approach is so different. In previous decades, you were made to be the audience and now, you can create an audience all on your own. You just need enough people paying attention.
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INSTA GRAM
THE NEW POLAROID JOVEL ROYSTAN Polaroid |pōl-ə-roid| adj. Photography 1. Denoting a type of camera with internal processing that produces a finished print rapidly after each exposure. • Denoting film for or a photograph taken with such a camera : a Polaroid snapshot.
If there’s one thing that life teaches us, it’s that things change. Constantly. Trends die and people move on to the next thing, but somehow the past always seems to come back around full circle, usually with a new look, vigor, and quality. This cyclical process is an ever-present factor in the world of creativity and art; one that can be seen time and time again, whether you look back centuries ago or simply stop and glance at today.With the introduction of Instagram, a rather extinct form of photography has been resurrected from the dead with a few new tricks and the same instantaneous impact. What is this formerly deceased style of work? The Polaroid. (Scan QR code for full photo journal)
Arguably one of the coolest and most influential inventions to rock the world of photography (and art at large), the instant film camera, first produced and popularized by Polaroid Corporation in 1948, produces a developed image minutes, even seconds, after capturing it. As you can see, Polaroid Corporation’s long-running dominance in this market is evidenced by the habit most consumers carry of referring to all of these instant film cameras as Polaroids, regardless of the actual company producing the device. While the process can seem pretty mysterious to the average joe, these machines aren’t fueled by any type of secret magic or complex machinery. It’s actually pretty simple. Instant cameras work similarly to regular cameras, however, they include a few extra elements. All cameras work by capturing light and color patterns. When you open the shutter of a camera, light enters the lens and is impressed upon the film. At this point, the film undergoes a chemical reaction to the light, which leaves an imprint of the image you photographed. When you develop regular film, you add chemical developers to the rolls in a secondary process. However, with instant film cameras, the chemical developers are inside of the individual film packets themselves. Some may think that the thicker, white portion of the frame found at the bottom of Polaroid film is just for shaking the print or holding the image without smudging the film. In fact, this area of the film holds the special, implanted chemical developers. When the image is taken, the light travels through the lens and is impressed upon the surface of the print’s film, which is then squeezed through two metal rollers that spreads the chemical developers throughout the different layers of the print surface. When the chemical reaction is finished, you have a developed print that is ready to be shared with the world. It’s pretty cool, huh? Unfortunately, after years of ruling the instant camera market, Polaroid Corporation discontinued their production of instant film in 2008 in order to focus on digital printing. Instant film is still produced by other companies; however, many consumers would consider it a dying practice. I’d argue that that’s not quite the case. If you think about it, Polaroids are booming now more than ever! Instagram has unintentionally stepped up to the plate to keep the essence of the Polaroid alive and kicking. Developed in October 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Michael Krieger, this free photo-sharing program for mobile phones is flourishing. The software was recently purchased by Facebook, Inc. in April 2012 for $1 billion.They’ve also expanded from being an iPhone-exclusive product by creating a Google Android-supported version, which has helped them draw in what is currently a pool of over 30 million users. That’s funny when you consider the fact that the company has only 13 employees to date.
While Instagram doesn’t eject physical printouts from your iPhone’s charger slot, it does allow for users to create and share instantaneous memories and add special filters and effects to their images, including blurs and lighting touch-ups. There are also a number of applications, like InstaDM and PicStitch, that make using the program even more fun and engaging. If you’re thinking, “Well, how can it be a Polaroid if you don’t get a printout of the image?” then keep reading. Antonio De Rosa from Italian graphic design firm ADR constructed a concept for a digital camera inspired by and possibly run using Instagram software. This touchscreen camera, presently referred to as the Instagram Socialmatic camera, is fashioned to resemble the program’s square, camera-like icon. The device features include QR code software, webcam applications, social network communication, and two lenses, one for main captures and the other for 3D filter effects. Using an internal printer, the device would allow for physical prints, like the original Polaroid cameras, that would include your Instagram username, a QR code for other users to follow you, space for personal comments, and a glue strip for you to post your prints wherever you’d like. Although the product is only a concept at this moment, De Rosa is activelyraising funds to push this product into further development. If that’s just his original concept, imagine how awesome this new generation of Polaroid-software has the potential to become when it’s fully funded and produced. For now, I suppose we’ll settle for the mobile app. As a devoted user of the iPhone application, I can vouch for how awesome it is. Pictures add so much more connection to social networks. You can follow a stranger in Australia, communicating with nothing more than a comment every now then, and feel like you know them so much more than the hundreds of random Facebook friends that flood your wall with pointless banter everyday. You get a real view into the lives of others and, trust me, it’s pretty addictive. Hands down, Instagram is currently my favorite and probably most-used application and social network. If what they say is true and pictures really are worth a thousand words, then millions of users have been joining in on this global conversation and they have a lot to say. To give you a closer look at the application, while honoring the classic nature of Polaroid storytelling, I chronicled a pretty regular day in my not-soregular life. This “photo journal” of sorts looks at 24 hours in the life of your typical, American, twenty-something year old dreamer. All photos were produced using Instagram. Each one tells a special part of the story in its own way.
NERVEGNA REED LOCATION // Australia : MEDIUM // Architecture
The Working Drawing House The client, an Art Gallery director, asked for a contemporary home on a narrow inner city allotment. The house was to have two bedrooms plus an extra study that could be used for visiting artists to stay in, and was also to include a private subterranean gallery. The house extends over 3 levels; the entry is on the middle, ground level, where all the living spaces flow around a courtyard, a sliced circle, a hint of a possible larger courtyard in an expanded field of scattered architectural objects and events. The placement of objects on this level works much like a layout of a pinball machine, with each surface hinting at possible routes that one could take through the house, sometimes encouraging a certain movement, sometimes not. The front study is for visiting artists and has an adjoining bathroom. Downstairs is a basement gallery, indirectly lit from the north front garden via a concrete light shaft / skylight which also doubles as a seat or sculpture podium.
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The house works a bit like a Rorschach test, enabling people to read into it what they like, whether it be virtual images of a “?”, or a number “2” in the front facade, or other architectural images throughout the spaces, hidden, like vague reflections. The house in some ways became an experiment in treading the fine line between representational imagery and ‘pure’ abstract form. No matter how abstract our forms may be, the free association of the inhabitants will create new, varied and ever changing meanings and images. - NERVEGNA REED
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NATHAN JAMES LOCATION // England : MEDIUM // Painting
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“I use painting as a sieve to understand and respond to my surroundings. I rarely start out with a solid set of ideas and references. It’s both a conceptual and physical process of building up layers and contexts. I’ll take elements from regular stuff we all see everyday: a shop window display, a magazine clipping, a still from a Youtube video, or the logo from a candy wrapper I see on the street. Painting is a way for me to take it all in, break it down, and reconstruct it in my own terms. I used to feel like culture was something that happened to you: you bought a t-shirt, watched television, took a trip to an art gallery or an amusement park. It was presented, then consumed. When I first started silk-screening t-shirts in the early 2000s, and they came out looking like something Iʼd wear, it was exciting. Once I began to sell them in trendy boutiques and would then see hipsters wearing them, it was an epiphany. I suddenly realized that I could have an impact. Culture wasnʼt something that had to be passively consumed. I could participate. I could make my own. I could have a voice. I guess thatʼs my main motivation for painting.” - NATHAN JAMES
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ASHKAN HONARVAR LOCATION // The Netherlands: MEDIUM // Handmade collages
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“The saying goes that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. It occurs in places you least expect. Revealing its art in the human body, but also cruelly absent in the presence of deformations and scars. Ashkan Honarvar (1980) depicts an undeniable, unavoidable beauty by accepting the darker sides of human ‘nature’.” - TITUS VERHEIJEN
STEPHEN WILKES LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Photography
Nudes
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“Live in the moment, and embrace what’s unknown. See and feel what’s there, as opposed to looking for what should be there.” - STEPHEN WILKES
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CHRISTIAN VARGAS LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Pen on paper
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“I was born in Fresno, California to a family of migrant farm laborers, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico. Growing up in that environment and seeing my family work in the fields to make a living, sometimes working along side them undoubtedly had a deep-rooted effect on me. I have a special place in my heart for the common, everyday, hardworking man. I make art that has personal meaning for myself, creating bodies of work that reflect who I am and where I came from. These works carry a direct relationship between my environment, and myself.� - CHRISTIAN VARGAS
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OLEG DOU LOCATION // Russia : MEDIUM // Photography
Another Face
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“I find it extremely important to do what I do ‘beautifully’; not for beauty itself, per se, but more so as a tool that makes my ideas both interesting and workable.” - OLEG DOU
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YSA PÉREZ LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Photography
Theophilus London & ASAP Rocky
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“Natural light dictates my photographs from the composition, to the subject’s pose. I like seeing the way light falls on people’s faces and bodies - it has the ability to transform them. The experience I share with the subject is what I enjoy the most, my photographs are just xcarefully composed afterthoughts.” -YSA PÉREZ
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BRIAN DONNELLY LOCATION // Canada : MEDIUM // Painting
Obedience & Savagery Two-headed game bleeding an ominous white, lithe mortal forms sporting heads of battle-ready predators, human-animal half breeds in a perpetual state of encroachment: these are the visceral, jarring surfaces of Brian Donnelly’s work. But they are also just that— surfaces. Beneath the rich technical detail and subdued action painting, Donnelly casts a narrative that explores duality and the presence of contradiction. He pits realism against abstraction and blank space; he establishes a commitment to form and then abandons its potential; and perhaps most visibly, he invokes a Dr. Moreau-like control over his haunting yet beautiful figures. What Donnelly’s paintings articulate is that in the midst of relentless external forces, the way we communicate with each other increasingly demands manipulation. In this context, Donnelly invites an artist-audience dialogue by distorting the subject matter of what he paints and the process of how he paints it. The interiors of his paintings are serene demonstrations of self-discipline and proficiency; the exteriors are dissonant, empty spaces of canvas.
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Provocative and disarming, Donnelly’s work challenges us to question how much of our environment we wish to master and how much of it we’d prefer to leave alone. - SHOW & TELL GALLERY
MOONASSI LOCATION // South Korea : MEDIUM // Ink on paper
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“I cannot explain what inspired each work. Sometimes my inspiration comes from vague feelings, and sometimes from clear thoughts. Sometimes it is the feeling at that moment, sometimes from the past or even the future.” - MOONASSI
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MALIKA FAVRE LOCATION // United Kingdom : MEDIUM // Illustration
Lust Triangle
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“My approach to illustration is about paring things down as much as possible. I try and get to the essence of my subject, using as few lines and colours as it needs to convey the core of the idea. I love combining organic curves and unapologetic color palettes. I create playful, often sexy art that will always leave some space for the viewer’s imagination. Less is definitely more.” - MALIKA FAVRE
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WILL C. SMITH LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Digital Illustration
The Hunter
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“My Illustration work is a combination of personal shapes and characters with imaginative environments, in a world of my own creation. These characters interact with one another and their environments in order to gain an understanding of themselves and their purpose within the worlds they exist.� - WILL C. SMITH
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ACHIM LIPPOTH LOCATION // Germany : MEDIUM // Photography
Caroline Bosmans “As a photographer and publisher of kid’s wear magazine, I work together with a lot of people around the world and I always try to stay open and tolerant.
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Also I collect books for many years now and enjoy traveling to gain new impressions. That´s the way I find new ideas.” - ACHIM LIPPOTH
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ERWIN OLAF LOCATION // The Netherlands : MEDIUM // Photography
Hotel
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Erwin Olaf’s art implicitly visualizes the unspoken, the overlooked, that which typically resists easy documentation. Olaf’s trademark is to address social issues, taboos and bourgeois conventions within the framework of a highly stylized and cunning mode of imagery. With the aid of his razor-sharp aesthetic intuition, Olaf purposely conceals his themes so that the viewer unconsciously and initially accepts the concealment found in his photo series. Yet in the end, his unconventional style never fails to deliver dramatic visual and emotional impact. By providing scenic and striking design, along with the utmost perfect composition in his typical, immaculate ‘Olaf’ style, combined with his passion for conceiving flawless scenarios, he vividly captures the essence of contemporary life.
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JAVIER PINON LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Collage
Medusa
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“I think it’s a little bit about tweaking your existence, and exerting your free will on your surroundings to create a world you feel you can relate to. Because I walk out that door and can’t relate to half of what’s out there in day-to-day life, and for a lot of people, I think that’s part of what makes us all so crazy. We’re just looking for something we can connect to and relate to and call our own, and so few of us have it. But I think we all have the ability to make it. Put out into the world those things that you want and you will get them back.” - JAVIER PINON
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2B GROUP LOCATION // Ukraine : MEDIUM // Architecture
Loft Apartment “Working on the Project we tried to prove to Client and to ourselves that concrete could be warm, wood could be smooth and metal could be soft. The project itself was a top floor 3-level penthouse with total space of 380sqm, located in the heart of Kyiv on a Dnieper river. Third floor of the apartment comprised an open terrace facing Kyiv left bank panorama on a south-east with total space of 250 sqm. The development of the general concept, project design, and engineering process until construction took one year. High speed construction took another year and a half. In the end, we got an interior that captures a multitude of styles, all designed to offer a seamless collection of textures, colors, shapes and materials.
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Wood, concrete, glass, metal, exposed brick – all these materials found their place thighs main living area and surprising lines and details were shaped with their help. A green wall in the living-dining space brings nature indoors and a small terrace just above it allows a fantastic view of the mirrorframed ray-textured wall displaying the TV and sound system. Living area also features numerous details like the concrete wine rack with the Braille type dots, embedded in the kitchen wall or stone poufs and a red MAERSK container (guest bathroom) that give the living space a unique character. All ceiling light has been substituted with a giant Artemide lamp and two vertical spotlight projectors filling the area with reflected smooth illumination. The green wall continues down to the lower floor, where a lounge-home office space and a second living space lead to the spacious master bedroom joined with a bath right behind a bed back. In order to hide the master bedroom toilets, authors invented a mobile wooden box stylized as a large parcel. All in neutral colors except for red and green oxidized copper sheets serving as hidden shelf facades. The children’s room and bathroom look cheery and bold due to young artist paintings on walls and graffiti tags on concrete background. An open rooftop terrace is lined with geometric floor lights and features monolith bar and a fireplace, handmade terrace plank benches and a glass pavilion for winter leisure.” - 2B GROUP
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ME&EDWARD LOCATION // France : MEDIUM // Photography
Metamorphosis “Originally, I wanted to deform my body for fun. Then, I started to centre the distortions on an idea of beauty, something rather strange but very aesthetic, while wodering what evolution could do to surprise us. The “Metamorphosis” project was then born.
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What is different often scares us. That’s the reason why I wanted to create “monsters”, set in a certain reality, one of change and evolution, and then show their beauty. My first wish is to create a feeling of disgust and fear, which will gradually be replaced by the acknowledgement of beauty. From this moment on, the spectator will try to understand how the difference can also be beautiful. For the moment, the project continues and takes a different turn. I am trying to focus more on aesthetic, where physical malformation is less obvious. I am currently trying to emphasize on this feeling of abnormality without making it visible at first glance.” - ME&EDWARD
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SOFTLAB NYC LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Installation Design
CHROMAtex.me CHROMAtex.me is a site specific installation designed and produced by SOFTlab for the bridgegallery. The installation was designed to produce a complex environmental and spatial combination of six colors. The color is mixed in the interior of the form leaving a vibrant interior that is back lit by the gallery. The piece is inverted spatially; the interior of photo glossy ink jet printed paper is meant to look very precise, finished, and smooth, while the exterior is textured with an array of binder clips used to hold the piece together. Rather than having a finished faรงade or skin that hides the method of construction we chose to invert this relationship. The first thing viewers see is the method of fabrication. As viewers move around the piece they discover the finished effects produced by the construction.
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Viewers experience the interior through a series of portals designed to offer a specific glimpse into the piece starting from the front of the gallery. The installation was not only designed with the interior of the gallery in mind but also responds to the street, drawing people in. The largest portal into the piece is attached to the front window of the gallery completely obscuring the interior of the gallery except for the glass door into the gallery. Viewers are invited to look into the colored interior only to enter the gallery and see an all white exterior textured in thousands of binder clips. It is this contrast that makes the portals into the piece so sensational.
The installation is made of over 4000 laser cut panels of photo ink jet paper. Each panel is a unique shape and printed with a custom color. The panels are connected using a set of over 17,000 binder clips. The shape is reinforced using a series of custom acrylic rings. The overall form is hung from the ceiling of the gallery and attached to street facing window, completely suspended in the space without touching the ground.
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MAY XIONG LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Photography
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“As an artist, I think inspiration comes from everything that happens in my life. From the things that I see, feel, experience - it all comes from different points in my life and/or things that I surround myself with. Most of all, I think I’m inspired by the simplicity of things that go unnoticed. As I grow older, I find myself becoming more attached to things that convey simplicity in the simplest of forms. Like the contour of the human body, to lines, buildings, etc. Everything that I see, do and/or say will only lead me to something else that will eventually inspire me.” - MAY XIONG
CARSTEN WITTE LOCATION // Germany : MEDIUM // Photography
Psyche #2
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“The butterfly is an allegory of eternity - a symbol of resurrection, a carrier of souls, and the embodiment of goddesses in many cultures. It is the delicate beauty of nature, and a unique creature blessed with wings to touch the hearts of every beholder. The superior desire to catch and conserve it is grounded in the fact that the butterfly will be inevitably marked by its decay when it is at its peak of completion.” - CARSTEN WITTE
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BRIAN WALKER LOCATION // Australia : MEDIUM // Photography
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“I like the visual language of my images to appear hyper real, as if they could exist but a second take reveals something amiss or askew. The perfection of a single detail or the impossibility between elements is what I continue to find fascinating.” - BRIAN WALKER
ELIZAVETA PORODINA LOCATION // Germany : MEDIUM // Fashion Photography
The Grey Pulse
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Elizaveta Porodina, who was born 1987 in Moscow, has a very unique view of the world.In her photography, she shows us Glam Rock and fairy worlds, interprets fashion with an often sexual aesthetic which is shaped by her psychological knowledge and full of hidden emotion. She prefers to work with natural light-a preference which has emerged from the initial lack of equipment and the will to capture the “right moment”. Her photography is never just fashion, it also shows a “below” which attracts us as the visible piece of skin of the perfect, mask-like make-up of a geisha.
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LEVI VAN VELUW LOCATION // The Netherlands : MEDIUM // Digital Illustration
Origin of the Beginning
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These installations are inspired by different aspects of van Veluw’s boyhood bedroom, where he spent many solitary hours between the ages of 8 and 14: the Origin of the Beginning.
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DAREK GARCIA LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Digital Illustration
Conformists “When I see my work I describe it as fine museum quality art and definitely alternative. I started my own chicken-scratch style art movement. Every time I make art I think of making it as popular and classic as can be like American Gothic by Grant Wood.
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I call the guy and the girl I repeat CONFORMISTS and include a quote next to them like, ‘Baby, no those aren’t organic!’ and ‘Lindsey, maybe Kyle can sleep at his friends tonight.’” - DAREK GARCIA
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NATE JAMES LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Collage
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“I work predominantly digitally, working on computer-based collage. The easiest way for me to summarize my process is that I use collage as a sort of reactionary experiment, in which the meaning of entirely separate sets images can change completely when within the context of a visual environment, whether those images are reacting to other photos around them, color changes, grid setups, spacing, texture, or otherwise.� - NATE JAMES
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DAVID FLORES LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Acrylic painting
Then She Did
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The impact of Flores’ graphic style comes in its ability to allow the viewer to reinterpret a popular image they already have associations with.
MATT MIGNANELLI LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Acrylic on panel
Transformative Illuminations “My most recent works draw their inspiration from energy, pattern, light, and emotion. I’m currently exploring the relationship between nature and structure, which is relayed through my use of geometric shapes juxtaposed against organic forms. The vivid palette in which I’m working is influenced by the neon nightscapes that populate my urban environment. Through my work I am relaying personal narratives.
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Each piece is based upon collective memories stored within my subconscious. My work strives to portray sophistication and precision in technique and execution. While maintaining a playful approach on the surface I strive to examine and provoke reflection on both environment and imagination.” - MATT MIGNANELLI
EMERGENT MATERIALS LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Architecture
Taipei Performing Arts Center This project was apart of an international competition submission from 2008. It weaves three performing arts theaters together by way of an elevated concourse, creating a unified whole. The concourse is a bridging element which acts as circulation for the theaters but also as a commercial and cultural zone which includes lively urban activities. It is articulated as a hanging, cantilevered massing which is porous to the urban space below.
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The morphology of the project is based on patterns of armatures and pleats, which form an intricate ornamental network. Armatures were woven together to create the circulation and structure of the concourse, forming deep spaces and views from the plaza into the building as well as from the building down into the Plaza and out into the city. Micro-pleats track along the armatures but also spread out along surfaces, changing in depth and number, and occasionally fading out into flatness. Sensations produced by this fluid tracery are heightened by a gradient of color which is most intense on the interior but fades out to the exterior of the building.
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KAHORI MAKI LOCATION // Japan : MEDIUM // Digital Illustration
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“I wanted my work to express people and nature on the same level. I wanted to draw people in the same way that a landscape would be drawn. Our bodies and hearts are apart of nature, and I wanted my art to convey that.” - KAHORI MAKI
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MATT JONES LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Painting
Space & Energy
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“I’m an artist primarily concerned with theoretical physics, ancient history, the paranormal, and humor. We live in a universe piled on other universes, each expanding the multiverse of near infinite possibilities and potential. Human history is under revision as new information from the study of ancient structures asks questions our current truths cannot begin to answer. The things we see out of the corners of our eyes are really there. I want to translate the energy from a rock show into something beyond a singular event, into a perpetual piece of inspiration. I want to transfer my inspiration into objects that then generate further creation and communication. I want to show you what we can’t see. Sometimes I want to make jokes and laugh about the enormity and beauty of it all.” - MATT JONES
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DANIEL BOLLIGER LOCATION // Germany : MEDIUM // Fashion Photography
Apocalypse “Form gives life to space. Without form, space can simply be boring. I love it when forms change people, taking them away from what is forced on us, what is perceived as beautiful as a human being. Nature is solely made up of forms and colours. Everything is geometrically linked and creates a whole. I always try to find forms and create content for space, give it a meaning. In terms of fashion, form is most important because it is the perceptive mediator to the outside world. The form and shaping of clothes defines us. I think that I am searching for the hidden: the truth underneath the skin, the essence that constitutes a human being. I look for whatever a person would try to hide with the help of fashion. After all, we are all searching for content and depth; and thatʼs what I want to capture – the fragility in a society of machines, which are only allowed to display performance and power. It is important to me that people react in an emotionally strong way to my pictures. I have started noticing that people are very moved by my work and that my work grabs and penetrates them deeply.
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The reason for this is that I keep searching for that, which is not necessarily beautiful at first sight, yet I try to let the beauty emerge. The beauty is always hidden deep inside, only waiting to be revealed.” - DANIEL BOLLIGER
DIO LAU LOCATION // United Kingdom : MEDIUM // Drawing
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“I pursued the notion of art as the science of freedom. Plato has once said, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’. I believe the liberating power of art is articulating this examination. Through the work, I explored how to visualize and pronounce the intangible state of man.” - DIO LAU
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ROBERT AMADOR LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Ink on paper
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“As a kid I was afraid of everything. As an adult I still am. When I was about 8, I had pretty bad fever dreams, which stayed with me to this day. Those dreams led to my obsession with wrinkles, veins, lines, and patterns. I can’t get away from them. I see them in everything: faces, leaves, rugs, wood, etc. Luckily, I have the ability to work this out of my system with a pen and paper. Otherwise, I’d be locked up in a looney bin somewhere.” - ROBERT AMADOR
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YOSKAY YAMAMOTO LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // All over the place
Familiar Strangers
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Born and raised in Toba, Japan, Yoskay Yamamoto moved to the United States at the age of 15. A self-trained illustrator, Yamamoto’s artistic tastes expanded as he fell in love with the urban culture of the West coast. Yamamoto discovered a way to fuse the two different cultural backgrounds together into his work. Yamamoto nostalgically blends pop iconic characters from his new Western home with traditional and mythical Japanese elements, balancing his Asian heritage with urban pop art.
ERIC CAHAN LOCATION // USA : MEDIUM // Photography
Sky Series
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The photographs in the ongoing Sky Series are initially captured as sunrises or sunsets. Cahan uses as many as four different cameras ranging from 6 x 7 film to digital. Employing dozens of graduated filters traditionally used by filmmakers, his objective is to create a window into a time and a place, and to demonstrate how memories and colors shift and become abstract. Cahan produces chromium prints of each image numerous times until the result is seamless, free of banding or blemish. Beyond technical description, the picture evokes the presence of, and the artist’s reverence for, nature at its most sublime.
SCOTT MARR LOCATION // Australia : MEDIUM // Pyrograpy
The Arsonist
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“The Arsonist stares at us intently. His eyes are fiery and insane, and the matches around him signal the damage he is willing to wreak on his environment. It is an unsettling piece; the Arsonist seems to be holding himself very still, his pathological desire to wreak havoc only apparent in his eyes and the ominous smoke curling away from the match.� - SCOTT MARR
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JULIAN DE NAVAREZ LOCATION // Colombia : MEDIUM // Illustration
Loteria Mistica
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Julian De Narvaez begins his drawings in pen and China ink, gradually assembling and colouring the images digitally. This process lends his illustrations a contemporary, eclectic feel, though with a surprisingly fine, traditional quality. This quirkiness is sought after for its engaging richness.
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GASTON BERTIN LOCATION // Spain : MEDIUM // Photographs of paper collages
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“Searching for things that do not exist, I intend to say nothing. I know it is impossible. Incoherence is the beauty of dreams.” - GASTON BERTIN
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MARTIN PFEIFLE LOCATION // Germany : MEDIUM // Installation
RoteMartha
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RoteMartha is a site specific work by the German artist Martin Pfeifle(1975). It was realized for the exhibition “ichoderduoderduoderich” at the “Kunst aus NRW” in Aachen (Germany) 2010. Pfeifle created a new way to look at the baroque architecture through a contemporary interruption. Red plastic stripes out of 6 different tones went through the whole exhibition space. The interruption of the sculpture gave the rooms new dimensions and created new space as well as it hit some at the same time.
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DYLAN REYES LOCATION // United States of America : MEDIUM // Photography
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“This series of photos is a journalistic view on a nocturnal gang of males expressing both their rage and free rein. The photos freeze moments in midst of ruckus and sense boldness in the subjects.” - DYLAN REYES
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