The beautifull art of Beth Cavener

The amazing sculptures by American artist Beth Cavener, who explores the emotions and the dark sides of the human psyche featuring animals in powerful and captivating compositions. Rabbits, wolves, foxes or snakes transpose human fear, anger or aggression in beautiful clay sculptures, impressive by their dynamism and fine detail. I also recommend you the video introducing the artist Beth Cavener, at the end of the photo's.

Trevor Paglen : Two Lectures !

Trevor Paglen is an artist whose work spans image-making, sculpture, investigative journalism, writing, engineering, and numerous other disciplines. Among his chief concerns are learning how to see the historical moment we live in and developing the means to imagine alternative futures.

Paglen’s work has had one-person exhibitions at Vienna Secession, Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum, Van Abbe Museum, Frankfurter Kunstverein, and Protocinema Istanbul, and participated in group exhibitions the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, and numerous other venues. He has launched an artwork into distant orbit around Earth in collaboration with Creative Time and MIT, contributed research and cinematography to the Academy Award-winning film Citizenfour, and created a radioactive public sculpture for the exclusion zone in Fukushima, Japan.

He is the author of five books and numerous articles on subjects including experimental geography, state secrecy, military symbology, photography, and visuality. Paglen’s work has been profiled in the New York Times, Vice Magazine, the New Yorker, and Art Forum. In 2014, he received the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award for his work as a “groundbreaking investigative artist.”

Paglen holds a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley, an MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Geography from U.C. Berkeley.
http://www.paglen.com/

From tapped fiberoptic cables at the bottom of the sea to football field-sized antennas in deep space, the architecture of state surveillance is as ubiquitous as it is invisible. In this talk, artist Trevor Paglen shares more than a decade's worth of images, research, and stories about how to "see" the top-secret infrastructures that are so emblematic of our historical moment.

This annual series is made possible by the generosity of Clarice Smith.

Although people around the world are becoming increasingly aware of the United States' global geography of surveillance, covert action, and other secret programs, much of this landscape is invisible in our everyday lives.
The drone war, for example, seems to happen "somewhere else" while surveillance programs take place among the (largely) invisible infrastructures and digital protocols of the internet and other communications networks. Moreover, the state agencies responsible for secret programs strive to make them as invisible as possible. In this talk, artist Trevor Paglen discusses his work attempting to "see" the various aspects of the secret state. In examples ranging from tracking spy satellites to foraging through the bureaucratic refuse of CIA front companies, Paglen will discuss methods used to identify and exploit structural contradictions in classified programs which render them visible, and comment on the aesthetics and politics of attempting to "see" secrecy.

Street art by Pablo S. Herrero.

Here’s a number of new pieces from last year or so by artist Pablo S. Herrero(previously), almost all of which are collaborations with either David de la Mano orE1000. The artist was most recently in Gaeta, Italy where he completed the piece at top with E1000 for the Memorie Urbane Street Art Festival.

Sources : http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/05/new-tree-murals-by-pablo-s-herrero/

http://lasogaalcielo.blogspot.co.uk/

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Before They Disappear A Photo Project by Jimmy Nelson.

Jimmy Nelson (Sevenoaks, Kent, 1967) started working as a photographer in 1987. Having spent 10 years at a Jesuit boarding school in the North of England, he set off on his own to traverse the length of Tibet on foot. The journey lasted a year and upon his return his unique visual diary, featuring revealing images of a previously inaccessible Tibet, was published to wide international acclaim.

Soon after, he was commissioned to cover a variety of culturally newsworthy themes, ranging from the Russian involvement in Afghanistan and the ongoing strife between India and Pakistan in Kashmir to the beginning of the war in former Yugoslavia.



In early 1994 he and his Dutch wife produced Literary Portraits of China, a 30 month project that brought them to all the hidden corners of the newly opening People’s Republic. Upon its completion the images were exhibited in the People’s Palace on Tiananmen Square, Beijing, and then followed by a worldwide tour.



From 1997 onwards Jimmy began to successfully undertake commercial advertising assignments for many of the world’s leading brands. At the same time he started accumulating images of remote and unique cultures photographed with a traditional 50-year-old plate camera. Many awards followed. When he started to successfully and internationally exhibit and sell these images, this created the subsequent momentum and enthusiasm for the initiation of Before they Pass Away.










Source: http://www.beforethey.com/ 

remarkable murals Stelios Faitakis

Stelios Faitakis is the ultimate Greek contemporary painter. His art combines tradional orthodox icon patch, influences of italian quattrocento, german expressionism, street art and Middle-East’s touch. Let the paintings speak for themselves and prepare yourselves to feel a strange vibe coming from the Middle east deep in your vains.

Stelios Faitakis trained as a painter and was one of the pioneering figures in the street art movement that flourished in Athens since the mid-1990s. Faitakis’ figurative, anthropocentric paintings and murals are political and social allegories, packed with visual information, multi-layered narratives and dense symbolism. Executed in the resuscitated and reinvented style of icon painting and cross-fertilised with a variety of other visual references Faitakis’ works possess an unmistakeable visual character. Apart from the obvious influence of Byzantine icon painting, Faitakis’ work is informed – equally – by graffiti, urban culture and Mexican muralism (particularly Diego Riviera).

Stelios Faitakis was born in 1976 in Athens, Greece where he also lives and works. He is a graduate of the National School of Fine Arts, Athens. Faitakis has been commissioned to do in situ murals at “How far is the horizon?” in Holbæk, Denmark (2013), Arsenale 2012, 1st Kiev Biennial curated by David Elliot, Kiev (2012); “Speech Matters”, Danish Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennial curated by Katerina Gregos, Venice (2011); “Art in the Streets”, MOCA – The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2011); Wynwood Walls, Miami (2009); “Destroy Athens”, 1st Athens Biennial, Athens (2007).

Source: http://thebreedersystem.com/artists/stelios-faitakis-artist-page/

Rafael Araujo: Calculations : A geometric rendering of natural phenomena

       Rafael Araujo’s illustrations are bafflingly complex—so complex that you might assume the artist uses a computer to render the exacting angles and three-dimensional illusions. And true, if you were to recreate his intricate mathematical illustrations using software, it probably wouldn’t take you long at all. But the craziest part of all is that Araujo doesn’t use modern technology to create his intricately drawnCalculations series—unless, of course, you count a ruler and protractor.   

The Venezuelan artist crafts his illustrations using same skills you and I learned in our 10th grade geometry class. Only instead of stashing those homework assignments deep into the locker of his brain, Araujo uses these concepts to create his da Vinci-esque drawings. In Araujo’s work, butterflies take flight amidst a web of lines and helixes, a shell is born from a conical spiral, and the mathematical complexity of nature begins to make sense.

He says perspective and angles have always come naturally to him. “When I was young I began drawing perspective almost out of the blue,” he recalls. “I loved three-dimensional drawings and liked to find out ways to locate dots in the space.” Before computer-assisted drawing, there were artists like M.C. Escher, who Araujo counts among his biggest influences. “When I first saw M.C. Escher, I was speechless,” he says. “His artwork was so akin to my geometrical taste.”   

Working on an old drafting table, Araujo began drawing his own perspective illustrations, eyeballing the trigonometry to plot dot sequences that would allow him to create curved shapes like double helixes and cones. If you look closely at Araujo’s drawings, you’ll notice each of the main shapes sits within a line-drawn square or rectangle—he began adding this to his works after realizing these scaffolding boxes created a more reliable way to correctly position the dots. “There is naturally a learning curve,” he says. “And as problems are solved, you become more adept and, again, daring.”

As Araujo became more confident in his skills, he began adding ink-drawn butterflies, insects and shells to the canvas and painting them with acrylic in order to add visual complexity to his work. Each illustration takes him upwards of 100 hours, and that’s if he doesn’t mess up. “Painting is very similar to cooking,” he says. “You’ve got to be always careful!”

  Even with the added embellishments, his work is restrained and exacting. But that scientific honesty is also what makes his illustrations so visually compelling. Scientists and mathematicians often say there’s a comfort in their work because they know there’s always a right and wrong answer. It’s the same with Araujo’s art.

There’s little gray area to be debated when it comes to angles and lines, and somehow that reliability and predictability translates into something beautiful. “I love Pollock, and enjoy very much casting paint onto a canvas without rules,” he says. “But you’ve got to make it to appear, if not “beautiful,” well done, and that is difficult.”   Sources: http://www.rafael-araujo.com/curriculum_ing.html http://www.wired.com/2014/01/insane-mathematical-illustrations-made-without-computer/#slide-id-405251 http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/01/architectural-renderings-of-life-drawn-with-pencil-and-pen-by-rafael-araujo/ 

Ultra Small Bonsai Plants Give New Meaning to the Word Miniature

What happens when you apply of love of small things to an art form that’s already all about small things? In recent years Bonsai—Japan’s art form of growing miniature trees in miniature planters—has undergone a miniaturization trend. Industry experts consider bonsai plants less than 3 cm (about 1 inch) to be particularly difficult, but artists have taken on the challenge, creating tiny plants and tiny planters that, literally, are at your fingertips. It’s given rise to a new category, known as cho-mini bonsai, or ultra-small bonsai.

It’s no secret that the Japanese excel at making things smaller, whether it’s automobiles, electronics or food. In fact, Japan’s love of small things can be found in literature dating back over a 1,000 years. When it comes to the land of the rising sun, it’s clear that beauty comes in small packages.

Source : http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/05/ultra-small-bonsai-plants-give-new-meaning-to-the-word-miniature/