The week ahead

It is going to be a very difficult week ahead for my adopted country, so many hopes and fears, so many different perspectives and ideas. 
Yesterday I saw some hopes and dreams, in sharing them I hope for a good week.

Mara Piccione I

Mara Piccione is a Dutch illustrator, graphic designer and printmaker who works in mono and screenprinting. I was extremely taken last week with her interpretation of Roald Dahl's The Minpins because it was so different from the original and I loved the boldness of the design.

Alejandra Hernandez

This bright and surreal work is by Alejandra Hernandez a Colombian artist who currently lives in Belgium. Her work reminds me of Retablos in their intensity of colour, strange perspective and kleptomaniac gathering of imagery and reference materials.

"Relating, interlacing and finding intersections between reality and fiction has always been crucial for her practice. She often uses life references as well as her own imaginary which comes a result from filtering all sorts of information and inspiration from the environment and interpreting them into her own language." Alejandra Hernandez.

Margaret Woodward III

“A good painting is totally balanced so that everything responds to everything else. Within the immediacy of a relationship you can get a sensation of something else occurring. Within the total thing, however, it has to be a unity.” Margaret Woodward 

Margaret Woodward II

Margaret Woodward has often drawn musicians, again with charcoal and pastel they are beautiful drawings of concentration, capturing that time when you loose yourself in music.

Margaret Woodward I

Margaret Woodward is a figurative Australian artist who's work shows compassion and warmth of human spirit. In her drawings she often combines the media of charcoal and pastel.

Yordan Mazhlekov I

 Yordan Mazhlekov's paintings fall between paintings and illustrations, he likes to use oil on paper. They are not easy images, often they are quite disturbing and arresting. 

Elena Schumacher II

How strange that exactly a year on I find myself again posting about the work of Elena Schumacher. 
Last year when I discovered her work it was more abstract and imagined. Today's portraits drew my eye not only because of the wonderful juxtaposition of colour, the use of line and the scumbled effect, but the cheeky glint in her subjects face a hint of mischief and humor.  

Magdalena Haras

I love the concept of this book by Magdalena Haras who has taken excerpts from 'The long Walk' by Slawomir Rawicz and made them into a book that is also a pair of shoes. Magdalena's interpretation alludes to secrecy with the information hidden within the soles, the shoes are the perfect vehicle for this story.

'Walking a mile in someone else's shoes' or looking at things from the point of view of others is a strong belief of mine and this illustrates it poetically and perfectly. 

Irina Vaneeva

I have also started a project with my students called '100 days of me' which can be anything that they want to do, be it self portraits, clothing, dreams etc. Their books are a little too neat as yet and full of pencil. I want them to dive in get messy and less precious, so that some surprise wonders start to leap from the pages. Like this wonderful journal made in an out of date diary by  Irina Vaneeva.

Artem Krepkij I

I am teaching life drawing and basic drawing skills at this time of year and so my eye is being tempted by drawings. 

Artem Krepkij's drawings are difficult to view in some ways due to their extreme perspective, twisting and contorting figures into exaggerated forms to emphasize the emotion and drama of situations. His works remind me of those early works of Vincent Van Gogh where the hands are as expressive and animated as the faces and there is a monotone hardship that prevails through all. 

Pavel Curagău

Pavel Curagău is an artist who works mainly in fine art, print and photography Here I am featuring a section of one of his drawings on stretched canvas with charcoal. which has great observation and energy.
"I am concerned human being as a whole and its role in the society. The human being as matter, consciousness and soul."

Holly Frean

'Before and After' is a body of work created by artist Holly Frean called 'Before and After', where she explores old masters, as a frame of time on a film and has had fun exploring the frames, not previously caught for in perpetuity. They are mischievous and irreverent works that allow you see the humanity behind the historically and culturally embedded originals.

Michael Mapes

These works fragment the familiar to abstraction and yet leave just enough information for our minds eye to recognize and fill the gaps, in the same way that we can recognize words and text when half the letters are removed or mixed around.  
Michael Mapes uses very familiar dutch masterpieces to base his fragmented collaged works on and recreates a kaleidoscopic interpretation using fragments of photographic prints, sequins, fake nails, costume jewelry, insect pins, gelatin capsules and glass vials amongst other things. Gathering and arranging evidence to prompt us into putting it together like detectives.

"They're fairly tedious to create," he says, "so I try to bring a painter-like approach to working on them. Making changes that involve so many individual elements can be challenging, if not punishing, but my interest lies in discovering the composition of the work while making it." Michael Mapes