The Alphabet of Wonder

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web”, stated the celebrated painter Pablo Picasso about the source of inspiration for his artworks. Curiously enough, these words seem to fit like a glove the awesome art pieces produced by another Pablo: Pablo Lehmann.

Born and based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Pablo Lehmann uses words and paper to produce masterpieces of art that feed our minds, seize our senses and arrest our emotions. Unlike other artists using the same medium – paper –, Lehmann has adopted an approach in which he works layered paper and synthetic cloth to create massive letter-based installations which vary from cut-outs to huge wall-hangings of extreme beauty and astounding originality.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Borrowed from Milan Kundera’s celebrated novel, the title for this text seems only too adequate to the work of Odani Motohiko we are featuring in this text. Interested in capturing “the concepts of movement and transformation, dynamism and speed in sculpture”, according to his own words, Motohiko’s art pieces strike viewers with their eerie and almost surreal appearance.

Working with a variety of media, we shall, however, concentrate exclusively on one of his lines of creation, which fits our choice of aesthetics to which we want to remain faithful. Addressing philosophical issues and sculpture concepts not easily grasped by the majority of viewers, let us then solely focus our attention on his lighter-than-air, stunning, imaginative works which leave viewers breathless with wonder.

Steel Filigree

“Life is filigree work. What is written clearly is not worth much; it’s the transparency that counts”, stated Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French writer and one of the most influential authors of the twentieth-century. Contradictory? Maybe not so much if we bear in mind that it is contradiction that often assigns sense to life and makes visible what would, otherwise, be invisible.

Treading Uncharted Territories

One of our major concerns has been to bring you Art that touches the heart and to show innovative approaches that can set minds working and stir emotions. The recent and continuous improvement that has been brought by new technologies offers artists plenty of field for groundbreaking experiences to the wonder and benefit of viewers. That is precisely what has prompted our choice of the artist we are featuring today.

Humming Beauty

Insects seem to cause contradictory reactions on people. Some find them irritating, dangerous, a never-ending source of discomfort. On the other hand and curiously enough, there is a great number of children’s stories in which they play the main roles and are depicted as sweet, loveable creatures. They have inspired the famous Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Flight of the Bumble-bee” and Alexander Scriabin, another Russian composer and pianist, said about his 10th Sonata (1913) that “(it) is a sonata of insects. Insects are born from the sun... they are the sun’s kisses”.

Going Vintage

Look around you and check if there is any vintage object within your sight. An old magazine, your father’s camera, an old-fashioned picture frame, one of your mother’s favourite trinkets, memorabilia of some kind. Most certainly you will find something. As Sloane Crosley, a young writer living in New York and a professor at Columbia University, puts it “our culture’s obsession with vintage objects has rendered us unable to separate history from nostalgia. People want heart”.

In the Kingdom of OZ

Fact one: the artist we are featuring today goes under the name of Olga Ziemska. Fact two: literally, her name Olga means “of the Earth”. Fact three: she works within the area which is now commonly known as Land Art. Fact four: she works wonders and creates magic. You may now get ready to enter the Kingdom of OZ.

Making Rainbows

A song released as the soundtrack for the comedy Fitzwillie in 1967, which gained different shades in the voices of singers such as Ella Fitzgerald or Lena Horne, said “make me rainbows, make me Spring in the snow, make me music wherever I go”. This could well be the touchstone to refer to Leonid Afremov’s paintings.

The Ravages of Time

“It is useless to contend with the irresistible power of Time, which goes on continually creating by a process of constant destruction”. This apparently paradoxical statement by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822), an American critic, jurist, author, composer and artist, perfectly suits the keystone concept behind the awe-inspiring sculptures by Manuel Martí Moreno.

Flying on the Wings of Dreams

“Throw your dreams into space like a kite and you do not know what it will bring back...” once said Anaïs Nin, the French-born novelist and short story writer most widely known for her Journals. Now think of the enthusiastic kite flying competitions in which kids excel to present the most beautiful gears and to show their skills and expertise at handling them.

Rainbow Reflections

“A happy childhood can’t be cured. Mine will hang around my neck like a rainbow...” once stated Hortense Calisher, an American novelist and short-story writer of unpredictable turns of phrases. This incredibly beautiful way of describing a happy childhood seems to fit like a glove Ester Roi, a talented and creative artist who says about herself, her source of inspiration and her creative and ethereal artworks: “I’m inspired when I’m fearless, when I put on my child-like glasses and look at the world as if I’d never seen it before. In that state of mind I find inspiration everywhere.”

Trapped in Beauty

Susan Sontag, a Jewish American literary theorist, novelist, filmmaker and feminist activist once stated about photographs:  “All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”

Freezing moments is, in fact, very much what Seung Mo Park, a Korean artist based in Brooklyn, does with his stunning aluminium wire sculptures. His artwork is intimately linked to photography, since he actually starts his creations using a projected photograph and then slowly placing layer after layer of wire meshing by cutting and welding until the three dimensional sculptures of his subjects materialise to the fascination of viewers’ eyes.

Tempus fugit

“... Time flees irretrievably, while we wander around, prisoners of our love of detail", stated the Roman poet Virgil in his poem Georgics. Commonly found under the form of an inscription on clocks, it enhances our concerns about the fleetingness of time and the ravages thereby caused. This further evokes French author Marcel Proust´s work À la Recherche du Temps Perdu – “In Search of Lost Time” – whose theme is exactly the anguish and grief about time that has irretrievably gone.

Imagination at Work

Do you remember the transformers, those toys which made the wonders and delight of kids in the 80s and which could take various forms? Mainly, they looked like incredible futuristic robots which could, by skilful manipulation and the use of imagination, become highly sophisticated cars defying our wildest dreams.

The Beauty of Nature

Global warming, climate changes, deforestation, desertification and so many other such concepts are commonly mentioned in the media, although people’s awareness of these issues and their respective causes seems to remain widely untouched.

Lace

Federico Vinciolo, a sixteenth-century lace-maker and pattern designer attached to the court of Henry II of France, defined lace as “the invention of a goddess and the occupation of a queen”.  On the other hand, Lori Howe, a lace maker, states that “lace is as much about the space between the threads as it is about the threads themselves”. The same could be said about the amazing paper artwork delicately created by the fairy hands of Julie Dodd.

Art Bright as a Button

Think of those magic times spent in family around a huge puzzle. Think of the excitement of finding the right piece to fit the right empty space which was there just waiting to be discovered and covered. Think of all the times when, passing by the table where the puzzle lay under construction, suddenly and quite unexpectedly another piece was spotted and added to the work in project. Think of the pure joy and sheer feeling of achievement when the very last piece was fit into the whole picture! Those are happy memories many of us are lucky enough to have in our minds.

Touching Wood

“In all things of Nature there is something of the marvellous”, said Aristotle and, yet, not everybody has the capacity and/or the sensibility to see that. We have to be grateful for the talent of artists who can help us rise above our limitations to actually see how much beauty there can be in materials we tend to simply ignore.

The Colours of the Rainbow

“I see trees of green, red roses too... I see skies of blue, clouds of white...” and so goes the song made famous by the unique voice of Louis Armstrong which celebrates the beauty of this world. Now that is the kind of Beauty we all take for granted but which some people cannot see in the same way as we do. And yet, that has not prevented Naoki Nishino – nicknamed Yaidunohannji in Twitter – from painting the most amazing, beautiful and colourful canvas for the pleasure of our eyes.

Telling Stories with a Twist

Psychedelic images? Klimt-inspired patterns? Egon Schiele’s influence? Let your imagination fly, for what you are about to discover is that stories may come in a completely different package when the creativity of an artist is unbound, unleashed, unlimited.

In fact, the common practice is that stories, especially those meant for children, are illustrated. Right? Now, we challenge you to twist that concept around. Puzzled? Try thinking of an illustration that tells a story. Bingo! That is precisely what Daniel Mackie does with his stunning animal illustrations which seem to manipulate space and time, thereby arresting viewers in the meanders of well crafted stories.