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.

Glorious Rebirth

Oscar Wilde’s statement “an egg is always an adventure; the next one may be different”, obviously made within a particular context, could well be used in connection with Franc Grom’s creative artworks.

Touching and Tasty

If “variety is the spice of life” and “a picture paints a thousand words”, then young Kelly McCollam is really achieving quite something by introducing a new and very interesting flavour to the art world with her inventive recreations of some of Van Gogh’s masterpieces using salt, spices and food-colouring as her sole medium to pay homage to her favourite painter.

Fascinating Indecision

“Calm and motion, dissolution and density, the contrastive play with gravity and overcoming it, with reality and simulation, (...) rising or falling?” These are some of the words used by Michael Stoeber to describe the absolutely mesmerizing gravity-defying sculptures by Cornelia Konrads.

Magic Tape

“Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect”, someone quoted Teller, a sixty-four years old full-time magician since 1975, to refer to Sarah DiNardo’s artistic production. And, in fact, nothing would more fittingly describe what she, herself, calls her “love for using tape”.

The Throne of Africa

Today again, and just as it happened with our previous posts on the Tree of Life, the Transforming Arms into Art Project or the Freedom sculpture, we bring you another art piece produced within the scope of a humanitarian project devised with a deep concern for social awareness and social justice. Its ultimate objective is that of encouraging a culture of peace in a country emerging from a sixteen-year long civil war. We are referring to the unique project “Transforming Arms into Art” developed in Mozambique. We, therefore, expect to touch your hearts and alert you to the global need for solidarity and against the destructiveness fuelled by illicit arms trade throughout the world.

Story Telling

“I wonder what’s in a book while it’s closed.(...) something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there’s a whole story (...) and all kinds of adventures and deeds...” says Bastian, the young boy in Michael Ende’s fantastic book The Never-ending Story.

Making a Feast of Straw

“The key to life is imagination. If you don’t have that, no matter what you have, it’s meaningless. If you do have imagination... you can make a feast of straw”, says Jane Stanton Hitchcock, New York Times bestselling author, who started her career as a playwright and screenwriter.

Nothing could better fit Rajan Koshy, a rice straw artist born near Trivandrum, in Kerala, southern India, and living in Galveston. A nurse by profession at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Koshy has dedicated himself to creating art pieces using rice straw, since he wants “to save an ancient and endangered form of art”, as he states.

Underwater Wonder World

Imagine yourself diving into the crystal-clear blue waters of the Caribbean, into that unique blue you can find nowhere else in the world. Imagine yourself exploring the sheer beauty of the coral reefs and swimming among the most colourful species of fish and other underwater organisms. Pure magic! Now go a step further and imagine suddenly finding yourself among absolutely stunning sculptures scattered on the seabed. It can only be that you have unknowingly entered a magic world... We are precisely taking you on a guided tour of that enticing and fantastic place.

Flowing, Floating, Fleeting...

“Life is energy: pure creative energy”, says celebrated author Julia Cameron. Nothing could better fit the powerful yet fluid and strongly sensual sculptures by Gil Bruvel, whose work impresses and intrigues viewers at first sight and makes them prisoners of its fascinating and inescapable appeal.

Fairy Tale Forest

Forests are the very source and the main setting of fairy tales. As Sara Maitland states in her book Gossip from the Forest: The Tangled Roots of Our Forest and Fairytales, “Forests to... northern European peoples were dangerous and generous, domestic and wild, beautiful and terrible. And forests were the terrain out of which fairy stories... evolved”. This could well have been the idea behind the creation of Steel Flowers and Trees Sculptures, a fascinating collection of works by world famous artist Zadok Ben-David, on exhibition at the Singapore Botanic Gardens between October 2012 and February 2013.

Shooting Poverty into Art

Although not so much falling within the aesthetic pattern of the artworks we have been dealing with in this blog, we bring to you today something that, however, totally meets its objective of also introducing art pieces which have been produced within the scope of humanitarian projects with a social purpose. In fact, and just as we hope to have achieved with our post on the Tree of Life and the project behind it, we expect to touch your hearts and to emotionally engage you.

Feast your Eyes on Feathers

Fancy a peacock’s superb tail, trailing behind it as if in a pageantry full of pomp and circumstance. Now think about the magnificence, the beauty, the fascinating colours in shades of deep blues and greens and the absolutely perfect shape of each of its feathers...  It could only spark off the greed of royalty and the vanity of the affluent throughout the world.

Beyond Boundaries

“... The call to go on a journey takes the form of a loss, an error, a wound...we are being summoned to make a transition. It will always mean leaving something behind... The paradox here is that loss is a path to gain.” This statement by David Richo, psychotherapist, university teacher and author, could well have been Bruno Catalano’s keystone for the creation of his thought-provoking sculptures.

Visions on Paper

“The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper and re-imagines the world”, said Malcolm Gladwell, an English-Canadian journalist, best-selling author and speaker. Nothing could fit better Calvin Nicholls, himself a Canadian too, who has dedicated his activity to the crafting of mind-blowing paper sculptures.

Bigger than Life

A long life (in fact, he lived until he was 104), a huge talent, a lively man, Oscar Niemeyer, the renown modernist Brazilian architect, left remarkable buildings throughout the world with the unmistakable signature of his genius. He was responsible for the construction of Brasilia in a record time (1956-1960), the present capital of Brazil. This astonishing city, which was born out of the dream of another visionary as was President Café Filho, was to be inaugurated by Jucelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, in 1960.

Cinderella Time...

... is but a fleeting one, as we all know from the fairy tale of our childhood. However, it is a time of magic, of beauty, of sheer joy, suspended and disconnected from real time. It is the time when all wishes are granted, although with a deadline to which everything and everyone must submit. It is, therefore, ephemeral and that makes it even more fascinating.

Let there be Beauty…

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so goes the saying. And, indeed, very often what looks trivial or even unattractive to some may contain in itself the very seeds of Beauty. It takes the sensitive eye of an artist to be able to create Art from materials as common and uninteresting as industrial nails, toothpicks, corks, eggshells, coffee beans or even paint brushes.

Evanescent Beauty

Picture yourself walking on your daily routines and stumbling on a huge hole on the ground which only yesterday wasn’t just there. You falter, doubt your senses and feel a vague sensation of dizziness while you freeze your steps for fear of falling into it. At a second and more attentive observation, however, you realize to your bewilderment that what lies on the pavement right under your eyes is but a 3D drawing that looks so realistic you could swear, at first sight, that it was, in fact, a hole.

Blowing in the Wind

Imagine freshly washed linen hanging on endless lines, neatly arranged and put on to dry.  Finnish artist Kaarina Kaikkonen uses second-hand clothing, and mostly hundreds of discarded men’s shirts and jackets, to create huge installations which have been raising contradictory opinions and political controversy, which immediately reminds us of the open air laundries of Mumbai, for instance.

Metamorphoses of Reconciliation

Doing research on Art – as in any other field of knowledge – sometimes offers you amazing surprises. That was precisely the case when, quite by accident, we came across a solitary project developed by an Italian artist, Sergio Pacori, quite unknown beyond the limits of his Gorizia hometown in Northeastern Italy.

Born in Gargaro, Italy (or Grgar, once a part of Western Slovenia, municipality of Nova Gorica, or Nuova Gorizia), in 1933, Sergio Pacori has been fascinated by the art of forging ever since his early years.  His first works, however, were made of wood logs found on the beach and chosen for their imaginative appeal.

Once upon a time…

…and long before quartz mechanism was invented, there were watches which made the wonder of all kids for their intricate winding devices made of different sorts of tiny metal pieces and wheels working with precision on a never-ending spinning movement, whirling in an endless tic-tac that triggered their imagination and set the windmills of their minds dreaming of fairy tales. They exerted a fascination upon all and, for many, it was – in fact – the first and most cherished “grown-up” possession they all wanted to have.

The Art of Peace

Peace begins with a smile, said Mother Teresa of Calcutta. And, indeed, a smile can be our first reaction when we set eyes on the art objects created by Sonia Rentsch in her “Harm Less” series (2013). In fact, she composes guns, grenades, bullets and other weapons by resorting exclusively to organic products, such as flowers, leaves, seeds or roots, thereby completely neutralising the lethal power associated to the objects she ironically mimics.

Sonia Rentsch is a Melbourne-based Still Life Artist, who graduated from Industrial Design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia. After successful professional experiences, she has ventured into working alone, following her belief that “there is beauty to be found in everything”, to quote her.

From Rags to Riches

Ghana or Nigeria. Western Africa. A region of the world where everyday life is made of poverty, hunger, starvation, struggle for survival; where people find a use for everything they can get hold of; where people cherish the rags they wear as treasures they would never discard.

Weaving Webs of Wonder

 Consider transparency, translucency. Consider something delicate, subtle, vaporous, ethereal. Consider gauze, lace, tulle. No, we are not thinking of ballerinas’ tutus, wedding dresses, ball-gowns. We are introducing you to the wonder that is the very essence out of which Benjamin Shine’s most recent artworks are made.

“Magic Mirror in my Hand…”

Human-shaped, life-sized mirrored sculptures by Rob Mulholland strategically placed within urban, rural or natural surroundings, camouflaged by its very essence or becoming intriguingly conspicuous, trigger the most unexpected reactions from viewers and passers-by.

Wondering in Wonderland

This is an invitation for all of you to join us in the magic process that metamorphoses scrap material, wastes, discarded items and so many other rejected objects into works of art. To the wonder of our eyes and senses and through the hands of talented artists, what seems to most of us to be merely trash turns into objects of sheer Beauty.

Back to Life

Discarded materials of all kinds, from wire to old keys or clock parts, to cutlery, dog collars or cupboard handles are skilfully metamorphosed in the hands of sculptor Barbara Frank into animals, plants and other organic shapes that come back to life for the pleasure of our eyes and senses.

She has gradually been using more and more discarded materials as a result of her fascination for objects which carry in them a past (hi)story, thus offering an added challenge to her work as well as an increasing and more familiar interest to the final product. The fact that she resorts to the use of such materials further enhances the connection viewers may create with her sculptures when they find themselves identifying the different elements which make up the artwork at which they are looking.

A Tribute From the (HE)ART

On this day, when Nelson Mandela completes 95 years of a life entirely dedicated to the struggle against apartheid, fighting for his strong beliefs in freedom, peace, dignity, solidarity and reconciliation – among so many other equally deep and relevant human values – our contribution could not address any other subject.

Beyond Beautiful

Ordinary galvanized mesh and other kinds of wire delicately worked into lace-looking, life-sized figurative sculptures of awesome, spiritual, uncommon beauty may surprise you as you wander along the rooms of an art gallery or museum, stroll through a public park or visit a private garden in Britain.

Transforming Arms into Tools

The Tree of Life sculpture was produced within the scope of the “Transforming Arms into Tools” (TAT) project founded by Bishop Dom Dinis Sengulane, Chairman of the Christian Council of Mozambique, a partner organisation of Christian Aid, an international development charity founded in 1953 and working in more than fifty countries with over 600 partner organisations helping some of the poorest communities irrespective of religion, race and background.  

Tree of Life

The Tree of Life, a sculpture.  Different sized gun barrels, butts and magazines, triggers, trigger guards and even complete pistols are transformed into the bark of a tree. Sliced, opened out and flattened metal sections from gun barrels and magazines become leaves, making up the thick foliage of this tree. This is how dismantled, chopped off weapons are made unusable for its original functions and exhibited as artworks in museums.  The Tree of Life, commissioned by the British Museum and created in 2004 in Mozambique to commemorate peace, is the first object we bring to you, inviting you to share it with us, to observe and to appreciate it, and – why not? – share it with others.