As you settle in for the night, dear reader, why not instead be whisked away into the FUTURE! Watch, as visionary artists from the 1930s predict what fashion might have been like seven years ago.
I could do with that first number, actually. Zip-off sleeves? Yes. Not entirely sure about the skirt elimination, but I know I’ve got the big hair and questionable footwear well covered. Ooh, swish!
Whether he’s making a girl, an octopus or an old sailor, Scott’s dolls and marionettes have a look of prematurely aged children. Muted colors, shadowed wide-set eyes and ruddy little noses on sullen heads have become his signature. These creatures seem perfect for stop-motion animation – it would be great to someday see a full length feature starring them. I’ll avoid using terms like “whimsical” or “grotesque”- suffice to say I love Scott’s angry delicate characters and am always anticipating the next one.
Scott Radke is an artist in Cleveland, Ohio. Visit him on the interwub at scottradke.com and click beyond the jump for some of my favorite pieces.
Three Graces with a Knife by Natalie Shau
23-year-old Lithuanian digital artist Natalie Shau has created a new set of images influenced by Greek Mythology.
This piece above is called “Three Graces with a Knife.” According to Shau, illness the women in the image are Alecto the Implacable, advice Megaera The Jealous One and Tisiphone, tadalafil the avenger Murder. In Greek Mythology, these three sisters were known as Erinyes (or in Roman, the Furies), and they were the female personification of vengeance.
Every time I reach into the Magic Bucket o’ Reader Submissions, I discover something I’ve never seen before. I want to thank everyone who’s sent something in (except for you, submitter of furry porn – you almost got me fired at work). We’re never at a loss for new art and weirdness to cover, and it’s thanks to you guys!
DestroyX of the industrial duo Angelspit sends along a page is called Dreaming the Industrial Body, which features drawings from 20’s and 30’s of various bodily processes represented in terms of industrial society by artist Fritz Kahn. The drawings illustrate the inner workings of our bodies in terms of conveyor belts, telephone wires, electric projectors, locomotives, engines, refineries and switchboards manned by busy workers. It’s uber, ja!
The Dreaming the Industrial Body online exhibit is part of a series called Dream Anatomy, hosted by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. There are many interesting sections – some other ones I enjoyed were Dissection Scenes and Fancies, Show-off Cadavers and Anatomical Primitives. The entire site is a must-see for any student of anatomy or fan of body horror.
“In The Garden” by Madeline von Foerster
I believe there is still time to make a new myth. There is still a chance for imagination to rise to power.
~Madeline von Foerster
The mystical paintings of Madeline von Foerster invoke names like Van Eyck, Brueghel, Bosch, Remedios Varo, Ernst Fuchs. It’s vibrant, multi-layered work, filled with Occult and Medieval symbolism and rendered in the painstaking egg tempera oil tradition of the Flemish Old Masters. Ageless, yet thematically timely, scholarly but always deeply personal, hers is simply some of the most moving work in the medium that I’ve seen from anyone of my generation.
I remember the first time I viewed the following self-portrait at a gallery showing in midtown NYC:
“Self Portrait (Trepanation)” 2005 by Madeline von Foerster
It’s a fairly large piece, 34″ x 42″ (not including the lavish frame, which she constructed and painted as well). If you’re familiar with the technique of egg tempera, closely examining a painting like this can be mind-boggling… all of those smoothly-placed, minuscule brush strokes, patiently layered, culminating in subjects that can only be described as having an unearthly inner glow. The enigmatic subject matter of trepanation thrilled me as well.
It was your typical overcrowded NYC gallery opening. Plenty of cheap wine and fabulously dressed people, all talking a little too loudly over one another. Then there was Madeline, standing off to one side, as gracious, elegant and mysterious as one of her paintings. Since that time, I’ve come to know her as one of those exceedingly rare examples of a person whose life reflects purely in their art.
Some of her recent work is currently up in a group show at the Strychnin Gallery in London. Take a peek at it and some other pieces behind the cut.
The Muse. Photo by Viona, outfit and jewelry by Elisabeth.
Elisabeth and Viona Ielegems are two sisters from Belgium with an incredible talent for fashion and photography. Golden-haired gothic princess Viona is a world-famous alt photographer who appears in many of her own images, and her younger sister Elisabeth is a fashion designer who makes gorgeous necklaces, rings, earrings and other filigree items for your inner woodland fae. Together they collaborated on the following shoot for Elisabeth’s graduation project, a series of designs revolving around different feminine archetypes. Seen above is The Muse. Click on the titles below to see more:
The links are to Viona’s site, and the project can be seen on Elisabeth’s Flash site as well with poetic quotations describing each.
By the way of Mister Kris Ether, a collection of jaw-dropping Yakov Chernikov drawings. Doesn’t this one resemble a rocket, ready for takeoff? Yes, this is my future, tovarish Chernikov. Thank you.
From the funny writeup on Dark Roasted Blend: “Only too appropriate for the “Evil Empire”, the colossal palaces and Pantheons would dominate the city, squash the last vestiges of soul, and yet strangely excite in their surreal dark presence.“
Artist/writer Bajema has been one of my biggest inspirations over the years. It’s through Beth’s work that I first “met” Coilhouse co-writer Zoe some five years ago by following a link from Bajema.com. Bajema’s wistful images make me feel as though the world is still full of secrets, and a lot of the images hint at the idea of a hidden mystical order. The sensual titles of her work enhance the sense of longing evoked by her images – Saturnine, The Angel Balm, Insects and Angels, & Snapdragon Tea are just a few examples. Her site is currently going through a majer overhaul so it’s down, but she’s recently uploaded much of her older work to her MySpace page. Even though the graphics are small, they are still lush and it’s great to see them all together. Can’t wait until you get your site up, Beth.
Mother of Balloon Music by Judy Dunaway
Initially, exposure to composer/performer Judy Dunaway and her “virtuostic balloon-playing” broke my brain. But after the giggle fit subsided, I realized I was genuinely in awe of the woman, for many of the same reasons I’ve long adored Harry Partch, Hans Reichel, Clara Rockmore, and Klaus Nomi. Like them, Dunaway is utterly fearless in her approach to her craft, and unflinching in the face of inevitable backlash from both her classical and avante-garde contemporaries. (It takes ovaries of steel to play Lincoln Center with nothing but an amplified balloon between your knees, ah tell you whut.)
Her Etudes No.1 and 2 for Balloon and Violin (2004) are particular favorites of mine, perhaps because they’re what my own stuffy classical violin instructor would undoubtedly have dismissed as “good musicans behaving unforgivably.” I’m at a loss to accurately describe the music… imagine what an orgy of parasitic wasps being slowly pressed to death between two lubricated sheets of mylar might sound like. New York Press writer Kenneth Goldsmith likened Dunaway’s live performances to witnessing “Cab Calloway in Munchkinland… Olivier Messiaen on helium.”
Dunaway’s own statement of purpose is more straightforward:
My own work … does not come out of a void. Creating a large body of work for balloons has allowed me to develop a vocabulary outside the realm of oppressive classical heritage. It has raised the ordinary and mundane to the status of high art. I have fetishized this simple cheap toy in my music, as the violin has been fetishized for centuries by Western European-influenced composers. In an era where the progress toward a woman’s control of her own body is threatened, I have coupled myself to a musical instrument that expresses sensuality, sexuality and humanity without inhibition.
Hooo wee! You go, girl!
Sex Workers’ Internet Radio Lounge (SWIRL) A not-for-profit educational webcast for audio art and activism concerning the rights of sex workers, founded by Dunaway.
Kudos to Brian V. for reminding me of her!
