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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Toronto based photographer Robyn Cumming often uses the figure as her canvas, rather than main subject, in her experimental imagery. Her subjects' personalities come through in their poses and the unexpected elements that she mixes into the picture. In her "Lady Things" (2008) series, for example, she completely obscures their faces with things like flowering shrubs, birds, and smoke. While simultaneously unsettling and seductive, there is a compelling mystery in the obscurity of Cumming's work. It leaves the viewer to reconsider how we collect information about each other visually and use that to define a person's character.
What is a "weird girl"? If you look up "weird" in the dictionary, you get "fantastic, bizarre," which perfectly describes the girls in Iceland-based artist Kitty Von-Sometime's films. A decade ago, Kitty began using video as a visual means to test the restrictions imposed on women by the media. This idea led to her current series "The Weird Girls Project," which seeks to empower both the women who take part and those watching. Kitty's films have a loose story line that more closely resembles a music video, mixing elements of performance art, costume design, installation and painting. Her concept exists very much in its process. Played by "real women" volunteers, how her subjects react and transform through costume is part of how Kitty paints a moving picture of strength.
Quebec native Alexandra Bastien (first posted in 2014) can spend over 40 hours on just one of her near hyper-realistic colored pencil drawings. She is currently working on an ongoing series of girls in a state of Metempsychosis, especially reincarnation. In other words, we are witnessing the moment after death where their souls move from one form to another. In Bastien's work, this is usually an animal skull or remains. Take a look at some of her recent drawings, after the jump!
Hi-Fructose attended last night's premiere of Tim Burton's biopic, "Big Eyes" at the theatre at Ace hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. The premiere was also attended by leading actress Amy Adams, notable fans and gallerists including Mark Ryden, Marion Peck, Andrew and Shawn Hosner of Thinkspace Gallery, Greg Escalante of Copro Gallery, and Margaret Keane's own San Francisco based Keane Eyes Gallery, to name a few. "Big Eyes" chronicles the journey of Margaret Keane's popular big-eyed waifs, from humble beginnings to her abusive relationship with Walter Keane, who locked her in a studio and took credit for her art for years. Photos from the premiere after the jump!