During the late Italian Renaissance, ‘Mannerist’ artists had technically mastered the nude and began playing with her proportions. Toronto based artist Troy Brooks uses the same visual language in his figurative paintings of elongated women. The ‘women of Troy’ are characteristically fashion forward and emotionally indifferent; caught between moments of boredom, rebellion, and transformation. Often, his blonde ‘heroine’ is compared to Psycho’s Norma Bates, which might cast her as a manipulative she-devil. She is posed in weird environments of soft colors that match her pale white skin. Her abnormally stretched limbs are almost torturous-looking and unsettling, complimenting Brook’s bizarre themes. His latest oil paintings (which we first posted in December) seems to abandon this technique in favor of simpler compositions. “The next bunch of my girls are starting to move like a walking bass line,” he shares. In “A Certain Sacrifice”, a temptress slouches against a white backdrop with a glint in her eye and lipstick smeared across her face. Brooks, who has no formal training, is also experimenting with glazing, which he admits is a tedious process. As he focuses on transformation thematically, his visuals also transform. Take a look at some of his recent work below.
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Photographer Aida Muluneh has lived all over the world, but it was in returning to Ethiopia that she found inspiration for her latest body of work. Muluneh's first solo exhibition for David Kruts Projects in New York City was titled “The World is 9,” and it featured new images from the artist. The title comes from something the artist’s grandmother used to say: “The world is 9. It is never complete and never perfect.”
Mikiko Kumazawa’s hand brings both richness and chaos touch to contemporary life. Whether in pencil drawings or visceral sculptures, the Tokyo-based artist depicts worlds that are just connected enough to our realities to inspire anxiety. Kumazawa was last featured on HiFructose.com