Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Fixating on Fruit with Kii Arens

We’ve noticed that graphic designer/artist Kii Arens likes fruit. Whether it's fruit made to look like other food or something entirely inedible like a briefcase, Arens both highlights the inherent beauty of the food group and bends it to his will. Above and below, you can see the several ways the artist works fruit into his work, whether it’s promotional posters or personal prints.


We’ve noticed that graphic designer/artist Kii Arens likes fruit. Whether it’s fruit made to look like other food or something entirely inedible like a briefcase, Arens both highlights the inherent beauty of the food group and bends it to his will. Above and below, you can see the several ways the artist works fruit into his work, whether it’s promotional posters or personal prints.




The Minnesota-born artist, a musician in his own right, has crafted album artwork, promotional material, and tour posters for an array of bands, from Dolly Parton and Pete Yorn to Wilco and Chance the Rapper. In 2004, Arens opened his own arts venue in Los Angeles, La-La Land Gallery, showcasing his work and hundreds of pieces from other pop artists.


Naturally, when the gallery hosted the show “Fruit” a few months back, Arens had a few pieces in the show. (Work also came from Shag, Oliver Hibert, Steve Ellis, Mark Kostabi, Anthony Ausgang, Martin Ontiveros, Janee Meadows, Chris Reccardi, Daniel Gibson, Dan Stiles, Christophe Gilland, David Medel, Aarah Aizman, Addie Hamilton, Mike Davis, Savanna Snow, Shoko Yanagisawa, Matthew Bone, Alyssa Burke, and Nazish Chunara.)



Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Ohio based artist Alfred Steiner has an admittedly bizarre predilection for anatomical and fragmented parts since his childhood. His watercolor paintings of pop culture icons, logos, and cartoon characters use unseemly pieces to build an image. His work could be described as modern day Pop-Mannerism, a combination of Pop Art and Mannerist art, and brings to mind that of Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who painted imaginative faces made of fruits and other objects. However, Steiner credits more surprising and eclectic inspirations, such as the fantastic imagery of Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch and fictional characters like Homer Simpson.
Japanese pop artist Keiichi Tanaami (previously covered here) has a new exhibition on view at Tokyo's underground gallery, Nanzuka. "Cherry Blossoms Falling in the Evening Gloom" is named after his show's titular piece, an effort to take the darkest of his personal experiences and turn them into a positive image. The 3-meter painting leads into a transformation in the artist's motifs, known for his glowing, grotesque creatures, which are shown emitting light.
If you think of giant stainless-steel puppy balloons when you hear the name Jeff Koons, think again. On Friday, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York celebrated the most comprehensive collection of the Pop artist’s work to date. The exhibition, which will be traveling internationally into 2015, is the artist’s first retrospective spanning his highly influential career. Notably, it is also the museum’s last showing before moving to a new space to be announced next year. There are nearly 150 works total displayed chronologically, dating from late 1970s series “The Pre-New, The New, and Equilibrium” to new works like “Play-Doh”, 20 years in the making. Often described as “kitsch” for his outlandish taste, Koons’ retrospective may redefine what taste actually is. Read more after the jump!
It is in Keiichi Tanaami's personality to take even the darkest of his life's experiences and turn them into positive expressions. The Psychedelic Japanese artist's sensational paintings of crazy characters engaged in the chaos of war has made him a leading art figure not just in Japan, but all over the world. We recently featured Tanaami's intensely visual work in Hi-Fructose Vol. 38, where he shared with us the origins of his art, and the deep effect that his wartime experiences has had on his psyche. In this rare interview, Tanaami tells us more about his dark past and the myriad of international influences on his work to date.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List