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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
In 1979, with the publication of The Lowbrow Art of Robt. Williams, Williams unintentionally coined a term that would come to define an art movement. But he began intentionally carving out its place in the world long before... Read the full article on Robert Williams by clicking above.
"I have a hunch that any successful painting creates work for the viewer,” says the painter Ben Spiers. “I think that's part of the reason why it can be hard to begin the process of looking at paintings seriously..." read the full article on Benjamin Spiers by clicking above!
(Above: Drone photo by stephan pruitt/fiasco media) We are living in even stranger times. While fires are ravaging Los Angeles on the west coast of the United States, affecting many of our friends and collaborators, the scores of artists in Asheville affected by Hurricane Helene in December are still reeling from the loss of their homes and studios. To provide support, Bender Gallery has organized an art show with their local artists to support the River Arts District. Click above to read all about it and see a few works on display.
Next up from our visit to Bentonville is Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, a museum Hi-Fructose has been eager to visit for many years. It is a thoroughly immersive art experience both inside and outside the museum walls which are set on a lush green landscape. Click image above to see more from our visit!
We've just returned from an eye opening experience at the 21c Museum hotel and the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, AR. The whole town is a welcoming hub of contemporary art and nature, thoughtfully and intentionally developed into a community that incorporates exciting public art throughout the city, thanks to the curatorial efforts of Oz Art NWA. Click above to see a tour of Fragile Figures: Beings and Time.
French artist Astro takes flat urban surfaces and creates passageways into the void. Using shadows and light, calligraphy-inspired designs and winding curves, the artist’s optical illusions are made for public consumption. And even when they’re not so obvious to some passers-by and cars on a quick route to work, Astro has many of us looking at the big picture.
Ben Howe’s arresting oil paintings offer hyperdetailed and eerie reflections on humanity. A new show at beinArt Gallery in Australia collects his newest paintings under the titled “Weave.” The new show tackles “themes of mortality, isolation, longing, melancholy and loss and sits somewhere between the physical constraints of reality and the anarchic realm of the subconscious.” Howe was last mentioned on HiFructose.com here.
Kitt Bennett’s stirring, graphical murals have a particular resonance on paved parking lots, sprawling across urban spaces. The sheer size of these works gives viewers the chance to examine the details of his murals on an intimate level. For the past few years, the Melbourne-based artist has built a reputation in both illustration and public art (and he held a a solo show in a public toilet in 2015).
Ever want to sleep at a museum? Neither did we, until we went to 21c. We recently stayed at the 21c Art Museum Hotel in St.Louis as well as the 21c in Bentonville, Arkansas and had the best time. 21c locations combine actual contemporary art museum gallery exhibitions which are free and open to the general public. Read our hifructos.ecom exclusive interview with 21c's curator Alice Gray Stites by clicking above.
An imaginative animal kingdom unfolds in Creatura, a new print from Mark Ryden available through Porterhouse Editions that will benefit Creatura Wildlife Projects. Read all about it by clicking above!
You will want to find a way back to the sideways world, the dirty world, the alien world of Tetsunori Tawaraya. Click above!
Explaining an image could break the illusive spell on a viewer with preconceived notions, or at the very least be a distraction to a genuine experience. Nevertheless, it’s a job of a publication like ours to try to probe a bit further, to unearth subtle intentions or points of discussion. So let’s ask Shane Pearce about his ten new paintings, entitled “Eerie Musings”, which goes on view at Copro Gallery in Santa Monica this Saturday. Click above to read the hifructose.com exclusive interview.
Using a limited palette, oil painter Seth Haverkamp conjures up glowing portraits that glow with magic and mystery. We  interviewed the portrait artist about his latest exhibition of light infused paintings at Bender Gallery in North Carolina. Click the above image to read the interview!
Once scheduled to be on view at the Smithsonian's National Portrait gallery, Amy Sherald's American Sublime is now on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art after the artist pulled the exhibit, asserting that she could not 'comply with a culture of censorship" Read the full article on the exhibition from our recent issue, after it premiered at the SFMOMA by clicking above!
Sam Jinks’ work hits like a shot to the body. There’s a sudden impact, and it bruises the most important organs. The uneasy feeling settles in and deepens over time. Read the full article by Joseph Williams by clicking above.
Scott Teplin gets his artistic kicks by turning things inside out, by mangling and mashing and cohabitating the objects of his obsession.Read the full article on the artist by clicking above.
John Bisbee, who welds and manipulates 12-inch spikes, has always operated under one mantra: "Only nails, always different." In recent pieces, his diverse output bends the nails into an enormous snake, a tree, and more abstract forms. Not only are the subjects depicted varying wildly, but the style in which the nails comprise them: sometimes rigid and geometric, elsewhere chaotic.
In Anna Park’s drawings, contemporary party-goers mingle and cavort, each a snapshot that can appear at once playful and somewhat sinister. Read all about Anna Park's work by clicking above.
“I'm not even sure I have an imagination anymore,” Toor says. “Or maybe my process of imagining became fully visual: I need to draw and see things in order to imagine new things. Things happen on the canvas and not in my head so much. It's really important for me to stay surprised. I don't see much point in making anything that I can predict..." Read the full article on Ori Tor by clicking above.
Cinta Vidal’s intricate paintings often foster favorable comparisons to graphic prints by M.C. Escher, especially the latter’s impossible constructions. Any similarity is largely incidental: Where Escher revealed the subtle harmonies that unite the incongruent, Vidal reaches for something more intimate and human. Read the full article by clicking above!
Building a wunderkammer is a surrealist exercise, in a way,” Paris-based Amandine Urruty explains of the cabinet of curiosities motif that appears in her work. “I tend to gather objects I like, ‘90's toys, luxury vases, miniature chairs and a bunch of skulls. The cabinet of curiosity is a decor, and each case of it is a decor inside the decor, where small characters play small sketches.” Read Liz ohanesian's full article on the artist by clicking above.
While words like “bust” or “monument” come to mind to describe Kaju Hiro’s sculptures, the artist simply refers to them as “portraits.” Read the full article on the artist by clicking above.
Rammellzee was a polymath. Shortly following his start in graffiti in the early ‘70s, tagging trains in his hometown, Far Rockaway in Queens, he began developing a theory about life and liberation through controlling letterforms, transforming words and thought into a new kind of warfare against those that use information to control... Read the full article on the artist by clicking above! (photo by Joshua White, courtesy of the Estate of Rammellzee and Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles) Los Angeles)
Though represented in a signature mounted or freestanding taxidermy style, Fosik’s work is less about the animal in the form and more about the culture it represents. Inside these colorful, twisted, anthropomorphic creatures is a hint of humanity, a tug at the heartstrings of our own realities. Click Above to read Natasha Van Duser's full article on the artist.
Yuko Shimizu is a New York-based illustrator, whose bold manga lines depict intimate narrative scenes from myth, science fiction, and pop iconography, creating a visual genre all her own. Read the full article by Harrison Cook clicking above!
GWAR was never an ordinary rock band. And in the recent documentary This Is GWAR, director Scott Barber digs into the past and present of the music and art collective that simultaneously defied categorization while infiltrating late twentieth century pop culture and continues to entertain fans today with heavy metal and elaborate—even gory—stage shows. Read Liz Ohanesian's full article by clicking above.
Cartoonist Jay Howell is "looking forward to the next thing, always". Click above to read the full article.
“Creating new characters is a way for me to collect ‘things’ without having to collect actual physical things. Read the full article on Matt Furie by clicking above!
Sean Norvet has long been described as a Renaissance-inspired satirist, a mish-masher of photorealism and cartoons into goofy–gruesome critiques of consumer culture or social media habits or other twenty-first-century concerns. Read the full article by clicking above..
“I don't aim for my art to be political, but because I have my own perspective and worldview, that inevitably comes through in the art,” says Shyama Golden. Read Silke Tudor's full article on the artist by clicking above.

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