Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine
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.
French artist Tof Vanmarque crafts surreal worlds in his acrylic paintings. These fictional characters exist in a world devoid of physics, muted clothing, and in many cases, body parts. The artist’s work tends to exist against scenic, yet rundown backdrops, possibly victim to the insane characters that inhabit them.
French artist Nicolas Barrome’s wild, cartoonish scenes play with texture and expectation. He does this both on the canvas and on walls, with each piece tethered by Barrome’s rendering of cutesy characters and objects alongside darker elements. In a statement, the artist’s swirling influences are given some context.
French artist Koralie creates vibrant, absorbing wall art and works on canvas that combine influences from both traditional and contemporary Japanese art, African and English history, and even wallpaper design. Her works appear publicly and inside galleries across the world.
Berlin-based French artist Jaybo Monk (covered here) creates visual collages where figures and their surroundings become one, a place that he calls "nowhere." He then mixes unexpected elements into this nonsensical space, an experimentation Jaybo also carries into his sculptural works. "I want to disobey in my paintings; disobey the symmetry, the techniques and the narratives system. I am interested in nonsense, the only space for me where freedom is real. I use tools like chance and mistakes to evaluate my craft. I flirt with the impossible. I need to go to places I`ve never been before." We visited with Jaybo in his Berlin studio, where he is now working on a new series inspired by immigration.
Taiwan may not be the first place to come to mind when you think about street art, but Hawaiian arts organization Pow! Wow! recently made Taipei its second home. For the last week, about 40 international and Taiwanese artists scaled buildings and crossed below highways to bring their fresh paint styles to Taipei. Just a few months ago, the Pow! Wow! team was in Hawaii revamping the walls of Honolulu for the fourth edition of street art festival Pow! Wow! Hawaii. Now, they’ve hopped 5,000 miles across the Pacific for the first ever Pow! Wow! Taiwan.
While the collective mindset at some street art festivals seems to be "go big or go home," at NuArt Festival in Stavanger, Norway, the line-up of artists seemed more concerned with creating deliberately-placed works with an underlying political punch. That's not to say that a few mammoth pieces weren't painted. Polish duo Etam Cru (who are featured in our current issue, Hi-Fructose Vol. 32), true to their form, left behind a storybook-like mural that added color to the overcast landscape. The piece pictured a sleeping boy tucked into his bed with a can of spray paint sticking out from under the covers — a young artist in the making.
As the saying goes, "the best things come in small packages". Philadelphia gallery Arch Enemy Arts has challenged artists to create their smallest works to date for their annual group show, "Small Wonders". For its fourth installment in a row, "Small Wonders 4" features over 75 small pieces by artists from all over the world, including 64 Colors, Alex Garant, Brian Mashburn, Caitlin Hackett, Caitlin McCormack, Craww, Hanna Jaeun, Maria Teicher, Matthew Greskiewicz, and many more. As with previous showings, all the work is sized under 12 inches.
The work of Philadelphia based artist Yis Goodwin, aka "Nosego" (covered here) is instantly recognizable for his psychedelic portrayal of animals morphing into their surroundings. Nosego's new series leads us through the artist's subconscious in his exhibit at Thinkspace Gallery, "Along Infinite River". The show, which opened last Saturday, features a variety of multimedia pieces including acrylic on panel paintings, drawings and an installation of colorful wall mounted sculptures.
Situated in Richmond, VA, the street art festival Richmond Mural Project was founded with the goal of creating over 100 murals by the world's leading contemporary artists in its first five years. Such an eclectic array of permanent public artworks, according to the project's founders at Art Whino, would propel Richmond as an international street art destination. Now in its third year, this rendition of the event gave 10 contemporary artists two weeks to complete over 20 murals. Chazme 718, Meggs, Onur, Ron English, Sepe, Smitheone, Ekundayo, Proch, David Flores and Wes21 began painting on June 16 and are finishing their works as we speak. Today, we bring you some photos of the works in progress as well as some finished pieces from Ekundayo and Smithe, the latter of whom was working double time on two pieces. Take a look at the progress photos below and stay tuned for coverage of all the finished murals.
Virginia MOCA is pleased to announce "Turn The Page: The First Ten Tears of Hi-Fructose", a ten-year retrospective celebrating the artists from the pages of Hi-Fructose Magazine, will travel to the Akron Art Museum in Akron, Ohio and will be on view from February to May 2017. This unprecedented exhibition of the 50 foremost contemporary artists of our time will open at Virginia MOCA this spring, May 2016, featuring a variety of media including sculpture, installation, painting, ceramics as well as interactive community outreach and satellite exhibitions. A wide selection of educational programming, film screenings, panel discussions, master classes and events will provide the public an opportunity to interact with the art and artists in exciting new ways.
Check out videos featuring several of the artists featured in Hi-Fructise vol.14: Van Arno, Lola, Gregory Euclide, and Hi-Fructose favorites Travis Louie (HF vol.5), Nathan Spoor (HF featured writer and artist), Audrey Kawasaki (HF vol.6), Camille Rose Garcia (HF vol.8), and many more.
On January 24th, Gen Art members celebrated the 2010 Grammys at the private Opening Exhibition and Party of artist portraits of Grammy-nominated artists, curated by artist Kris Lewis, with support from will.i.am.
As a follow up to last year's successful "Worlds on Fire" artist exhibition, this year will.i.am, Dipdive, and the Grammy Foundation will present "Who Killed the Music?" art collection that will help kick-off Grammy Week at The Target Terrace on January 24th-27th . The gallery will host 15 pieces from the hottest contemporary surrealist artists, which will present a new and powerful perspective on the state of music today.
A portion of the proceeds for all works sold will be donated to the Grammy Foundation and i.am Scholarship Foundation.
What happens when you give 40 street artists hundreds of cans of spray paint and let them loose in Taipei? As the Pow! Wow! team took over the Taiwanese capital, the cityscape was covered with murals by artists visiting from around the world alongside those based there.
Houston-born artist Shayne Murphy blends realism and the abstract, with his oil paintings featuring explosions of graphite. Using sharpened backdrops and geometric flourishes, the artist tilts perspectives and toys further with reality. Murphy currently has a solo show titled “Fluorescent Gray” at Anya Tish Gallery in Houston, which runs through Nov. 12.