Oliver Vernon just finished his largest mural ever, a massive project organized by Kirk Gallery in Denmark. Working 12-hour days over two weeks, he created a piece that reflects his dynamic, abstract style. Vernon was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
Yayoi Kusama’s art is in London this month as part of a new exhibition at the Victoria Miro gallery. Her internationally known work is obsessive and overwhelming, presenting the world as a polka-dotted dream land, featured in Hi-Fructose Vol 25. The word “extraordinary” is overused in writing about contemporary art but we can make an exception for Kusama, who has been selected as one of TIME Magazine’s World’s 100 Most Influential People for conquering both the art and fashion world. “Dots are a symbol of the world, the cosmos; the earth is a dot. The sun, the moon, the stars are all made up of dots. You and me, we are dots,” she once said.
Andrew Schoultz’s art is filled with chaotic imagery, expressing a rather dystopian vision through a variety of techniques, from sculpture to collage, street art to installations to paintings. Featured here on our blog, his eclectic work cultivates an arsenal of personal symbolism: fragments of dollar bills, fractured Grecian urns, ripped American flags, war horses, and slave ships are just a few of the symbols he uses to juxtapose Western culture with allusions to conflict and exploitation.
In drawing the world around him, New York based artist Mike Lee conveys a simple and playful essence of his subjects, whether they be people, buildings, or objects. Featured here on our blog, the artist’s intriguing drawings of miniaturized scenes have often been compared to a child’s Playmobil or Lego playsets. In these new versions of his subjects, Lee further simplifies the human form, isolating them from their toy-like environments and focusing instead on finding expression through minimalism.
New York based painter and illustrator Mike Perry is an artist working in a variety of mediums, once describing his collection of works as having an “antsy” energy. He doodles around the clock, whether creating new typefaces for his graphic design work or new burst of colorful characters that amass in his paintings. At his website, he writes that his creative goal is “to conjure that feeling of soul-soaring wonder you have when you stare into distant galaxies on a dark night, when you go on long journeys into the imagination, when you ponder what it is that this life is all about.”
Since moving from New York city to the countryside in Hudson, artist Jason Middlebrook has found himself in a constant contact with nature. His striking “plank series” is informed by his surroundings; vividly painted abstract designs on natural pieces of cut wood like maple and birch, sourced from a local mill. Though his use of straight lines and angles, drawn with a geometric precision, may not be naturally occurring, they are inspired by the subtle nuances found in his materials.