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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Rachael Pease’s lush drawings, crafted in India ink on frosted mylar, create mystical settings from trees and plantlife observed in reality. The artist grew up in rural Indiana among similar backdrops. And her drawings are rooted in photographic collages created from her journeys.
In his current show at Copro Gallery, Allen Williams offers haunting visions in the form of new paintings and drawings. "The Hidden Light," running through Jan. 11 at the space, features both lush scenes and sparse studies in the artist's mysterious style. Williams was last featured on our site here.
Musician-visual artist Tetsunori Tawaraya’s sci-fi-infused drawings have garnered fans across disciplines over the years, as he has sold prints and comic books at shows he’s played with acts like Tokyo’s 2up and San Diego punk act Dmonstrations. Among his comics are the collections “Dimensional Flats” and “Grayworld,” both published by Hollow Press. The artist's collaborations include work with Volcom the band Transkam.
Uli Knörzer’s gorgeous colored pencil portraits are rich with detail and humanity. The artist moves between familiar and lesser known subjects in his work. Each is given his or her own space, Knörzer using negative space and abstracting garments to extract the figure’s personality.
Micha Huigen’s illustrations dissect and reassemble everyday objects into surreal machines. The artist’s work, both in personal and commissioned forms, are marked by elegant and bold linework. Huigen has crafted album art, music videos, magazines, and other editorial work.
Daiva Kairevičiūtė, an artist from Lithuania, crafts drawings that reflect on femininity— through the various stages of life and shades of identity. Her figures, often rendered in black, contrast with the pops of floral hues or creatures that inhabit her works.
With “A Volta,” Allouche Gallery looks at the evolution of the legendary b-boy and street artist Doze Green through paintings and drawings. In the show, viewers find an artist who influenced a generation and a transformative moment in his practice upon moving to Brazil. Green was most recently featured in Hi-Fructose's print magazine with Volume 35.
The paintings and drawings of David Welker have adorned rock posters, public spaces, and gallery walls. Each offers Welker’s distinct sensibility influenced fantasy, independent comics, and surrealist fine art.
Annita Maslov brings her pen and ink drawings to Beinart Gallery in the upcoming show “Arcana,” depicting scenes from mysterious worlds steeped in the supernatural. Maslov is an illustrator and tattoo artist inspired by mythology and the occult. Her work is known for its distinct dotwork.
South African artist Linsey Levendall has a hyper-detailed style that appears at once chaotic and controlled. His work moves between surreal scenes packed with figures and objects that nearly resemble Rube Goldberg machine in their connectivity and a looser, multi-hued style that focuses on a single subject.
Colombian illustrator Carolina Rodriguez Fuenmayor crafts riveting, cerebral scenes. Though her work often features solitary figures, much of her themes seem to stem from a universal sensibility. And in much of her work, unexpected hues and amorphous, enveloping forms underscore the works’ psychological nature.
Kyle Cobban has said that the sensibility of his surreal drawings are rooted in his career as an instructor, observing students exploring their own stories. Recent work, in particular, seems to be examining the relationship between his subjects and the concept of "home." His drawings on Priority Mail envelopes further underscore this concept.
Benjamin Sack draws imaginary cityscapes that recall historical metropolitans and motifs that have graced the Earth for millennia. His hyperdetailed approach not only shows a command of varying structural textures but also a power over perspective. (Sack was last featured on HiFructose.com here.)
Steven Russell Black’s horror-filled paintings and drawings have a cinematic quality. Black refers to himself as a "painter with an obsessive compulsion to champion the odd, fringe, or otherwise unappreciated." In his drawings, these scenes and characters carry an even more ghostly quality.
Nina Bunjevac’s masterful stippled drawings have appeared as single works, portraiture, comic books, tarot cards, commercial illustration, and other forms. All showcase the Canada-born artist’s command of shadows and subtlety, with the ability to move between the macabre and the humorous within a single frame. Earlier this year, she released her latest graphic novel, "Bezimena," a re-imagining of the myth of Artemis and Siproites.
In his riveting, surreal ink drawings, Peter Striffolino builds new creatures from humanity’s building blocks. Though the Los Angeles artist's practice encompasses these drawings, paintings, and animations, we'll be taking a look at his ink work in this post. In his monochromatic work, Striffolino’s talents in texturing and linework is on display.
Sue Williams A’Court’s graphite portals into lush environments grace unexpected surfaces, with the artist’s aim to conjure a state of mindfulness rather than any specific terrain. Her work often blends painting, collage, and of course, graphite drawing. Blending both a loose style and hyperdetailed sensibility, the tension in her work brings the viewer to another place, entirely.
Having indexed many of the monsters he’s created over the past several years, illustrator and fine artist Stan Manoukian continues to create riveting scenes with these creatures in their natural habitats. Though the artist has a talent in color, his narratives take on a particularly absorbing quality when rendered only in graphite or inks.
Christine Kim's practice is a blend of painting, drawing, and sculpture. The Toronto-based artist’s experimentations with layering and cutting works moves between both graphite drawings and painting. Each carry ghostly notes, each offering their own considerations of negative space.
In the work of Lucas Lasnier, also known as PARBO, geometric forms collide with and infiltrate our reality. Whether adorning a wall or a page, Lasnier’s penchants for both the abstract and the realistic are at play. And Lasnier’s background in urban art comes through even in his more commercial ventures.
Rendered in colored pencil and graphite, the new works of David Jien expand his wild worlds in a show at Richard Heller Gallery. "All Is Not Lost," running through Nov. 2 at the Santa Monica space, moves between his strange scenes and shelves of curiosities. Jien was last featured on our site here.
Comic artist, animator, and painter Lale S Westvind is known for her dynamic narratives and command of hues, recalling Jack Kirby and Golden Age greats such as Fletcher Hanks. Comic series like “GRIP” and "Hax" are showcases for Westvind’s particular talents for conveying the kinetic.
Sasaku Kusuriyubi’s wild characters and scenes carry both joyful and otherworldly qualities. The artist, garnering praise on social media from the likes of James Jean and Yu Maeda, seems to take influence from both anime, mythology, and a broader pop sensibility.
For his new show at Sies + Höke in Düsseldorf, Germany, Marcel Dzama created a massive wall drawing to accompany his several new mixed-media drawings, sculptures, and 2-channel video. "Be good little Beuys and Dada might buy you a Bauhaus," opening this week, marks the 20th anniversary of collaboration between the Canadian artist and the gallery. The show runs through Oct. 26.
On scraps on paper, the drawings of Turkish artist Razi Razavi seem to apparate in a ghostly manner, the artist’s sparse details having both uneasy and captivating effects. Each visage carries its own, private narrative, yet many stare directly into the viewer’s eyes. As you’lll see below, the artist’s practice also extends to painting, yet maintains similar qualities.
Using ballpoint pen, Helena Hauss draws scenes that she says are “about self-acceptance through self-deprecation and satire.” The process is laborious for the Paris artist, who has said the choice of pen is deliberate in its stubbornness. The below work, "Afternoon Delight," took 300 hours to complete.
Dasha Pliska's pencil drawings carry drama and ghostly grace. The Ukraine illustrator works primarily in monochromatic modes, elegantly moving between skin tones and billowing forms moving across the page. And recent personal projects, such as "repletion," show the artist's knack for utilizing negative space.
Jim Carrey's politically charged drawings fill the exhibition "This Light Never Goes Out," currently running at the Phi Center in Montreal. Known as a comedic legend on the screen, Carrey has shared his personal visual art practice on social media since 2016. The artist often depicts current political figures in his drawing, commenting on everything from the President's border policies to the marriage of George and Kellyanne Conway.