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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Kate Zambrano’s new paintings adorn found objects, shifting in tone and representing an evolution for the artist. Her work is part of an upcoming show at Modern Eden Gallery, "RE/FORM," in which she disassembles the human form. The show runs Oct. 13-Nov. 2 at the San Francisco gallery.
Ronald Gonzalez’s “Heads” series, combining found objects, metal filings, glue, wire, wax, and soot over welded steel, is a collection of haunting sculptures. The artist, based in upstate New York, is able to pull from several cultures and time periods in creating these strange works.
Noah Harris and Andy Biddle are the duo behind “Salvation,” a stop-motion film made entirely with found objects that tells the story of the creation of Earth, the evolution of mankind, and the impending end. All of these narratives are told using items found in flea markets and other thrifting spots, with all motion done in-camera.
Alex Achaval, a Seattle-based painter, often adheres wooden paint brushes or other objects to his canvases before beginning portraits. The artist said this idea was sparked when he spotted a truck painted to blend into a wall. “I like to incorporate these objects into my work to represent the obstacles we have to overcome in life,” Achaval says, in a statement.
It's a warning sign at art galleries and museums around the world: "Don't touch the artwork." But one artist based in Laguna Beach, California wants you to do just that. Andrew Myers creates mixed media works with screws, oil paint, charcoal, bronze, cement, and found objects. "Distinct", "expressive" and "tactile" are words he uses to describe his portraits made of thousands of screws (a single piece can use up to 10,000 or more), where touch is important to experiencing the work as it brings the subjects to life with volume and texture.
José Luis Torres is an Argentinean artist currently living in Quebec who builds largescale works out of salvaged objects. He's set up public art installations and sculptures all over the world, using everything from antique doors, window panes, to assemblages of brightly colored plastic as his materials. Often, his works have an overflowing effect as they burst from existing environments and architectural structures. His latest work entitled "Overflows" is a part of the 2015 Passages Insolites (Unusual Passages) event in Quebec City’s Old Port.
V1 Gallery in Copenhagen is currently hosting a two men show featuring Barry McGee and Todd James. Ever since they created "Street Market" together with Steve Powers at New York City's Deitch Projects in 2000, the two have exhibited together several times. Among others, they exhibited at the 2001 Venice Biennale, 2004 "Beautiful Losers" group exhibition, and the L.A. MOCA "Art in the Streets" in 2011. V1 Gallery has been supporting both artists through that entire time, and "FUD" is their second double-show with the gallery. Read more after the jump.
London artist duo Mariana Fantich and Dominic Young, collectively known as Fantich & Young, create innovative sculptures using found objects. Fantich & Young's humorous series "Apex Predator" envisions a fantastical twist in the history of evolution. The artists glued individual teeth from dentures on to various types of footwear to create menacing-looking shoes with a bite. Stacked in rows like sharks' teeth, the dentures give the shoes menacing grins that warn one not to get to close.
Chris Jones's large-scale sculptural work looks fragile even though his subject matter often focuses on objects we presume to be tough, stable — even nearly unbreakable. In his current show at Mark Straus Gallery in New York City, a sports car melts and unravels before our eyes. A motorcycle tempts us to scratch and peel away its layers. Houses disintegrate into heaps of deteriorating objects. Jones works with abandoned and disused materials — old magazines, books, encyclopedias, paper ephemera and even trash — to create papier mache pieces that destabilize our view of the world around us. We create our environments through the accumulation of objects and materials. Jones's latest body of work pulls us back, reminding us how ephemeral and artificial these things are. It's a bleak reminder that material objects and the world we've built will not stand the test of time.