Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Vaughan Oliver, the artist behind so many memorable LP covers from 4AD, has died at 62. Bands in his body of work include The Breeders, Pixies, Scott Walker, TV on the Radio, Lush, Cocteau Twins, Modern English, The Mountain Goats, and several others. His sensibility played an enormous role in the public-facing aesthetic of the label, from his entrance to the label in the 1980s on. He produced the art for every Pixies album so far.
Illustrator Selin Çınar crafts unexpected elements tucked inside familiar forms. Creating work under the moniker “Axstone,” the artist is able to move between the worlds of exhibiting and character design. She also implements varying techniques in the pieces, with elements of pointillism, clean linework, and a less controlled approach sometimes appearing in the same piece. Çınar is a member of the illustrator collective Krüw.
The stirring work of South African artist Gerhard Human combines an off-kilter palette and a comic sensibility. In the current set of work titled "All we ever wanted was everything" at Supersonic Art, the artist shares his latest explorations.
The work of Cezar Berje straddles that difficult line between utterly absorbing and repulsive. In his illustrations, he uses his immense talents with color and detail to create portraits that warrant study. His projects for companies like Netflix and the Hangloose surf brand show how this sensibility can adapt. Berje has a particular knack for recontextualizing pop icons, absorbing them into his colorful, unsettling world.
Calgary-born, Los Angeles-based artist/graphic designer Geoff McFetridge deconstructs everyday images and reimagines them in simpler, yet captivating studies. He uses elements of logo design and commercial inspiration to create these acrylic paintings. McFetridge was last mentioned on HiFructose.com here.
While the power of Steelberg’s work may elude younger viewers, there are several generations of film and TV fans that are immediately engrossed by his Instagram feed. The California artist creates VHS box treatments for today’s films, television shows, and other products. The result is often pitch-perfect, complete with stickers, wear and tear, and convincing text styles.
Argentinian artist Lucas Lasnier, aka "Parbo", creates colorful works spanning graphic design, painting, and large scale installations, but he began his career painting street art in Buenos Aires. Parbo is also a founding member of the Kid Gaucho artist collective, previously covered here. His recent works take influence from his roots in letter-based graffiti and stenciling combined with comics and Pop Surrealism.
Brooklyn based Scott Albrecht (covered here) creates colorful plays on typography and symbols using repurposed found objects and wood cut apart like puzzle pieces. His latest series, which will debut tonight in "Here and Now" at Andenken/Battalion gallery in Amsterdam, is an extension of his style and themes. For this exhibition, he challenged himself to explore new ideas; there are more characterized motifs like abstractions of Hamsa, or the Hand of Fatima from Middle Eastern faiths, and hidden messages that represent more than what is written at the surface. Albrecht takes a moment to tell us more about his new works and creative upbringing in this exclusive interview after the jump.
Chicago based Jennifer Presant merges familiar, everyday places into mysterious landscapes. Her subjects vary from displaced household items and exposed figures in non-sensical, dramatically lit spaces. Looking at her work, we find ourselves staring into overwhemingly quiet scenes, such as an empty bedroom in the wilderness or middle of the ocean. Presant calls this mixture of environments a "visual metaphor" which symbolizes our ongoing experiences of time, memory, and relationship with physical space.
UK graphic designer and artist Chris Labrooy riffs on custom car culture in his latest digital illustration series, "Tales of Auto Elasticity." A follow-up to last year's "Auto Aerobics," in which Labrooy placed his bendy, sculptural low riders in a city park, "Tales of Auto Elasticity" shows pick-up trucks with yogic flexibility bending to extreme degrees in a rural parking lot. Though Labrooy's work exists only on the computer screen, it evokes sculptures like Erwin Wurm's pudgy sports cars (featured in HF Vol. 22) and Ichwan Noor's Beetle sphere (covered here). Perhaps Labrooy should consider sculpture as his next step.
Japanese pop artist Keiichi Tanaami (previously covered here) has a new exhibition on view at Tokyo's underground gallery, Nanzuka. "Cherry Blossoms Falling in the Evening Gloom" is named after his show's titular piece, an effort to take the darkest of his personal experiences and turn them into a positive image. The 3-meter painting leads into a transformation in the artist's motifs, known for his glowing, grotesque creatures, which are shown emitting light.
HF Vol. 23 artist Mark Dean Veca celebrated the opening of "Everlast" (previewed here) last weekend at Western Project, Los Angeles. His pop culture fused, immaculate paintings and drawings are inspired by 1970s signage and cartoons. Looney Tunes characters like Tweety and the Tasmanian Devil are literally given a new twist in Veca's style, whose linework makes them appear twisting and organic. The psycheldia of the 70s is also apparent in his Fender and Zildjian logos, breathing attitude into these corporate identities. Photos after the jump!
Italian artist and designer Andrea Minini makes a living creating brand logos and graphics, but as a personal project the artist recently created the "Animals in Moire" series. A collection of black-and-white digital illustrations, the works take inspiration from the animal kingdom. But the shapes in these portraits of peacocks and pumas are anything but organic. Uniform curves outline the contours of he animals' faces. The creatures become abstracted and almost architectural, defined by mathematically-plotted shapes. The high-contrast, monochromatic patterns create the illusion of depth and dimension, yet the forms appear hollow and mask-like. Take a look at the fun series after the jump.