ArrestedMotion logo
Tag Archives: Contemporary Art

Opening: Sickboy – ‘Optical Delusions’ @ Harvey Nichols (Bristol)

Mixing art and fine dining, Sickboy (interviewed) is kicking off his latest show at the high-end department store Harvey Nichols tonight with a launch dinner and artist’s talk. Optical Delusions is presented by Fluorescent Smogg and builds upon his ever-expanding use of semiotics to create a dream-like world that glows and radiates light. The Bristol-based artist has long experimented with an array of unorthodox mediums: from painting on bell-jars in the early 2000s, to creating tapestries a decade later and onwards to the lightboxes which […]

Showing: José Parlá – ‘Phosphene’ @ Ben Brown (London)

Closing today after a four week run, Phosphene is José Parlá’s second show at Ben Brown Fine Art’s London location. The title references the phenomenon of seeing light without any external stimulus and the exhibition features 11 large scale canvases infused with kinetic and sensory energy. For many, graffiti is a means to exist beyond the corporeal and social confinement of our current circumstances and the now Brooklyn-based artist’s Ease tag was like a visual mantra repeated across south Miami in search of personal perfection. […]

Showing: Alistair Canvin – ‘Do Not Over Inflate’ @ Plan X

Earlier this week, Alistair Canvin presented his debut solo exhibition at Plan X Gallery in Milan. The show, entitled Do Not Over Inflate, presents a series of photorealistic paintings depicting deflated flamingoes, crocodiles and beach balls set against a backdrop of water-refracted pool tiles. The partial use of an airbrush captures the tactile, plasticky feel of those objects and evokes memories of holidays in the sun. At first glance, the work’s aesthetic appears to reference youthful simplicity and the carefree optimism of childhood. But, this […]

Preview/Art Focus: Futura – ‘Breaking Out’ @ University of Buffalo

Retrospectives are rarely as overdue as the one opening on Saturday at the University of Buffalo Art Galleries. Breaking Out spans both of the university’s locations – UB Center for the Arts and the UB Anderson Gallery – and provides a comprehensive survey of the five decade-long career of Futura. So, it seems like a timely opportunity for us to take a look back at the life and works of one of the most innovative and influential artists of our time.  Leonard Hilton McGurr was […]

Showing: Banksy – ‘Cut and Run’ @ GOMA

After a sold-out 10 week run at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art, Banksy’s first solo show in almost 14 years comes to a close next week. The exhibition, entitled Cut and Run, gives the public the opportunity to rediscover paintings which have appeared around the world over the last 25 years; many of these can no longer be found on the street and, in some cases, the streets themselves no longer even exist. The exhibition displays the original stencils used to create many of his […]

Releases: Top 10 Books of 2022

Despite the indisputable importance of digital media in the art world, the appetite for physical books remains undimmed and this year has seen the release of some beautifully crafted works. So, in no particular order, here are our favorite books published in 2022. ‘4000’ by INVADER The Parisian-artist’s global invasion is undoubtedly one of the largest and most ambitious art projects that has ever been undertaken. In addition to photos of all the 4000 pieces which he has created in 80 cities worldwide over the […]

Recap: Maya Hayuk – ‘Spin Cycle’ @ Alice Gallery

Last weekend saw the conclusion of Maya Hayuk‘s Spin Cycle exhibition at Alice Gallery in Brussels. The influence of Hayuk’s history, identify and personal narrative stand visually proud in her abstract compositions: the X’s are evocative of the cross-stitching her grandmother taught her as a child, the kaleidoscopic rainbow of colors underscores her sense of queer kinship and the visual engagement of her work reflects her long history of social activism. But, her use of multiple transparent and opaque layers take individual paintings far beyond […]

Showing: Nina Vandeweghe – ‘Readymade NINAS’ @ Alice Gallery

Drawing to a close this weekend, Readymade NINAS at Alice Gallery in Brussels has been Nina Vandeweghe’s first solo exhibition. The show has been structured around the idea of Gustave Flaubert‘s Dictionnaire des idées reçues (The Dictionary of Received Ideas) which sought to lampoon his contemporaries’ lazy reliance on clichéd language by providing satirical definitions for words in common parlance. Nina de Vroome has reimagined this concept for the 21st century and her newly attributed meanings have provided the source material for a series of […]

Opening: Invader ‘Rubikcubist’ @ MIMA

Invader (featured) has described his tiled global invasion as spreading like a benevolent virus, continually mutating and changing. If that’s true then the virus undoubtedly jumped the species barrier in 2004 when he created the first Rubikcubist piece from nine Rubik’s Cubes, each manipulated into his desired configuration to create an image from the just six colors available on the iconic logic puzzle. The technique is a natural development of his aesthetic which replicates the humble pixel and a major new exhibition of over 100 […]

Showing: Escif – ‘Está lloviendo’ @ Underdogs Gallery

Returning after an extended absence from gallery shows, Escif is currently presenting his newest body of work entitled Está lloviendo (It’s raining) at Underdogs Gallery in Lisbon.The exhibition further develops threads of his work that have predominantly been showcased in museums in recent years and draws them together into a single coherent examination of armed conflict and the environment. The exhibition includes a collection of watercolors depicting military hardware that has all been manufactured in the artist’s native Spain. Related works in Beyond The Streets’ […]