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Category Archives: Art Focus

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 […]

Art Focus: Invader – The Elegant Nexus

Invader’s work is made from conventional, individual tiles whose simplicity and uniformity belies the intangible mass of history, knowledge, and experience with which these mosaics are imbued. The artist’s practice is intimately associated with both graffiti and video games, which have proven to be two of the most dominant and enduring strands of youth culture over the last half-century. Out on the streets, graffiti has had a bigger impact than almost any other art movement in history;1 while indoors, gamers have clocked up billions of plays on […]

Art Focus: Stephen Fox

Fascinated by the play of light within the nighttime landscape ever since he was a young boy, Stephen Fox has taken that interest and translated it into a career of painting. In particular, we were drawn to the Brooklyn-based artist’s The Drive-Ins series of works that depict various nostalgic scenes of outdoor theaters steeped with an air of mystery. Interestingly enough, a good number of these pieces seem to have made it into the hands of producers, which makes sense due to the subject matter, including Larry Mark (producer […]

Art Focus: Josh Jefferson

After years of flirting with art while primarily being a sax player, Josh Jefferson finally switched to painting in 2012 after attending the School of the Museum of the Fine Arts in Boston. These days he is actively painting different conceptualizations of the human face, ranging from stickman, doodle-based ones to recognizable single brushstroke portraits. Being fairly young in terms of years of creating, Josh’s work explores the different ways of representing a human face or even just a shape, through different mediums and concepts. In […]

Art Focus: Pawel Kuczynski

For our latest Art Focus feature, we turn our attention to Polish artist Pawel Kuczynski. As you can see from some examples here, the award winning cartoonist’s work dealing with technology and its effect on modern society was what caught our eye, especially his latest piece referencing the Pokémon Go phenomenon. His satirical illustrations touch on other topics too so if you are interested in seeing more, you can take a look at his shop and/or website. Tipped off by @hifructosemag.

Art Focus: Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė

Continuing her series of works featuring a novel method of embroidering metal objects, Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė has recently decided to apply her unique technique to war helmets. The Lithuanian artist, who is choice of our next Art Focus article, recently exhibited these pieces at Art Vilnius 2016 where she was awarded for best installation at the fair. The title of the fresh collection of works is Kill For Peace, of which you can see more photos below… Via Colossal.

Art Focus: Ben Tolman

This week’s Art Focus highlights the meticulously detailed drawings of Ben Tolman and his surreal imagery. In some of his work (seen above), the Washington DC-based artist builds urban environments with a god-like eye as the viewer is able to take in the scene from a distance. More recently, he has been rendering some smaller, more abstract pieces that take things into the more improbable realm (seen below). These he has labeled the Sarajevo Drawings – soon to be exhibited at a yet to be disclosed location. Keep you eyes […]

Art Focus: Benjamin Garcia

The next artist we want to share with you in our Art Focus series is Benjamin Garcia and his series of textured portraits. The Venezuelan artist’s multi-layered technique is utilized perfectly to render the disjointed transition between the conscious and the unconscious and seems also to reveal some of the inner psyches of his subjects. He currently has some of his oil paintings on view with Smash Gallery at the LA Art Show and has contributed something to the upcoming 3rd annual POW! WOW! Exploring The New Contemporary […]

Art Focus: DU Kun

This week’s Art Focus is on artist DU Kun and his surreal portraits of Chinese rock stars rendered as temples built into the sides of mountains and cliffs. The faces of each subject is assembled with a mystic combination of elements such as air, earth, and water leading to a god-like temple structures overlooking their own fiefdoms and worshippers (not unlike how recording artists have rabid fan communities). The series entitled Gods of Rock Festival can in part be attributed to his own interest in music […]

Art Focus: Nunzio Paci

This weekend, our Art Focus feature is on Nunzio Paci, an Italy-based artist whose series of new works highlights his fascination with human anatomy as well as the man-nature relationship. The first five paintings seen below belong to a set that is devoted to the Baroque masters and will be on display at Art Stage Singapore with gallery Officine dell’Immagine from January 21 – 24. Discuss Nunzio Paci here.