Daily Art Fixx

visual arts blog, painting, drawing, sculpture, illustration and more!

Aurora Robson: Recycled Art

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Aurora Robson was born in Toronto, Canada in 1972 but grew up in Hawaii and has lived in New York for 20 years. She has a BA in Visual Art & Art History from Columbia University and is a certified structural welder. Robson currently lives and works in Brooklyn with her husband, cinematographer Marshall Coles and daughter Ona.

Robson uses everyday waste such as discarded plastic bottles and junk mail to create intricate sculptures, installations, and collages. Over the years, Robson has intercepted tens of thousands of bottles, saving them from their ultimate destination at the landfill or costly recycling plants. The fate of her junk mail follows a similar path and have now become part of her stunning ink collages.

“Deeply concerned about the natural environment, Robson sees herself as an eco-activist who uses her art to address urgent issues poetically, not polemically. She is best known for assembling cast-off plastic bottles, which she colorfully paints, into wildly inventive hanging sculptures the smaller ones sometimes containing LED lights and large works that fill entire rooms.” (Art in America Magazine Oct. 2009)

In addition to her work as an artist, Robson is Director/Co-founder of Lumenhouse, a photo studio, artist in residence program, exhibition space and community/cultural event space located in Brooklyn. She is also the founding Director of Project Vortex, an international organization of artists, architects and designers working with plastic debris – working with Project Kaisei to reduce the amount of plastic debris littering our oceans and shorelines.

Robson’s work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows across the United States, and has been featured in magazines such as Art in America, Juxtapoz, Artworld Digest, and the cover of Arts Houston to name a few. Most recently, she was awarded the 2010. The Arthur Levine Foundation Grant.

To see more of Aurora Robson’s work,  visit AuroraRobson.com.

See stuffed toys made with recycled sweaters.

 

Ryan Larkin: Art and Animation

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streetmusique-Ryan-LarkinBorn in Montreal, Canada in 1943, Ryan Larkin, grew up in Dorval, Quebec and studied with painter Arthur Lismer at the Ecole des beaux-arts de Montreal. The death of his brother in the 1950s affected Larkin, and he began drinking heavily in his teens.

Larkin began working at the National Film Board in 1961 where he was tutored by master animator Norman McLaren. Using new film techniques, he created the short “Syrinx” in 1965. In 1968 Larkin received an Academy Award nomination for his animated short “Walking”. In 1972 he created “Street Musique“ which was considered a masterpiece of animated movement.  Larkin won dozens of awards during his 14 years with the film board.

In 1977, Larkin suffered from a combination of creative block and alcohol and cocaine addiction.  He eventually left the NFB and began living on the streets of Montreal and panhandling. “I had difficulty handling my ego when I was famous. I’ve made a fool of myself.” Larkin once told an interviewer. “It was a psychological problem I had to deal with, and my first choice was to use drugs. “I had sexual proclivities, too – I was doing coke and getting hard-ons instead of what I should have been doing, which was making interesting, comical, beautiful animation films.”

Larkin was brought back into the spotlight as the subject of the film “Ryan“, a digitally animated tribute by  Chris Landreth that won the Academy Award for best animated short in 2005.  The film rejuvenated his career and he returned to animation by creating three short animated bumpers for MTV in December 2006.

Larkin died on February 14, 2007 of lung cancer in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec.  At the time of his death, he had been working on  “Spare Change”, a film about his experiences on the streets of Montreal.

To learn more, visit Larkin’s Official Website RyanBango.com. To see more of Larkin’s animations, visit the National Film Board online.

 

Sources: CBC, Canada.com

Chris Langstroth: Painting

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Chris Langstroth has been a full-time artist for 20 years after graduating from the Ontario College of Art, and later Ryerson University in Toronto, specializing in film and photography. He has participated in numerous solo, group and juried exhibitions, and has his works in many corporate and private collections.

Searching for the most compelling combination of imagery and abstract paint quality, Langstroth often makes his work balance on the edge of abstraction and figuration.

“I enjoy the physicality of thick paint and use knives to smear on one wet layer over another or to excavate through existing layers. Although I strive for a certain ‘visual plausibility’ in my work, representational accuracy is not my prime objective. The most enigmatic and interesting qualities particular to painting have to do with the transformation of pigment in paste to an image on canvas. I am, therefore, seeking to retain some visual evidence of the process used in making the image as a subtext for reading or interpreting it.” — Chris Langstroth

To see more, visit the source links below.

Sources:  Kurbatoff Art Gallery, Oeno Gallery

Keith Thompson: Concept Art

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English-Canadian concept artist Keith Thompson studied illustration at Sheridan College near Toronto and has worked on films such as Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and games like Borderlands and Aliens: Colonial Marines. He has illustrated books including Scott Westerfeld’s New York Times bestselling young adult novel Leviathan and Darkwing (Silverwing) by Kenneth Oppel.

Thompson creates his work using black colerase pencil on 110lb paper which he then scans and glazes using soft light layers in Photoshop. Most of his pieces come with their own story.

To see more, visit KeithThompsonArt.com.

Jamie Salmon: Hyperrealsim

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Jamie Salmon is a British born, self taught contemporary sculptor, living and working in Vancouver, Canada. He started his career working as a commercial artist and sculptor for the movie effects industry. He specializes in hyper-realist sculpture, both figurative and portrait, utilizing such materials as silicone rubber, resin, hair and fabric.

Jamie says of his working process; “The most important part of the artistic process for me is the initial idea behind the work. If it isn`t as strong as possible, then the lengthy process of sculpting, molding, painting etc, no matter how well done, will be for nothing and the work will fall flat.

I want to make something that tells a story or moves people in some sort of way, not something that just looks very real. Of course, I need my works to have a certain degree of reality about them, but it`s more of a heightened reality. This is also why I like to play with scale in a lot of my works as well. I think it is something that catches people off guard and forces them to confront their ideas about reality, and to also think about the idea behind the work more deeply. Maybe more so than they would do if the piece were just life size.

I think hyper-realist art too often tries to reach what is ultimately an unattainable level of perfection. That should not be the goal with it anyway.

At the end of the day, I hope that my works contain meaning and convey a real sense of emotion as well. And if they also take people by surprise and affect them on perhaps an unexpected level, I really feel I`ve succeeded”. (bio from Avatar Sculpture Works)

To see more, visit AvatarSculptureWorks.com

Peter Taylor: Illustration

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© Peter TaylorPeter Taylor is a painter and illustrator from Vancouver, Canada, known for his plump tattooed forms. With a background in graffiti, Taylor has continued to work in large scale. His technique with acrylic airbrush is very similar to that of spraypaint, and the large scale allows him to retain many of his approaches to paint handling and layout, but to increase the level of detail to a large degree. Applied to the relatively simplistic and repeating character shapes, Taylor’s paintings evoke a sense of balance and complexity, contemplation and playfulness. (from Ayden Gallery)

To see more, visit Handmadefeat.blogspot.ca.

Kyle Stewart: Painting

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Kyle Stewart is an artist who lives and works in the city of Toronto. DAF recently discovered his work at the Artist Project Toronto 2012.

Check out more of Kyle’s work at KyleStewart.ca.

Chow Martin: Drawing

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Born in 1981, Chow Martin is a cat lover, unicorn rights activist, fine artist and creative director based in Toronto, Canada. Martin has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) and is currently represented by WestBerlin Gallery in Germany.

“Chow’s work is a coalescence of deconstructed, anatomical hybrids of man and animal.  The grotesque nature of his subjects are harshly contrasted against the beauty and simplicity of the hand-drawn line, creating a narrative open for interpretation.  The artist’s work is an exploration of the interaction of oppositional forces at a material, physical and psychological level. Themes of conflict, tension, dissonance, decay and despair are enhanced through the use of marks created by purely visceral reactions.” (From WestBerlin Gallery)

To see more, visit ChowMartin.com.

Discovered via Lost At E Minor

Peter Schacht: Illustration

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“Peter Schacht is a Kitchener, Ontario, Canada based illustrator and visual artist who specializes in painting interpretive narratives using uniquely stylized figures. He carefully gathers pieces of wood consisting of spontaneous areas of texture that are later enhanced with carving tools. For him working with found wood strengthens each composition providing more depth and intrigue. Through constant experimentation with colour and layering using both acrylic and oil, Peter has discovered that each is equally important within his creative process.

Peter attended Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario majoring in Interpretive Illustration which consisted of studies in Book, Editorial and Advertising Illustration along with design, painting, computer studies, media explorations and conceptual processes. Exploration of various themes has led him to tell meaningful visual stories involving growth and change in and around human relationships. More recently, he has begun reflecting upon a concern for the relationships between people, wildlife and the environments they coexist in.” (from artist website)

To see more, visit PeterSchacht.com.

Nicholas di Genova: Illustration/Painting

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Born on April 1, 1981 in Belleville, Ontario, Canada,  Nicholas di Genova graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) in 2005 and currently lives and works in Toronto.

Influenced by anime, comic books, Otaku culture, and animal compendiums,  Di Genova’s work features an encyclopedic range of constructed creatures ranging from soft and nurturing to calculating and military. A vast and intense fabricated history acts as a backdrop to the hundreds of interconnected species, families and rival clans that find themselves projecting their habits, relations and environments to their viewers.

Working with ink and animation paints, Di Genova’s paintings on mylar highlight his skill with line and his ability to manipulate colour. Always intense and intricately executed, Di Genova’s work rivals the quality of any fine art painter while firmly establishing itself on the fringes of contemporary art. The work brings together knowledge of art and design and samples from both fields, resulting in incredible visual and technical impact and an astonishing strong conceptual core which receives respect from both camps, a dichotomy often severely split.

Di Genova has been featured in Canadian Art Magazine, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, numerous online forums, NOW Magazine and EYE Magazine. Genova is represented in Toronto by LE gallery, in New York by Fredericks Freiser Gallery, and has been featured in New York’s Armory Show and in Future Species, curated by David Liss at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. Di Genova has been included in exhibitions in New York, Singapore, London and Berlin and appears in publications from Austria, Australia, Canada, Germany, and the United States.  (bio from LE Gallery)

To see more of Di Genova’s work, visit MediumPhobic.com or check out his blog SkeletonHug.blogspot.com.

Purchase Brett Amory Prints at the DAF Shop

Purchase Nichola Di Genova Prints at the DAF Shop