HEADING: A QUESTION OF TASTE

Aren’t these photos just delightful? They are so original, aren’t they? Perhaps they caught you by surprise? The choice and placement of each item of food or each flower used is surprisingly successful, as if it couldn’t have been any other way. The creations are strong, very strong, and the photographs have a spectacular realism.

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ALEXA MEADE: SHEER REALISM

Numerous artists aim for a maximum sense of realism in their works. But that’s the last thing on the mind of artist Alexa Made. In fact, she’s going for quite the opposite effect: she paints people and real objects to try and make them look like pictures.

Can you imagine visiting an art gallery and stopping to observe a painting of a girl that all of a sudden blinks at you? Or sitting on the bus, and a little old man who seems to have stepped straight out of an acrylic painting comes and sits next to you?

Amazing, isn’t it? We’ve posted some images so you really can believe your eyes.

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BIRO ART

They look like photos, but they’ve actually been drawn using a blue Bic biro. Amazing, aren’t they? Pictures of everyday items drawn on white canvas, some in poster size.

They’re by Juan Francisco Casas, a young Cuban artist whose works are causing a buzz, and not just in Spain. His latest works are currently on display in Madrid, at the Fernando Padilla Gallery (C/Claudio Coello, 20).

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ART THAT ISN’T QUITE WHAT IT SEEMS

Look at the shadows projected onto the wall in the images we’ve found for you here. Then look at the sculptures the light is focused on. That’s right; it’s masses of scrap iron, rubbish and other everyday items that have been picked up from the streets of London and carefully arranged so that when light is shone on them, they create the shadow of figures that are radically different from the original sculptures that cast the shadows.

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FUN MESSAGES ON POST-IT NOTES

Some people use post-its to stick notes on the fridge, the computer, etc. And some people use them compulsively to draw everything that pops into their head, absolutely everything. The messages left on these traditional little pieces of paper that we are showing you today are one of the many original forms that illustrator Marc Johns uses to express his sense of humour.

“I like to say a lot, but using few words. My work tends to lean towards humour. To find the comic element of things often helps to give you a more objective outlook. I like to create absurd situations, combining things that do not normally go together, or imagining what inanimate objects would say if they could talk. I think about it constantly: I think about thinking”.

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THE AGE OF INNOCENCE

This huge bra wasn’t made for w’s, but we like it so much that by posting it here it now feels just a little bit like ours.

We’re sure it brings back memories of when you were little and you secretly tried on your mum’s bras, stuffed with toilet paper. My goodness!! They looked huge! You longed for the day when you could “properly” wear one, but looking at yourself in the mirror, you found it hard to believe that one day you might fill it without resorting to toilet paper. Hmmm, it’s made us look back to those wonderful years when bras were huge, summers were endless and you were care free.

Yoshikazu Yamagota is the artist behind this huge underwear set, with which she is trying to bring out the mischievous child that we all have inside of us, to remember the times when those slightly taboo items made us so curious.
See her his other works at www.writtenafterwards.com, an art space.

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GENUINE SCULPTURES

Some artist use paint, others bronze or plaster, but for Nazan Sawaya he chooses to build his aew-inspiring art out of toy building blocks. LEGO® bricks to be exact. With some more than 1.5 million colored bricks in his New York studio, Sawaya’s sculptures take many forms.

Bridges, wold balls, fruits, animals… All you can think of may have a replica as a sculpture to this North American sculptor. The Art of the Brick Museum Exhibit is currently touring the U.S. It is the 1st mayor museum exhibition in the U.S to focus exclusively on the use of popular LEGO® building block as on an art medium.

You can check all his art at http://www.brickartist.com/lego-art/yellow.html

THE CITY OF IMPOSSIBLE SKYLINES

And how about taking a trip to a city of impossible skylines and colours?

Great, here we go. It’s a small city that’s rapidly expanding upwards, with slopes and twists and turns that reveal the most unexpected everyday surprises. In order to spot its inhabitants, you have to be a bit of a voyeur, peeping through windows, surprising the teenagers as they combine sunbathing and revising for their exams, or the old man taking his daily walk…A fantasy world dreamed up by a Mexican artist who experiments with designing objects made from cardboard and paper. If you’d like to find out more about her work, then check out her website at www.anaserrano.com

We love things that let our imagination run riot.

MIFFY AT THE MUSEUM

We all know that Holland is a great country, crisscrossed by canals, packed with coffee shops and blooming with tulips. But it may come as a surprise to learn that Miffy, the celebrity bunny rabbit, is also Dutch. Or rather, the creator of this cute bunny is Dutch. Dick Bruna is a world famous artist renowned for his simple, yet direct graphics.

Bruna created the first sketches of this character back in 1955, which ever since has been a reference for young and old alike. Sketches based on the imaginary adventures of a bunny rabbit that the artist used to tell his son at bedtime. Perhaps that’s why the tales are still so popular with tiny tots.

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BAC! FESTIVAL ‘08 IN BARCELONA

It’s worth taking a stroll around the CCCB to see the 9th edition of the BAC contemporary art fair. What is it about? The consumer society seen by emerging artists from different countries, from Chile to Poland. What will you see? Interesting vision of the culture of excess and their narcotic power that distorts reality. A freedom of formats – photography, painting, installations, videos, etc. – and more than a handful of fascinating propositions, like the photograph series by Romain Laurent used for the fair’s poster, the installation I Am Super (portraits printed onto tetrabrik containers) and the powerful images shot by American photographer Mr. Toledano.

And that’s not all, there’s still more: the students of the IED will show their own visions of the subject in the IED vitrine; the students from the IDEP will present a display of posters about low cost design in Espai Gran Vía; and there are sessions showing video pieces. More information in the BAC catalogue or website:
www.bacfestival.com

Other related links:
www.cccb.org/es/
www.lasanta.org
www.romain-laurent.com/
noquiet.blogspot.com/
mrtoledano.com/