Things have been very busy here at Carmichael Gallery lately as we prepare for our Saturday opening with Nina, so I didn’t get a chance to write about a few of the things that were on my “need to post” list yesterday. First up, Faile has released some new prints and original works on paper and they’re some of the nicest I’ve seen in a while. Faile just continue to grow on me and I love what they’re doing these days with their wood pieces. As regards the release, I just checked their site and it appears that the two originals and one of the three prints are sold out. Both my favorite original, No Escape: Return To Faile (the image above), and my favorite print, the same image but in purple hues and entitled No Escape, have gone. Here’s my second favorite, the other sold original, which has the frankly awful-sounding name of Wrong End 86 Katsina (the print version (similar but yellow as opposed to orange) is simply and much more appealingly called Wrong End Of The Rainbow), below.

Sorry for posting another item that is sold out, but it’s still worth mentioning Lazarides‘ release of JR’s Women Are Heroes book. Each of the twenty copies boasts a hand-pasted, thus unique, cover image of Self-Portrait In A Woman’s Eye (Kenya), one of my favorite of JR’s photographs.

Laz also has some cute Lucy McLauchlan Paint Pots available.

Finally, Opus just released some nice limited edition collab prints by Dan Baldwin and Hush.

- Elisa

Ericailcane has a new website! Check it out now – he’s uploaded lots of great photos of his drawings, murals, installations, videos and more!

- Elisa

Specter and Various & Gould have a show opening on Saturday at Brooklynite Gallery. The opening is on March 20th from 7-10, and the show runs through April 17th. Specter is one of the most interesting street artists working today in New York, and I can’t wait to see what he has made for this show.

From Brooklynite Gallery:

The concept of “work” can be interpreted in many different ways depending on whom you hit up. Brooklyn-based artist, SPECTER and German duo VARIOUS & GOULD have each located discarded materials, used skill and ingenuity and re-conceptualized things in pulsating ways you might never have imagined.  All this done in effort to turn the concept of “work” on its ear in an exhibition appropriately titled, “Make It Fit”.

Cart-pushers, delivery boys and slave-laborers – take the spotlight in much of the work created by the artist who goes simply by the name Specter. With all of his portraits based on real people living at the bottom of the capitalist barrel, Specter forces the general public to see what they might rather not – those who got left behind. Collecting materials in much the same fashion his subjects do, Specter incorporates shopping carts, bicycles, and crates along with engaging images of your everyday worker, paying special attention to what makes them tick. His work is hand-crafted, retro-fitted, clever and fresh.

For the creative team of Various & Gould the concept of “work” means looking well beyond the vigor of the everyday tasks one has to perform for a paycheck and instead focusing on the surprisingly graceful interaction between a laborer and his tools. Imagine peering into the cut-out holes we often see at a construction site and being exposed to a vibrant world of multi-colored uniforms, enlarged tools and graphic text.  A world where workers trade body parts depending on their needs, moving in tandem while performing their repetitive tasks in a choreographed “workers waltz”.  Using found objects, work related symbols and their refined silkscreen techniques, the line between work and play becomes blurred inside the imaginative minds of Various & Gould.

Brooklynite Gallery is located at 334 Malcolm X Blvd., Brooklyn, New York 11233.  We are open Thursday thru Saturday from 1pm – 7pm or by appointment.  We are located 2 blocks from the A or C subway to Utica Ave. stop.

Kill Pixie/Mark Whalen is one of the most talented Australian artists connected with the street scene, so I’m always interested when he does something new. Brisbane isn’t exactly my favorite city in the world, but I wouldn’t mind making a quick trip there next week to check out Observatory at Edwina Corlette Gallery, which from the preview looks like it will be another great show from KP. It even looks better than his last two shows, and I enjoyed them. Take a look at some of my favorite pieces below (with Kill Pixie, I think the trippier and busier the work is, the better) and, if you’re in Brisbane, head over to the gallery and let me know what things are like in person. I’d like to review it in the April issue of The Art Street Journal.

Here’s a studio shot that helps give a sense of size for some of the pieces.

Pics via Kill Pixie and Edwina Corlette.

- Elisa

Lots of amazing pieces have been hitting the streets of one of my favorite countries recently by some of my favorite artists. Check out these pics of work by Zezão (above), osgêmeos, Titi Freak and Emol.

Can’t wait to see this finished!

Loving Titi Freak’s evolving style – he’s pushing himself in a good direction.

Emol’s new work is awesome, so I’m posting two photos for him.

Thanks to Zezão, Titi, Emol and @felix001 for the images.

- Elisa

I’ve loved Nina Pandolfo’s work ever since Seth and I showed it in our first show here in LA in 2006. Having her as the first artist to exhibit in the new Carmichael Gallery makes the experience of settling into Culver City even more special for me and the work she’s made for the show is her best ever, in my opinion. It’s always so good to see artists you respect push themselves to more innovative usage of media and develop deeper thematic layers within their imagery. Nina’s mural along the main wall of the gallery builds upon the piece she painted for Deitch Projects x Goldman Properties’ Wynwood Walls in Miami (pics here and here) with her husband and brother-in-law osgêmeos and friend Finok, while the piece in the progress shot below is a multi-layered combination of acrylic on linen and glass with metal, light and artificial flowers. “Mixed Media” doesn’t really describe the end result, which is simply incredible; I’ve never seen anything like it before!

Nina has made another of these pieces that, in place of flowers, incorporates little beads that look like candies, plus a piece made entirely from Swarovski crystals, a series of large canvases and three hand-made fiberglass sculptures that are perhaps my favorite works in the show. Here’s a progress shot of one, hanging out with her kitty while her friends were in hair and makeup (if she were a real girl, she’d probably kill me for posting this).

Below is one of Nina’s canvases. Before I post it, I’d like to talk briefly about the connection between Nina and osgêmeos. It’s something a lot of people understandably wonder about, seeing as they’re family and have painted all over the world together for so many years. From my perspective, as a fan of both, it’s the simple magic that exists in their work that draws us in. All three possess an innate ability to transport us to a place that, whilst drawing upon the life we live, is much happier, brighter and devoid of the pressures that so often weigh us down. This place is one we can escape to and immerse ourselves in simply by gazing at their pieces, then come away with a more tranquil understanding of why things are the way they are.

The three Pandolfos are intelligent without affectation, kind without condescension, and positive without pretending that there aren’t things wrong with the world. I think that’s why people are so floored by shows like Vertigem (osgêmeos’ touring exhibit), Too Far Too Close (their 2008 Deitch show), the castle they and Nina painted in Kelburn with Nunca, the Wynwood Walls mural, and what I hope they’ll see in Nina’s show here – these artists touch a very tender nerve in us.

This, for me, is the connection between the Pandolfos, and yet at the same time, I feel their work couldn’t be more different. Nina’s characters and landscape have a very different flavor (that’s actually the title of the show, Life’s Flavor). When I look at what she does, what I admire most is her sophisticated melange of surrealist motifs, craftmanship that is as polished as the best in the Asian contemporary movement, and her passionate acknowledgement of Brazil’s colorful street scene.

Then there are the trademark children who populate her work. Unlike the frankly disgusting amount of work in the world that employs imagery of pretty girls to appeal to the viewer’s erotic fantasies (it’s obviously not hard to understand why this work is popular, but (and I’m no feminist) I simply think it’s wrong and I struggle to respect it), Nina’s presentation of youth and the female form could hardly be more different. Her preoccupation is with the return to innocence, to the core of our natural, dreamlike state. Close to bursting with exuberance, her young figures and their world capture a lightness that exists in all of us, even if we can’t always reach it.

Anyway, if you live in LA or will be in town this weekend, come say hello to us all and see Nina’s work in person at Carmichael Gallery, 5795 Washington Blvd, Culver City.

- Elisa

For most of the days I’m in Zambia, I’ve scheduled something to appear on Vandalog, but if Banksy reveals himself or Shepard Fairey gets sued (again) while I’m away, don’t expect to read about it here for a few days (unless Elisa or Gaia post about it).

Martha Cooper’s photos from that video can be found in the books Subway Art and Street Play. Subway Art is a must-have for anyone interested in street art or graffiti, and I haven’t seen Street Play in person, but it looks interesting and is one of the next books I intend to buy.

This piece outside of Camden Underground Station in London has made me smile like few recent street art projects have. It’s by Contra, a name I’ve not heard before. Hopefully we’ll see more from this artist.

Via Urban Prankster

This artwork by 2:12 might not be the best stencil ever technically, and it might not be the most original image, but it’s an impressive piece of street art. Why? Great placement. Here’s what 2:12 found one day in Galveston, Texas:

2:12 didn’t just put up a random artwork in that hole in the wall, he made a site-specific artwork that works perfectly with the space. And when it comes to street art, that can make all the difference.