Jonny Burt

Voids of Liminality: Michal Janowski

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 17:59:00 +0000

The individual is everything yet appears nowhere.

The ravenous pursuit of eminence leads him to nothing but bloated egocentrism and stunted human identity. We regress into tribesmen as we disconnect from society and hunt like blind animals to acquire the dream that won’t make us happier.

I first discovered the arresting work of Michal Janowski through Signal, a London gallery that has already provided me with an exciting roster of artists to review. I’m a big fan of anthropomorphism, elements of which I have started to include in my own work and which is of course being executed so well by Signal’s very own success story Joram Roukes. But Janowski employs his beasts in a more confronting way that forges a very direct relationship with the viewer.

These are portraits depicting a new human identity. Janowski is holding up a harsh and disconcerting mirror here. At first you develop a sympathetic connection with these raw, faceless figures, as they stare back with the desperate angst and hopelessness of someone – or something, enslaved. Yet Janowski denies his subjects full human identity; they are neither completely human nor wholly animal and as such we are magnetised by the tension of these figures that appear in a constant state of flux; everywhere and nowhere - lost and abandoned in an ambiguous void of liminality.

That tension is heightened by the figurative nature of his subjects and the abstract backdrops against which they are set. It’s as if Janowski teases the viewer with scraps of reality, only to have them warped by these monstrous hybrids and their origins that remain forever unknown.

And there is another level to all this when you look at Janowski’s captivating titles which are almost works of art in themselves: ‘Shape Shifting as Favourite Method of Deception’, ‘Trickster; Shaman of the Liminal’, ‘The Assassin of Fake Sanity’* (an unforgettable favourite). Janowski leads us to fawn over his curious subjects that are in fact aggressive and hostile reflections of our own debased nature. ‘Permanent Liminality’, one of Janowski’s more experimental pieces quite literally oozes a psychedelic hyperreality, as the face of a human subject appears to spoil beneath the bleeding mask of a cat.

Janowski thus presents us with ‘shape shifters’, ‘tricksters’, ‘shamans’ of the liminal world: deceptive spirits of another universe that are harbingers of both reality and illusion. And yet these entities are precisely us: we are the abstract monsters masquerading as humans in our perpetual greed, hypocrisy and primal destructiveness. The ‘assassin of fake sanity’ is the subconscious version of ourselves as we indulge in the masochistic fantasy of a world that is not real, not true, and not sane. It’s a beautiful device from the artist that lures the viewer into more self-reflexive territory than a photorealistic rendering ever could.

Michal Janowski’s work is available at Signal Gallery

Website

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Upcoming Exhibition: 'Memorabilia'

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I will be exhibiting both existing and new work at the Memorabilia Charity Art Exhibition (Sat 6th & Sun 7th July 2013) curated by Carne Griffiths in support of Great Ormond Street Hospital. 30% of all sales will go to GOSH charity. Get your skin down there for an all star cast featuring artwork inspired by nostalgia and childhood memories.

Facebook event page

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Cages of Expectation: Sandra Chevrier

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 22:08:00 +0000

I love art that makes me hate myself.

Art that, in the hunt and hysteria of discovering something new, magnetises the lustful viewer and numbs him to the artist’s hidden message imbued within. If you aren’t already numbed by the pretentiousness of that introduction, let me explain what I mean. Art works when art makes you fall in love with it for the wrong reasons. Not because its subject matter is evil, but because you – the mortal civilian – you fell for the trick of appearance. In an age saturated by image, the enchanting magic of what we see all too often leads us astray from the harsh reality of what is.

Whilst absent-mindedly wading through Juxtapoz in an attempt to track down my next artist for review, Montreal-based painter Sandra Chevrier caught my attention like she’d physically climbed through my MacBook monitor, wrenched out my eyeballs and escaped back into the vortex of the internet forever. If you’re aware of my own work which has veered more recently into the realm of mixed media collaged faces, you might understand why. Consumed in the moment by the enduring beauty of Chevrier’s work I was anaesthetised to what the work was actually trying to say. I was reminded of my own ability to fall for the trick of superficial illusions to which we all fall victim in today’s society. It was only after closer inspection, having thoroughly unpicked the meaning of Chevrier’s paintings, that I realised I had reacted purely at the sight of an artist whose work I thought might be deemed ‘cool’ – shoot me.

Now, I stick by that – Chevrier’s work is fucking cool. But her work is so aesthetically striking that it’s difficult to drag yourself away from the lure of the outer and get you hands dirty with the grit of the inner. Reminiscent of the arresting superhero aesthetic employed in previously covered artist, Lora Zombie, this is what makes this great art: Chevrier’s work demands to be dissected.

Chevrier’s collaged portraits are torn, quite literally, between the superimposed cuttings of fantastical comic book humour and the harsh, underlying tragedy of oppressed female identity. Chevrier imagines her female figures inside society’s incarcerating “Cages” of expectation that forces them to live up to a superheroic image. The comic-book collage, at once bold and alluring echo rather entertaining pop-art references, yet upon closer scrutiny we realise the bitter irony that these plastered female faces are silenced, blinded and smothered by the very images that seduce us into their existence.

It’s a brilliant, deceptively simple device that speaks to our cyber-induced, brainwashed inability to view women through nothing but pornographic eyes; an agonising, paradoxical truth that both denies and validates female identity. There’s a sense of torturous struggle as the images encroach on the figure's ability to see. If the women aren’t blinded entirely by Chevrier's collage, their jailed stares are vacant – weak – defeatist; a quiet and tragic resigned acceptance perhaps, that their gendered identity goes no deeper than the image of society’s superficial, fetishized mask strapped to their faces.

The collage, which often features epic and dramatic battle scenes taken from real comic book magazines, is applied rather haphazardly, yet this somewhat incongruous style of application, with fictional characters that reaches an almost theatrical level, only enhances the message of the chaotic and farcical pressures placed upon women to perform superheroic deeds in society. It's a very astute angle from Chevrier, because in a cultureless society bent on teaching our young to aspire to the lie of celebrity, the artist perfectly satirises the ludicrousness of unrealistic expectations and unattainable dreams.

Catch Chevrier's work at her next show at Phone Booth Gallery in Long Beach, CA, USA in August.

http://www.sandrachevrier.com/

A Plague Upon Us All: Marco Mazzoni

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Tue, 28 May 2013 21:30:00 +0000

A plague is upon us.

It punctures, penetrates; smothers, suffocates; a curse induced by the 'viral' invasions of 21st century life. The ability to visualise and see with our own eyes is refracted by the chaotic distractions of modern existence and the relentless infestation of new social media, all topped off by the hateful irony (go on, call it hypocrisy) that I vent these words from my Blogger blog - words which shall later be spread via the contagions of Facebook, Twit...I feel sick.

Milan-based artist Marco Mazzoni has himself seen his exquisite glowing coloured pencil drawings spread like a pandemic thanks to the indomitable power of Tumblr, and whilst many other articles have chosen to simply regurgitate Mazzoni's respectable manifesto that his art "weaves a world based on Italian folklore, focusing on the female figures who, according to Sardinian beliefs, seduce, enchant, curse, and heal", Mazzoni's images are so saturated with intelligent metaphors to tell a story that to limit his work to such lazy and predictable responses ("Oh, it's all about nature, and like...repressed women?") is frankly an insult.

Yes - I see cycles of Nature, medicinal plants and pollinator birds drinking nectar, but I also see a Hitchcockian nightmare of humanity at the mercy of Mother Nature; I see the phallic stems reminiscent from the Edenic jungle of artist Carne Griffiths - yet here they are employed in a much more disturbing and pressing context: when a faceless figure appears to be submitted to an act of aggressive floral deep-throating, we may position that figure as potential 'victim'. Equally, there is the almost crawly sense of parasitic infiltration here - the human laid host to the blooming of some foreign organism at the expense of its own life.

There is a deceptive, violent sexuality to these pieces which is so perfectly balanced by Mazzoni's magical, fantastical colour palette and the sensuousness of his overall compositions that it is hard to ascertain whether these impossible creatures offer protection and decorative embellishment or a diabolical, pathogenic hi-jacking of the human body. Indeed, there is the horrifying sense of mankind utterly enslaved to the monstrous forces of the physical world here: either blinded by feathers or eyeless entirely, Mazzoni's figures are deprived of identity, as we are left desperately seeking a soul within an infinite void of what is either white-hot or death-black.

With his seductive female figures - perhaps femme fatales - laced with floral imagery and mythic creatures, it is easy to concentrate on the 'traditional' qualities of Mazzoni's work. But for me, there is something peculiarly modern and updated - dare I say 'fashionable' - about his aesthetic which inspires me to interpret his work in the symbolic context of more modern issues. For me, Mazzoni's hallucinatory scenes conjure a very real and present world plagued by paranoia, excess and violence; a world where relentless consumption has led to the consumption of the self and humanity is turned inside out in this peacock display of grotesque and sadistic absurdism. Nothing of the self is left but a blank white canvas patch where sight once existed.

http://marcomazzoni.tumblr.com/

FACEBOOK PAGE NOW LIVE

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:38:00 +0000

It's 2013 and I have finally mustered up the courage/arrogance to launch an official Jonny Burt Art Facebook page. I will be posting and documenting all updates from there whilst also resuming blogging here about a wealth of fresh and exhilarating emerging artists from across the globe.

If you have followed the movement thus far and like the work I do, please make that 'like' a reality by pledging just 1 'Like' on the Facebook page. I will pay you all back in free artwork once I'm famous. And that's a promise. For now, it's all love.

Thank you for the support,

Jonny x

Losing Face: George Morton-Clark

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 17:10:00 +0000

We are all victims of rape.

Whether crucified for our religion, race – our mental proficiency or our physical imperfections – we all suffer under the gauntlet of a normative, mediatised culture where happiness is defined in terms of exclusion and status. To quote the artist George Morton-Clark,

Society has evolved a paranoid state of mind because of our ever-tightening freedoms.

In less polite words, a violence is perpetrated against all of us; our freedom violated every day as we find ourselves choking defencelessly on the fumes of advertiser bullshit, corrupting our nervous system and rewiring it to produce a deformed image of how we should look in the frame of a 21st century society.

With Morton-Clark, I imagine witnessing a hysterical obliteration of the human form, like a timebomb has finally detonated under the searing schizophrenic pressures we bear in our day-to-day existence. What we have left are disconnected, discarded remnants of being – unintelligible and uncoordinated elements that no longer offer real meaning. The human figure has been aggressively deconstructed and reconstructed into an attractive mess of nothingness and absurdity - and yet these works deliver such wholesome truths.

His female subjects thus provide a metaphor for the products and objectified images of reality that deserve to be ruined and mutilated. There's an interesting, homophonic collision between 'porn' and 'pawn' here: we are essentially all puppets that have been duped, manipulated, misguided; quite simply lied to in a pornographic culture where women, amongst many other things, are packaged into salacious commodities which promise everything but deliver nothing.

To violate our freedom is perhaps one of the most serious crimes against our humanity. Morton-Clark reacts with work which is highly evocative and emotional. We have been cruelly tamed into a way of thinking, and the only way to reacquire freedom is to bite back with all we have left: savage revenge; degenerate, animalistic anarchy in the face of misplaced glossy Chanel logos. Our only hope is to rape the system that has raped humanity.

We are immersed in a world of sin, a limitless hell on earth where anything goes, like a society that has been necessarily reset to its raw default settings. All barriers are broken; we have faceless pigs looming over equally faceless and maimed women, portraits of women gagging on the artist's most graphic tint of vermilion. This is not the glorification of human mutilation. It is the necessary destruction of those illusions of beauty churned out by a consumer monster that are anything but attainable.

But what's even more unsettling here is the almost cartoonish feel to the mutilation, like an old episode from the Itchy & Scratchy Show - you laugh but you do so with a seed of discomfort, no matter how hilarious the antics. It's as if these paintings have been unconsciously created by a child who’s discovered Crayola for the first time and has proceeded to make an uncensored mess. Of course, it's a well-thought out and beautifully crafted mess by Mr. M-C, but the aesthetic nonetheless - and rather brilliantly - hints at a disturbing landscape for the future generations.

The innocence (dare I say cuteness) conjured by this way of working is of course undercut with the artist's aggressive mark-making. Through his raw use of collaging, the faces of his subjects often tend to have smiles plastered onto them, a nice touch which inevitably echoes our own indoctrination in a society which conditions us to act against our will and instincts. Elsewhere, GMC's faces are scratched out, destroyed - or his heads missing entirely. We lose face, quite literally.

Check him out at:

http://www.gm-c.co.uk/

POINT MAGAZINE: Issue #1 Feature

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 10:08:00 +0000

Cool little feature for Issue #1 of P-OINT (People of Interest) Magazine, pages 72-75:

http://issuu.com/p-oint/docs/pointmag/1

Into the Wild: Sons of Heroes SS13

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 22:30:00 +0000

Sons of Heroes roars back onto the contemporary menswear scene for SS13, bred from a wild and rebellious desire to be heard in those urban areas plagued by social and cultural deprivation. The summer collection is tinged with the striking visual presentation of David Bowie and his alter ego Ziggy Stardust, concocted with the political unrest of the 1980s and the potent sport influences of the time.

This collection is all about reinvention – last season for AW12 the label only teased the potential for mixed fabrics, most memorably in the form of what looked like an incurably cool hybrid between a structured classic Aertex shirt and an American varsity jacket. Mind blown.

Creative Director Lee Sedman exploits that potential this season, tempering razor sharp tailored classics with aggressive, uncompromising leather body paneling. There is a real sense of British heritage bled through with an American adventurousness here, realised quite literally in the label’s inclusion of stars & stripes pieces.

The same unexpected juxtapositions are also evident in the lookbook styling: we have casual vests teamed with drop crotched tweed tailored trousers; the classic aesthetic electrified into fashion forwardness by bold Ziggy Stardust lightning bolts cascading through jaggedly spliced panels.

But now let’s get to what the label is famous for: animal print. For SS13 the label’s untouchable luxury-grunge shows no sign of being tamed. Magnetic imagery featuring gnasher-bearing lions and death-stalking tigers in digitally printed garments are as present as ever – equally endearing as they are intimidating - which undoubtedly explains their mysteriously alluring appeal. This time Mr. Sedman adds Zebras to his list of taxonomy, drenched in acid pink dye for one look that ensures the collection stays faithful to the brand’s inherent punk influences.

With its signature style reminiscent of those (frankly exhausted) Givenchy Rottweilers, it’s hardly any shock that Sons of Heroes has become a more exclusive, niche alternative for celebrity stylists. The animal print bombers have been immensely popular with the urban music scene, particularly in the American market where the brand has already been donned by the likes of Rihanna, Justin Bieber, 2 Chainz, Trey Songz, and Wiz Khalifa to name a few. Not bad for a label that’s barely 5 seasons old.

Super-talented photographer Harriet Turney returns this season shooting brutally confident looks from brooding-exuding model Ricki Hall. Harriet, who specialises in fashion portrait documentary, is clearly building quite a name for herself having already shot editorial brand content with Stussy, Adidas and Puma. She is currently working with some of the biggest names in graffiti.

Grow some balls and grab some clothes.

http://www.sonsofheroes.com/

BAEL: Beautiful Monsters

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 23:09:00 +0000

Are you GAY? STRAIGHT? BLACK? WHITE? FAT? SKINNY? RICH? POOR? CHRISTIAN? MUSLIM?

The remanufactured bullshit of such labels in society - of those defacing constructions imposed upon human identity - are no longer important.

At least not in the world of fine artist Michael Bell, who goes by the suitably mysterious and somewhat primordial pseudonym of "BAEL". Mr. Bael has wiped the slate clean of his figures; cleansed them of life's suffocating and compromising 'titles'. Instead, his subjects have regressed (or progressed?) to a collection of raw humanoids, naked in a world where gender, race, sexuality, religion no longer define humanity; where "purity" and "essence" of being finally have their meanings reinstated.

Here the human body is stripped in favour of a brutally visceral exploration of deep human emotion. Initial impressions? Well, if I was totally honest I'd say that I can't stop seeing that terrifying Cyborg Ninja from the Metal Gear Solid franchise. It's that anthropomorphism, the confluence between animal and human which tinges these pieces with the horror of classic sci-fi monsters - those which, rather chillingly, have their essence bred in human biology.

In any case, these pieces are positively haunting and disturbing. The figures are like ethereal apparitions from a nightmare, projections of our most deeply repressed fears and anxieties. What intrigues me about these subjects is just how vivid they are despite such a crucial lack of physical information. At first sight they give the impression of being rendered through quick, rough etching marks in a similar vein to Egon Schiele - everything appears so suggestive and enigmatic. Yet despite being so puzzlingly minimal, these figures offer more emotional truth; have more substance and presence than a dense photorealistic representation of the human form.

While Bael has asserted his artistic determination to avoid making his viewers feel "comfortable" and "satisfied" (and I do indeed feel moderately freaked out when I consider his pieces for too long) - I still think there's something redemptive and liberating to be drawn from his figurative work. In their reductive starkness, these oddly feral creatures look to a Prelapsarian time (a future?), with human identity unspoiled by the pangs of contemporary society. No longer is physical aestheticism a fragile target for scrutiny and anxiety; now it serves as a mere vessel through which the artist can explore the greater importance of human emotion.

And through Bael's provocative use of vermilions, the nature of those emotions are pretty clear. His faces are suspiciously bloodied, with mouths pinned or scratched out that amplify the certain lack of human civilisation here. More and more we err on the side of animalism with Bael, his figures found lurking, stalking, crouching - generally looking threatening and diabolical. The monochrome offset only by the blood lines and fills truly exemplify these characters as possessing nothing but unbridled, fiery emotions: hot, aggressive sexuality; youthful angst and violence bubbling beneath the molten surface.

The piece above, entitled 'Cons', is my favourite work from Bael. For me it encapsulates everything the artist is trying to articulate. Stained with the metaphorical blood on its hands, the figure appears like a new-born, caught in a existentialist moment of self-discovery and disgust at the revelation of its own being - of those base desires of human identity which come to define it more truthfully than any other.

Don't kid yourself.

http://www.bael.co.uk/

CHASSEUR MAGAZINE: 'Kick-Start' Interview & Feature

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 15:44:00 +0000

Check out my FEATURE & INTERVIEW for the debut issue of CHASSEUR MAGAZINE, 'Kick-Starts', Page 80-85:

http://issuu.com/chasseurmagazine/docs/the_freedom_issue_2012

Chloe Early: 9/11 in Disney Land

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:11:00 +0000

Now, in the normal way I would copy every other overzealously polite blogger and apologise for my delay in posting new material. No; I haven't been recently hospitalised and no, I haven't been occupied by a family bereavement. In any case, what I have to show you next is worth the wait. If you're like me and have an insatiable appetite for bittersweet art, then I present you with 9/11 debris decorated in a lush Garden of Eden:

At least that's what I see. Mind-fuck? And what a great one. The artist behind the brutal chaos is Chloe Early who, according to her blog, quite plainly and innocently "Paints Pictures". Clearly not as innocent as she professes. Early works with disconcerting yet gripping juxtapositions: exuberant and abundant nature framed by harsh and suspiciously posited airplane engines - callously discarded and reassembled in the aftermath of a mysterious tragedy.

Everywhere you look there's an explosion of bold colour that suggests life and vitality and liberation, but it's always muddied by an undercurrent of violence bubbling beneath the surface, or by a triad of missiles delicately descending at the bottom of the artist's canvas. So while at first sight you may imagine Early's suspended figures to be falling in blissful oblivion, there's a more troubling ambiguity here.

Her central subjects - of which there is usually a pair - seem frozen in time and space, locked in some dream-like fantasy which anaesthetises them to the barbarity inflicted upon them. As mentioned, these airplane turbines almost take on a new, diabolic identity in Early's contrived arrangement of them, as if to echo the sick trivialisation of tragedies like 9/11 by manic pop references in the media.

Early's religious undertones here are clear, but if these landscapes are indeed alluding to a spiritual realm, the question I ask myself is: Where are these figures going? Are they angels falling or ascending to Heaven? Are they infinitely and indefinitely spinning in space? Or perhaps they are being exhibited in the most explicit sense: innocent victims falling from an obliterated aircraft...

There are certainly sniffs of Micallef's 'Disney Torture Porn' aesthetic here (research it if you think I've coined that term out of clinical pervertedness). It's that concoction of flowery lightheartedness bled with the fumes of a morbid utopia that works so well. It transmits doubt into the viewer's eye; tips the prospect of escapism into a nihilistic post-apocalyptic world (and vice versa).

Early is a master of decontextualising and recontextualising iconography, with a keen eye for subverting images of celebration; we have Micky Mouse mingled with bullet shells laced with roses, patterning a memorial that evokes the insanity of war's warped realities. In fact, in their ordered presentation and arrangement, these pieces have the seductive scent of glossy magazine covers, as if beneath the chaos lurks a subtly packaged symphony of false ideals.

Wake up and smell the debris.

http://chloeearly.com/

http://chloepaintspictures.wordpress.com/
http://www.stolenspace.com/

Recession Rebellion: Illustrating the Fashion Industry

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 10:01:00 +0000

The fashion industry is in crisis. Groundbreaking revelation? No, because it always has been. We just don’t see what lurks beneath the beautiful veneer of an exquisite garment flourishing on a catwalk blinded by camera flashes and pretentious celebrities. We don’t see the crushing ballast threatening the very heartbeat of the designer’s creativity. As a label becomes more successful, it becomes greedier – whilst the smaller designers clasp to even remain buoyant on the restless tide of a mercurial and fickle fashion climate. Ultimately, most companies will sink, whilst some of the higher fliers inevitably buckle under the drudging demands to deliver season after season (the recent disgrace of one leading designer and the tragic death of another is perhaps still an open wound in our minds here).

A pretty bleak outlook on the industry. Do you have the will to read on? If I were to paint a picture depicting the state of the industry, it would be a dripping black canvas, or perhaps if I was feeling a little creative, an illustration of one of Riccardo Tisci’s Givenchy Rottweilers choking on a fistful of banknotes shoved through its gnashing jaws. At least it’d be honest. Because it is honesty which is becoming scarce to find in a time where designers are really feeling the pinch of the moneymen. Ultimately, it is they who make final decisions – increasingly forcing designers into banal submission of those who hold the cash at the expense of their integrity. The excruciating reality is that financiers do not understand – nor do they care – about the ‘art’ of fashion.

Whilst the buyers may be laughing, the creatives are dying inside: any passionate designer who obsesses over their craft is at their core a tortured artist, with surprisingly little concern for the financial rewards. I, like many designers I have spoken with, will tell you that they design not for ‘the consumer’ but for themselves – as it should be. So the minute a creative is forced to churn out something for sake of the next dollar, there’s a dishonesty and discredit there. He has, against sheer and unrelenting brute force, surrendered to the probing corruption of the businessman. Alas, honesty comes under intolerable strain.

But SS13 is set to offer us at least a few saviours who shine as both rebellious, reckless revolutionaries and positive pioneers, ferociously committed to the truth of their artistic philosophies in the sorry face of the industry. They illustrate a fresh and brutal ‘all’s-not-lost’ attitude that truly quenches an arid thirst for something redemptive. The first is Boris Bidjan Saberi – a designer who’s very name sounds like a nomadic ninja from the cavernous depths of a future sent back through time to rescue us from a moral/financial recession. Saberi is known for his unmistakably brutal grunge; his hard-edged, raw aesthetics and so-called “dark hip-hop”.

His extreme manipulation of fabrics ventures into the realm of the haunting unknown and to the point of chemical experimentation. Saberi is more than a clothes designer: he evokes a mood, a narrative, an atmosphere inspired by real life crises and thoughtful reactions to the world around him. Just a glance at his clothes tells you he has zero intention of abiding to any imaginary “rules” prescribed by the pressure to “make figures”. It’s admirable, intimidating, and necessarily confrontational. Saberi owns the space. Owns his collection. Extreme plunging drapes and oversized mesh hoods and masks articulate this attitude that refuses to be compromised.

For SS13, Saberi retains his monochromatic palette but brings us for the first time a more structured and polished collection, featuring a marriage between extreme tailoring and highly adventurous sportswear. If his previous collections were a bunch of teenage outlaws, SS13 is a matured crew of veteran gangsters, glued together and ready to resist as a community not divided by the invasion of the moneymen. There’s an understated, minimalist thread going through SS13 which keeps a sophisticated angst bubbling beneath the surface – but it’s still there: not to be messed with.

Most memorable for me is the tight tailoring with discrete slit vents on the jacket blazers which hark back to Saberi’s deconstructive style without being too showy. In addition, the new angular waistcoats created a superb, futuristic silhouette around the architecture of the male form. Also striking were the paneled asymmetric shirt collars, and the pure all-white looks were a jarring shock to the system: “purity” is perhaps the last word with which we’d be accustomed to describe Saberi’s aesthetic. Sort of like a schizophrenic clash between the Black and White Swan.

Next, Aitor Throup. Now here's someone who diverges between the role of commercial designer and that of artist, imprinting his unique social comment on the identity of the industry in the most visceral and 3-dimensional way. Saberi’s nomadic style has always been conjured by mesh layering and other transparent fabrics, creating a strong, cocooning sense of protection – but Throup takes that a step further with intriguing concepts of body armour and physical encasing.

The London SS13 collection saw an eerie set of highly dense, scrunched up wire mannequins suspended from the ceiling, in addition to these oddly playful, accessorised skulls, candidly slung over the shoulders of mannequins like trophies from Predator’s latest killing spree. Interestingly, it was reminiscent of Saberi’s SS09 disturbing collection which featured white-clad models suspended from the ceiling by chains. Sounds like I’m trying to promote some kind of sadistic suicide couture.

Like Saberi, Throup is an artist – attempting at once to capture the psyche of the modern man. He inhabits an intense, utterly opposing world that would have financiers so groggy with confusion and incomprehension that the only option would be to let the man continue doing his own thing. His signature anatomy trousers absolutely propel Throup beyond the exhausted parameters of fashion trends, with a clear respect for the human body and it’s meticulous formation.

There’s an anthropomorphism to his drawings, too, with irresistible sniffs of Giger present in his manipulation of the human form through a highly conceptual and deformative - but also reconstructive, lens. It’s like he’s remoulding the overused silhouette, whilst also attuning himself to the anxiety of the industry’s pangs – of which there are many.

Throup is by far one of the most important breakthroughs of the year, deriving his demand – like Saberi – from his mysteriousness – the kind that has made an international success of Hussein Chalayan despite flickering on and off the radar. That sense of the unknown and the unpredictable – relevant both in the collection’s aesthetic but more intriguingly in the uncertainty between the artist’s presence and absence – is what restores the designer’s integrity and in turn the market’s hunger for more.

Ryan Hewett Painter: Screaming for Freedom

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 17:48:00 +0000

With Antony Micallef as probably one of the most potent influences on my own artwork, I seem to gravitate to other artists in whom I detect traces of the man himself, like a damaging but intoxicatingly good smell. But before you attempt to have my career as an arts writer shut down, I am not insinuating that painter Ryan Hewett lacks his own aesthetic identity: Micallef conjures scenes of chaos, but Hewett injects the distorted, dehumanised style into portraits of poise. What makes his heads so engaging is their contained ordinariness and child-like innocence hemmed in behind tragic and hell-raising realities.

For me, Bio [above] is without question his most powerful piece. I can't stop looking at it. There's a raw tension between these apparently natural photographic poses and the rather unnatural deformation of them through striking and potentially destructive marks. I've always imagined Hewett's figures as brutalised war victims. But this notion goes beyond the physical: his figures are us, everyone, enduring some crushing emotional strife, drowned by a history of repression and, thanks to Hewett's art, they are finally screaming out to be heard.

Hewett employs highly painterly techniques, so much so that his process pieces are equally if not more intriguing to look at than the finished product:

There's a very real sense of human identity in crisis here. Hewett plays with the depth of his surfaces, subduing an eye here or a lip there, whilst letting other features bleed through so that we are confronted with 1000 yard stares; vacant yet deeply soulful expressions which wrench at your heart.

For me, Hewett is illustrating a violent, progressive onslaught on our generation, with deeply vulnerable and defenceless individuals barely able to resist and stay afloat. Identity, innocence, youth, beauty - something is being erased in the process, and it does not portend a prosperous future. Who are the culprits? I'm gonna go ahead and say The Only Way Is Essex, Geordie Shore, BigBrother, Jedward - those fuckers, just because they successfully demonstrate everything that's wrong with our society today. Consequently, through no fault of its own, the aspiring youth is reduced to a monstrous, rotten and unidentifiable core.

Depressive cynicism aside, this guy is seriously talented. Before Hewett discovered oils, he was accustomed to tight pencil drawing. His draftsmanship is still evident in his work, but you can feel how much he enjoys the liberation of free and experimental brush strokes. Everything about Hewett seems to be a narrative of liberation, of freedom: breaking out of incarcerating strictures, the struggle for release. The struggle to breathe.

http://ryanhewett.foliosnap.com/

Unconditional AW12/13: White Hot Winter

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 16:43:00 +0000

Now here’s a label which, for the best part of 5 years, has caused me a clinical addiction and financial/moral bankruptcy. Thanks to Creative Director Philip Stephens, one of the leading fashion gurus of androgyny, Unconditional returns this Fall with a collection that will make my bank statement Unforgivable.

Stephens is a master of pitch-perfect balance: his hard-edged masculine attitude is always tempered with a daring yet delicate femininity; his formal tailoring humoured by exaggerated, emotional sportwear. Stephens doesn't discriminate: placing his philosophy on luxury basics, he disguises the 'fashion' of his garments, making the wearer feel accepted; understated yet stinking of seductive elegance.

For AW12, photographer Dimitris Theocharis shoots bold, electric looks against a pure white backdrop. Yes, for Autumn Winter. At first glance it's hard to imagine this isn't the lookbook for next summer - especially since the previous Spring collection defined itself by a sunburst of acid colour.

But Stephens has never been one to shy away from subverting the norm. It’s an unsually refreshing take on the catastrophic winter weather we've suffered all summer in the UK. Another traditionally dark and haunting Autumn Winter collection may have been too painful a reminder of our hellish climate. Stephens forecasts a brighter trend.

AW12 transitions seamlessly from an acid summer but is now lightly frosted over with an icier palette: pale greys, cool blues and harsh silvers punctuate this collection. It's as if Stephens retains the alienation of winter but with a mysteriously warm approachability. Not surprisingly, he pulls off the unlikely juxtaposition.

Next: the new outerwear. Unconditional has always prided itself on exquisite cuts but for me, this is where the label triumphs for AW12. Stephens appears to have written an Edwardian-inspired sub-plot, featuring coats with what appear to be concealed and layered lapels...I want to say 'triple-breasted' but unless I can get that trending I risk sounding like someone who shouldn't be blogging about fashion.

In one look [see first image] a cropped period-style jacket has been teamed with a pair of extreme drop-crotched harem trousers. I'm not usually a fan of hammer pants, but here the contrast between the sharp, angular dimensions of the top half and the slouched fit of the bottom strikes a magnetic discord in the silhouette, a typical illustration of Stephens' playful aesthetic. Cavalier Couture springs to mind.

Stephens has also taken the trend of animal print a step further this season with printed leopard cashmeres. He is clearly so passionate about the creatures which inspire him that he wishes to metamorphose his customers for the fall into fully fledged fashion Ocelots. There's a real sense of returning to nature here, solidifying Stephens’ concrete ethos of naturally and ethically produced fabrics.

There’s a purity - a cleanness about the rock’n’roll thread; last AW saw a grittier, more gothic narrative but here Stephens seeks to bridge the gap between the two seasons, as if to echo the ambiguous indistinction throughout the British weather. The organic aesthetic is mixed with more alchemic elements including Baroque-inspired floral prints and gold and silver panelling. Interesting.

Much of the outerwear and tailoring also features Ostrich appliques to the shoulders, looking particularly strong on the label's cutaway jacket which crops up in a handful of looks. The minimalist, effortlessly cool tailoring piece with notch lapels and a cut-out back has become a staple for the brand, deriving most of its swag from the fact that almost a third of it is missing despite a pretty sizeable price tag. Kill me for saying this, but it's worth it...

As ever, bondage pants, oversized hoods and funnel necks permeate the collection. Punk model of the moment Leebo Freeman returns without his peroxide bangs offering looks which tip between jesting devilishness and hard sophistication. One of my favourite looks of the collection has to be the double feather print - simply for its rebellious out-of-placeness.

Time to prepare for a personal recession.

http://www.unconditional.uk.com/

Carne Griffiths: Tea-Bagging Illustrator

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 14:25:00 +0000

Following on from Alexis Marcou’s intriguing manipulation of light and glass effects, it would seem rude to not also acknowledge the work of Carne Griffiths, an artist whose experiments with drawing textures are equally mind-blowing. Now, having read a plethora of articles on Carne, I’ve spotted an impressive string of reviews, all of which rather remarkably resemble one another - save for an oh-so-smart rephrasing of about three words. Sort of like casual plagiarism.

Don’t have it, Carne.

You have the sort of talent that deserves – no, demands, better. So I’m going to have a go at actually considering your work and hopefully deliver something insightful and fresh to think about.

Carne is interesting because he intersects traditional themes of nature and floral aesthetics with harsher and more graphic techniques. I mean, you can't get much starker than flowers overlaid with shards of shattered glass, can you?

I’m going to avoid a predictable interpretation here and explore one which I assure you manifests from a clean state of mind. For me, Carne's work exudes an air of sexual fertility and fecundity, sexual devouring; innocence intertwined with a boundless and liberated sexual violence. Like each work presents a new femme fatale. Perhaps what we’re feasting our eyes on here are suspicious heroines from an existent Garden of Eden?

By delicately dealing with Nature's thornier side, Carne unconsciously rips us out from the realm of watercolour landscapes as we know it and in turn subverts the traditional worship of nature's benevolence in art. Carne reminds us of mother nature’s equally deceptive and nightmarish qualities, in order to show [cue circa GCSE analysis] man’s relative insignificance and powerlessness.

Carne achieves the distinction by using a base layer of sepia-toned tea bleaching techniques, over which he articulates and exploits compartmentalised layers of striking and unexpected colour. Carne then adopts a technique which I, coincidentally, have been exploring for the past year in my own work. Carne modifies the mercurial and chaotic behaviour of the bleach splats with repetitions of abstract and structured geometric lines:

The uncontrollable nature of the bleach injects a level of risk into each piece which is what stops Carne's work ever falling stale, tipping each work in the tense balance between success and disastrous failure. As such there is a strong sense of abandon and escapism here, free from the restraints of traditional compositions, leading both the artist and viewer on a journey to an unknowable destination. The thrill lies in the process, not the result.

That said, the results are still bloody exquisite, producing highly seductive textures which can only truly be flirted with at close proximity:

Interestingly, I originally discovered Carne as a featured illustrator whilst stumbling through Rankin's new bi-annual, Hunger Magazine. It just goes to show the kind of versatile appeal Carne's work has to offer. I could quite easily imagine these illustrations as prints for graphic tees.

Oh wait...

It's no surprise Hunger wanted him. Carne's fashion attraction is clear, with clothing label Twinne having picking up his designs for a new series of printed tees. Carne's solo show, 'Fragments', will be showing at Ink'd Gallery in September.

Time to put the kettle on.

http://www.carnegriffiths.com/

Alexis Marcou: Slippery Illustrator

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 00:33:00 +0000

Let’s face it: in the context of art that’s ‘cool’, a plain portrait is boring. The unfortunate reality is that there are too many other people out there who are capable of doing exactly what you can do. Something else has to be happening.

Over the past year, I have experimented – simply through pursuing a creative 'mistake’ I once made – with geometrical lines of distorted light. Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but I’ve spotted a peculiar pattern recently with illustrators/artists (Agnes Cecille, Carne Griffiths) playing with aesthetics that replicate shattered glass, cubism and bewitching light reflections. Is there any particular reason for this trend, apart from the fact that it looks effing radical?

And I'll tell you why this kind of style is so important today. As you’ve probably detected from my attitude towards the cretinous use of Photoshop, artists appear to be fighting back with work that defies Adobe’s determined mission to make pencils - indeed humans themselves – obsolete. Whatever you can do, I can do better.

Alexis Marcou is an inspiring saviour who makes our craft still worth persevering. His work is clearly the product of blood, sweat, and a shit load of graphite. Marcou uses an intriguing juxtaposition in his work: the monochrome becomes activated by the most minimalist traces of colour, suspending his figures between frozen stasis and explosive chaos.

My favourite piece of his has to be ‘Noire’ (first image) though I’m sure that comes as no surprise to those of you who know his work. Don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s the wet-look about the piece which gets me most – and before you whine that it’s just a quick photoshop job – head over to his Process page to be proved firmly wrong.

Such a simple image, yet that fluidity about it delivers a selection of mysterious interpretations: Is the figure frozen in time/death? Crying in the pouring rain? Drenched in blood? Marcou’s obsession with lines renders his work with a highly contemporary and virtual feel, playful with dimensions so that his finished pieces offer multiple zones of vision. Marcou's perspectives have reached vertiginous heights with commissions already from both Nike and HP.

Marcou encourages aspiring artists, "Create your own unique style. When working for clients listen but don't compromise your style." Take note - I'm currently designing a poster for a BBC film, and throughout the entire process I've been plagued with paranoia that I'm wasting my time because I'm still creating in a way which will guarantee my own aesthetic satisfaction above anyone else's. That's not selfish, right?

I'm holding you responsible, Marcou.

http://alexismarcou.com/

Urbane Urban: Byroglyphics

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 18:18:00 +0000

Byroglyphics. A pseudonym so incurably urban I can just taste the grit grind inside my mouth. Russ Mills, the man behind the mask, exceeds the label 'artist'. He has that kind of ungodly talent; you know, the sort that will disillusion any budding painter into depression and bring them to the sensible conclusion: Give up. Yeah, that kind. This guy is someone who actually deserves the traditionally pretentious appraisal that an artist's work "transcends" something. Because Mills does.

The fact is, Mills is like this untouchable, fully autonomous, self-commodified brand. He has a unique aesthetic identity which you could spot a mile off in the hazy mist of teeming aerosol-wielding graffiti artists. When I discovered that his work is a fusion of fine art with photography and digital experiments, I breathed a sigh of relief: I got some solace in the reassurance that Mills was indeed human like the rest of us.

That said, it's all still bloody staggering stuff. With the nauseating reality of Photoshop appearing to take over the world as we know it, Mills has responded with a sophisticated, even elegant style that appeases the best of both worlds without totally conceding to the superficial one. His artistic skill is firmly in tact, not compromised by the "need" for, or reliance on image manipulating software; it rather functions as a polishing tool to make his finished pieces look coma-inducingly good.

On a personal note, I'm obsessed with his distorted, manic arrangement (do I spy an oxymoron?) of lines in his portraits. At first sight you may wonder whether this is just a quick mishmash of paint, but look closer and these are expertly handled, beautifully explosive "painting disasters", to quote Mills himself - the kind of 'good accidents' we crave as artists.

The trick with Mills is that his work alludes to many elements: not just fine art, but photography, illustration, graphic art, promotion, and beyond. Mills has a colossal army of followers, and it's no surprise why. He's got it all: purity of skill and digital capabiltiies that would make him thrive in pretty much any creative environment - not that I can see him working for Saatchi & Saatchi any time soon.

Mills is currently selling a bunch of signed Summer Salts prints on his website, at prices so reasonable I might actually be able to fork out the cheddar for one.

Time to watch some Photoshop tutorials.

http://www.byroglyphics.com/

Far East Fashion Movement

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 23:41:00 +0000

Bondage. Crotches. Graphics. Leathers. Masks. No, I’m not talking about the styling for Rihanna’s latest music video. This is the DNA of Asian fashion designers whose radically creative aesthetics are beginning to thread their way into the fabric of British menswear – both on the high street and on the catwalk.

When clothing retail chain All Saints was fashion-forward and actually cool, the plunging tops, bleached knits and crushed leathers produced this unusual gothic charm for the high-street, and to wear an All Saints garment morphed you into the bravest, edgiest guy at the party because you were veering so dangerously close into the ‘feminine’ realm of dress-sense. Sadly, the label has since become abused by Russell Brand and a subsequent cattle following of wannabe rock stars, forcing the company’s image into corporate and frankly uncool territory.

In any case, I ventured further into the realm of androgyny, discovering Unconditional, a luxury fashion line whose fusion of the laidback and the edgy knits itself together each season with an unmistakable air of sexy grunge. I have developed a rather lustful addiction for the collection, which to this day I struggle to suppress. The signature drop-crotched jeans combined with zippers in often-humorous locations; the plethora of deconstructed tops which would make you question whether the designers have ever heard of ‘symmetry’ and straps so abundant you might as well be in a straitjacket certainly gave the brand its unique identity.

When we think of Asian designers we might reel off Juun J, Julius, Songzio. These are artists at the cutting-edge of the industry whose mix of architectural structuring with free-flowing drapes conjure futuristic silhouettes, a recipe for success which has almost become synonymous with the advent of ultramodern video and fashion direction in the music industry - think Black Eyed Peas dressed in arguably ridiculous-looking aluminum overalls.

But if you’re after some crazy hooded visor-mask jumper made from metallic yarn, you don’t need to fork out a fortune for it in the Superbrands section of Selfridges; yes, it might seem like the most radical thing that’s worthy not even of the fashion industry itself, but head over to Yesstyle.com and discover that there’s nothing extra-ordinary about these aesthetics in the Asian land of fashion. What we may consider to be daring over here is regarded across the pond as a kind of mainstream Topman equivalent.

Unconditional saw a golden opportunity and exploited it: take the trends from the Asian high street, slap a luxury fabric on it and become one of the most impacting new labels of the decade. It’s no surprise to see other contemporary brands like Sons of Heroes, Horace, Delusion, and Tuesday Night Band Practice follow suit – young designers who have instantly made their mark in both British and international markets. That golden reserve ain’t gonna last long though; you need only look to Zara, River Island and Topman to see how distilled the designs have already become.

Time to seek new formulas?

Tom French Fine Art

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 01:13:00 +0000

Thus far my experience as an artist has taught me that it can be a pretty enduring process trying to create a successful portrait which is designed purely in black and white. If you've taken a look at my own work, you'll notice that my use of high contrast often features a nice splash of colour to create some compositional balance - whatever that means. So I'm pretty green with envy when I double take at fine artist Tom French whose illusory work seems to be created exclusively from a monochromatic palette:

How do you stave off boredom when working with just two colours? I don't suppose John Virtue ever asked himself that question, but...French is interesting because he's almost like an updated and modernised version of old traditional methods with his contemporary urban realism. If you've read my previous posts, you'll already be sick of hearing that I like art that plays with opposites, contrasts, juxtapositions, contradictions, paradoxes, oxymorons...Well, here's a new one: French handles a duality between the beautiful and the sinister which is in perfect equilibrium:

French studies exuberant relationships which by their very intimate gestures momentarily conjure the ultimate symbol of mortality: a human skull. But what do you see first? French's work is reminiscent of those online optical illusion games you played as a kid. But since his images are not a series of fleeting brain-bashers but permanent works of art, his illusions don't dispel. They stick, creating this eerie fixation between the living dead and the dead living: the embraced figures at once seem alive and amorous, yet the surrealist effect of the skeleton creeping through renders them ghostly and ethereal, causing the skull itself to become humanised.

It's an odd transformative effect for the viewer. For me, French isn't necessarily taking us on a painfully predictable "Oh look - it's a pretty picture but on closer inspection it's so much darker than that" journey. The 'pretty to dark' element is interchangeable: death can become life as much as life can become death. So I suppose the question it asks of you is quite simply, 'Life or Death?' In any case, French's art naturally revives ideas that life and death are closer than we think, that death is inevitable. But since the two are so well 'balanced', there's also always a sense of rejoice in that these pieces can celebrate the value of life and togetherness in the morbid face of loss.

French's reality-bending aesthetic was recently picked up for the new custom artwork on the Donnie Darko soundtrack release. The result is wicked - it's seriously encouraging to see great young talent being recognised for large scale projects like this.

We don't need to rely on Photoshop for everything.

http://tomfrenchart.wordpress.com/

Lora Zombie Illustrator

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 18:27:00 +0000

Lora Zombie is sick - and I'm not talking about that unforgettable tag-name. With her use of dark satire and subversive pop references, the Russian-born "grunge" artist at first sight seems like another predictable product of the anti-capitalism urban art trend.

But there's something more digestible about Zombie's beautifully light and loose illustrative style which is no less impacting. Parodying Disney characters is nothing new I hear you scream, but Zombie designs in a way that is not excessive. She controls the chaos: initially what seems to be a random attack of splats and drips on a canvas turns out to be a masterful and disciplined application of paint.

There's nothing too deep or stifling about them either. They're not overloaded with political messages that will make your brain fry before you can even attempt to appreciate what they look like. They're just effortlessly cool, making them perfect to be appreciated purely for aesthetic beauty or for their Banksy-esque tongue-in-cheek rebelliousness. Either way, her minimalist style comes to define the artistic cliché that less can be more. You get the sense that Zombie enjoys absolute liberation during her creative process. She should be applauded just for putting Spiderman in a tutu...

But while Zombie injects humour into almost all of her pieces, it is her more sensitive and touching work which I'm really drawn to. I reviewed the portfolio of fine artist Joram Roukes recently, whose work I praised because of its terrifying beauty, its hilarious disaster... I could continue with the oxymorons until I buckled under my own pretentiousness. Anyway, Zombie (I have to stop referring to her like this) works in a similar fashion in terms of thematics, but uses a much more subtle and suggestive approach.

So many urban artists today seek out shock factor, and whilst they are still hugely effective, they can tend to force the viewer into submission by their subversive and violent imagery. They'll usually leave an aftertaste of bitter cynicism, too, which leaves not much room for any hope or redemption. But these pieces, despite their air of tragedy, always have some undefinable promise contained within them, as if to say, 'Yes, our situation is shit, but everything's going to be alright.'

Zombie recently exhibited at the Pandamonium show at Signal. With the current tidal wave of Superhero movies, it's no surprise that her own Depressed Superheroes collection was an instant hit. You could quite easily imagine these works as graphic prints for a gritty East London fashion label.

Also, visit her Facebook page at your peril, because you'll feel instant guilt once you're there. Not only does she have such a diverse range of works, but she's also got shit loads of them - up to 400 illustrations and oil paintings. I always thought her style was efficient, but jesus. It's no surprise her huge output of work has made her an international success.

All in all, Zombie uses her pop icons as clever metaphors for the absurdity of lofty ideals, the futility of superheroic dreams and aspirations in a contemporary society reduced to supermodels and overpaid footballers. There's only so much we can achieve as real human beings.

Wasn't going to let you get off that easy.

http://www.lorazombie.com/

Sons of Heroes AW12/13 Preview

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 16:22:00 +0000

Last summer I came into contact with the Creative Director of hot new menswear label Sons of Heroes. I was lucky enough to model for the Spring Summer 2012 Lookbook photographed by Harriet Turney, and since then have become enamoured with the brand's bold and confident masculine look. Tagging itself as the "uniform of future icons", Sons of Heroes "pays respect to the future icons of the 21st century, a blueprint that honours our country's heroic past and the formidable people who played a part in it."

In the current UK Menswear climate today, you'll barely survive unless you've got something highly unique to offer, and even then, chances can be slim. I'm always on the pursuit for fresh new aesthetics and Sons has this mysterious luxury-grunge feel about it which can be androgynous without sending male customers running for the hills.

Sons oozes a dark, enigmatic charm; experimental with its masculine silhouette but committed to a certain ruggedness and hard-edged sensibility. The collections feature muted palettes - predominantly monochrome - with teasing dashes of colour and bleaching techniques here and there.

But where this label triumphs as one of the most exciting new labels in the UK today is in its graphic prints - and AW12 is full of 'em. They are some of the most stunningly detailed images I have ever seen on a garment - true works of art. The leopard silk leather bomber has become something of a signature piece for the brand, having been immensely popular with celebs both over here and in the US. Clement Marfo, Sway, JLS, 2 Chainz, Wiz Khalifa,Trey Songz, and, unfortunately - Justin Bieber, have all been seen sporting it.
For a label that is only 3 seasons old to have become so popular already is a huge feat, and I have no doubt Sons of Heroes will continue to establish itself as a front-runner in contemporary menswear.

Grow some balls and grab some clothes.

http://www.sonsofheroes.com/
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Joram Roukes Fine Artist

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 22:42:00 +0000

Wreckface 2
2012

The artwork of Netherlands based artist Joram Roukes is a literal 'car crash' of assorted western phenomena: Roukes perhaps creates his characters with such heavily layered imagery to hint at an identity swallowed underneath the chaotic iconography of consumerism. In fact, it seems that the only thing knitting the images together is Roukes' intriguing motif of destructive and violent collision, often depicted in his drawings by upended or at least severely damaged vehicles.

Roukes is clearly obsessed by anthropomorphism, too: his pieces frequently depict grotesque human bodies with the heads of intensely vulnerable animals, producing images which pivot between terror and hilarity. What also makes these pieces so effective is that they don't preach; Roukes doesn't necessarily go out of his way to expose the flaws of his society, but instead he observes, allowing us to determine our own position amid the insanity.

In fact, Roukes' balance between the dark and the humorous is so pitch perfect that you just don't know whether to laugh or cry. That awkward tension is where the true success of his work lies.

It's no surprise Roukes is becoming hugely popular over here in the UK, especially with his recent solo show, Oils, at urban art gallery Signal in East London. He's got that sardonic but playful and seductive air of Antony Micallef about him, whilst still producing his own unique and robust aesthetic identity.

He's also a really cool guy to chat with, which is a bonus. He offered me some enlightening pearls of wisdom recently about the virtual impossibility of getting galleries to notice you...Thanks mate!

In the meantime, I have no doubt we will see big movements from this guy in the future, I can quite easily see him up in the ranks with the likes of Micallef and Dan Baldwin.

Check him out: http://joramroukes.blogspot.co.uk/

Beginnings

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 15:34:00 +0000

I suppose my first ever sense of what it meant to 'be inspired' came when I was exposed to Ridley Scott's Alien at the fragile age of 5 or 6 years old. Was I scared shitless? Yes. Did I turn off? No. Quite the opposite: I became obsessed, reviewing it compulsively, trying to decipher what the hell a toddler found so appealing about this frankly disgusting monstrosity:

I don't know what it was, but H.R. Giger's horrifying yet strangely seductive and sensuous creations compelled me to re-create them. That was the only way I felt I might be able to access them. Because they were, and still are, so powerfully enigmatic.

Cool. Terrifying. Erotic. Self-conscious. Whatever it was, I needed to reproduce the images. I suppose "inspiration" was driving that need, and has manifested itself in the past few years in a series of works which I am quite happy with.

Giger's work planted the creative seed inside me (excuse the pun), so everything I've ever produced has probably had some influential grounding in his imagery. I'd like to think that it is specifically Giger's juxtaposition of the grotesque and beautiful which has filtered its way into my own work, as I have a particular passion for mixing monochrome with high contrast pop-y colours.

People have commented that my work is dark, disturbing, even shocking. I can't really help myself there. I was never interested in painting pretty watercolour landscapes. For me, art has to be affecting or transformative, even if only for a moment. I'd rather hear someone say, "it's nice but too scary", than simply, "it's nice". For one, "Too scary" translates as "I don't want to look at that because I don't want to be told how corrupt I am". Secondly...Who cares about nice?

Prometheus

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 14:31:00 +0000

The fresh release of Ridley Scott's Alien prequel, Prometheus, presented itself to me as the perfect excuse to explain how and why I even started designing. More of that in my next post. For now, a little review. As a hard-hard-hardcore fan of Alien, I didn't hesitate to snap up my ticket the weekend of the film's release in London.

Prometheus harks back to the Greek myth, putting a twist on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein about forbidden knowledge and man playing God. I went into this film trying my absolute hardest to remove myself from expectations rooted in the original franchise.

I did. But while Scott's new conceptual offerings were interesting, and his sci-fi direction expectedly stunning, I hate to admit that it seems even the master of suspense has buckled under the pressures of Hollywood to deliver a profit-splurging blockbuster.

It lacked the tension which came to immortalise Alien as one of the most original horror films ever. Even the action sequences weren't exceptionally thrilling, and some scenes were so implausible - nonsensical even - that I actually found myself chuckling at certain moments - not good.

Fortunately, I was impressed by the visuals and new designs and, let's be honest: if they're good, we can forgive Ridley's narrative flaws. It was intriguing to see prototypes of the iconic xenomorph we know so well - although they weren't so much terrifying as purely disgusting, and I don't think I'll ever be able to look at a squid in the same way again.

The ending. I was torn about its somewhat shoehornedness. You can just imagine the studio execs during production insisting that Ridley make a scene which explicitly illustrates the bridge between this film and the Alien evolution, just in case the audience had thus far been stupid to make the connection for themselves. Nonetheless, we clearly have an exciting new instalment in the works.

The tag-line. I'm tempted to look really clever and perceptive and inevitably pretentious here by using it for my own means to lead on how I started as an artist. So I will.

The search for our beginning could lead to our end

In hindsight this is a bit dramatic and unnecessary, so I'll settle for the "beginning" bit...

Hello "Art World"

noreply@blogger.com (jonny) — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 14:03:00 +0000

For a very long time I have felt under immense pressure from this invisible force goading me on to create a "blog" because, as a "creator" of things, I should also be "creating" in the virtual world. Yes, I am describing myself in inverted commas because I want to dispel any pompous self-righteousness before I even get started. I'm very wary of self-aggrandising titles and I prefer to think of myself as just having a strong passion and respect for many different forms of design: from fine art to fashion design and illustration, film to creative writing.

I have a particular appetite for anything that strikes me as unconventional, extra-ordinary, subversive, challenging, controversial, shocking. Just anything that's going to snap me - and you - out of this sad, facebook-induced state of inertness. I'd like to think that's where my art comes from. If it's shocking, fine; at least you reacted.

I'm here to document both my own artistic projects and projects emerging from the realms of art, fashion, film, and anything else that's going to make you stop and think. At times, I might talk about something that's really pissing me off (like Big Brother), but that's probably because it's already hatched as a subconscious stimulus for my next project, so hopefully it'll be worth putting up with.

Nice to meet you,

Jonny Burt.