Vya Art

This was a real late entry to the blog today. Vya literally just followed me on twitter - I think today actually. I looked across his images and they really appealed to me so I'm just going to do a 'stop press' moment and get him (him?) in here.

What attracted me to this work is the sense of energy and movement. There is a real diversity of subject matter - but it all carries vitality, energy and movement.

I'd like to start with his (again could be a her) nude portraits of women. These images are gorgeous:

These are hugely uninhibited, sexy images of a natural female form. They are wonderfully impressionistic and the use of light and dark shades is of paramount importance. The images are both soft and elegant, they are enticing and relaxed and free. I think they're brilliant.

In addition the artist has created a range of portraits of famous and iconic figures. Here are a few examples:

Jim Morrison (top) Steven Tyler (middle) and an amazing representation of Jimi Hendrix which just captures the enigmatic essence and the spirit of the musician completely. It's not just about musicians either - with portraits on show including Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn.

Finally, I'd like to draw attention to the animals that this artist has done:

I find the animals very endearing. The lion is imperious and there is a shimmering quality of red heat about him. The two dogs - the first a labrador, the second a spaniel - both have that 'man's best friend' quality, and a soft affectionate appearance. If I had a pet that I wanted to be captured in portrait this is exactly how I would want it.

Vya is very well established on twitter - @art_vya - but also sells material through Etsy:

Vya on Etsy

with over 180 different pictures and sculptures on show there.

I haven't communicated directly with this artist but it would appear that Vya is based in Bangkok. I'd encourage you to follow and enjoy this artist.

Elena Yani

This week I wanted to look at the art of Elena Yani, who is an amazing painter based in the Ukraine. She works in oils on canvass and her work ranges in mood and feeling from the Dutch Masters (see her sunflowers!) to something far more contemporary.

I want to start with the work that really caught my attention intially. This is amazing quality with such incredible depth, detail and texture. In this first piece I am particularly caught by the reflections in the silverware, and the peel of the fruit. The cloth texture is also quite remarkable.

The two following paintings of sunflowers are beautiful. There is just a fantastic composition on display here - warmth and abundance - a real creation of mood and feeling.

 

I think I'm drawn more to the darkness of the second painting - but that's simply a personal preference because the quality of both is amazing.

I think it's very usual to see a modern artist painting in this style with such authenticity. It doesn't feel assumed or recreated at all. It is utterly convincing.

In addition to this style Elena also paints with a very modern contemporary perspective that is quite different again:

 Now - as a matter of personal taste I'm less drawn to these later three images (later in this blog that is - I don't know how they appear on Elena's personal timeline) - but regardless I have to marvel at the technique nonethelesss.

In buying mode I would purchase the second of the sunflower works in a heartbeat - but look at the work on the sheer fabric of the lady in the middle image! The sensuality of the female form is so difficult to recreate and yet it seems elegant and perfectly portrayed there.

I also think there is an fabulous show of ability in the snow scene too. Working with white (or rather tricking the mind into seeing such white by using such blues and greys and greens) is a huge challenge. Look at the water work in that piece and you have to marvel at the heavy icy quality and the reflective properties that are imbued.

Finally I want to turn to Elena's pencil drawings. Here we have three examples where she has been sketching architechture:

Elena Yani is an artist from the Ukraine, she sells her work privately. Her sunflowers on canvass sold for $400.

At this time Elena doesn't have a website but can be found on twitter where she has 2,400 followers @Elena_yani:

Speaking to Elena privately she told me that trained formally for seven years in art college because she always aspired to be an artist. She models herself on the Dutch style of realism.

Elena is planning to setup a website so that she can sell more of her work internationally.

I'm very grateful to Elena for speaking to me today and allowing me to share some of her pieces.

 

 

Bits that I've been drawing...

I changed my digital art package last week and ditched the (what I now realise to be) Paint X package in favour of a version of Sketchbook.

I've found this software to be much much better to work with.

I've been mainly experimenting with the new software this week.

This is a picture of David Bowie that I'm working on at the moment.

I did this picture of Jimi Hendrix - a real hero of mine - and I was actually quite happy with how it came over in the end.

I did this cartoon mummy as a halloween theme (I actually entered it into a competition to try and win some new digital art kit!)

This is Malcolm X and the more I look at it the less I like it actually! When I first finished it I was quite happy, but I'm not now!

Concept Piece: Apocalypse How?

So I said, about a couple of week ago that I was trying to produce a concept piece. Something creative and something that makes a statement. I finally, kind of, finished it. So here it is. It's called 'Apocalypse How?':

Ok. I don't know whether I should explain this or not?

There's a lot going on in this picture.

It's a bleak kind of industrial environment that is covered in three types of smoke. Pollution, fire and war. There's no grass - except up on the hill - and that's where a ruling elite sit, drinking champagne and looking down on the chaos with immunity.

You've got very recognisable figures in here.

The centre of the picture is dominated by that one eyed Minion character that is like crashing through the housing. This is just an idea of commercialism steam rollering society. It's a double image though because it's wearing that purple UKIP rosette, which is supposed to reflect satirically on that political party and the cult like mindless appeal of it's leader, and the minion like relationship he has with his following.

To the back and the left of the picture is just row after row of terrace housing. The kind of housing I was born in and the kind of housing I live in now. I wanted it to look a bit Lowry, but I wanted the sky to look Van Gogh. I think that's a summary of working class life. We live in a downbeat Lowry environment under a beautiful Van Gogh sky.

The carpark is being stalked by this 'war of the worlds' style walker which is firing it's laser beam down on something which has caused a fire.

I wanted this to be an image for the relentless narrative of perpetual war between the different regions of the planet - and the idea of ever lasting suspicion and paranoia and hoax and dishonesty that seems to exist around it all the time. It's machine like.

On the hill we have a political satire a person that looks an awful lot like David Cameron sits sipping champagne with a girl friend with distinctive red hair. Beside the man is an Eton school tie, upon which everything he has ever achieved rests. We have champagne, strawberries and a pigs head on a plate. There is a big lump of cash and a picture of the missing teenager Milly Dowler, who's phone was hacked by News International.

Behind these characters are three faces stalking the Cameron look alike - who themselves look an awful lot like Boris Johnson, George Osborne and Theresa May.

There is a partially obscured 'Tesco' sign which ties into the urban theme - as it seems all of our urban environments must be dominated by a Tesco. This also plays into the reference to Banksy, which is shrouded by the smoke from the flames of the fire.

You can see a silhouete spraying the wall with a Banksy. The artists is deliberately shrouded in smoke and shadows. The art work is a firefighter who is spraying the fire with flowers in an ineffectual gesture.

This is another two fold image here.

On one hand it's a gesture towards the ever thinning ranks of the fire service - who work hard to maintain the appearance of reassurance - the image of a fire service, but practically are less effective now than ever.

On the other hand, it's a gesture towards street art in this miserable urban setting - it's the only source of art or enlightment or free speech or beauty in the piece.

The road going down the hill has 'one way' written on it as a reference to austerity economics and the road leads all the way down hill to the workhouse. The workhouse has a neon sign and the door is open a jar. The only place in town with a light on.

Smoke pours over the rest of the house as our eyes move right.

An advertisement peeling away and looking seedy read 'The Sun'. This is a further wave in the direction of News International. A recreation of 'The Scream' is dressed in a police uniform, not that any of the political lookalikes on the hill can hear it.

Finally we have a mushroom cloud coming up from between the terrace rows.

This is another dual image.

First I wanted to reference the cost of a nuclear deterrant - that maintaining Trident is actually costing the lives of ordinary people in our country through poverty, on the possibility that it might save more lives in preventing a nuclear war that would inevitably kill all of us.

Of course, if we actually need Trident, it didn't work as a deterrant at all, all we'll all be dead anyway. So it's futile.

As the mushroom cloud plumes into the sky it forms the faces of Janner, Heath, Saville and Mountbatten - the question that hypothetically could be a the nuclear bomb that would destroy the fabric of the political elite.

But does it work? Do feel free to tell me that it doesn't, by all means.

 

Banksy

I've already written a piece on Street Art, but I thought I'd do a piece on Banksy. This might not be anything new, but these are my views, and I hope it provokes some discussion.

Banksy is known to almost everyone now. What I'm going to suggest is that Banksy's art isn't in the art itself, but the presentation and his ability to draw and keep a crowd. He is an immaculate showman - more than an artist - but there is an artistic statement in what he does that makes him difficult to dismiss.

Above all, I do enjoy Banksy, and I do enjoy how he brings art to ordinary people, and how that gets up the noses of the art snobs who want to keep it as an elite enjoyment for a certain section of society. He literally tears it out of their hands and give is out to people - he incites the masses to think - he breaks down boundaries.

His presentation is not amazing. I can't tell you if Banksy can actually draw or paint or do any of the things that a typical artists is supposed to be able to do. His enigmatic identity - that he keeps deliberately shrouded - plays into this.

His early contemporaries of the street art scene in London say that he wasn't adept at free hand art. King Robbo - who passed away in 2014 - went on camera to accuse Banksy (perhaps somewhat enviously) of being false because he couldn't produce free hand quality street art.

The concept is simple - in urban grafitti, you're leaving your mark, but you're avoiding the law. So you have to move quickly. You have to produce art and move on. So it is said that Banksy resorted to using stencils - very quick - very consistent - very easy to use.

Everyone now knows and recognises that oh so fashionable stencil style that is Banksy. It's a big part of his brand. 'Back in the day' it was thought to be a cringeworthy admission 'I don't have ability'.

Now - the truth is that Banksy is not about the quality of the image. It never has been. You see something that is instantly recognisable, you can consume a Banksy in about five second - he makes his point, and bang! That's it. It's the idea - often built around a pun - often making a thematic reference about social change. You can consume them like sweets, one after another.

'The Mild Mild West' was a very early Banksy piece in Bristol with a Teddy Bear throwing a molotov at three police officers behind shields.

'I don't want coins, I want change' is written on a board held by a homeless person.

Sometimes his imagery is more subversive - three children saluting a Tesco carrier bag as a flag run up a pole is one example.

So it's like a dark satire. A bleak joke. Gallows humour. Commercially it is very appealing and certainly of it's time. In these years of austerity and recession and bitterness, Banksy really seems to give people a sense of catharsis. It's an outlet. It's seeing something prominent that people can relate to. Perhaps the pressure value of Banksy art is what stops people getting really angry about the political climate? Can I attribute that much to him?

So the continuous stream of these fast images - 'I don't believe in global warming' [half submerged in a canal] - at once present a rebellious 'we are legion' 'anonymous' quality. As I've already said, the sentiments are usually anti-establishment, anti-capitalist, pro-environmental, and support ideas of freedom of speech. The fact that Banksy guards his identity closely - doesn't operate in social media - is deliberately difficult to contact also supports all of this.

Ironically though - this is big business. It's huge business. Stencil pieces that have been validated by Banksy as his go for thousands - hundreds of thousands of pounds. This creates a strange new phenomenon - Banksy as 'robin hood'. He can turn up, spray a wall, make someone's house or building worth a whole lot more.

Banksy Saves Bristol Boys Club 

When he took his residency in New York he actually had an employee pose as a street vendor selling Banksy 'copies'. Few sold and many people walked on by. Those who bought the $40 prints woke up the following day to learn that they now had a $200,000 original to sell.

The commercialisation of Banksy has taken him into a new dimension. People flock to him - but do they flock to him because of their love of art?

To me Banksy is like a casino high roller. He has a maverick style - 'catch me if you can' personality. If you've ever been in a casino you will know the excitement that exists when some unknown guy is on a winning streak and there is suddenly a lot of money on the table. The crowd that builds around that person. It compels them to keep playing. There is a magnetic dynamic going on. It has to be said, some people just want to be there in case that high roller walks away, and maybe - just maybe - he'll toss them a chip.

The famous Manchester United footballer Eric Cantona once spoke about seaguls following the trawler because they think they will get sardines.

Banksy has a huge amount of this going on. Is the excitement about his art? Or is it now about the money? Ironically this anti-capitalist street artists, this wanted man, this outsider - is to some extent like the bankers in the city, who buy and sell pieces of paper that have perceived value, until those values come crashing down.

This irony is only reinforced by the merchandising - the coffee table books, the calendars, the coasters. While Banksy throws out the image of 'it's not about the money' - there are people that work for Banksy to make him wealthy.

Buy Banksy merchandise? 

Now don't get me wrong - I don't think that an artist has to be poor to retain his integrity - but if his specific 'thing' is built on an anti-capitalist sentiment there is a certain irony. He is living the dream of most hard nosed capitalists.

Putting this to one side, I thought Dismaland was incredible. He captured so much - and he does capture so much, with such efficiency. The 'I'm an imbecile' balloons being a perfect example. The distorted image of the Little Mermaid sitting above the polluted lake is another.

The documentary 'Banksy Does New York' is well worth watching - although it is far from objective and very much caught up in the somewhat over excited Banksy hype. What really stands out from it to me is how the New York art dealers and critics want to dismiss Banksy. One particularly snooty figure talks about Banksy being stupid and clumsy, and really looks down his nose. There is a full on refusal to accept this as art. It's just urban graffiti.  

 

Watching the documentary that was aired on UK Channel Four - King Robbo v Banksy (Graffiti Wars) (2011) there is a lot thrown at Banksy. It is equally without balance. One of the things that really stands out here is that King Robbo was 'legitimate' (because, for one he could spray free hand, and for two he didn't go 'commercial') while Banksy is portrayed as a cynical, talentless, commercialist.

This is classic neither fish nor fowl territory. So where does Banksy actually sit - is it actually art?

Personally - I think Banksy is an artist, a great artist of our age. His social commentary is not so much in his art (although it's clearly there too), but in what he does with his art and how he uses his art to affect social behaviour. The fact that he can get New Yorkers to scuttle around the city looking for his work is, in itself, an art form. He can get an art snob to drive into a dangerous New York neighbourhood where they wouldn't dream of going - that's special. He can get armed gangs to turn up and try to lift an installation - that in itself (even if it is financially motivated) a statement about the real validity of art. He is reaching people and literally moving them. I'm all for art that moves ordinary people.

A 'Banksy' immitation is not a difficult thing to attempt - take a simple image and create a stencil. Set it in an urban environment, brick wall, blank canvass. Build it around a pun, give it a slightly witty edge. Weave it into the sentiment of anti-establishment, anti-austerity, underclass morality, and glaze it with an ironic over layer of ironic establishment imagery (like a McDonalds logo or Disney or something). These are basic ingredients. This is not art that you look at and wonder 'how did he do that?'.

But now get the world to go nuts over it. That - that is art. 

  

Jaimy Mokos

I encountered the forum of Niume through twitter (you can see my page on Niume here). Joining this group has been wonderful for me because i have met so many artists and the encouragement and positivity there is brilliant.

There is also some amazing work on display. Which is how I encountered the work of Jaimy Mokos.

It seems that this is the week for hyper vivid imagery - and Jaimy delivers it with dazzling and spectacular creativity.

Like me Jaimy works with digital imagery - not manipulation but painting and drawing in an electronic format (I think that's where the resemblance ends). It's difficult to fathom how she does this though. It's next level stuff (in fact - she went to the next level, got bored and moved on again).

What I've done here is take one of her amazing images - which is a beautiful woman enveloped in flames - but I've also offered you a close up on the flames which shows you just exactly how sharp these pictures are.

They are seriously big too. Not unlikely to encounter 3000 x 5000 pixels, so you can really lose yourself in them.

Here I was absolutely captivated by how the colours wash into each other without ever losing any energy or dissolving. They also appear to give structure and form without hard edges (I find that quality hard to describe) - look at the image below, which is a close up on that shoulder. I feel like I could dip my hand in that image and it would be like a pool of colour.

The hand and face are just hyper realistic and the cheek bone and the light on the face have photo realistic qualities. This is very exciting stuff.

There is more surrealism on display here. There is an underwater and outer space feeling that is totally metaphysical. The goggles gives so many suggestions and also throw the audience into what might be behind them.

Goodness me.

Jaimy Mokos can be found on Twitter, Facebook and on Niume.

Her website is here.

Jeroen van Neijhof

Every now and then on Twitter I contacted by someone who stops me in my tracks. Jeroen van Neijhof followed me mid week and I clicked on his images and found them difficult to believe to be perfectly honest.

Jeroen works in a mixture of formats - with paper (which he cuts and folds and paints into incredibly life like forms) - check out the owl I have taken as an example. He also works with airbrushing in a more traditional 'painters' style of drawing and painting, but with incredible detail and life like accuracy.

I have chosen to show his animals particularly because I have never seen fur recreated in the same outstanding vivid quality.

Jeroen also delivers the most intense eyes - I can't imagine how anyone could capture an eye with the same glassy organic quality. I felt like it was time to just admit defeat on the question of realism when I saw these eyes. I can't even feel jealous becaus they seem so impossibly good.
 

Here is another wonderful quality of this artist. I have found him to be enormously supportive and communicative. It's like it's not really enough for him to be possessed of this joyous talent - he wants everyone else to open themselves up to the possibility that, if you challenge yourself, you might be able to do this too.

When I asked him particularly about his rendering of fur and hair he was very quick to respond with pointers and resources to help me understand what he was doing.

Simply looking through his timeline of images you can easily find instruction (as these images show) on what he does. It's like seeing an amazing magician who then shows you the illusion afterwards.

Jeroen van Neijhof is clearly the real thing. He has dedicated himself to his art and his friendly unpretentious approach is enormously endearing. It's an unusual combination.

He is not a fence sitter either and he is quite outspoken on his twitter feed on the subject of the Damien Hirst, Tracy Emin, money for old rope school of pretentiousness. I think this is wonderful - you don't have to agree with his opinion to simply understand that to know where you stand is a value in itself.

You can visit Jeroen's website here and I was shocked by how affordable his work is to commission.