Victorian Meets Peep Show, The Collages of Vahge

New York based artist Vahge creates wondrous collages, most with more than a touch of Victoriana-meets-modern-girl. Other influences invade with hints of girly magazines, steampunk, anthropomorphic critters, fashion hazards  and skeletal elements. They almost feel like historical documents,  tattered and worn snapshot tapestries. With delicate yet strong imagery, they are wise and sullen ladies who dare. Her work is all cut and paste, old style. Unlike most newer digital works, the tactile collage feel survives, popping the edges through-out her imagery.

“Vahge celebrates oddity with elegance.”

Some images cropped to show detail.

Vahge's website - LINK

Originally published in Eclectix, May 2011 with the "Paper & Art" Issue, Volume 7

New Art: JennyBird Alcantara's Glass House Girls

Had to share this friggin' utterly fantastic new piece by JennyBird Alcantara. It is for the upcoming La Luz de Jesus Gallery, 25 year anniversary show in Oct. and Nov., 2011. They will be creating a book of all the work for this extraordinary show and Eclectix thinks this should be the cover! What do you think?

It is oil on wood and titled 'Glass House Girls Make Good Warriors" The unframed size is 15"x23" Please contact the gallery if you are interested in this work.

http://www.laluzdejesus.com/

New Works by Jennybird Alcantara

Just received these wonderful new images from the ever fabulous Jennybird Alcantara. Hope you enjoy, I bloody well do! She has some new shows coming up so check her site to see if you can make them.
LINK

Lori Nix and Her Little Places

Stumbled upon these great dioramas by Lori.

 "Abandoned buildings in an apocalyptic world"... 

From CoolHunting - She "photographs epic scenes of destruction and grandeur, natural wonders and glittering metropolises, magnificent architecture and heroic landscapes that all have one thing in common—they're all fake. Lori gives us a tour behind the artifice, showing us how she meticulously crafts the miniature sets using found objects and model-making materials."

Her site is here.

Five Stars For Femke! "The Bone Shaped Bone" Exhibit

Made it up to Seattle and was so stoked to be able to go to the opening reception of Femke Hiemstra's new body of work. Rarely do I see a solo exhibit where every single piece is of top notch caliber. 

Her superlative works, currently on view at Roq La Rue in Seattle, fall into every category of excellence possible. The vision, creativity, technique, imagination, originality and presentation - all exceeded expectations and then some. They are smallish, beautifully solid works; so fine was the detail and shading it looked as if it had been painted with a single bristle. In fact,  I can't believe she's not blind. Some were painted directly on vintage book covers or game boxes and some were black and white graphite renderings on paper. The imagery is fairy tale in feel, lots of animal characters and fantasy scenarios. Typographic embellishments  highlighted a few of the pieces - graceful additions of vintage lettering styles, they wove in and out of the imagery, as only a keen eye for design can accomplish.

Roq Le Rue interior

It was rewarding to finally visit Roq Le Rue gallery as it has been on my hit list for way too many years. They have had incredible shows over the years that fill the newbrow art niche for Seattle. A nice space with cool tunes (playing Bowie as I walked in...) and a wide open feel, one couldn't have asked for a better exhibit to see than Femke's "The Bone Shaped Bone". If you live in Seattle or plan on being near there, make sure to put this on your "must do" list! The show is up thru Dec. 4th, 2010.

The beautiful and friendly Femke Hiemstra, love her!

If the images weren't enough to satisfy your soul, here's some more words - a nice take on Femke's works from the gallery site:
Femke Hiemstra’s meticulously tight, jewel like mixed media paintings and exquisitely rendered black and white drawings are homes to a dark fairytale land where inanimate objects come to life and frolic with animal neighbors. Lollipops become ship captains, strawberries become giant wrestlers, and vegetables become Halloween gods with lantern eyes. Femke occasionally uses typography in her work, using words from various languages and letters in her paintings to further enhance the narrative while still retaining a playful sense of mystery, or as a visual device to frame in the scenery, as if you were looking at her world through a secret window. She also uses found objects to paint on, such as boxes and wrappers, to create imaginary products with magical properties. In this series she has several paintings on vintage book covers, which are then tantalizingly sealed up in a frame, leaving the viewer to speculate on the full story.

Links: Roq Le Rue, Femke's site

Eclectix Artist Interview: Michelle Waters

A new interview with fantastic local artist, Michelle Waters...

Can you tell us where you were born and a little history about your childhood? 

Born and raised into an artistic family in the San Fernando Valley. I was always restless there and knew that I’d leave when I got old enough because we’d go on vacations to beautiful places where there was more nature. My grandparents where social justice activists, also my grandfather was a painter... to read more go here.

New Ryden Art: "Awakening The Moon"

A new Mark Ryden painting to start your evening off right. 

“Awakening the Moon” will be at the Frieze Art Fair in London, Oct 14th through Oct 17th, in the Paul Kasmin Gallery booth. Glad to see Mark back into his luscious iconography, a beautifully composed and peaceful piece.

A New Eclectix Interview With Isabel Samaras

"It all kinda whirls together - old movies, a pretty broad spectrum of art, music music music, all the sci-fi books I tore through as a kid, Ultraman and all kinds of Kaiju, fairy tales and fables, the absurdist humor of Monty Python, monsters of every ilk, and very most especially all the many permutations of love: unrequited, blazing out of control, thwarted, tender, forbidden, maternal, and inter-species. Often a painting will..." 

For a little life story, artist tricks and some gospel according to Isabel -

Direct link to interview page

Dean Fleming's Mouth Watering Wanderlust

Dean Fleming's newest piece is just so friggin' gorgeous, I couldn't wait to share it in a future Eclectix issue. So here she is, today, in all her glory, "Wanderlust".

Past posts: Interview with Dean - LINK

"As They See It" Exhibit, Our Favorite Picks, 941 Gallery

Posted here are some faves from the gallery's second and current show, As They See It, which opened Saturday night. Shooting Gallery and White Walls owner- Justin, just opened 941 in the Tenderloin. You enter thru a long narrow hall, past the bathroom and bundled art to a nice large and open space. Many of the pieces were familiar from previous exhibits. 

I really loved the 3 bunny/kangaroo pieces floating in their urban environs by the pretty Jessica Hess, not to mention the fantastic little neckpiece she created out of 3 vintage ties.

She graciously let me check out  the stitch work on the underside and wow, this was an art piece by itself!  

Isabel Samaras has a hilarious new painting of a Victorian woman getting serviced under her ballgown.

Scott Hove's new chandalier "cake" piece dominated the huge space with his usual sweet ferocity.

Akira Beard had a nice wall full of his wonderful mixed media portraits, some of the best stuff there. 


And here are a few other wonderful pieces... 

The artists contributing were Kevin Cyr, Jessica Hess, Isabel Samaras, Shawn Barber, Aaron Nagel, Eric White, Robert Burden, Coro, Dave Schubert, Jonathan Darby, Morgan Slade, Pedro Matos, Akira Beard, Danny Heller, Michael Forbes, Adam Caldwell, Scott Hove, and Derek Weisber.


Gallery Link

Laurie Hassold's "Bone Hut" Art

Just posted a question and answer with wonder woman Laurie on her newest art for the upcoming Art Shack show in Laguna. She also supplied some great in-progress shots of the bony abode.

For it all go here.

Interview With Artist John Howard

Just posted a new interview with local artist John Howard. He shares some wonderful thoughts on life and his art here.

Interview With Artist Dean Fleming

To read the latest Eclectix artist interview with Dean and view a gallery of his surreal art click here.

San Francisco Street Art Attack in the Mission

A very cool, block-long wall of urban art, outside of CELLspace in San Francisco. To see all the images click here.

"For The Birds" Art Exhibit, Thru May, EclectixOnline Volume 2

EclectixOnline features art exhibits, news, events calendar, blogs, art reviews, artist interviews, book and music links... This issue: A local look at a Mona Lisa out of jellybeans by Kristen Cumings, an interview with artist Dean Fleming, a feature on Nathan Ota's bird art, some birdy factoids and selected cultural tidbits.
"For The Birds"- A Web Only Art Exhibit - A group exhibition featuring bird themed and related art, some new, some not- but all are finely feathered pieces. For your spring inspiration... newbrow style.
The Artists: Chris Buzelli, Caia Koopman, Jim Mullan, Katie McCann, Rhett Podersoo, Isabel Samaras, John Howard, Amy Kollar Anderson, Derek McKindles, Ryan McJunkin, Nathan Ota, Christopher Register, Edith Lebeau, Audrey Canales, Ernst Haeckel, Amanda Lockwood, Jason Limon, Patrushka, Anne Faith Nicholls, Anthony Pontius, Dan Quintana,Leontine May Greenberg, Genevive Zacconi, Amber Alexander, Esao, Elizabeth Caffey, Michelle Waters, Betsy Barnum, Colette Calascione, Lisel Ashlock, Kyme Chan, Scott Musgrove, Laura Cesari,Caryn Drexl, Kmndz, Peter Tonningsen and more...

To view: http://www.eclectix.com

Another Killer Exhibit Announcement, Art by Ray Caesar

After blogging the Mark Ryden exhibit card, I decided this card had to be shared as well. The image is by one of my favorite newbrow artists out there - the maestro Ray Caesar. Don't you just love this swanky, tentacled lady? It is for the upcoming exhibit "Art From The New World", in Bristol, England.
This show is jam packed with greats. For more of Ray's other worldly art, click here.

Gettin' Real and HyperReal at the San Jose Museum of Art

Just can't say enough good stuff about the consistently solid shows this museum produces. They put all the other "contemporary" museums in the Bay Area to shame. Currently up is the "Real and HyperReal" show with illusionist artists - Sandow Birk, Llyn Foulkes, Tino Rodriguez, and Paul Wonner. These works were fantastical, grand and surreal. I especially liked the "Third Eye", an old red door with a peephole thru which you could view a wonderful diorama of a room. Then there was the sadly-beautiful, trashed huge landscape of discarded canvases which touched the artist in me.

Next, a wall sized, beautifully sexy nude black man sitting stiffly on a white horse. And a birds eye view of a retro LA scene (By James Doolin) that had me transfixed by the minute details and incredible perspective. 

Hyperreality exists where the distinction between real and imaginary implodes and neither subject can be quantified or defined as "real," because the anchor, or signifier, can no longer be identified.

There are also two non- painting, installations by Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin, that were not exactly my cup of tea, but they may be yours. This show is definitely one to see and you can check out the always great, Wayne Thiebaud exhibit as well. 
http://www.sjmusart.org/content/real-and-hyperreal