The art of body painting

The human body has been a realm of fascination for many artists throughout time. If the renaissance artists paid homage to the naked body in their sculptures and paints, the modern artists have gone one step further and made human body itself into a canvas.


Emma Hack is a body illustrator that takes the body art form to another level in her wallpaper collection. Her collection presents beautifully painted female forms that blend perfectly with the wallpaper patterns bringing her works of art to life. 

Hack's 20 years of body painting body painting started over 20 years ago when she was practicing as a hairstylist, painted children's faces or worked as make-up artist in Australian city Adelaide. Although her vision was still in it's infancy she began to see it gradually coming to life through face-paintings and high fashion make-up. 

In 1999, Emma Hack revealed her vision to the world by introducing a new form of live art, a highly stylized version of body painting combined with fine painting which brought her instant acclaim in the world of art.

Trendhunter magazine writes about Emma: ‘Artist Emma Hack, who lives in Australia, creates really gorgeous designs utilizing female models that she successfully blends in with their surroundings. The effect is beautifully crisp, vibrant, living three dimensional wallpaper.’ 



Visit Emma's website to purchase prints or to see her upcoming exhibitions and more of her body painting and photography artworks: www.emmahackartist.com

The Conversation Piece: Scenes of Fashionable Life

A fine selection of art pieces that are part of the Royal Collection is on display at the Queen's Gallery at the Buckingham Palace in London.

The exhibition has its roots in the 17th century Dutch paintings portraying high society sitters in informal situations giving a fascinating insight into the fashion, interiors and manners of the age. The English representatives of this genre include outstanding paintings by Pieter de Hooch and Godfried Schalcken with William Hogarth and George Stubbs in the 18th century and Sir Edwin Landseer in the 19th century.

The greatest exponent of the Conversation Piece, Johan Zoffany is represented by a remarkable series of works produced by the artist for his royal patron George III. 

Until 14 February 2010.

Food art

Food as an art medium is versatile and appeals to everybody. Here is the advert for a delicious Skoda Fabia, where all car parts are made of cake, jelly, cake icing or other cooking ingredients.

And for a bit of fun, we praise Mark Northeast, a stay at home dad who uses his illustrator skills to create funky looking sandwiches to encourage children to eat a healthy and nutritious lunch.

Images courtesy of Funky Lunch

Banksy: art or vandalism

Banksy is a fictitious name used by the internationally acclaimed British graffiti artist. Although much uncertainty remains about his biographical and personal details, Banksy is believe to be a native of Yate, South Gloucestershire near Bristol. According to Tristan Manco, Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. 

The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s." (Tristan Manco, Stencil Graffiti, London: Thames & Hudson, 2002, p.74) It is believed that Banksy started his graffiti career as most do, with 'tagging' which constitutes in a person having their own signature which they write in any available public space. 

He later became part of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ) meaning that a group of graffiti artists get together and all write the same 'tag', in this case the 'tags' chosen were:Kato and Tes''. 

However Banksy only became well known after he employed a technique of stenciling within his graffiti street art. He claims he made the decision of using sencils whilst hiding from the police under a train: 'As I lay here listening to the cops...I realized I had to cut my painting time in half or give up altogether. I was staring straight up at the stenciled plate on the bottom of a fuel tank when I realized I could just copy that style and make each letter three feet high' (Banksy: Wall and Piece).  

After having this epiphany it is clear that Banksy studied the work of previous stencil artists, in particular the work of Blek Le Rat was a major influence on his art.  

Banksy's street art is often laced with satire on topics such as politics, culture and ethics. One Nation Under CCTV is taken from the communist slogan: One Nation Under Communism, this phrase can be found in George Orwell's 1984 novel and here Banksy outlines that the power of CCTV can be as powerful and as restraining as Communism was, furthermore it allows us little freedom as everything is watched by those in authority. 
The play on words and simple images in Banksy's street art carry very powerful political messages.

Most of street work found on walls or billboards in cities around the world continues to be considered graffiti and therefore a form of public vandalism so the artist remains anonymous and continues to use the pseudonym 'Banksy'. He can be anybody living anywhere, so next time a hooded guy with spray marks on his jeans is sitting next to you on the tube or the bus ...you never know eh?

The debate still continues whether these pieces are artwork or vandalism, but I wonder if the only reason why Banksy's work is considered vandalism is because of the location where he choose to present his art. Yet if his art was taken out of the context in which he has place it, would it have as much meaning and powerful message as it does?

But it seems that Banksy will appear on a feature lenght film at the Sundance film festival this Sunday.


(images from www.banksy.co.uk)

Blue Paintings by Damien Hirst

Two galleries at the Wallace Collection in London have been transformed by 25 new paintings by Damien Hirst, including two triptychs, showing in the UK for the first time. 

The paintings have been created between 2006 and 2008 and depict a bold new direction in the artist's  work and as Damien describes, are 'deeply connected to the past'. Hirst presents his work in a classical environment, in the context of Old Masters of the great European tradition engaging in a dramatic visual dialogue with the rest of art displayed in the adjacent beautiful rooms.

The effect is dramatic. The walls are lined with blue silk wallpaper and present 25 paintings in dark and dense blue tones where white skulls loom. Hirst offers a pictorial journey that reminds of time and death, the revolution, and the contrast between dark and light, a theme familiar to his style.

Until 24 January 2010
Admission: Free

Your digital work on the London Underground

Create your own original artwork using an open source digital identity for the V&A's new Decode: Digital Design Sensations exhibition.

Karsten Schmidt created a digital identity for the Decode exhibition using open source code. You don't need to be an expert codr to recode Karsten's work and create your own original artwork, then submit it to the V&A experts for a chance to be included in their digital art gallery or to appear on London Underground digital screen promoting Decode: Digital Design Sensations exhibition.

At the V& A in London until 11 April 2010
Admission: £5

V&A Decode generative identity from postspectacular on Vimeo.

Weird and wonderful digital artistry

Those amazing photos are digitally remastered by Erik Johansson, a Swedish artist that spends hours tinkering with photos he takes himself  to create beautiful digital art. The detail in his images is perfect making them look real yet impossible. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turner & The Masters

Masterpieces by Canaletto, Rubens, Rembrandt and Titian are shown next to some of JMW Turner's most dramatic paintings in an attempt to show Turner's efforts to prove that he was just as good, if not better than the masters he admired.

This is the first time when we could see works of art displayed together in a way that allows comparison between Turner's efforts to challenge and become an equal to art work produced by his contemporaries or the old masters.  Many paintings are reunited in this exhibition for the first time in hundreds of years.

At Tate Britain until 31 January 2010.

Ice sculptures

The London Ice Sculpting Festival is taking place on 15 and 16 January this year in the centre of Canary Warf, next to the ice rink in Canada Square Park. The festival's theme this year is 'Cool Trading'.

Things to see and do

• admire beautiful works of ice art carved in 2 metre blocks of ice by 5 teams of ice sculptors from around the world;
• have a go at sculpting your own ice masterpiece by joining a free Master Class;
  
• celebrate with the winning team at 3pm on Saturday 16 January;
• enjoy a nice day out on the ice rink nearby or just admire the beautiful surroundings with a warm cuppa or over a nice meal at one of the cozy eating and drinking places nearby.
  

Entry
The London Ice Sculpting Festival is FREE for everyone to attend.