And you thought fur coats were bad?

A shimmering taupe grey fish, most of its scaled exterior cloaked in mottled feathers, is proudly balanced on two equally ashen chicken legs. Encapsulated in the shadowy black and white print, this is another of Michiko Kon’s enthralling images. His mixed media compositions– consisting of ‘recycled’ materials such as bones, feathers, flowers and dead animal portions – formed his contribution to the ‘Imag(in)ing the West’ exhibition. Asia and the West fuse together in the graphic display to create an awkward mutation of exploitation and fashion. Shrimp studded high heels; fish tail embellished hats and clawed jackets form the shocking evidence of his message – how humans misuse and abuse animals in order to sustain their own requirements. A coat, adorned with limply strung chicken claws and rotted roses, is just another example of Kon’s sombre work. Crude but fascinating, Kon perplexes the viewer with a visually stimulating but morally bizarre piece – only strengthening the significance of animal mistreatment and commercialisation. Rather than confronting you with a bold and dynamic sculpture, Kon is slightly more reserved. His ‘still death’ images are ensnared within greyscale prints which gives them a fake mercantile quality, again supporting his rebellious design, but leaves me yearning something more rather than a flat image which has so much emotional potential as a sculpture. The photographs echo pieces by Robert Rauschenberg, such as ‘Monogram’ and ‘Canyon’ (below) though they lack the bold colourful element. However, Kon cannot even be faulted for this as perhaps if he attempted to force these stunningly gauche pieces into 3D he could risk trivialising his idea – which is already powerfully emblazoned in these dramatic ‘organic’ photos.

Eating Disorder Art

Maria Raquel Cochez' art is shocking, invasive and downright degrading in every way. But oh so perfectly. One of her installations involves the visitors to be weighed, labeled and fed then shamed which giant neon sighs proclaiming FAT IS SHAME. In a world where our exterior is our main credentials, Cochez shows with stunningly clear perception the obsession that we and her have. I interpreted this, personally, as eating disorder art.  The instillation was a cruel but meaningful piece, combining art with social experimentation to unpick taboos which can build up sufferers of eating disorders into the isolation that characterises the disease.

While Cochez' instillation is shrewd and original it could leave some doubting her prowess as an artist. Do not be fooled. Her paintings are just as stunning and engaging - covering focuses of food, from binging to children eating. They look like crude snap shops of a undercover mental health nurse, capturing a bulimic or binge eating in the midst of their shameful act. The cramped claustrophobic view point teamed with the washed out lighting which leaves the figure under scrutiny makes you feel like an awkward invader. The revealing quality of these paintings is what makes them so powerful and shocking. Even  the aversive eye contact which shows shame and the depth of the obsession adds to the invasive nature.

As subject matter, it is a touching and painful study of those who are consumed by their consumption but also is surprisingly realistic. The subtle and soft skin tones contrast perfectly with the harsh lighting but remains believable, as if viewing a hidden photo. The shadows, dark and offensive, are scarce and deep - setting the scene for a midnight binge.

I am very excited by this artist, check her out!!

Competition Update

After a painful ceremony which included my dad shuffling around, taking too many photos, commenting innapropriately on everything, being a general fool and people looking at my sculpture with question and fear in their eyes - i won!


Okay it was only my catagory of 15-16 but first place, i believe, is still first place. And the fifty pound check was quite endearing, which i have already spent on vintage jewellery to remind myself that if i am not lazy and foolish i can do okay.


More art shizzle soon!

Cow head in burger, standard.

This is the piece that i submitted to the Luton Art Competition and subsequently won an award - according to the brief email i was sent the other day. I entered it, actually, after being inspired by Bonita Norris, the youngest woman to climb Everest, who came to our school to give a talk. Not that the two are linked at all, i suddenly sped off determined to enter this piece which i created for my GCSE the previous year.  Hopefully i haven't won a 'Well Done For Entering I Guess But You're A Bit Shit But We'll Give You A Token For Woolworth's Which Shut Down Anyway prize. That would be awkward.

It's a cow head in a burger, which screams vegetarianism even though i would eat a cow raw happily. I actually made it with the premise of shocking, offending and humouring the audience (IE the art department). This little ceramic beauty also won Art Work of the Week - an extremely prestigious commendation in my school *raises eyebrows*.

Apologies for awful picture!

Seven Deadly Sins

Never really understood the 'Seven Deadly Sins' as i am sure they are just predicates for humanity, but Paul Cadmus reinvents them as the satanic horrific ventures they are. Take a look at this series if you can, seven stunning paintings which describe in explicit details these anti virtues. Uncomfortable, confrontational and fantastically displayed his 'Gluttony' painting illustrates how i feel right now. Or how i felt yesterday and the day before that and what seems like four years worth of days. But that's irrelevant.

And one to make your art teacher squirm (left) , mostly because it's a figure with vaginae for armpits and penises for fingers, this is his interpretation of 'Lust'. Which is another stunning and surreal piece, capturing perfectly the sense of the word with absolutely no holding back, not that there should be any degree of that.

Really hope i don't get attacked for copyright here, as all is too aforementioned!

Plato Poetry

yeah, that's how i spend my Friday nights. Bit of poetry from my Philosophy class explain Plato's theory of the forms, personally a stupid irrevelant theory which isn't even approachable in todays world. But then again, this is a couple of years on. And i'm a sixteen year old teenager, does my opinion even count?

Deep under the surface in a crevice void of light

Stood a band of prisoners, rigid bound and tight.

Ignorant to the rising moon and setting of the sun,

Where  intelligence and humanity had been undone

Behind the captives cast a wall which hid a line of carriers

Walking with their objects, a flame between these barriers

The light spat a projection of these items unto the rocky cave

Which ghostly pictures taught them how to speak, act, behave.

Thus they learnt the words of the shadows, full of disguise

Till the last of the band finally broke free from their ties.

 Forced into the brightness, wincing in pain, did he learn

The beauty, true depth of a world, beyond the fires burn.

Overwhelmed with the knowledge compared to what he had been

He felt compelled to return and explain what he had seen

But back in the darkness they just couldn’t comprehend

A place which above their shadows did life transcend.

So did he cry out as the lynchers began to swarm

‘Look beyond what is physical; this is the ‘form’.

What Pascale Petit gave me

Buy this book, read these poems. I would say 'no words can describe' but i managed to churn out a few.

Frida Kahlo is a national symbol of hope and passion in her home country of Mexico, celebrated for her creativity and conveyance of emotional turmoil.  Her life is comprehensively documented across the canvases she brushed with her artistic prowess. However, art, just like poetry, is majorly interpretational – the thoughts and feelings can vary from audience to reader. There will always be a degree on uncertainty tainting which ever critic, that art student, the opinionated conversationalist. You were not there. Not with Pascale Petit. She is there. Bold, unflinching and unbelievable daring, her poems dismembers and intrudes so fantastically into Kahlo’s legacy. ‘‘The Bus’’ is a quietly passionate poem exploring the event which ripped this young artists world and body apart, a pivotal day which will forever last as ‘the morning of my life’. Pascal presents the detached victim mourning for who she was in a disconnected and indifferent piece which captures it to a degree that you’re surprised Kahlo didn’t pen this herself. The unemotional statements ‘the bag explodes’, ‘sticks to my splattered skin’, are so poignant parts because they are not emotional. They skirt build up the picture of a woman struggling to come to terms with the accident – a classically unnerved and void victim.

The unbelievably perceptive nature runs into “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (II)”, this time revealing an explicitly convincing thought process of the artist. The disconnected and broken poem of Pascal opens up an otherwise cosseted piece. She delves in so deep to unravel the biographical elements of Kahlo and captures her voice perfectly (not that I know Kahlo, but this is how credible Petit is). Through her impassioned speech ‘before a streetcar rammed me’, teamed with the broken poetry, Pascale gives a haunting recollection into the troubled life of Kahlo. However, there is no sense of self pity or misery, just a burning ferocity that she was renowned for. Even just technically, the imagery is stunning ‘and lick my brush until it hovers like a humming bird at a flower’, painting a scene so powerful I can smell the turpentine.  

                        Petit is audacious, almost sacrilegious in her work to an astonishing degree. She gives a voice in a beautifully compelling way to an artist silenced; only speaking through her paint. Not only are they fantastic dissections of pieces of art, they add a dimension otherwise unknown into an unreachable woman. Though I wouldn’t want the sheer brilliance of Petit as a poet to be overshadowed by Kahlo, it is impossible not to as in these poems which are stunning tributes to imaginative poetry and Frida Kahlo herself. As a poet it is easy to dictate the though process of ones own mind but to dedicate yourself as diligently and realistically as Petit is truly incomparable.  I have honestly never been so inspired or excited by a poet, rushing to inform my teachers and the rest of the art block about this pure gem that can only be described as exceptional.

http://www.pascalepetit.co.uk/

Hoerengracht

Something i went to a while back, its since then evacuated the Tate but worth keeping an eye on these two - the crazy cats.

                       

As I ponder gently through the backstreets of 1980’s Amsterdam. Apartments, dimly lit by garish red light bulbs, line the pathways of the city, their curtains (which could easily match elderly décor all over the UK) closed to the voyeuristic crowds. Vandalised bikes, the now apparently disabled crown of its tourist world, rest up against rusting racks. Crisp leaves are scattered across the stained kerbs which lead onto… perfectly panelled mahogany flooring. A scantily clad woman, her legs suggestively opened, stares glassily out of her room, almost making eye contact with the blond haired … gallery assistant. I have not taken a wrong turn on an ill-fated school exchange but merely stepped into the latest free exhibition at the National Gallery. Ed and Nancy Kienholz recently installed creation, is hailed the Hoerengracht and is another addition to overseas work exploring the sex trade, much like Shirin Fakrim work, though lacking the sympathetic and humorous edge.  If you perchance visit this capitals cultural jewel you will be surprised to wander, perhaps slightly jaded and dumbfounded from the previous room stocked full of Italian masters, into a dark room. If you subtract the overprotective gallery staff and the perturbed young children whose parents are clearly regretting not reading into it more, this is a fresh and dramatic projection of a well known but murky area of Amsterdam’s heritage. Sensory play is clearly on the Kienholz’ joined mind - the exhibition reeks of a pungent scent which transports me back to the manufactured stench of the London Dungeons. They even go as far as to fill room with the invading tunes of club music, which the gallery attempts to stifle with its unnatural acoustics. This installation, though awkwardly welcomed like your purposely avoided in-laws, achieves the rare feat of actually completely absorbing the audience. Though the middle age couple, after uneasily surveying chain smoking prostitutes, hurry out of the doors only minutes after entering, they still prove my point. Ed and Nancy achieve the award lusted after by all artists – affecting the viewers. Whether positive or negative, disgusted or enthralled, the Hoerengracht is a bold and challenging piece which successfully conveys the dramatisation of the red light district. And though you may not achieve the comfortable stance of the mannequins entombed in there, you will leave it without the flight fare but with all the knowledge an actual trip to this area could have given you.