CRAIG MCDEAN

Pictures of Kate Moss shot by Craig McDean for Vogue Uk of March 2008.

"Craig McDean is a photographer and filmmaker who is renowned for his striking fashion imagery and portraiture. Having discovered photography by taking pictures of his rocker friends in the North of England, McDean moved to London, where he assisted before striking out on his own with assignments for i-D and The Face. In 1999, McDean made his highly anticipated publishing debut with 'I Love Fast Cars', his homage to the world of drag racing and the community who love it. In 2004, his second book, Lifescapes, was published by Steidl/Dangin. McDean currently lives in New York, and has photographed campaigns for Dior, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Armani, Estee Lauder, and Calvin Klein. He regularly contributes to a range of international fashion publications including W, American, French, British and Italian Vogue, and Another Magazine. He is a 2008 recipient of the ICP Infinity Award."(Art + Commerce)

☁ CRAIG MCDEAN ON ART+COMMERCE
☁ MORE PICTURES OF KATE MOSS BY CRAIG MCDEAN

TORBEN GIEHLER

TORBEN GIELHER
1973 born in Bad Oeynhausen, Germany

Diploma School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Scholarship, New York Studio Program, New York
Fifth Year Certificate, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

lives and works in New York and Berlin

☁ TORBEN GIEHLER
☁ TORBEN GIEHLER @ GALERIE SUZANNE TARASIEVE

Music Video for VANIA AND THE MASTER, done by Vania Oliveira, Moritz Reichartz and Michael Fragstein at BÜRO ACHTER APRIL.
☁ FRAGSTEIN

GABI TRINKAUS

GABI TRINKAUS
Born in 1966 in Graz.
Lives and works in Vienna.

☁ GABI TRINKAUS @ GALLERI ANDERSSON SANDSTRÖM
☁ GABI TRINKAUS ON FABRIK PROJECT
☁ GABI TRINKAUS @ GALERIE GEORG KARGL

GIL HEITOR CORTESAO

GIL HEITOR CORTESAO
Born in Lisboa, Portugal in 1967
☁ GIL HEITOR CORTESAO @ GALERIE SUZANNE TARASIEVE
☁ GIL HEITOR CORTESAO @ GALERIA PEDRO CERA

TOBIAS LEHNER

TOBIAS LEHNER
Born in Regensburg, 1974
Lives and works in Leipzig

2003- 2005 Meisterschüler, Professor Sighard Gille
1998-2003 BA Arts and Design of Academy of VIsual Art (HGB- Hochschume fur Grafik und buchkunst)with Professor Sighard Gille
1985-1989 Member of the Winsbacher Choir

"Ever since Frank Stella, we know that ‘what you see is what you see.’ In his mostly large scale paintings, Tobias Lehner [born 1974 in Regensburg] seems to depart from the same premise. He show the viewer his major concerns as a painter. He shows that, which he sees. And we see what we see: abstract shapes of colour, tectonic collisions of fields of paint, atmospherically charged geometric and technical forms, a profuse mass of organic mutations, rudimentary scriptural marks, dried paint flows, patterns, grids and Industrially printed by-products. This roughly summarises the output of a young painter from Leipzig, who seeks to visualise-with emotional eruptiveness and painterly acumen-that, which other painters around him [who paint what they ‘know’] consciously evade, namely to represent in their paintings the seemingly unknown.

Tobias Lehner starts from nothing, in the nothingness on the empty canvas, with a line, a trace of paint, a blob. This minimal, original gesture is suddenly in stark contrast to the void of the white canvas, giving impetus to a turbulent examination of nothingness in canvas. Lehner’s inner sense of harmony repeatedly drives him to set the picture plane into a seething unrest. His extraordinary energy fills the canvas to the brink of exploding: resembling a mental and spiritual map, traces of movement in time and space remain-as well as their disappearance and disintegration-as pictorial constellations.
Once again, in Lehner’s works the primary object of investigationis painting itself. Lehner seeks to reflect and open up the tautological cycle [i.e. viscous circle] of the process inherent to the medium: although created in groups and series, each picture is to be viewed as the unique document of a painter’s examination of painting’s devices and possibilities. Lehner is driven by the opportunities of painting itself. He quotes from the rich inventory of gestures, fractures and styles offered by [post-] modern painting, between avant-garde optimism and modernism’s traumatized aesthetic. The bundles of lines, puddles of paint, grid, geometric divisions, and archipelagos of blips of colour, break up the homogeneity of the picture plane in a fractal manner, offering the viewer’s gaze a plethora of visual detail. Lehner’s paintings combine aspects from the visual world of comic and techno, advertising and Photoshop, colour field painting and abstract expressionism. Within the bounds of this fragmentary pictorial universe, the overall perspective seems to shift between seeing aerial views of landscape, cross-section of geological stratifications, and the illogical, intangibly crystalline visions know to the human brain only in certain phases of rest. Thus, through constantly shifting perspectives, Lehner develops a large-scale, multilayered and openly gestural mode of painting that reflects and questions its own inception as well as its associative potential, lending him an inimitable artistic voice. His paintings describe an atmosphere moment of precarious balance between internal and external reality, the macrocosmic, between the conscious and the irrational.
Cosmositionally, the paintings refer to their inherent constructions as well as their plausible disintergration in equal measure. Lehner’s abstracts seems to deliver a basic outline of the collected dilemmas of painting: horror vacui; of the painter’s pathological urge to forcibly expand the restrictive rectangle of the canvas; of the fear of having to represent as much as possible without necessarily adopting as illustractive style; and particularly of the fear of not being able to achieve anything with a mode of painting that purportedly represents nothing other than itself. Lehner’s approach to painting thus seems to question itself as well as criteria of both abstract and representational painting.
Considering Lehner’s impressive and varied output in the past two years, his incentive pulsates with the velocity and energy reminiscent of a speedway, as a race in images against time-in today’s time. With praiseworthy painterly talent and a richness of optic invention, this painter has shot off on the slot car track of his career as an artist: Full speed ahead! Occasionally, circular forms resembling targets shimmer out of the depths of these harmoniously, neo-baroque paintings. Perhaps they suggest that he has achieved his goal for the time being. However, as spaces of absence within the pictorial mesh, they seem to function as uncannily transcendental openings toward new spaces of visual discovery." (Oliver Kossack for Union)

☁ TOBIAS LEHNER @ UNION
☁ TOBIAS LEHNER @ GALERIE SUZANNE TARASIEVE

ZHOU FAN

"Zhou Fan was born in 1983 in Shanxi Province in northern China.

In 2006, Zhou Fan graduated from the art department of Shanxi University. He participated in a solo exhibition and several group exhibition in his home province that year.

Zhou Fan participated in a museum show in 2007 called "Art Design" at the Zendai Art Museum in Shanghai, one of the top art museums in China's financial capital.

In late 2007, Zhou Fan was selected as one of the top 25 emerging Chinese artists (out of over 1300 applicants) at the Chinese Art Prize (CAP) by important international art critics, including Gerard Goodrow (Director of the globally famos Art Cologne) and Jeff Kelley (Curator of the Asian Art Museum in California). Zhou Fan was given the "special mention" prize, which had never been awarded before. The Chinese Art Prize launched Zhou Fan's career, and allowed him to gain much more exposure.

Also in 2007, Zhou Fan participated in Art Beijing, one of the top art expositions in China.

In 2008, Zhou continued to exhibit globally, with a group show in New York and an excellent reception for his work at Art Cologne in Germany, one of the world's most important art expositions. And in October 2008, Zhou Fan had his first big solo show at Art Scene China in Shanghai." (ZHOU FAN)


☁ ZHOU FAN
☁ ZHOU FAN @ COLECTIVA

BERLINDE DE BRUYCKERE

BERLINDE DE BRUYCKERE
Born in 1964 in Gent, Belgium
Lives and works in Gent, Belgium

"Berlinde De Bruyckere specialises in sculpture in various media including wax, wood, wool, horse skin and hair, though she also works in watercolour and gouache. Her work typically deals with issues of loneliness, pain and death, and since the early 1990s many of her major works have featured structures involving blankets. Their use is symbolic both of warmth and shelter, and of the vulnerable circumstances such as wars that make people seek such shelter.

In 2000, her work with five dead horses, In Flanders Fields, a commentary on World War I, was exhibited at the In Flanders Fields Museum, Ypres. She gained international acclaim at the 2003 Venice Biennale, when her sculptures were shown in the Italian Pavilion. Since then, her solo exhibitions have included ones at Hauser & Wirth, Zurich (2004); La Maison Rouge, Fondation Antoine de Galbert, Paris (2005); and De Pont Foundation for Contemporary Art, Tilburg (2005). In 2006 her work was included in the 4th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art and exhibited in a two-artist show at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf."(Wikipedia)



☁ BERLINDE DE BRUYCKERE @ YVON LAMBERT
☁ BERLINDE DE BRUYCKERE IN PAPERMAG

ROBIN RHODE

"Robin Rhode is a South African artist, born 1976 in Cape Town, South Africa, now based in Berlin, Germany. In 1998, he obtained a diploma in Fine Art from Technikon Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, followed by a postgraduate program at the South African School of Film, Television and Dramatic Art in Johannesburg.

Working predominantly with everyday material like charcoal, chalk and paint, Rhode started out creating performances that are based on his own drawings of objects that he interacts with. He expanded and refined this practice into creating photography sequences and digital animations. These works are characterized by an interdisciplinary approach that brings aspects of performance, happening, drawing, film and photography together. Rhode often returns to his native South Africa, creating work in the streets of Johannesburg and continuously registering the traces of poverty and social inequality. An outstanding characteristic of his works is his addressing of social concerns in a playful and productive manner, incorporating these issues into his practice without simplifying or judging them.

Reminiscent of practices of street culture, Rhode usually works in public spaces, using walls, public basketball courts or just the street as his “canvas”. His preferred materials are easily accessible ones like charcoal and paint. As a result, his works stand out through their simplicity and their formal clarity, emphasizing the idea over lavishness of production. Rhode transforms simple shapes into elements of narratives, interacting with only imagined presences. This narrative practice goes back to an initiation ritual at South African high schools – that Rhode himself experienced - where new students are forced to draw and interact with their drawing. Rhode’s reference to this event takes this social gesture further into a playful mode of *addressing cultural phenomena. Rhode’s stories often include a moment of conflict and possible failure. The black and white 26-panel photographic work Juggla for instance depicts a circus-like clown. Prodding at this form of popular entertainment, the faceless character is at the mercy of the wealthy, juggling or holding nothing. With Juggla, Rhode references Minstrel Carnivals from the Caribbean and South Africa where troupes, made up of members from a particular neighborhood of the city, are assembled and each is expected to parade and perform for its local community in exchange for food and drink. Rhode also pays homage to the fervent utopian ideals of the Bauhaus, implicating Oscar Schlemmer’s seminal Triadic Ballet from the twenties, a performance experiment created in the Bauhaus studios in the absence of a theatre space, balancing “emotional impulses” with an agenda of political agitation. His drawings of objects like a bicycle, a motorbike, a car, or of abstract shapes and patterns are employed as physical elements in a story, often alluding to the act of creation itself as in Promenade (2008).

Rhode created a display at New York’s Grand Central Station, which was commissioned by BMW. In it, he used a BMW Z4 convertible to create a sprawling work on floor panels by indicating a winding course in a Los Angeles studio which he had a stunt driver follow in the convertible car with its tired coated with pigment."(Wikipedia)

☁ ROBIN RHODE @ PERRY RUBENSTEIN GALLERY
☁ ROBIN RHODE ON Wikipedia

DOMINIQUE FORTIN

New works by artist DOMINIQUE FORTIN on view at the Galerie Saint-Dizier.
Born in Montreal in 1974.
Education
DEC in Arts Plastiques, Cégep de Saint-Laurent (1997)
École des métiers du Sud-Ouest (2000)

☁ DOMINIQUE FORTIN
☁ DOMINIQUE FORTIN @ Galerie Saint-Dizier

SUK JA KANG

SUK JA KANG
EDUCATION
MFA Painting Program, University of Illinois
1996
BFA, Drawing and Painting, School of Art, University of Georgia
1986
BA, Korean Literature, Sung Shin Women's University, Seoul, Korea

"The work of Asian-American painter Suk Ja Kang-Engles is a manifestation of her struggle to escape the cultural and social bounds implied by the designation of Asian-American. "I think of myself, first of all, as a woman still in the process of escaping from the stridently patriarchal culture of Korea. While America has often seemed to offer less restrictions than Korea did, I continue to find myself subject to forces that try to define who and what I am. The ongoing struggle between these past and present impositions versus my resistance to them has been the central animating tension through the many stages of my art," Kang-Engles writes.

Truly, the paintings of Kang-Engles act as a means of liberation - not only on a personal level for the artist, but as the catalyst to shatter preconceived notions held by the viewer. The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein proposed that despite an individual's impression of seeing the outline and shape of an object in front of us, we are actually seeing the frame through which we see that object. "I want to free the viewer from these frames of visual reference," Kang-Engles explains, "by creating the effect of imagery freed from the tyrannous habits of interpretation."

Kang-Engles creates stunningly beautiful paintings in her exploration of this philosophical ideal. For example, her "Eye-Con" series consists of canvases intensely saturated with red glazes; delicate markings of graphite lines and forms float suspended between the layers of sheer red paint, creating subtle indications of landscapes, mountain scenes, or birds. However, these markings are subordinated by the overwhelming power and intensity of her use of the color red. "Because the color red is so quick to leap into iconic status for the Western mind in its conceptions of exotic Asian-ness, the overwhelming redness of these pieces symbolizes for me other false (yet standardized) facets of the 'Orientalist' mindset. I want red to predominate in this series so fully that it obscures perception of potential imagery," Kang-Engles writes. "I want to suggest that when the inner Western eye turns to 'the East,' it can be conned into a certain blindness, if it has not unlearned that which it likes to think it knows."

Suk Ja Kang-Engles immigrated to the United States from South Korea approximately twenty years ago, and has been active as an artist and curator since that time. Kang-Engles has been exhibiting with the Bill Lowe Gallery since 1997, and her 1998 exhibition with the Bill Lowe Gallery was favorably reviewed in Art in America. She has exhibited throughout the United States since 1994, and has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants. She earned a BFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Georgia, and an MFA in Painting from the University of Illinois." (Bill Lowe Gallery)

☁ SUK JA KANG
☁ SUK JA KANG @ BILLE LOWE GALLERY

PAUL NORMANSELL

"The Killers saw Paul Normansell in a GQ magazine article about an A Gallery show Paul was in and so they asked him to paint their portraits and the cover for their latest album 'Day and Age' which went to No.1 in the Uk and No.6 in the USA, selling 200,000 copies in its first week.

The Killers liked the artwork Paul did so much that they used his paintings in the video for 'Human' (in fact much of that video is centered around Paul's use of repetitive dots.)(Watch the video here)

Since Paul Normansell was commissioned by The Killers A Gallery sold out the entire show he was in in 10 days, his prices have tripled, and kept on selling.

Paul Normansell's artwork got called the Best Album Artwork in the World for 2008 by Rolling Stone Magazine.

Currently Paul Normansell is working on two paintings in collaboration with The Killers, which will be officially acknowledged by them, with their signatures, for a show in summer in Notting Hill."(A gallery)

PAUL NORMANSELL'S STATEMENT :

"The foundation of my work originates from the relationship between Art and Music. I wanted to try and create a link between colour, shape and sound. My abstract paintings are based on colour studies exploring how colours can stimulate feelings, emotions within a person, and the different meanings each colour has, and its power to evoke a certain response from the viewer.

From experimenting with colour my paintings became more illusional. I tried to create the illusion of movement, stimulating the eye into seeing things which may or may not be there. This seems to be testament to the human inclination to see patterns in randomness like looking for shapes in clouds or finding images within magic-eye pictures. The more you study the image the more you find. Each painting is individual, painted in gloss paint onto aluminium or board, each dot of paint is painted freehand using a brush. I use gloss paint and aluminium because of there reflective qualities and find it helps to enhance the optical effect of my work.

The natural progression of my work led me to incorporate images within the dots. I then began to experiment with imagery and to create dot portraits. I wanted to paint famous icons known for their beauty. The images I use are taken from magazines that portray perfect/flawless images of models. This helps me to create a perfect likeness and because of the perfect and plastic like finish of gloss and the meticulous execution, the paintings are almost doll like in appearance, the same way the media create an image of the icon. All flaws are dicarded, the skin is perfect. The images also work on an optical level. As you look at the image directly depending on how the light is catching the image the variety and definition of colour and tone is lost and the portrait almost becomes a silouette. It's only when you stand off centre the image comes alive and the portrait appears.

Following this I became interested in fashion images and began to focus on certain areas of the figure. Through exploring the optical aspect of the portrait I wanted to focus more on colour again. The figurative works have a pop art influence with vibrant colours and stylistic approach. Parts of the figure are still painted in dots, this is to enhance certain areas, usually the make-up and jewellery. This helps to create a balance between flat painted areas and raised areas throughout the composition." ( PAUL NORMANSELL)


☁ PAUL NORMANSELL
☁ PAUL NORMANSELL @ A Gallery
☁ The Killers