CHELSEA BENTLEY JAMES

CHELSEA BENTLEY JAMES
Chelsea James earned a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Utah in 2006. During her undergraduate career, she was the recipient of numerous scholarships and awards and has since shown work at a several galleries and museums throughout Utah and California. Southwest Magazine, Salt Lake City Magazine and, most recently, Design Sponge, have praised her as a talented artist on the rise, one whose technical prowess and earnest imagination render her worthy of close attention.

"Painting is a study of our existence, spirit, and environment, derived from experiences in life. I choose objects that evoke childhood memories, create situations of atmospheric mystery, and bring visual interest through interaction. I’m intrigued by subtle shifts in value and color; yet seek a personal interpretation of the objects rather than a replication. Personality is revealed through the process of painting. Abstract remnants from my process remain visible in the final product. The hand must obey the spirit. "

☁ CHELSEA BENTLEY JAMES

ROSS BOWNS

ROSS BOWNS

"I am inspired by the vagueness and deficiencies found in our interpretations of our own experiences. My work explores the fragmented nature of perception in which there is an inherent incompleteness and I am interested in capturing that interplay between our internal conditions and the nature of perception that shapes the events that we encounter.

There is a reciprocal conversation between event, perception, and condition; a circular dialog in which new information is constantly changing our condition which, in turn, shapes our perception. If we could listen in we would hear a conversation that, at times, may appear fluid and coherent, yet is full of vague references and half formed expressions. Instead of being complete, the communication between the experience and our condition is fragmented or disjointed. I focus on that disconnection and I look for the ways that perception obscures, distorts, excludes, and manufactures the details of our experiences.
Currently, I focus on the human form as the subject to explore this aspect of perception. I also use this subject to examine how the body acts as a medium that feeds back into the loop of perceived experience."




☁ ROSS BOWNS
☁ ROSS BOWNS @ ARTIST A DAY

JOHN STEZAKER

JOHN STEZAKER


British artist JOHN STEZAKER is fascinated by the lure of images. Taking classic movie stills, vintage postcards and book illustrations, Stezaker makes collages to give old images a new meaning. By adjusting, inverting and slicing separate pictures together to create unique new works of art, Stezaker explores the subversive force of found images. Stezaker’s famous Mask series fuses the profiles of glamorous sitters with caves, hamlets, or waterfalls, making for images of eerie beauty.

His ‘Dark Star’ series turns publicity portraits into cut-out silhouettes, creating an ambiguous presence in the place of the absent celebrity. Stezaker’s way of giving old images a new context reaches its height in the found images of his Third Person Archive: the artist has removed delicate, haunting figures from the margins of obsolete travel illustrations. Presented as images on their own, they now take the centre stage of our attention

This first major exhibition of John Stezaker offers a chance to see work by an artist whose subject is the power in the act of looking itself. With over 90 works from the 1970s to today, the artist reveals the subversive force of images, reflecting on how visual language can create new meaning.


ON VIEW @ THE WHITE CHAPEL GALLERY (LONDON) UNTIL MARCH 18 2011.



☁ JOHN STEZAKER @ THE WHITE CHAPEL GALLERY
☁ JOHN STEZAKER @ THE APPROACH

WILL COTTON

WILL COTTON
BORN 1965, Melrose, Massachusetts, USA

EDUCATION
Beaux Arts, Rouen, France
B.F.A., 1987, Cooper Union, New York, NY
1988, New York Academy of Art, New York, NY

Will Cotton lives and works in New York City.


☁ WILL COTTON
☁ WILL COTTON FOUND @ MAKING ART HAPPEN

GEHARD DEMETZ

GEHARD DEMETZ

"I am fascinated by a whole series of child and adult attitudes and behaviours. Many of their attitudes seem mysterious, almost incomprehensible, and they capture my imagination, which is constantly seeking likenesses and contrasts. So I find myself with notes and sketches all over the place, on pieces of paper, on notes in my pocket, in books and in my diary. I build and sculpt the sculpture directly from the drawing and often a written thought is the starting point for various subjects. When I look at the photographs of my sculptures, I realise that my stile has a clear continuity of thought. But the incredible thing is that even after I have finished a work, I continue to think about it and want to develop it.

My subjects transmit the awareness of becoming adults and thus losing, as Rudolf Steiner says, their ability to be able to “hear” their unconscious. They live with the burden of guilt transmitted from generation to generation, which doesn’t belong to them. They are children who feel sad about not being able to really be children, but who have, on the other hand, the possibility of choosing to become adults, totally independently, thus freeing themselves little by little of all the influences transmitted by their ancestors. They are witness to all the effort involved in the process of growth and development, which is achieved through individual will and concentration." GEHARD DEMETZ

In just a few years, Gehard Demetz has risen to international prominence by applying his incredible craftsmanship as a traditional woodcarver to subjects that are new and appealing to contemporary viewers.His sculptures of children are at the same time attractive and disquieting and rendered with an amazing perfection that is by no means rhetorical or classical. One of the most startling technical features is the construction using small woodblocks and juxtaposing finely polished parts to very rough and sketchy surfaces. This particular construction and treatment render his sculptures absolutely unique in the domain of contemporary wood sculpture and is partly responsible for the great curiosity aroused by the appearance of his work in the art world. Since his debut in 2005, Gehard Demetz has been invited by prominent galleries to exhibit in the United States, Spain, Germany, Korea. He has also produced monumental sculptures on commission for collectors around the world.

Born 1972, Bolzano (Italy). Lives and works in Selva di Val Gardena.


☁ GEHARD DEMETZ