Leah Tinari

Leah Tinari works in acrylic and gouache on both paper and canvas. This is what she says about her work :

Personal photographs taken with a 35mm camera inspire the imagery in each piece. The photographs that interest me most are the ones that someone else would rip up or erase from their digital camera shortly after they are taken. Not knowing what to expect from the film is exciting to me and many times leads to happy accidents like corrupt composition, disheveled hair, flushed cheeks and red eye. I am also intrigued with the space in a photograph. I often eliminate objects and elements to create location-less expanses, allowing the figures to exist in voids and allow for multiple narratives.

The content and formal elements in my paintings combine to offer an always personal, occasionally caricature-like narrative, addressing and encompassing both the awkwardness and the complexity of the human condition. Although the work is a documentation of my personal experiences, I hope that the images will evoke familiar feelings or create a sense of voyeurism - as if the viewer is peeking into a still from someone else’s life that is utterly foreign to them. My paintings are snippets of time that capture moments and function as a visual diary to create my social realism, a documentation of 30-something contemporary lifestyle and behavior.

My work is a celebration of life. I strive to make paintings of my life, the people and the world around me. I want to create a wonderful and vital dialog between people and art, and between art and life.

Cath Riley

Cath Rileys pencil drawings are a fairly recent addition to her portfolio but have always coexisted alongside the main 'body' of her work which is large scale and 3-Dimensional in nature. The drawings offer a change of pace, scale, content, and above all, the opportunity to work with clients.

Most recent clients include 'Nike' and 'G.Q'. magazine.

+ Via Roadside Scholar

YSL

The extraordinary art collection of the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his longterm partner, Pierre Bergé,goes on public display at Christie's in London today, before being auctioned in Paris in late February. It is estimated that the auction will fetch €300m ($385m), with all proceeds going to scientific and Aids research. Catch a glimpse of some of the wonders here at The Guardian and here at Vanity Fair. The magazine is showing a great photo gallery where you can see the inside of YSL's Paris duplex on the Rue de Babylone. The couple owned so many objects, that I don't think there is an inch left on tables or shelves. The appartment almost feels like the inside of an antique shop. Very very interesting.

Salustiano

Salustiano is a painter from Seville, Spain, and with all the red he uses in his paintings, there can be no doubt about his origins. But the artist says he likes to use red for its profound and complex peace. He finds his subjects on the streets and photographs them without much interaction. Bizarrely, he says most of the people he chooses to paint are musicians. There is a very interesting interview with him here, but in french, unfortunatly for those of you who don't speek the language...

Erin Haydn O'Neill

Just before Christmas, I talked about photographer Erin Haydn O'Neill's new book, Ambiances d'Artistes, a book that showed the home interior of artists from around the world. I got my very own copy of that book last night (I had ordered it from my local library). I have to say I was pretty excited to look at it and that it met my expectations. The interesting part of this book is that some of the presented artists are deceased and their environment were kept intact by relatives. In some cases, the homes feel abandoned, empty, but still hold the spirit of the occupant they once use to have. My favorite story/house is the one of Richard Winther, a once prolific artist who decided at some point in his life that he didn't like the company of others and isolated himself in the middle of Lolland woods, in Danemark. He lived there as an ermite in a weird house where he drew all over the walls, sometimes sexual explicit scenes, sometimes ogers devoring women. Every room has a different feeling. One contains animal bones and hair, another one contains old radio station. The general impression is creepy. Erin Haydn O'Neill was the first photographer to enter his house and to get to photograph it before Winther's death.

For now, the book is available in German (under the title Wohnkuns) and in French. The english version should be available next year. If you wish to get a copy, you can always contact Erin's gallery here.

+ Bulger Gallery

Simon Hoegsberg

We're All Gonna Die- 100 meters of existence

This image is a 100 meters long. There are 178 people in the picture, all shot in the course of 20 days, from the same spot on a railroad bridge on Warschauser Strasse in Berlin in the summer 2007.

+ A project signed Simon Hoegsberg, photographer. In 2001 he got a BA in photography from School of Media in London. Today he works as a freelance photographer in Copenhagen.

Manfredi Beninati

Manfredi Beninati. Born in Palermo, Italy, 1970. Lives and works in Palermo.

After his High Levels in Classic studies, he entered at the Palermo University at the Faculty of Law, following his parents footprints. In 1990 he started film courses at the “Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia” of Rome. He worked as an assistant director for important Italian movie directors as Tornatore and Damiani. In those years he divided his time between Great Britain, Spain and Italy.
Starting from 1992 he moved to London working as an artist in several studios - squats of the East End. In 2002 he moved to Rome. In 2006, returning from a long stay in Buenos Aires he moved back to his native town, Palermo. His work has been shown in a number of countries in Europe and America and is included in many prestigious public collections. In 2005 he was selected to represent his country at the Venice Biennale where he was awarded the audience prize for the italian pavilion.
In 2006 he received a prize from the American Academy in Rome.
Manfredi Beninati’s work explores the theme of life’s journey. He does this using the pictures of children and of adolescents at the edge of a forest, on a pathway, on a road, on a bicycle, by the sea. These images unlock in the mind of the viewer memories of the anxieties as well as the securities of childhood and the struggle of moving towards in life.
Often Beninati’s works have strong literary and artistic references. Sometimes the artist uses images of boats, horses, cycles and other means of transport as metaphors, again, of the journey of life.
In a number of his works a mother and a child image seems to refer to both the “time honoured” tradition of “Madonna and Bambino” as well as provoking a more modern and psychological interpretation of the genesis of life.
Beninati’s skills as a painter and draftsman are highly developed and, in combination with his cinematic eye, produce paintings of surprising emotional content.
Lorcan O’Neill

Charlie Isoe

Christopher Charlie Isoe’s pictorial compositions are based largely on his personal experiences and observations he makes of his immediate social surroundings. Isoe left school at the age of sixteen and immersed himself in a world of graffiti, skateboarding, travel, and life on the streets. As he entered his twenties, already well traveled, rich in experiences with highs and broken bones, he went back to attain a high school diploma, and subsequently a Degree in Fine Art.

For the last three years, Isoe has been living in Europe as a freelance artist, observer and wanderer. His work has been seen on the streets of Australia, Thailand, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Czech Republic and Germany.

+ Circleculture Gallery