GABRIEL DAWE

GABRIEL DAWE was born in Mexico City where he grew up surrounded by the intensity and color of Mexican culture. After working as a graphic designer, he moved to Montreal, Canada in 2000 following a desire to explore foreign land. In search for creative freedom he started experimenting and creating artwork, which eventually led him to explore textiles and embroidery—activities traditionally associated with women and which were forbidden for a boy growing up in Mexico. Because of this, his work is subversive of notions of masculinity and machismo that are so ingrained in his culture. By working with thread and textiles, Dawe’s work has evolved into creating large-scale installations with thread, creating environments that deal with notions of social constructions and their relation to evolutionary theory and the self-organizing force of nature.

After seven years of living in Canada and gaining dual citizenship as a Mexican-Canadian, Gabriel moved to Texas to pursue graduate school at the University of Texas at Dallas where heworked on an MFA in Arts and Technology. His work has been exhibited in Dallas, Houston, Montreal, Toronto and Barcelona.


☁ GABRIEL DAWE

TOMÁŠ LIBERTÍNY

TOMÁŠ LIBERTÍNY /// THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS
2010
Beeswax, Stainless steel, Glass, Steel, Plastic, Resin



☁ TOMÁŠ LIBERTÍNY

RAN ORTNER

OIL PAINTINGS



RAN ORTNER
In 1966, at the age of five, Ran Ortner moved from San Francisco to rural Alaska. He and his family lived in an isolated log cabin, with no running water, a wood fire for heat and a grass airstrip for a driveway. To escape the brutal winters, Ran and his family would take their single engine Cessna “Ragwing” on 3-4 month adventures from Alaska to South America. On these expeditions, Ran would turn to the open expanse of the sea to escape the confines of his unconventional childhood. When Ran was eighteen, he left home and began surfing the waves off the coasts of California and Mexico. While surfing he was able to consider both the wondrous and perilous conditions of life. Overwhelmed by what he saw and felt, he turned to art as a form of exploration. Ran has lived and worked in New York City since 1990 - he continues to surf.


ARTIST STATEMENT

In my art, I contemplate the collision of opposites, from tender brutalities to the devastating sensitivities. Every day I enter my studio, prepare my materials and, as James Joyce said, "go for the millionth time to encounter the reality of the experience."I attempt through painting to sustain my encounter with life’s biting reality.




☁ RAN ORTNER

ANDRE PETTERSON

ANDRE PETTERSON

Petterson attempts to capture the essence of a split-second in time. His current photography-based work explores various themes of lighting to create elements of mystery. Rembrandt and the Dutch masters’ use of light have strongly influenced Petterson; important elements are highlighted and the mind must fill in the rest. Fabric and movement are also subjects of fascination for the artist. He believes that the integration of movement and fabric are similar to brushstrokes. The chance and artistic freedom involved in motions of dance and similar movements are also reflected in his mixed media work.

Recently, Petterson’s focus has been on painting, photo- based works, steel sculpture, and photography. Music has always been a very important facet of the artist’s life, whether it be playing, composing, or simply appreciating music. He has explored performance art, film and kinetic work involving his own music compositions, set design and choreography.

Petterson has exhibited in both private and public galleries in Canada and the United States. He is the recipient of The National Film Board of Canada Award, and has work featured in numerous private and public collections.


☁ ANDRE PETTERSON @ LE ROYER
☁ ANDRE PETTERSON @ BAU-XI

DENISE NESTOR

☁ DENISE NESTOR

PASCAL FELLONNEAU

Since the beginning of French Presidential Campaign 2012, PASCAL FELLONNEAU has photographed election posters in Paris.


It is an on-going series but here are some first results.



☁ PASCAL FELLONNEAU
☁ PASCAL FELLONNEAU PREVIOUSLY ON LE ZÈBRE

PAUL CADDEN

HYPERREALSIT DRAWINGS


PAUL CADDEN /// INTENSIFY THE NORMAL

I think the creation of Art need not lead to alienation and can indeed be highly satisfying; one pours one's subjectivity into an object and one can even gain enjoyment from the fact that another in turn gains enjoyment from this. Although the drawings and paintings I make are based upon photographs, videos stills etc , the idea is to go beyond the photograph. The photo is used to create a subtler and much more complex focus on the subject depicted, The virtual image becomes the living image, an intensification of the normal. These objects and scenes in my drawings are meticulously detailed to create the illusion of a new reality not seen in in the original photo. The Hyperrealist style focuses much more on its emphasis on detail and the subjects depicted. Hyperreal paintings and sculptures are not strict interpretations of photographs, nor are they literal illustrations of a particular scene or subject. Instead, they utilise additional, often subtle, pictorial elements to create the illusion of a reality which in fact either does not exist or cannot be seen by the human eye. Furthermore, they may incorporate emotional, social, cultural and political thematic elements as an extension of the painted visual illusion; a distinct departure from the older and considerably more literal school of Photorealism.


" It was the straying that found the Path direct."



☁ PAUL CADDEN

DOUG FOSTER

The Heretics' Gate
Installation view in St Michael's Church, Camden
This large scale digital film installation, created for Lazarides' Hell’s Half Acre exhibition in 2010, was inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. The Heretics’ Gate represents Dante’s entry point into the Sixth Circle of Hell, where non-believers burn for eternity in furnace-like tombs.

The fiery, ectoplasmic forms were created with liquid and light. The score is by UNKLE (J Lavelle, P Clements and J Griffith).

Chimera
Installation view in The Old Vic Tunnels, London
This large scale digital film installation, created for Lazarides' The Minotaur exhibition in 2011, was inspired by the genetic soup in which we all swim. It is a sister film to The Heretics’ Gate and contrasts with that work in many ways while sharing the same soundtrack. The two films can be presented simultaneously in the same sound space.

The score is by UNKLE (J Lavelle, P Clements and J Griffith).


DOUG FOSTER
Foster has long been fascinated by the intricacy of the human visual system and how it can be fooled by optical illusion. In 1981 he built a walk-in film installation for his degree show that used projected imagery and large mirrors to incorporate its viewers into an infinite panorama.

He worked in London for several years, honing his filmmaking skills as a visual effects cameraman, a lighting cameraman and then a commercials director. He filmed all over the world and won some of the top awards in the industry.

In 2006 Foster started using newly available technologies to realise some of his earlier ambitions. He gave up commercials to work full-time on a series of finely crafted, high-definition and stereoscopic digital film installations featuring cyclical narratives.

Some of his pieces explore the lengths that people will go to when faced with serious challenges, while others attempt to beguile at a primal level by imposing perfect symmetry on irregular forms from nature. If there is any common theme it is that each of his works strives to engage the viewer by focusing on one small detail of the human condition.


☁ DOUG FOSTER

CONOR HARRINGTON

CONOR HARRINGTON
Are you a graffiti artist, a figurative painter, or simply a painter?

A painter first and foremost. If you asked me that 10 years ago I would have said a graffiti writer but now as I get older I’m trying to shake off all those labels. It’s a strange position for a lot of us these days. We come from graffiti and street art but now we want to move beyond that. Thats why I like the term post-graffiti a lot. It sounds pretentious but its the label that I find most accurate really. I used to do graffiti. now I paint. But I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now if I hadn’t painted on the streets. Simple.


☁ CONOR HARRINGTON

JOE WEBB

JOE WEBB

"My collages work to a basic rule of sourcing just two or three images....Then I present them as a reinvented single image with the objective of communicating a new message or idea.

I started making these simple hand made collages as a sort of luddite reaction to working on computers for years. I like the limitations of collage...using found imagery and a pair of scissors, there are no Photoshop options to resize, adjust colours or undo."

☁ JOE WEBB

EDOUARD MARTINET

EDOUARD MARTINET transforms everyday objects found in flea-markets and car boot sales into works of art. Working with a variety of refuse materials such as rusted kitchen pans, typewriter keys, car lights and other scrap metals, Edouard Martinet sculpts several types of animals and insects. His sculptures are made without the use of solder. He fits each component into place as if putting together a puzzle of random pieces and parts. Each masterpiece is carefully assembled after having drafted several detailed sketches. This process requires a sufficient amount of time to get from the idea to the completion.


☁ EDOUARD MARTINET