About Life, and Death, and Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

source:

St.Dunstan in the East Church Garden, London:: OS grid TQ3380 :: Geograph Britain and Ireland – photograph every grid square!.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The medieval church of Saint Dunstan in the East (London) was bombed during the war;  it was given a new life in the seventies and transformed into a park.

Do you also feel how  remarquably peaceful this scene is?  I think the reason lies in the photo’s  lines balance, between the vertical columns, the horizontal low wall and benches, and the diagonal tree branches.

Like the sitting  human figure, one could stay thinking under the canopy,  enjoying the quietness of the place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A place with a soul.

                                                                    Saint Dunstan in the East Garden, London. © Peter Trimming (CCL)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Geometrical Pleasure in Black and White.

 

 

Artworks of Aleksandr Rodchenko (Russian, 1891 – 1956) on MutualArt.com.

 

 

 

 

Aleksandr Rodchenko was a multi-talented creator and one of the  Russian Constructivists – these artists were enthusiastic about the revolution and believed that  art should be practical and help building the future. They favoured geometrical lines and influenced the architecture of the time.

Rodchenko himself was a painter, sculptor, photographer and costume designer for the theater. He also made some collages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The oblique construction,  the diagonal formed by the characters and their shadows, the black and white contrast of the steps is a pure visual pleasure and gives considerable dynamism to an apparently very simple image.

‘Stairs’, 1929, silver gelatin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strange Sculptures in a Field.

 

 

 

 

 

artist’s site:

Bernard Langenstein.

 

 

 

 

 

Bernard Langenstein is a French photographer who lives and works in Lyon.

He creates strong, poetical images from the industrial or agricultural worlds.  The farmer built an ephemeral wall in his field with his plastic-enveloped hay . The artist played with light and transformed these incongruous shiny objects into a work of beauty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bernard Langenstein, ‘Balles’ (balls of hay).  Click on picture for a bigger image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Christmas and New Year to All !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2008-technograph-xmas.gif (Image GIF, 1280×800 pixels).

Via WP technogra.ph, 2008. Thank you!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Warmth of Love: a Family in the Night.

 

 

 

 

Source:

Panoramio – Photo of Stari Grad.  (Croatia) – By Alien67.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playful Camouflage.

 

Sources:

Blanca Berlín Galería presenta la exposición ‘Latidos’ | Paseo por el arte.

Search Results • Humboldt State University.

 

 

 

 

 

One can play hide and seek for many reasons: psychological, political (see previous posts) or for simple amusement.

When I discovered ‘Asia’ by Cecilia Paredes (Peru 1950, lives in the USA) quite a while ago, I remembered Vuillard and his ‘Mother and Sister’ painting (see post below). Both artists have a taste for the decorative and their characters tend to disappear in their surroundings.

Comparison stops here of course. Paredes’ photography seems freer of intellectual meaning. She staged and photographed multiple mimetic bodies (often her own – see the source) .

It is spectacular, often elegant, and fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Asia’,  from the serie  ‘Paisaje’ (landscape).

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Crustaceo’ 2006 (crustacea).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Psychological camouflage. When fading into the background has literal meaning.

Edouard Vuillard, France 1868-1940, ‘Interieur, mere et soeur de l’artiste’, 1893 (interior, mother and sister of the artist). Oil on canvas.
Click on the picture for a very large image.

 

 

 

 

 

What is striking you here?  See how the younger lady shyly hides into the wall ? How is this achieved?

The painter gave her almost no volume,  and the flowery wall pattern almost engulfs the geometrical one of the dress  (look at her right shoulder on the enlarged picture).  The brown colour of hair,  wrist bands and parts of the face seems to dissolve in the  wall’s general hues.  Her posture moreover makes her  almost falling down from the tapestry.

This is an extraordinary painting.

The artist knew the characters well: his own mother and sister. A mere look at the assertive pose of the older lady, in the centre of the canvas and in oppressive black tells us immediately who is the boss in the family!

Vuillard is a post-impressionist painter who also worked as a house decorator (from Wikipedia). It reflects on his art. His favourite subjects for a while were interiors with richly ornated walls and figures in flowery dresses. I love this particular painting  because of the emotionaly charged rendering of the subject.

 

 

 

 

 

More pictures:

www.the-athenaeum.org/art/list.php?m=a&s=tu&aid=1742

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hiding in plain sight.

 

 

Photo credit: Liu Bolin 刘勃麟 – Photography of China.

Have a peek at this site for more photos and trilingual pertinent commentaries (French, English, Chinese).

 

 

 

 

 

Liu Bolin is a sculptor, performance artist and  photographer born in China (1973).  He became famous for his camouflage pictures of himself in front of controversial or typical city sights throughout the world.

He even influenced the last Sprite advertising campaign!

Note on the picture below where the artist’s head is touched by the painted slogan: brain and mouth. This apparently innocuous image has a deeper meaning, alluding to the permanent political bath in Chinese society.
One could also imagine , since the character stands on the right and Chinese reading goes from right to left, that the slogan really invades individual privacy…but gets lost soon after ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

When slogans annihilate individuality…

‘Unit to Dash Ahead’ (the title translates the ideograms), 2006.

 

 

 

 

 

From the Sprite campaign, 2012.  Teenagers are urged to express themselves, away from  conformity.  It was made in the city of Prague.

Source -  Photo : Pour son dernier spot de pub, Sprite s’est inspiré des technique de camouflage de Liu Bolin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Street photography from an angle.

Artist’s site :
http://www.pierretoussaint.be/

 

 

Pierre Toussaint is a Belgian photographer born in 1982. He lives and works in Brussels.

Pieces of streets and fragments of people in black and white are both objects here, carefully put – I almost wrote “on canvas” . These photos are built by the photographer as a painter would organise an abstract painting. Here in particular, you don’t think about any portrait of an old lady, but of lines, volumes and contrasts.

What I find remarquable in this artist’s production is the strong link between the human figures and the urban landscape. All are one with the street and it creates mystery. Arresting!

 

 

 

A thousand flowers on asphalt…

‘Metronome 03′, silver-print developped by the artist. Exhibition till July 12 in Brussels, Galerie Pierre Hallet.

 

 

 

Palouse Falls Rainbow, Washington, by Floris Van Breugel.

 

 

 

A remarkable foamy abstract with contrasting lights and colours, and dephth and movement. Go and have a peek at Floris Van Breugel’s pages, aptly titled ‘Art in Nature’!

 

 

 

 

 

‘White Water Spirit’, 2012.

Art In Nature : Floris van Breugels Wilderness Photography and Adventure Blog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Painting with a camera!

Shining Moment : Rivers and Streams : Marc Adamus Photography.

Marc Adamus is a multi-awarded artist. He is based in Oregon (USA) and specialises in wilderness photography.  I was struck by the abstract beauty of this shot, the explosion of white filaments against the sleek yellow wave.

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Shining Moment’ by Mark Adamus (USA, Oregon). ‘River and Streams’ serie.
Reflected light on the rapids of Oregon’s Eagle Creek.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the sea unfolds in a soft drapery…

:: I R E N E K U N G ::.

Born in Bern (Switzerland, 1958), Irene Kung studied graphic design in Rome (1978-80). She is a painter and photographer who enjoys black and white in both media.

“I love the dark that permits me to illuminate what I like” (from her site).

 

 

 

‘Onda’, 2007.

 

 

 

 

On the edge of two worlds…

Great Bear Rainforest – Thomas P. Peschak.

Thomas Peschak is a former marine biologist and a multi – awarded photographer (BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year, World Press Photo…). He uses an impressive sub-water camera, have a look on his site!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kelp, British Columbia, Canada.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The official website of Nuri Bilge Ceylan photography

Nuri Bige Ceylan is an awarded cineast and photographer from Turkey. These photos were taken when looking for films’locations.

I don’t remember which Russian poem about a snowy scene ended by the word “tichina” – “silence”. This is what I feel here, ultimate silence.
In the vast landscape, one can barely distinguish sky from earth. Every object seems so small, smothered in greyish vapour. Lost.
This photograph is well built though, and something is happening.
See the triangle in the centre ( voyager, house, tree) stressed by the white light in the sky.
See the three parallel direction’s lines , crossing the image from right to left (the telephone’s poles; the sleigh and the larger tree; the shack and the smaller trees’ line).
The man seems to go to the centre, marked by the larger tree and the beckoning rift in the clouds.

However, did you notice that the only colours are the window’s and the sleigh’s?
These two must be reunited, I guess the traveller will choose the warmest light ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Returning Home, Ardahan’, 2004.
Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper (the site explains this gives more depth to the black hues).

The official website of Nuri Bilge Ceylan photography

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Floris van Breugel, ‘Slumbering Beast’, 2010.

Floris van Breugel , born and raised in California and part-time nature photographer, now lives and works in Seattle (WA), studying insect flight dynamics for his PhD (from the pages).

This is the first time I see some softness associated with these dangerous beasts! Remarquably poetical image. It is verging on abstraction, with a dreamy quality , all curves and vapour.
Do check the artist’s ‘Art in Nature’ blog (see link below), it is abundantly and beautifully illustrated, with well written, informative comments.

Art In Nature : Elephants of the Sea.

From the pages:
Piedras Blancas, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D2, 500mm f/4, tripod + sidekick
Exposure: iso 50, f/16, 1.6 sec

Tony Bowall, ‘Fellowship Panel – 20′, 2009.

Tony Bowall is a self-taught photographer who works in Brighton (GB).
He subtitled this photo with “Greek minimalism, Santorini, Greece”, but of course this work is beyond time and place, a remarquably well-built abstract.

The metallic pieces and their shadows give rhythm to the picture and link the blue and white surfaces. The eye is tempted to climb the white slope.
Do you see the triangle?
It is formed by the bolt (inferior corner, left), by the nail (right, against the blue) and by the spike and its shadow (right, against the white).
When you reach the top of the slope, your eyes will come back to the bolt down on the left (well, mine do!!), and start climbing up the slope again: that triangle adds dynamism to the image.

Tony Bowall Fellowship Panel – 20.

Greg Halvorsen Schreck Photography

If you are curious about this creative artist, have a look on his site at his latest work also, the “Lambertian style” photographs made out of wood : no pigment, ink, emulsion nor projection. A very special effect, kind of “now you’re here, now you’re not”!

‘Passage’ serie, 2010..

I like that grainy effect on the strict geometrical construction of the image.
The landscape seems reduced to its essential components, as if anything else was but lost memories.

Andreas Gursky , b.1955, Germany. ‘Rhein II’.

Andreas Gursky | karlarchambault.com.

‘Rhein II’, 1999 ( 2m/4m) can boast beeing the most expensive photograph ever sold (at Christie’s last week, for 4.34 M dollars).

When I first saw it , in small size, I didn’t like the photo at all. Too flat, and the kind of abstraction, I thought, that painters imitators of Mark Rothko produced in the late fifties.

I was wrong.

I saw the picture on a large double page of a newspaper this morning. There is texture in there: the grass in front looks shaggy, the second band seems made of soft green clusters and one could mistake  the last ones for some quick watercolour brush strokes.

The variety of greens and greys in succession show plenty of quiet rythm. A very peaceful image.

Dirk Braeckman

Dirk Braeckman, Belgium 1958, from his ‘NN’ serie, no date.

A mysterious landscape of greys…

Dirk Braeckman.

NERART – CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ARTS : WORLD PRESS CARTOON

NERART – CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ARTS – ARTE AFRICANA CONTEMPORANEA: WORLD PRESS CARTOON.

Alfredo Sabat, ‘The Silent Wave’, first prize winner World Press Cartoon 2008.