Inspiration Artists Letting environmental art speak for itself is no longer enough Cynthia Hooper is constantly dancing. At least, this is how the Californian film-maker describes balancing the two halves of her practice. Yes, she makes works of art; but she also tries to raise awareness of environmental issues. Her films of energy infrastructure, waste landscapes and agricultural spaces are often stark and hypnotic – even strangely alien and futuristic – when presented on their own. Eschewing explanatory infographics and voice-overs, they feel much more like art pieces than documentaries. A couple of weeks ago, Hooper presented some of her work as a guest in the Infrastructure Aesthetics series at New York University’s Department of Media, Culture, and Communication. Advertisement Exportadora De Sal from Cynthia Hooper on Vimeo. The first piece she showed was Exportadora de Sal (2007), which perfectly sets the tone for her style of work. Geotérmoeléctrica Cerro Prieto from Cynthia Hooper on Vimeo. More on these topics: energy and fuels
SR X. STENCIL MADE IN XIXÓN El Sr. X es un artista urbano, que por encima de todo práctica el stencil. Sus obras se pueden apreciar en paredes, muros, puertas y rincones de ciudades como Gijón, Londres, Madrid, asi como en algún espacio de Croacia, Brasil, o Alemania. Contando con la mayor parte de sus trabajos en espacios públicos, también ha sabido trasladar sus imágenes al mundo del taller y de las exposiciones a un nivel más tradicional, o al menos más normativo como es el de galerías o centros de arte, destacando sus intervenciones para Arenas Movedizas, festival de arte de LaBoral (Gijón). L: También es normal escuchar que stencil y graffiti comparten muchos puntos en común. Desde el empleo de materiales base como el spray, o el hecho de que como cualquier arte urbano, se realice dentro de los espacios públicos, e incluso a causa de esto último, ambos corran siempre el riesgo del “borrado”. L: Aunque consta que el stencil también puede ser una técnica que represente otros mensajes.
Alexandre Farto aka Vhils Selected Works Sylvain Meyer New to me, these wonderful land art installations by Swiss artist Sylvain Meyer who modifies wooded areas and landscapes to create various impermanent patterns, sculptures, and textures. Everything seen here was constructed without the use of Photoshop, even the mossy spider. Whoa! Poppy Dandiya- Poppy Dandiya Poppy Dandiya is a studio jeweler living between Jaipur and England. Poppy was born in 1955 and by 1975 he completed his formal education at St Stephens College in Delhi. This education was designed to pave his way into the Indian bureaucracy, but he started biking and backpacking across India and Europe instead. To pay for his travels he bought pieces of old silver jewellery from pawn shops during his biking trips around the Thar desert, and sold it to friends, and later boutiques. Little did he know then that he was setting up the foundations of his new career. By 1980, Poppy found himself in London, taking evening classes in jewellery-making and gemmology at Sir John Cass, honing the jewellery instincts he had inherited from his jeweler grandfather. Finally, since around 1996, Poppy started sharing his time again between Jaipur and the UK, first in Cambridge and later in Devon.
info : Lunar New Year Massive Art Nouveau-Inspired Mural in Montreal For 16 days straight, from dawn to dusk, five highly determined Montreal-based artists (who make up the artist run collective A'shop) worked on a graffiti mural of a Mother Nature-esque Madonna or a modern-day version of "Our Lady of Grace." Inspired by Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha, the crew created this breathtakingly beautiful five story mural using 500 cans of spray paint in over 50 different colors. “We been doing graffiti for a long time but this is our first large project involving the whole team,” Fluke of A'shop told The Montreal Gazette. “We’re always busy with other projects so we’ve never really had time to let [the reactions to] them sink in. The city gave the group complete control of the project and, luckily, the public ended up loving it. Fluke said that he hopes this project will encourage other city boroughs to consider murals of their own. Update #1: We got in touch with Kris Wilk at A'shop to ask him some more questions. A'shop website
Andres Amador San Francisco-area landscape artist Andreas Amador etches massive sand drawings onto beaches during full moons when his canvas reaches its largest potential. Using only a rake and often several helpers the geometric and organic shapes are slowly carved into the sand, often interacting with the physical topography like the stones in a zen garden. The works exist for only a few moments, just long enough to snap a few photographs before being completely engulfed by the encroaching tide. Amador has also collaborated on a number of killer marriage proposals, the question popped as part of his elaborate drawings viewable from an elevated distance. You can see much more on his website, and he also sells prints. If you liked this, also see the works of Sonja Hinrichsen and Jim Denevan.
Photographer encounters forgotten Chinese city covered in lush vegetation Whenever new photographs arise of manmade structures gone untouched for years, it's hard to look away. Some photos are haunting and eerie, yet these lush, green-shrouded buildings on Gougi island, in China’s Yangtze River, are anything but eerie. Instead, they reveal a tranquil sense of what happens when nature reclaims the land. Related: Buy your very own gold rush ghost town on Craigslist! Gouqi island is located in the Shengsi archipelago of about 400 islands. Each discovery of abandoned cityscapes is captivating, but one covered in beautiful ivy and greenery surely enchants in its own way. Via Bored Panda and Weibo.cn Images via Jane Qing