Papa Issue

Papa Issue is a website displaying all kinds of art from the Latin world, covering every district in and between South and Central America. Papa Issue believe the art of the Latin world has it's own identity and characteristics, setting it apart from the rest of the world and the website allows you to scroll through illustration, performance, graphics, street art and the handmade. (To name but a few). Above, I've highlighted the work from two artists, Argentinian artist Diego Spivacow and fashion photographer Marta Julve Obon.

Manuel Vason

Italian photographer Manuel Vason says:

‘I live and observe the world as a huge museum with peculiar beauties and oddities’

Vason’s photographs focus on the human form and performance, often appearing as if taken straight from the stage with costumes, make-up and choreography still intact; all poised as if about to take the next step forward.

Vason has a fascination with movement and intricacies of the human body which he twists, distorts, compresses and elongates in various shapely ways. It’s not surprising that Vason’s work have been featured in ID, Dazed and Confused, Whitechapel Gallery and The Tate Magazine amongst others. Once again, a photographer has stolen my heart.

The British Art Fair

A swarm of tweed jackets, large price tags and gentle lah-dee-dah’s of polite conversations greeted me as I stepped hesitantly, (brushing the cat hairs off my jumper) into the opulent world of the British Art Fair.

Held at The Royal College of Art, the fair was organised by fine art gallery owner, Caroline Wiseman, also author of play ‘The Leonardo Question’. The latter re-lives and parodies the world of Modern Art through short sketches featuring major artists including Picasso and Duchamp, through to Pollack, Warhol and finally, Hirst and Emin.

Book aside, The British Art fair displayed a host of London galleries and after meeting and greeting Caroline, she kindly gave me a signed copy of her play and sent me on my merry way to explore the exhibition, which had paintings peppered upon the walls of two floors.

I’ll put my hands up now and admit that traditional fine art isn’t really my thing, but nevertheless there were definitely some more contemporary works that stood out, most especially Anna Gillespie’s Antony Gormley-like sculptures (see last image above). These depicted human forms in various poses made entirely of beech-nut casings. Turns out Gillespie trained as a stone mason in Bath before travelling to Italy to study with the sculptor and master carver Nigel Konstam.

Also from Bath was artist Nathan Ford, whose large scale portraits (also above) were extremely impactful. Ford focuses on identity and longing within his works and uses large, manic brush stokes to create emotive portraits that appear un-finished in quality but completely gripping.

The British Art Fair is a definite 'must' for all avid fine-art collectors with cash to spare, although perhaps the Affordable Art Fair might be more my style.

Save The Arts!

The Save the Arts campaign is organised by the London branch of the Turning Point Network, a national consortium of over 2,000 arts organisations and artists dedicated to working together and finding new ways to support the arts in the UK.

The Save the Arts campaign needs you to sign this petition to Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. The petition points out that it has taken 50 years to create a vibrant arts culture in Britain, which is subsequently the envy of the world.

By slashing arts funding, the government risks destroying this long-term achievement and the social and economic benefits it brings to all. They need 100,000 signatures to make an impact, so get signing!

The Tate Movie Project

I headed to the Thames Festival this weekend and came across an interesting project run by The Tate called 'The Tate Movie Project', which encourages 5-13 year old kids to contribute their ideas to an animated movie. Under a large marquee, a professional animator taught children how to mould plastercine figures into different poses, taking a screen grab of each pose, and then editing the sequences together into a full animation. There were a lot of kids watching, but also plenty of adults, who were equally fascianted by how animation works.

The Tate Movie project encourages children to create every aspect of the final film, from the hand-drawn characters and plot twists, costumes and comic sound effects. The website is a virtual film studio that forms the hub of the Tate Movie Project online community. Children can upload their pictures and ideas as well as voting on those already on the site

The Tate and Aardman Animations are running hundreds of similar production workshops across the UK from the Tate Movie Truck, a state of the art mobile learning space where children explore art and animation as well as generate ideas and drawings for the film. Galleries nationwide will also be hosting workshop. You can find out if there’s a workshop near you by looking on the site.

Biscuiteers

On my birthday last week, a great friend of mine sent me this biscuit card from Biscuiteers, an adorable London based biscuit company who provide all sorts of hand decorated biscuits for all occasions, sent straight to your door.

Some particular favorites of mine are their City Break box, which contains Paris or New York themed treats, and the Safari biscuit box which is full of giraffes, lions and zebras, all covered in multi-coloured icing sugar.

Biscuiteers pay a great attention to detail; each biscuit comes in it's own box, with coloured tissue paper and a small card that says 'Enjoy Your Biscuits'.

What more could a girl ask for?!

Edition One Hundred; Online Gallery

Edition One Hundred is an online gallery that prides itself on pricing art at an affordable rate; allowing a variety of great pieces to be purchased from all over the world, at any time. The 'gallery' aims to restore the economic power to the artsits and the collectors themselves, while giving a percentage of all sales to charitable causes.

The charities featured include the Abolish Slavery Coilition and Homeboy Industries. The latter helpes former gang-member youths to become positive members of society through job placement, education and training.

Each piece is priced at just $100, and although there isn't a huge selection, I can really see this website growing, just as the use of the revolution of the digital age continues to expand.

Carl Kleiner

As you've probably noticed, I'm a real sucker for colourful photography and have subsequently fallen in love with yet another photographer. This time it's Carl Kleiner a Swedish still life photographer, whose subjects range from fashion shots, to animals to landscapes. Each piece captures a unique moment, appearing even more picturesque under the freezeframe of the shot. Check out Keliner's diary on his website for a stream of fantastic images. I like this Granny best.