Friday, April 22, 2011

Top 10 April 22

Happy long weekend to all my little Easter-Bunnies!
Here comes 10 more inspirational moments from the past week online.
We hope you like them.

Also, I am sorry if I kill any happy feelings towards this long weekend or the Royal wedding
(which you can see live on youtube) by posting Lars Von Triers - Melancholia as an extra trailer nugget this week...looks amazing though.




Take care and see you next week.

Mr. J

1. Langdon Graves






BIO:
Langdon Graves Born in Fairfax,
VA 1978 Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

CONTACT:
shh@langdongraves.com

See more work by Langdon HERE

2. Levi Brown




  
Levi lives in New York City with his 5 dachshunds, and his parrot, Mr. Asthma.     

See more work by Levi HERE

3. Laurie Lipton






Laurie Lipton was born in New York and began drawing at the age of four. She was the first person to graduate from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pennsylvania with a Fine Arts Degree in Drawing (with honours). She has lived in Holland, Belgium, Germany and France and has made her home in London since 1986. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the USA.
Lipton was inspired by the religious paintings of the Flemish School. She tried to teach herself how to paint in the style of the 16th century Dutch Masters and failed. When traveling around Europe as a student, she began developing her very own peculiar drawing technique building up tone with thousands of fine cross-hatching lines like an egg tempera painting. “It’s an insane way to draw”, she says, “but the resulting detail and luminosity is worth the amount of effort. My drawings take longer to create than a painting of equal size and detail.”
“It was all abstract and conceptual art when I attended university. My teachers told me that figurative art went ‘out’ in the Middle Ages and that I should express myself using form and shapes, but splashes on canvas and rocks on the floor bored me. I knew what I wanted: I wanted to create something no one had ever seen before, something that was brewing in the back of my brain. I used to sit for hours in the library copying Durer, Memling,Van Eyck, Goya and Rembrandt. The photographer, Diane Arbus, was another of my inspirations. Her use of black and white hit me at the core of my Being. Black and white is the color of ancient photographs and old TV shows… it is the color of ghosts, longing, time passing, memory, and madness. Black and white ached. I realized that it was perfect for the imagery in my work.”

See more work by Laurie Lipton HERE

4. Andrea D’Aquino







29 year old Italian photographer Andrea D’Aquino works between Barcelona, Hamburg and Stuttgart, and has been shooting professionally for about 10 years now: “- I started taking pictures when I was 16. I had this really bad camera, 30 dollars plastic shit! I had no skills and I didn’t even know how to put a film in the camera. The background for it was that I realized that my family didn’t have a collection of family pictures because my father didn’t like pictures. Isn’t that funny? I’ve always loved pictures, so I wanted to change this! I became addicted and started professional training when i was 19. My boss allowed me to use all his equipment on weekends (every type of camera, films, darkroom and so on), I learned a lot and had a great time. Today I’m 29 years old … I’m still addicted.
His work has been featured in publications such as QVEST, Vs Magazine, SCHÖN! Magazine, and Hypebeast Magazine, and when asked about what inspires him he could go on about it all day: “- Inspires me? Good question …. a lot of things! I really need to mention women. I really love to photograph different kinds of women. It’s always a great experience. To take good pictures of a model I always have to be in love with her or what I see (in theory), it can be the face, the way she moves, the attitude, the lips, eyes, everything … when I see nothing interesting i don’t take good pictures. Other things that inspires me are movies, music, pictures and and the works of other photographers. And natural light, I love how sunlight shapes everything that surrounds us … endless inspiration.

See more work by Andrea D’Aquino HERE

5. Raul Gomez




Bio:
Raúl Gómez nace en Cádiz en 1977. Estudia Diseño Industrial, pero su instinto, aptitudes y la pasión por el dibujo, le llevan a recorrer otro camino: el del diseño gráfico y la creatividad. Inspirado por las portadas de discos, la tipografía, los libros y las series de animación, explora nuevos caminos creativos mientras se forma en distintos estudios de diseño y publicidad.

En 2005 decide crear, junto con otro compañero, el estudio creativo "Emotive Project". Un proyecto que, además de suponerle una experiencia muy gratificante durante 3 años desde el punto de vista artístico y profesional, le aporta una visión más enriquecedora del diseño gráfico. En ese periodo se sumerge campos tan variados como el de los videoclips, las portadas de discos, la vídeocreación y el diseño editorial. Y desde el punto de vista artístico publica en revistas de ilustración y expone su obra en distintos países.

Tras concluir la etapa de Emotive Project, siente la necesidad de iniciar su andadura en solitario, que no solo, y así crear un nuevo proyecto más personal. Entre 2008 y 2009, y tras más de once años de experiencia en este campo, abre las puertas de su nuevo estudio, en el que busca un camino mucho más intimista que satisfaga sus necesidades personales y creativas.

See more work by Raul HERE

6. Jonathan Hobins






Jonathan Hobin's exhibit, "In the Playroom," stars children acting out modern-day horrors from 9-11 to prisoner abuse.
Hobin went on to say:
"Kids have always taken what they see in life and incorporated it into their play. Play is a tool that kids use to process and understand the world around them.
All I've done is exaggerate those reflections of our world that kids see."

See more work by Jonathan HERE

Thursday, April 21, 2011

7. Opening Ceremony Blog - Spike Jonze Presents: Lil Buck and Yo-Yo Ma



The other day, I was lucky enough to be at an event to bring the arts back into schools and got to see an amazing collaboration between Yo-Yo Ma and a young dancer in LA, Lil Buck. Someone who knows Yo-Yo Ma had seen Lil Buck on YouTube and put them together. The dancing is Lil Buck's own creation and unlike anything I've seen.

8. Mint Vinetu - Become Someone Else





Print:
When one reads books, he/she starts living it and identifies (or not) with main hero. These print ads for the Mint Vinetu bookstore, which sells lots of classics, focuses on the idea of becoming someone else. And provokes people to try
on different personas.

See more work from Love Agency HERE

9. Johan Thörnqvist






Johan on Johan:
gertrud.se
googely
interview (swedish)

10. Sleeping Beauty







Death-haunted, quietly reckless, Lucy is a young university student who takes a job as a Sleeping Beauty. In the Sleeping Beauty Chamber old men seek an erotic experience that requires Lucy’s absolute submission. This unsettling task starts to bleed into Lucy’s daily life and she develops an increasing need to know what happens to her when she is asleep. sleepingbeautyfilm.com

Directed by Julia Leigh