ghosts in string and windows

Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota creates immense installations with string, furniture, windows, and live people.

What I thought, on first glance, was a frenetic charcoal drawing, was actually a photograph of a white room, with a piano and chairs completely cobwebbed in black strings.  The strings are attached to the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the furniture; they wind around each other and are woven in such a way that they define space and become shapes - or beings - themselves.

Other recurring items she uses are old windows from Berlin construction sites, hospital beds, children's school chairs, and shoes.

...but it's the string that gets me.  A ball of yarn sitting on a desk is such a quiet, soft, unassuming thing.  This artist turns it into a horrible, anxious tangle, a web of uneasiness...it almost looks organic, like an intelligent, plotting Spanish moss, ready to grow around you and swallow you up if you stay too still, too long.

dark and light

Anke Merzbach's photography is dark, elegant, and moody.

Her work is a glorious combination of antiquated fashion and photo techniques, desaturated color, dirty contrast, and models of non-traditional beauty, strength, and grace.



She uses, sometimes to the point of flamboyant excess, a lot of digital photo processing and manipulation, but despite the modern tools, the photos have an air of antique-ness, but of a past world that never really existed at all.



You can find her work on her website, or on her Flickr Stream.

colonizing

Lead by designer Derrick R. Cruz, a group of artists in New York has collaborated on a project called "A New Hive" to raise awareness and funds for the plight of the very important, yet often forgotten, honeybee.  The global impact of Colony Collapse Disorder is affecting bee populations at an alarming rate, raising much concern over not only the future of these populations, but the plants they pollinate, and the ecosystems that are affected by their decline.

A show was set up at Earnest Sewn, and featured a dark, anachronistic display loaded with natural objects, symbolism, and about 200 pounds of honey. 

Below, you can see one of Cruz's solid gold honeycomb necklaces, made with the lost-wax casting method, from an actual piece of honeycomb.  It is displayed within a sugar pyramid filled with honey.

The proceeds from the art sold, as well as donations to the project go to support honeybee research, education, and development of sustainable beekeeping practices.  For more information about Colony Collapse Disorder, click here or here.

from the pages of...

The detailed, illustrative work of Italian artist Ericailcane brings to mind images from a forgotten Victorian storybook. Fussy, proper, macabre, and just not quite innocent enough to be for a child.



In addition to etchings, drawings, and installations, he has worked on a number of video projects, as can be seen here on his website.

garden of delights

These fantastic little worlds are the creation of artist Kathleen Lolley.

Besides the folk/fairy tale aspect of the characters, woodland settings, and rustic details, what really interests me about her work is the historical color palette, and the (perhaps deliberate?) many nods to both Hieronymus Bosch in both rendering style and creature/object design, and the desaturated stacked landscapes of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

That similarity gives an ancient, otherworldly feel to her work, that seems to tell a definite story....even though you may not know what the story is.

More artwork and information about prints and other items at her website.

Nature is Ancient

Last week I stumbled upon the work of photographer Maleonn.



He works in a variety of styles, blending nature and open spaces with human strangeness and kitch. Some of his photos are black and white, and some are black and white with meticulous hand-coloring with watercolors.


Nothing is left un-damaged by his aging techniques, which leaves the viewer, after seeing his body of work as a whole, with feelings of another world...an expanse, a non-knowing of what is around him. It's all very moody stuff, I recommend it highly.

so softly

Lyndie Dourthe is a french artist who makes beautiful objects - and LOTS of them.


The appeal of her art is not only in the beauty of the objects themselves - small studies in color, texture, form - but the repetition of the forms, and how they are arranged; in identical boxes of the same color, in rows, or in giant masses.






Her sense of color is wonderful; the palettes soft and lush and feminine and downright gorgeous. Light and texture seem almost tangible in these internet photos - i can only imagine how these lovely pieces look in real life.

shards

Andy Paiko is a U.S. artist who blends form and function in his glass pieces.



Check out both his "Sculpture", as well as "Sculptural Vesselware" on his website, for striking designs, some holding organic shapes. I really like how layered and ornate the work is - a jar that only needs to be five inches tall has a gigantic layered finial on top, just to show off. Glass is a beautiful and difficult medium to work in, and I really appreciate this artist's work.




Special thanks to DF reader CuriousArt who turned me on to Andy's work!

battle

I can't quite figure Ryohei Hase out.

His work seems to not know where it fits either - at his best, he creates amazing, moody, visceral, motion-filled works with the same grimy flesh-realism that I appreciate in Odd Nerdrum's work. But at his most questionable, he creates pieces that seem more at home on the cover of a paperback science fiction novel than a gallery wall. And then there are the creature-design sketches.



Regardless of its application, this artist's talent is apparent, working digitally instead of with a brush and paint. I mean seriously, we're talking detail down to the reflections in a rabbit's eyes, and individual pieces of fur. Pop on over to his website or DeviantArt gallery (with beautifully large pictures so you can see all the detail).

play your hand

Dear readers, I am so sorry for our absence. Time moves so quickly sometimes, I cringe when I realize almost a month has passed with no update to this Dark Forest. It seems that both Chris and I fill our life to the very top with things, and we often discuss whether or not it is such a good idea to be so full of "to do". But that is for another day.

Today I am looking at the haunting work of Valerie Hammond.



Her works are mixed media - paper, encaustic, graphite, other things, all carefully rendered upon the page. The colors are natural yet dreamlike - I don't feel like they are connected to this world, yet incredibly grounded at the same time. In this series, she just does hand after hand after pair of hands - maybe a repetition, but of such an iconic and expressive form. It doesn't even need to be attached to an arm or a body to speak volumes.

I love the ferns, the flowers, the coral. All laying still on a washy field of color. For something so simple, and careful and centered, they really are very evocative.

haunted

Check out the photography of Lauren Simonutti. On her Flickr page, she asserts that her photographs are all done without the aid of digital effects - all manipulation is done in camera, or in the darkroom. Certainly refreshing these days.

seven deadly sips

Hamilton Design has created a conceptual set of seven red wine glasses based on the Seven Cardinal Sins. All nestled in plush burgundy velvet and polished wood, they look like an antique glass medical device.


Each handmade glass, representing a different sin, is almost painfully clever in concept - the Envy glass is full of holes, rendering what is most desired (the wine) all but unattainable, and the Lust glass is suspended from above, the only way to release the liquid inside being to manipulate a frosted glass globe with the tongue.

I don't even want to guess the price, but these absolutely exquisite sets are available for purchase at their website.

it's been so long

Our apologies to you, Darkened Forest readers. We realize that it's been almost a month since our last post. Chris and I have both had a lot going on, between work, art shows, preparations for ComicCon, and home rennovations...that doesn't leave either of us nearly enough time for blogging.

But I'm going to try and make it up to you this week, while Chris is at Comic Con.

For my first trick, behold the art of Paul Toupet:


His fondness for rabbit masks, rotting fabric, and tattered cotton ticking has every ingredient to make me love it instantly.



His website is, admittedly, a bit of a pain - made in flash with load-times seemingly for no reason at all. But the work is great, taking inspiration from old tribal masks, baby dolls, and childhood toys from a forgotten age.

The work is ambitious, especially considering the fact that the artist is somewhere in the vicinity of 28 years old.

timeless

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison create fantastic, beautiful, surreal, and impossible photo collage works.


Subject matter ranges from desolate, isolated spaces, wounds, anachronistic men in period suits attending to various tasks, and colorful butterflies gathering in natural and man-made arrays. Their works are photographic collages, seamless combinations of images that tell a story. This Wikipedia entry has a lot of great information.

While many of their works are cleaner, lighter, and more colorful, these pieces from the exhibition "The Architect's Brother" (of which there is also a book) are dark and timeless, with pollution and open space, and labor.

Swan Lake

The Silver Swan is an automaton from the 1700s, and is kept in England's Bowes Museum.



This description is from the Wikipedia entry:

"The swan, which is life size, is a clockwork driven device that includes a music box. The swan sits in a "stream" that is made of glass rods and is surrounded by silver leaves. Small silver fish can be seen "swimming" in the stream. When the clockwork is wound the music box plays and the glass rods rotate giving the illusion of flowing water. The swan turns its head from side to side and also preens itself. After a few moments the swan notices the swimming fish and bends down to catch and eat one. The swans head then returns to the upright position and the performance, which has lasted about 40 seconds, is over. To help preserve the mechanism the swan is only operated twice a day."

Here, you can see a video of the Swan's performance, and even better, the enraptured wonder of the viewers in the background. Such art, technology, craftsmanship, and flawless motion are spectacular, especially considering it runs on clockwork and was created over 200 years ago!

on the inside

Dream Anatomy is an online exhibit from the U.S. Library of Medicine. It features some interesting history and information about the development of Anatomy and Anatomical drawing throughout the ages. It is really amazing that most of what we know about the workings of the human body have become known only in the last few hundred years, when humans have been on the earth far longer than that.


If you follow the link to the Gallery section, you will see many images from the other sections of the website; click on them and some will open into extremely large files, which are great for study, and to really understand the difference in rendering and printing techniques used.

of fog and bicycles

Louise Robinson creates illustrative works of a quiet, desolate, archaic tone. Anthropomorphic girls, animals on bicycles, and repeated figures lurk out of backgrounds of neutral shades and stained paper.

Her technique is a mix of digital collage, painting, and heaven only knows what else, the images are rich and seamless, with a striking sense of color and just the right amount of restraint.



She sells her prints in her Etsy store, so be sure to stop in; if you're in the market for some unique, unusual, and haunting wall decor, you have stepped into the right place.

And hey, her first name is my middle name, so maybe I'm biased, but I really love the aesthetic she presents. Louises of the world, unite.

a tale of two rabbits

It just so happens that Chris and I are both participating in an upcoming custom vinyl show featuring artists' takes on Frank Kozik's Smorkin' Labbit (see Figure 1 below):


Chris overhauled his into a new species of jaunty and amazingly cute ungulate...



...which is clearly herbivorous, spending its days quietly stalking low-lying plants.


Mine ended up like something excavated from the attic of a centuries-old home...



...complete with bendable wire ears, rotting frills, and a little cart that rolls when you pull it.



The show is at Rivet Gallery in Columbus, Ohio - I think we'll both be at the opening on the night of May 3, so if you're in the area, be sure to stop and say hello.

burning in the void

I am not going to say much in this post - Odd Nerdrum is well-known, and one of my favorite artists. I have never been able to render the human form well at all, and his absolute mastery of anatomy, texture, movement, and color impresses and fascinates me to no end. He is unwavering in his realism, the worlds he creates are tangible, visceral, dirty, real, alive, fleshy, and blemished.

And even if you've seen his work before, I think it is always worth a second look.

a little bit noir

Spanish photographer Eugenio Recuenco creates dark, moody worlds inhabited by stoic, doll-like people.

His work shows up in fashion magazines, advertising campaigns, exhibitions, and even musicians get in on the action (see the Rammstein photo shoot on his website).

I love the tableau-style work that mimics old paintings and photos; the color is eye-squintingly dark and undefined, it's completely unapologetic in that regard, it's great. I find the "15th hour" series to be disturbingly humorous in a "what will she do next?" sort of way, and there is a wry smirk of kitsch in the voyeuristic/fetishism-tinged photos as well.