Lisa Petrocco!

I am definitely a sucker for simple line abstractions. Lisa Petrocco's work resembles tangles of string, the tail end of a ball of yarn, or the scribble of a child exercising his rotator cuff for the first time. There is something very calm and familiar in these lines. Petrocco adds a touch of elegance to the work with the gold, silver and copper leaf. Beautiful!

Renee Hartig

I stumbled upon this artist's work whilst perusing the shops in the Alberta district here in Portland.

Hartig has some huge, some tiny canvases all painted with the same haphazard thick brush strokes denoting controlled shapes in familiar landscapes. The brilliant colors and the brick red under layer peeking through gives these landscapes a fantastic modern feel.

Check her blog out here.

A cool new take on the portrait, and the landscape

Just as I have been imagining the creative possibilities that lie ahead as I hone my crocheting skills, I find something that blows my ideas away...

Joe Hamilton's crocheted landscapes and portraits are just awesome. The bottom landscape might even be pdx?

This stuff reminds me of Chuck Close's recent tapestries. It's great to see what people come up with when taking what they know of design and applying it to a new medium.

Brush up on it...

Cynthia Freeland's 'very short introduction' to art theory covers it all. Concise and clear in her thought process, as in her writing, Freeland does not cut corners in leading the reader through the themes, conditions, milestones, theories and controversies that have shaped art through the years. She also examines the critics themselves, and what perspectives they have brought to the table in our efforts to understand the art world and our relationship to it.

Women are heros, art is illegal...

Here's one way to get your name out there fast: paste gigantic copies of your photographs on major public surfaces, where it is impossible for people NOT to see them.

The anonymous artists has undoubtedly taken great risks to have his work seen and scrutinized across the globe. For fear of repercussions, he has kept his identity a secret. Under the pseudonym 'JR', the artist has accrued a great deal of press, released books, has earned the Ted Prize for 2011, and is releasing a film this coming January.

Check out his videos and the questions he raises at his website.

The importance of Ai

Ai Wei Wei has to be one of the most important artists of our day. His involvement in the political scene in China as well as his fame as an artist make him a complicated issue for the Chinese government to deal with. The love-hate relationship between Chinese politicians and the outspoken artist are evident from Mr. Ai's recent house arrest to prevent him from attending the demolition of his Shanghai studio....which was given to him by the government itself.

Mr. Ai is very frank about his understanding of the reason for his house arrest, saying that they will not abide "anything they [government] don't understand, or will be out of their control". 

Mulder stole my idea

Well, maybe he had it first, but still...I have always been compelled by the mask as a symbol as well as a decorative ritualistic piece of art. What if we could change our faces to become large and primitive. What do these old images do, juxtaposed against the modern human form?

There is much more to Mulder's work. Check him out here.