I’m not a Photographer, but…
Month: July 2013
RAW Wollongong 3 Days to go!
Artist of the week: Jun Chen.
Jun Chen was born in China in 1960 and migrated to Australia in 1990. He trained in painting at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and later the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. In China, Chen was a brush and ink painter; in Australia he reinvented himself as an oil painter using paint thickly applied with a pallete knife to capture landscapes, nudes and still lifes. The artist is a regular finalist in the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes and his work can be found in the collection of Parliament House, Canberra, and in private collections in Australia and Asia.
Bondi Park, 2012, oil on canvas, 101 x 106 cm.
City in Haze, 2012, oil on canvas, 101 x 106 cm.
Images and text: http://www.rayhughesgallery.com/contemporary-australian/jun-chen
New frames, new work 28/7/2013
New frames, new work.
RAW Wollongong
Come along to the first ever RAW Artists Showcase in Wollongong, Australia. Show your support by purchasing tickets for just $15. $15 get’s you entry to a plethora of cultural entertainments: art, photography, make up artistry, fashion design, film making, jewelry design, performance and more. Be astounded, be amazed! Become apart of history. Be apart of the art! Purchase you e-ticket via the link below.
Tickets: http://www.rawartists.org/nikuzunovskiartist
Oval format.
Working on differently shaped supports offers a wealth of possibilities, here’s a little prep drawing on one of the supports I will be working on.
Artist of the week: Michael Dweck.
Michael Dweck (American, b.September 26, 1957) is a photographer best known for his photography that uses erotic and suggestive imagery. Though he was born in Brooklyn, NY, he moved to Long Island with his family when he was just three years old. After graduating from the John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore, NY, he entered the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, as an Architecture major. The following year, Dweck changed his major to Fine Arts and Communications. He graduated from the school with a BFA in 1979. Three years after graduating, the photographer opened Michael Dweck & Campbell. In 1985, Dweck attended The New School for Social Research where he studied under Marshall Blonsky, a famous semiotician.
The photographer spent much of the 1990s focusing on advertising work; he opened the company Dweck & Campbell in 1992 before changing the name to Dweck! in 1999. He won several awards for his advertising work, including the Gold Lion at the Cannes International Festival, Agency of the Year from the American Association of Advertising Agencies, and the AICP Award for Advertising Excellence.
Though Dweck enjoyed his work in advertising, he closed his business in 2002 to give himself time for photography. His first exhibit came that same year, and he turned that exhibit, The End: Montauk, NY, into a book. During the initial run of the book, it was so popular that the publisher ran out of copies. The following year, Sotheby’s New York ran an exhibit of that work, making it the first time the auction house devoted a show to a living person. One of Dweck’s more famous projects is the series Mermaids, which he started working on in 2006. The series showed female models underwater in mermaid poses. Ditch Plains Press compiled the photographs from the series and released the images as the book Mermaids Collector’s Edition. Dweck’s work has been displayed at the Staley Wise Gallery in New York, NY, the Gallery Orchard in Nagoya, Japan, and the Fototeca de Cuba Museum in Havana, Cuba. Dweck lives and works in New York City and Montauk, NY
Elisaveta 1, New York, New York, 2005, Silver gelatin print, (ed. 30), 40.6 x 50.8 cm
Untitled, (further details unavailable).
Text and images: http://www.artnet.com/artists/michael-dweck/
Small work
Artist of the week: Peter Beard
Peter Beard (American, b.1938) is a photographer and writer known for his collage-work and extensive diaries. While moving around between Long Island, New York City, and Alabama during his childhood, Beard began the habit of keeping diaries that later became source material for many of his collage works. Beard documented his travels and photographs within his diaries from the age of 12, shortly before his first trip to Africa in 1955. In 1957, Beard applied as a pre-med student to Yale before switching to art history, studying under the influential art historian and theoretician, Joseph Albers (1888–1976). After graduating, Beard returned to Kenya where he made his home in East Africa, acquiring “Hog Ranch,” the property adjacent to Karen Blixen’s, near the Ngong Hills.
In the early 1960s he worked at Tsavo National Park where he photographed and documented the demise of elephants and Black Rhinos, and published multiple books on the subject. During this period he began to create photographic collages that explored the interconnectedness of humans and animals. In addition to his own work, Beard has befriended and collaborated with many artists, including Andy Warhol (1928–1987), Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009), Richard Lindner, Terry Southern, Truman Capote, and Francis Bacon (1909–1992). In addition to his collaborations with well-known artists, he photographed prominent politicians, supermodels, rock stars, and New York City celebrities during the 1970s and 1980s. After his art exhibition in 1975 at the Blum Helman Gallery, Beard continued to show his work throughout galleries in Paris, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo, and cities throughout Africa.
Lion pride, southern Serengeti, for the end of the game/Last word from paradise, 1976-2000, Platinum Print on Arches Paper, 40 x 59.7 cm.
MRI, Self-Portrait for Centre National de la Photographie, 1997, mixed media,186.7 x 118.9 cm.
Images and text: http://www.artnet.com/artists/peter-beard/