Here is another preview from Art Basel Miami Beach, this time from California’s Carmichael Gallery who are taking part in the SCOPE art fair, presenting a show of contemporary works from Simon Birch, Boxi, Andreas von Chrzanowski, Hush, Mark Jenkins, Nunca and, one of my personal favourite artists, Sixeart. Their booth also features a daily site-specific installation from Aakash Nihalani.
Check out the preview below.
Hush
Hush’s work is a sensory assault of shape, color, and character. With a technique that involves building up and tearing down layers of paint and images as he works, he expose the conflicts between power and decay and innocence and sexuality. His content, which synthesizes anime, pop-infused imagery, graffiti, and graphic design, offers a unique perspective of Eastern and Western culture. Hush trained as a graphic designer and illustrator at Newcastle School of Art and Design. He currently lives and works in Newcastle.
Mark Jenkins
Mark Jenkins is an internationally acclaimed American artist known for the mixed media sculptures and street installations he places throughout urban and environmental settings, sometimes with, but often without, permission. Playful and enigmatic, his work successfully transforms the ordinary into the unexpected.
Jenkins’ process involves dry-casting everything from fire hydrants and toy ducks to baby dolls and people, often himself or his assistants, with box sealing tape, the latter often dressed to appear scarily life-like. When placed outside or slipped indoors, announced or otherwise, these sculptures have the ability to both camouflage into their surroundings and elicit spectacular amounts of attention from viewers.
Jenkins’ works have been observed lounging atop billboards, slumped over on cafeteria tables, panhandling in the streets, emanating from street poles, drowning in bodies of water, clinging to statues, overturning street signs and more in locations such as Belgrade, Vienna, Washington D.C., London, Barcelona, New York, Moscow and Seoul. By situating his pieces within such peculiar contexts, the artist brings cities, landscapes and interiors to life in a unique and thought-provoking manner. Whether indoors or out, his work engages its viewers and provokes a complex examination of self and surroundings.
Simon Birch
Simon Birch is a UK born but Hong Kong-based artist who is fast building a reputation in Asia. His portraits, in particular, have drawn attention due to a number of high-profile commissions and two highly successful exhibitions in the past few years.
In 2003, as well as a collection of striking portraits, that include well-known Hong Kong personalities, Birch added an extra dimension to his work with collaborative pieces, handing over finished works to selected artists, designers and photographers and giving them total freedom to add, take away, re-paint, create or destroy. Award-winning designers Stanley Wong and photographer Wing Shya were among those who took part in this project, which not only reflected the artist’s position as a Westerner living in the East, but also mirrored modern culture where so many creative ideas are shared, stolen, mixed and enriched.
Simon Birch paints like everything else he does in life, with passion and intensity. In his portraits, often on a large scale, the subjects are reduced to an austere minimum, with the removal of context, giving an ambiguous intimacy and tension to the work. The faces are intense, yet non-specific in their expression, leaving the viewer to decide on his own perception. Painter, subject and viewer, each has his own subjective interpretation.
Boxi
Boxi is drawn to the incongruous narrative in figuration. A dark disillusioned romanticism pervades throughout his work, in which material boundaries are dissolved and perceptions are altered. He articulates confrontational themes such as paranoia, isolation, disappointment, love and grief through hand cut, multi-layered stencils, often life-sized, which offer a comforting solidity within his abstract landscapes. Born in Kent in 1974, the artist completed his studies at the London St. Martins School of Art with a BA Fine Arts degree in Painting in 1996. He has lived and worked in Berlin since 1999.
Sixeart
Sixeart’s mixture of psychedelic abstraction and comic book-inspired figuration has become an essential element of the urban fabric in his hometown, Barcelona. His work has a childlike innocence combined with an almost hallucinogenic sense of second sight. “Sinister tragicomedy with notes of psychopathology and touches of acid” is one definition the artist himself has offered of his unique style.
Having painted from an early age, Sixeart made a name for himself as a graffiti writer before developing his own highly personal visual language with a host of recurring figures and animals. “My own universe of characters comes from a happy childhood and a close contact with mother nature,” he explains. “Also, I feel that that childish style of mine helps keep me younger.” The dreamlike quality of his work shows an affinity with Surrealist artists such as Joan Miró, another native of Barcelona.
In addition to his large-scale street paintings, Sixeart makes sculpture, screen prints and works on canvas. He has also collaborated with fashion designers to create clothing based on his distinctive style.
In 2008, Sixeart was commissioned by the Tate Modern in London to paint a mural on the building’s iconic river façade alongside fellow internationally acclaimed artists Os Gemeos, Faile, Blu, Nunca, and JR. This was the first major public museum display of street art in London.
Andreas von Chrzanowski
Andreas von Chrzanowski (aka case) combines technical expertise with innovation and irony to investigate the parallels that exist between the conflicting states of convention and controversy. Widely recognized as one of the best photorealistic spray paint artists in the world, he manipulates beauty in a dark, thrilling and provocative manner. His groundbreaking technique has set new standards and established a global collector base and fan network. Born in Germany in 1979, von Chrzanowski studied Art Restoration and Conservation at Erfurt University of Applied Sciences. He currently lives and works in Frankfurt.
Nunca
Sao Paulo based artist Nunca has developed a unique pictorial form of communication, employing bold colors and lines to evoke the ancient traditions of the Brazilian people. His works reflect what he sees as the inner character of the Brazilian people, fighting for survival in the modern metropolis, and create a timeless dialogue between ancient and modern. The faces Nunca depicts are based on members of the public whom he sees while walking through the city. Although they are created with acrylic or spray paint, they often have the look of ancient woodcuts or etchings.
Aakash Nihalani
Aakash Nihalani’s street work consists mainly of isometric rectangles and squares. He selectively places these graphics around New York to highlight the unexpected contours and elegant geometry of the city itself. All execution of a piece is done on site with little to no planning. “We all need the opportunity to see the city more playfully,” he says, “as a world dominated by the interplay of very basic color and shape. I try to create a new space within the existing space of our everyday world for people to enter freely, and unexpectedly ‘disconnect’ from their reality. People need to understand that how it is isn’t how it has to be. My work is created in reaction to what we readily encounter in our lives, sidewalks and doorways, buildings and bricks. I’m just connecting the dots differently to make my own picture.”
Source: Arrested Motion
