The Vader Project

 The Vader Project. Who doesn't love Darth Vader? Who doesn't love 100 Darth Vader Helmets that have been modified by 100 different artists? I'm gonna say no one. Dov Kelemer and Sarah Jo Marks had an amazingly wonderful idea to pull artists into the Darth Vader Helmet and see what came out. The show traveled through 2007 into 2010, where there was an auction held to sell the masks. I'm going to start a slow clap in appreciation for Kelemer and Jo Marks for making a fun art show for everyone. Plus, it's Star Wars, I mean, you can't really beat out a Star Wars art show.



  SO, here are some shots of individual helmets that were made. I highly suggest going to this website and looking at all of the helmets. And also LA Weekly did an article about The Vader Project. And you can also check out the list of artists involved and order a copy of the auction magazine, or a book including all the photos of the helmets from The Vader Project's website by clicking here.  Enjoy the show.   

Glenn Barr

Glenn Barr is a pop art surrealist painter located in Detroit. His work has the look of the old mystery novel book covers, and comic book art. His work is soon to be showing at the 323 East Gallery in Detroit. Barr's work has been featured in Juxtapoz magazine, Hi Fructose magazine twice, Mad Magazine, DC comics, Paradox Press and used to work for the cartoon Ren and Stimpy. Barr also makes artist toys, and has had two books of his artwork published, Haunted Paradise and Sparrow #8.

Barr's work takes the viewer to a past era where tough men and gangsters are on every corner. His work also brings you into his own imagination, a world he has set fiendish characters and scenes. But above all is Barr's amazing talent as an artist. Plain and simple. His style has the ability to use influence from the world of hard lined comics, mixed with soft painterly strokes. It amazes the eye and mind in which each piece of work he does creates a situational story, where you are awaiting what happens next.

Here are a few more of his works, and make sure to check out his website, found here.

Adam Wallacavage

 Adam Wallacavage is a phenomenal artist of many talents. Adam sculpts, does photography, and interior design. His most known work is his ongoing series of octopus chandeliers. Each one is a beautiful array of color and light. Each chandelier is unique, and they run from smaller wall pieces, such as the one pictured on the left, or very large ceiling mounted monsters. 

Adam has stated that one of his main influences was Charles Addams, whom created The Adams Family. Because of this influence, he has used his interior design skills and renovated his home with elaborately themed rooms. Some containing huge molding, which compliments the style of his chandeliers.

Adam's photography ranges from portraiture, stunts, jokes, novelty items, and more. He has a book titled Monsters Size Monsters, which he compiled and in it showcases his ability to photograph anything, in a style that is all his own.

He has artwork showing right now at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in New York.

One of the main reasons I completely love Adam's work is his amazing imagination. In the art world today there are a lot of pieces that are very conceptual, or just shapes and bland colors, which is all very well. Yet, Adam's art stands out against all contemporary art and, it still stands out brilliantly. His technique, craft, and multiple talents make him one of my very favorites of contemporary artists.

Adam has done an interview with SWINDLE magazine, Back Talk with Juxtapoz magazine, and here is another Juxtapoz exert interview from the April 2007 issue. Adam has a Blog, which he updates frequently with photographs, and random bits of his own experiences. All of these I strongly recommend taking a look at!

 So here I will leave you, to hopefully look into Adam Wallcavage's art work if you haven't already, and be as inspired and impressed as I am in his amazing pieces and talents!

Miss Van

 Miss Van is an amazing street artist who now also shows in galleries. Her latex graffiti painting was a new style when she became a street artist, she used paint and brushes instead of spray-cans. Her work became more commonly known in the 1990's around Toulouse, France.

Van has titled her characters as  poupees, meaning dolls in french, when her street art was in it's beginning phases were cute, yet sassy figures. As her artwork turned more toward canvas her poupees started to develop into more emotional beings, with intentions plainly on their faces, usually looking up to no good.  


Miss Van captures her characters in such a way that they seem childlike, yet possess a seductive lure.  The viewer is not sure weather or not her poupees are children acting like adults, or adults acting like children. It makes for an interesting discussion from her viewers.

Her street art is more playful, using brighter colors, and bolder lines. Her paintings have a softer feel, the hair is more wispy, the colors blend, and the tones are much lighter. And in the contrast between her street art and paintings is a finny combination. Although her paintings hold softer tones, the subjects are much more intense. Their expressions are much more determined then her playful characters on the street.

 Van has come across ridicule, being a female artist and painting such seductive figures has feminists up in a bunch. They see her work as degrading toward women, yet I see a beauty in each of her subjects. It goes along with the femme fatal genre, yet has a cutesy twist, the bubble lips, large front teeth, giant eyes. But she still changes these aspects into voluptuous women with the ability to stand on their own. Van's work says that she embraces her own creativity and successfully works in a style unlike any I have seen before. 

 Miss Van's website is Here. Her Facebook Fan Page is Here. And an interesting interview she did with SWINDLE magazine is Here.

Thomas Keeley

 Thomas Keeley is an illustrator and a found object sculpture artist. His work is concept driven, wanting the viewer to take time and think about their own interpretation of his pieces. He doesn't title his work, it leaves the viewer free to pause and think about each piece. I love the simplicity of his objects, the subtle changes to them that create a whole volume of thought driven concept is what I enjoy most from Keeley's work.




 Finding any more of his work is a challenge. I did find a Juxtapoz Magazine which contained his February 2009 interview, in which he reveals that his love of creating artwork has been what pushed him to the levels he has reached. He gives advice to graduating art students to not give up and start working just for money, consequently adding to no time for their own artwork. I was impressed by his relaxed way of answering interview questions, his sense of humor and nonchalant attitude.







Here is an interview he did with Woosta.com, a website dedicated to inspiring artists. Woosta is an interview based website, which lists artists and their interviews they have done with the site. It's a great pick me up sometimes when your having an art block, or need some 'feel goods' relating to your art.

I'll leave you to gander at the last few images with out my rambling. The Panda and the T-Shirts pieces are my very favorite of his. Let's hope to see some more work from Thomas Keeley soon. Enjoy!



                                                                

 Keeley is found Here, Here, and Here, being featured or interviewed, or his own site.

 

Sylvia Ji

 Sylvia Ji is a contemporary artist working out of the L.A. area. Ji's paintings feature the femme fatale at it's finest. Ji's recent work has been based intently of seductive, powerful, and entrancing women. Each painting displays a power of a sexual being, each subject has brute strength, yet each has delicate and whimsical attributes.

One beautiful aspect of Ji's work is the contrast between a three dimensional and two dimensional. The painting on the left, for example, is done in this contrast. The woman's face and body are painted in three dimensional shades and tones, while her hair and decorative roses sit flat against the canvas. I love this contrast, even with her Day of the Dead style paintings, the faces are fully developed by expression, the flat face paint adding it's juxtaposition perfectly . Ji's illustration style mixed with her painting skills is a wondrous addition to a classical theme of powerful and seductive women.

When I first came across Ji's work, she was featured in Hi-Fructose Magazine. Her paintings stunned me! Each one held my attention, starting with the face. The expression on each face was so different from the contemporary art I had encountered. The emotional grab these expressions have pull attention from the face through the surrounding hair, which reflects art nouveau's organic movement,  then moves the viewer down through out the rest of the painting. Ji creates a movement in each painting which flows so well with the eye. Even as simple a movement from top to bottom it might be, it still holds my attention, which can be hard at times.

 

 Each subject lends itself to a whole story. This is another aspect of Ji's work fascinates me. There are tiny details in each piece of work. The tiny bugs pictured in the background, sometimes interacting with the main subject. There are other works where there are drips of fluid on the dresses ro breasts of the subjects. The fluid could be blood, or face paint, or any combination of imaginative concoctions. 

To find out more about Sylvia Ji you can find her website here. And hopefully you do. At her website you can see her work from 2005 spanning to her current work. It's a great way to see how her paintings developed over the years. Ji is an excellent contemporary artist, to which I believe much more will come from her!

H. R. Giger

Hans Rudolf Giger, better know just as H. R. Giger is a Swiss artist, his paintings and sculpture and set designs are world renowned. The image to the left is Giger with two of his sculptures. Giger's work is dark, the imagery usually leaves a viewer feeling that his subjects are in a permanent state of agony, twisted in and out of bio-mechanical cables and wires, usually with objects protruding out out of the subjects, or into them.










Giger has done work for some famous musicians, including Jonathan Davis, the lead singer of the band KoRn. Giger made a custom microphone stand for Davis, which he uses on tours. Pictured below and to the right is Jonathan Davis with Giger's beautiful mic. stand, using the form of a woman which the microphone then bends out from the mid of her skull. Her elongated form made from aluminum, makes a beautiful and delicate form, one that suggests strength as well as feminine beauty.












Giger is most famous for his work on the movie Aliens, which  he won an Academy Award for Best Achievement for Visual Effects for his work. The image on the left is his design for the movie.


















Most of the work that I love that Giger has done is his work with the imagery of the biomechanical. The combination of organic and machinery fills his work with amazing detail, monochromatic coloring choices force the viewer to actually look within the detail of the image instead of being distracted by color choices. Many of the subjects in his work deal with life and death, or being pained, sexually erotic, or all of them at once. A lot of his work is deemed as pornographic because of his use of sexual organs, which at one point led to an obsenity trial when he did a painting titled 'Landscape XX' for a poster insert in a Dead Kennedy's album titled Frankenchrist.

 The remaining images below are just a small examples of the beauty of Giger's work and the variety of his talent in creating such different and wonderingly surreal pieces. To find out more about Giger's work go to his website.