Digital Art

Since everything is digitalised, then why not art? Monnet Laurent an eighteen year old from France has created some work of art digitally. Some of her paintings are demonstrated here. 

Personal Sculpture

Recently I went to a friend's house and talked about art and future exhibitions. He is Alexis Kapraras, who is a painter, sculptor and icon painter. He is going to have an exhibition soon and he told me that he wanted to make a man's sculpture.

I offered to help him, although I think he helped me more in many ways. 

I saw this as an opportunity of being a 'model' for an artist. I mainly wanted to see how art is created, what the artist goes through in order to achieve his goal, how long this process takes. It was a life experience for me.

Here I will post various pictures from this personal experience in order to show the progress of this sculpture. 

Alexis, our sculptor, is originally from Cyprus. He currently lives in London with his family. The whole process took place at his house.

Alexis began using wood, clay, a stand, nails, plaster, water, soap and measuring tools (used for thousands of years). He had to be really precise with his measurements. He used simple materials which get the job done and which have been tried and used since the beginning of art!

It is interesting to point out that the whole process took about 25 hours, including the breaks we took, meaning having a cider, some ice cream, crepes, bits and bobs and a chat with Alexi, his wife Athena who is also an artist, Poly (their son) and various friends. 

Of course the interesting part was when I helped with the plaster. It was a long but fantastic process. This part took place in the garden shed whilst listening to classical music. 

Alexis told me that when he is in the shed finalising the sculptures he can only listen to classical music, which you have to be there to understand why. In the mess of the materials there is a calming motion and a sense of creativity.  

Before finalising with the plaster, the clay was inevitably destroyed, reminding me of the Mandala, the Buddhist art which when created is quickly destroyed. However in this case we retain the form through the plaster. 

Using two types of plaster, Alexis slowly chipped of the outer layer of the cast. Slowly but gradually we had the final apocalypse of my head. Whilst it was still clay, I have to confess, I wanted to punch it. This of course changed when I saw the plaster sculpture appear. 

The end result, I am sure everyone will agree, is great and is an exact copy of my head. The details are magnificent and evident. Now all I can do is wait for the coming exhibition and see how Alexis will use this sculpture.

I would just like to thank Alexi for this great experience he gave me and hope that all goes well with the coming exhibition. 

Art and sick

I might not be the best critic of  art and its weird movements. However this form of art is quite eccentric. Art might not have boundaries but producing a painting from sick is, I believe, going over the top. 

The Aesthetic Movement, 1860-1900

Visiting recently the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London, I was intrigued by the exhibition titled "The Cult of Beauty, The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900". This exhibition showed the clear and revolutionary ideal which emerged from the cacophony of styles and theories that bedevilled the world of art and design in the middle years of the 19th century in Britain, i.e. the desire to escape the ugliness and materialism of the era and find a new beauty.

The artists associated with the Aesthetic Movement sought nothing less than the creation of a new kind of art, freed from outworn cultural ideas and moral codes. This gave birth to the idea emphasising "Art for Art's Sake"; art that existed only in order to be beautiful - pictures that did not tell stories or points of morals; sculptures that simply offered visual and tactile delight and dared to hint at sensual pleasures. 

The same daring spirit motivated innovation in design. Avant-garde designers, adopting the new Aesthetic sensibility, transformed the banal and pretentious furnishings of the Victorian middle-class home. Their aim was to make tables,chairs and cabinets worthy of the name 'Art Furniture', to create ceramics, textiles, wallpapers and other manufactures exquisite enough for the houses of Aesthetes.

The Cult of Beauty united romantic bohemians such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his followers; the fresh from Paris and full of dangerous French ideas and the Olympians. They usually chose women whose looks and lifestyles were at odds with conventional Victorian ideals of demure femininity, these painters created new types of beauty. 

In the 1870s besides the fact that it had become a movement that transformed art and design in Victorian Britain, and despite the increased knowledge of Aesthetic ideas and taste, many observers still saw the movement as the preserve of self-regarding and possibly immoral cliques. However, later in the decade the movement began to make  more positive progress.

Aesthetic painting became the fashionable enthusiasm of a circle that was grand, wealthy and intellectual. As well as commissioning paintings and portraits, its followers were keen to redecorate their homes in the Aesthetic manner and even to wear Aesthetic dress. This movement serenely passed from its early phase as the recherché enthusiasm of the few to become the artistic and lifestyle choice of the many. 

Previous accounts of Aestheticism have suggested that satire and parody overwhelmed the credibility of the movement: painting and poetry lost momentum, artistic furnishings were scaled down for the suburbs, the pursuit of beauty faltered. But a contrary view can be advanced, for in the later 1880s and even well in to the 1890s many of the great figures were still active. The next, rising generation of artists sought to continue many of the Aesthetic ideals, albeit in a daringly modern way. 

Art on a car!

Many times we see on the street people driving very dirty cars, although this applies more to vans and lorries. A certain artist though it appropreate to "paint" on a car by using its dust and dirt in order to copy masterpieces or merely draw certain popular figures. Enjoy his work!

A Blind man's work of art

Esref Armagan was born blind but learnt to read and write on his own. Currently he is a successful painter. His work has been exhibited on countless occasions. His unique work allows him to paint without any assistance.

To begin with he carves on the drawing board the shapes he wants, in order to touch the carvings with his fingers. When eventually he is happy with his work he begins to colour in the painting, using paints which have an oil base.

However, because he uses his hands to apply the colours he has to wait two to three days for the colour to dry and then he continues with the other colour. 

This shows how people can use their imagination to create any work of art. It is astonishing how someone who has never seen has the power and imagination to create the paintings portrayed here.