Mona Hatoum turns ordinary domestic objects into something menacing and unworldly. By enlarging these objects which typically represent the traditional feminine domain of the kitchen, they are transformed to assume a somewhat threatening aspect. “Slicer” is an egg slicer enlarged on a human scale measuring four feet in length, encompassing a dark humour with its...
Cary Leibowitz, the artist more formerly known as Candyass, continues the argument into the use of vocabulary and the function of painting. Language has been used in Art plenty of times before: Take Barbara Kruger with her instantly recognizable photographs merged with her trademark slogans “I Shop therefore I am” and “We don’t need another...
Amsterdam designer and illustrator ‘Freshco’ (a.k.a Friso Blankevoort) works mostly in black and white and creates playful illustrations. There’s not a great deal more to say about it other than to check it out for yourself, really great work, and a beautifully crafted website with a nice solid idea behind it. All in all, I’m...
On Wednesday evening I made it to Rough Trade from work just in time to catch the last 3 tracks of Michael Kiwanuka. He’s a young guy with a soulful voice and beautifully written songs. His first album’s just came out from what I understand and he is definitely one to watch. Below is one...
Interested in mass produced surfaces, Nicolas Deshayes explores human and synthetic combinations. In a society obsessed with mechanical perfection and wipe clean surfaces, he adopts a minimalist outlook to provide us with sculptures comprising of familiar materials. Public Work (1) 2009 insinuates bodily functions, with stains dripping down an ambiguous stainless steel structure attached to...
On Thursday night I went along to the opening of Ben Newman’s ‘Masks’ exhibition in East London. The work was brilliant and worked incredibly well as a series, the basement was full of Newman’s mask illustrations which were carefully crafted and printed to perfection as well as some physical versions (my personal favourites) and the...
Tim Wan recently graduated from Leeds College of Art (an institution close to the heart for a fair few of the authors of this site) and has been recently awarded with ‘Best New Blood’ at 2011′s “D&AD New Blood Exhibition”. He has been awarded with a membership to the prestigious ISTD (International Society of Typographic...
Work No. 551, 2006 Choose a space. Calculate the volume of the space. Using air, blow up 40 cm balloons until they occupy half the volume of the space. Creed continually investigates the relationship between art and reality, often in a subversively witty manner. His work is predominantly characterised by his use of materials which...
Richard Wilson is infatuated with changing architectural space. He toys with physical boundaries, altering your perception, whether it’s a room or a whole building. 20:50 arrived 16 years ago at Matt’s Gallery and made its comeback in 2009 being re-installed at the Saatchi Gallery. Wilson is known to eschew popular object-based sculpture and opt for...
On the morning of 6th June 1969, somewhere in the Mojave Desert in California, 2 cubic feet of helium were returned to the atmosphere. This ephemeral gesture from Robert Barry, formed a large environmental sculpture, of sorts. Returning an undetectable material to the atmosphere in which it already exists. This work altered the ground...
Darbyshire tries to define how our belongings provide us with a desired image of ourselves via mass production. He evokes the use of branding, by fashionably re-moulding stylistic boiler suits that we associate with hard manual labour into unusual structures. This is his own role in the process of gentrification; he provocatively repackages the homogenisation of...
Russell Hill’s sculptures are responses to contemporary objects selected for their precise nature and presence in popular culture. If you’re a western civilian and haven’t been living under a rock for the past twenty years, you’ll surely be familiar with the objects in which his pieces consist of. What makes Russell’s work so attractive is...
