THEY’RE PAINTINGS. Yep, spray paint on paper. Oh my word.  These drippy rainbows, smiley faces, birds, flowers are just some of the most recent pieces by Toronto based artist Ric Santon… I cannot express how much I love them. Spray? Paint! Happy Friday.

{His work is available via Dianna Witte Gallery – formerly Parts Gallery – in Toronto}

Embroidery where the Berlin Wall used to stand. Beautiful on many levels. These are just a few of the 43 embroidered photographs that are part of “Berlin”, a series and new exhibition by LA based artist Diane Meyer. The show opens TONIGHT, November 14th, in New York at Klompching Gallery (6- 8pm). Here is a description of the show found on the gallery site:

Being shown for the first time in its entirety, the 43 artworks in the exhibition are being exhibited to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, including artworks never before shown.

Made over the course of seven years, the photographs trace the entire, circa 96 mile path of the former Berlin Wall, taking in sites in the German capital’s city center, as well as the outskirts of the city through suburbs and the surrounding countryside.

Sections of the photographs have been obscured by cross-stitch embroidery, sewn directly into the photograph. This stitching is a signature mark of the artist across her artworks. The embroidery is made to resemble pixels and borrows the visual language of digital imaging in an analog, tactile process. In many images, the embroidered sections represent the exact scale and location of the former Wall offering a pixelated view of what lies behind. In this way, the embroidery appears as a translucent trace in the landscape of something that no longer exists but is a weight on history and memory.

The show runs until January 10, 2020. Go!

LOVE! This is the work of LA based artist Genevieve Gaignard. She does all sorts of fabulous things – from mixed media and sculpture to installation work and, of course, this series of fantastic self-portraits.Here is part of Genevieve’s artist statement:

“Genevieve Gaignard is a Los Angeles based artist whose work focuses on photographic self-portraiture, sculpture, and installation to explore race, femininity, class, and their various intersections. The daughter of a black father and white mother, Gaignard’s youth was marked by a strong sense of invisibility. Was her family white enough to be white? Black enough to be black? Gaignard interrogates notions of “passing” in an effort to address these questions. She positions her own female body as the chief site of exploration — challenging viewers to navigate the powers and anxieties of intersectional identity.”

Brilliant.

Gasp! She had me at ‘glass head filled with flowers’. This is the colorful, bold, surreal self-portraiture of Spain based artist Fares Micue. Here is the description found on her Saatchi Art page:

“Fares Micue is a self taught fine art/conceptual photographer. She started photography as a hobby when she discovered Flickr back in 2009. Little by little that hobby started to take more and more of her time until she realised, almost 6 years later, that what has started as just an entertainment was now her biggest passion. As a self-portrait photographer she loves to observe, and uses her own perception of the world to create stories based of human natural feelings like fear, love, desire or desperation.”

Well thank goodness she found Flickr. I think this new career is going to be a long one!

What on earth are these gorgeous circles that seem to emit some kind of magic? I’m not sure to be totally honest, but the person responsible, French artist Lyès, refers to his work as “celestial wall sculpture”. LOVE! Speaking of love, the message behind his work is a fine blend of “The Energy of Life is in You / Love Will Conquer”. Beautiful! Now, as far as materials go? I believe we’re looking at C-Prints, plexi face-mounted on aluminum panels… with a dash of light-filled magic. Obviously.

Okay, as a control freak, this work makes my chest a little tight. Look at that hand in the final photograph? Or the head in the first image? How did he? What the? Whoa. These stunning, while completely accidental, compositions are the work of German artist Martin Klimas. And, not only are the final images exciting, so is the process! The vases were shot with steel bullets {yep!}, and this is Martin’s process for the Porcelain Figures series:

“From a height of three meters, porcelain figurines are dropped on the ground, and the sound they make when they hit trips the shutter release. The result: razor-sharp images of disturbing beauty, more than the sum of its parts. Temporary sculptures made visible to the human eye by high-speed photography. The porcelain statuette bursting into pieces isn’t what really captures the attention; the fascination lies in the genesis of a dynamic figure that seems to stop/pause the time and make time visible itself.”

The moral of today’s story… magical things can happen when you take a few risks.

Photogrembroiderwax. Okay, so here’s the thing… there’s no one simple category to pop this work into. Ethereal photography, delicate embroidery, tiny beads, and painterly wax all existing in this quiet, dreamy world created by Australian artist Marisa Veerman. Speaking of dreamy, here is her poetic artist statement:

“I have developed my techniques through a deep personal desire to find a peaceful silence.
To pause in an in between place. 
Stitching is a deliberate act of taking time.
To linger. 
To move forward slowly, quietly and with consideration.” 

Marisa has a new show about to open at Lethbridge Gallery in Brisbane. It’s titled IN ALL SHE IS and is open from  September 14th through October 1, 2019.

I don’t usually suffer from FOMO, but I definitely wish I could see this show in New York! Summer Mixer, at Joshua Liner Gallery, features the work of some of my favorite artists… from Arno Beck‘s typewriter landscapes, Jen Stark‘s dizzying pieces, the gorgeous abstracts of Kathryn Macnaughton, and Mark Wagner‘s cut up cash to the colorful sculptures of Stephen Ormandy, Terri Loewenthal‘s vibrant photographs, and – of course – brand new funny and fantastic text paintings by Wayne White. WHAT? How can I possibly be missing this!? If you, however, happen to be in New York, you don’t have to miss it. Summer Mixer runs until August 23, 2019.

WHAT. Yep. This is the work of Japanese artist, designer, art director Yuni Yoshida. Her portfolio scrolls on forever and is filled with one clever project after another, but this food… oh, this brilliantly sliced and diced food… yum, on so many levels! Happy Friday.

Are these paintings or photographs? Yep. “The Unknown” is a surreal, ongoing series by Barcelona based photographer Andrea Torres Balaguer. Given that I’m a huge fan of juicy brushstrokes, polkadots, and mysterious portraits of women … well, this is perfection. Here is part of her translated artist statement:

“My work is made about dreams, surrealism, mystery and the idea of break-up story. I’m interested in every image that tells something, that lets you the possibility of imagine, that generates stories and opinions.”

Happy Monday.