Category: Art

Pursuing her passion after hours, Andrea Farina creates intricate embroideries and gouache paintings and continues to experiment with a wide variety of mediums.

“I let each figure lead itself to the type of story it will tell.”
Intimate and vulnerable, Farina’s works explore the human body and what defines humans beyond their anatomy. Through hanging threads, patterns and delicate details, the artist strives to create the balance between the superficial order in our bodies and the inner chaos we carry within ourselves. She says: “From motion and emotion to the more tangible or imagined structures that physically hold us together, I let each figure lead itself to the type of story it will tell.” While discovering this unsound harmony, Farina started to recognize it in her personal life, too, which led her to explore her family, relationships, and memories through embroidery and vintage photographs.

Seoul-based artist and student, Park Ki Pyung, creates striking human sculptures that embody a universal and eternal question — namely the internal struggle with the self.

Created based on personal reflections regarding the past and the future, mortality, character and behavior, the artist creates sculptures from materials such as resin and steel, shaped in the form of figures that are incomplete or ruptured, appearing like a shell, “to describe condition of emptiness,” says Park. “I also use shape of human body with excluded front face, so that I can delete unique characteristics of each person. I describe images of ancient battle scene to show violence against self.” Follow Park’s practice here on Instagram.

All images courtesy © Park Ki Pyung

American realist with modernist vision, the painter Bo Bartlett looks into the heart of American identity in his works, studying its land and its people.

Although Bartlett’s works are well-informed by the legacy of such painters as Thomas Eakins and Andrew Wyeth, the artist pushes the boundaries of the realist tradition with his multilayered imagery. Presenting symbolical scenes happening in the places remembered from his childhood and life, Bartlett codes his works with many references to American culture and history. However, though mainly looking at America’s land and people, the painter goes beyond describing the culture and beauty of the country and conveys the universal struggles of a man. Bartlett undertakes the themes of life, death, passage and memory in his paintings, inviting the viewer for an open interpretation of his works.

Triggering our sensibility to graphic images of the inside of our bodies, Chinese artist Cao Hui has revealed the inner side of classical sculptures.

Fascinated by anatomy and realistic depiction of human organs, the artist divided classical artworks into pieces showing anatomic details that compose their interiors. Believing that the object’s inner side is as important as the surface, Hui challenges the viewers’ expectations towards the classical sculpture. When assembled, the artworks appear to be predictable, traditional sculpture. But when one takes the numerous pieces apart, the view is surprising, causing various emotions that range from anger to laughter.

Japanese artist Gaku works within minutes to carve intricate, traditional floral and patterns into fruit and vegetables, using a simple vegetable knife.

Following Mukimono (剥き物) — his culture’s delicate tradition of decorative food carving — the artist carves symmetrical, delicate patterns into vegetables and fruit such as broccoli, radishes, apples and bananas. Gaku explains the banana is his favorite type of fruit to practice on, given its cheap price point and soft texture. After he’s completed his works, Gaku says he consumes them, “except for the banana peel”. See more of his work on his Instagram channel.

Provocateur and icon of self-presentation Cindy Sherman is back with new art works. Until April 8 2017, New York-based Artist shows her latest pieces in Sprüth Magers Gallery, Berlin. On view are her most recent pictures from 2016, presented as a complete series for the very first time in Europe.

The large-scale color portraits show the artist presenting herself as various Hollywood divas from the golden era of 1920s cinema in the United States. Sherman, best known for her critical parodies of gender roles, sexuality and identity, now takes an ironic glance behind the sparkling facade of Hollywood goddesses.

All photographs have been produced through dye sublimation. Heat was used to transfer dye directly onto metal. Through this procedure glass protection for the pictures becomes superfluous. Thus the portraits become even more vital, the impact on the viewer is more direct than it would be if they were immured behind glass.