Tumblr

Hi there.
As you might probably know, in my previous posts I have been posting links to my Tumblr. This is because all my original posts were posted in Tumblr, and it was simply too taxing to dig out all the photos in my Mac and posting them all over again on Blogger. Hence, I'll link you to the page if you are interested.
Currently on my Tumblr, there are a few photo sets on Photography. Namely, Food and Night (kind of Bokeh-like effect). The most recent post is one on a birthday card assignment the school has tasked us to do.


Ciao for now!

Lucia Hartini

Again, click here to read the full post.
Thanks.

Rene Magritte

Please read full post here on my Tumblr.
Meh. I'm too lazy to transfer everything over. My bad.

MC Escher

*Read the full post here.

**Read the 2nd post on Reptiles here.

This video featured his famous works and Reptiles appeared somewhere in the middle of the video. That was just an introduction to his works and common artistic styles and the work I will be talking about (or rather Feldman’s criticize about today. Interesting, no? Well, who exactly is MC Escher?

His full name is Maurits Cornelis Escher (which explains the initials MC Escher). According to his official webpage, he is one of the world’s most renowned graphic artists. He can be classified under the movement of Surrealism (in my opinion), because of his famous manipulations with composition, by incorporating exquisite structures which pay homage to mazes and puzzles, playing with optical illusions in his 2D art works. I guess he was truly a master of his art, as there is nobody else as refined in this area as he is. Although his works exhibits the concept of abstraction and fantasies, his works are composed (like Salvador Dali and many other Surrealist artists) with photorealism, which I am a huge fan of. Ha. 

Apart from creating sketches and occasional paintings, he made use of other mediums. There has been a record saying that during his lifetime (1898-1972), he has a whopping amount of 448 lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings and over 2000 drawings and sketches! That is divine, no, really. 

To learn about lithography, do watch this gorgeous video, that highlights the art of lithography here.

Here’s a fascinating fact about the late artist, he was left-handed. I guess left-handers are geniuses? I for one has many friends who are left-handers and they are braniacs and crazy good in their works and all. Famous artists throughout the centuries like Michelangelo and Lenoardo Da Vinci were also left handed. 

Escher is most renowned for his complex works such as Ascending and Descending, Relativity, his Transformation Prints, such as Metamorphosis I, Metamrphosis II and Metamorphosis III, Sky Water I or Reptiles (which I will be featuring in this blog).

Reptiles, Marius Cornelius Escher, 1943 (Lithograph)

The next blog post will be an extensive and comprehensive (I hope) analysis of Reptiles (above) and a comparison between Reptiles and another piece of work called Cycle by Sergey Cherednichenko. I will also be ending the next post with another appropriate video. Keep reading!

Frida Kahlo

To see the photos please click here.

My Frida Kahlo impression. (I tried)

“I paint flowers so that they will not die.” - Frida Kahlo

Pamela Campagna

See photos here from my Tumblr.

I came across this amazing Italian artist on the web. As a student who is extremely interested in portraiture, the way Pamela Campagna constructed her portraits really intrigued me. Also, it reminded me of a fellow peer, Fang Ni’s style of making art. I remember Fang Ni also had such an idea in using nails and styrofoam boards to create the human face. It was very interesting to see this idea in a full-time professional artist! 

Analysing the techniques employed by the artist, Pamela Campagna while creating the face using spools and spools of thread, I realized the time and effort put in by another artist again. She had created the portrait by putting nails into a wooden board and then using thread to create figurative elements of the face and body. She used various colors of string to suggest highlights and shadows on the face i.e. Black and Grey string and she crossed the strings continuously to create geometric patterns that in turn create the textures of the respective features of the face. For example, in areas whereby the features are more defined like the eyebrows, she would cross the string more often, and thus, the eyebrows would be darker in colour in comparison to other features on the face.

Her realistic depiction of her subject matter in the form of an abstract Cubist way of presentation (using strings to create lines and jagged shapes) demonstrates her ability to create art in the most creative ways possible which are extremely admirable. The establishment of the face of her subject matters in proportionate measurements also show that she most likely (I think) had previously studied and researched a fair bit on the facial anatomy of humans (just like Leonardo Da Vinci who in his case did study a lot on human anatomy). By the way, both of them were Italian!

Her dedication and commitment to her works is commendable. Beautiful pieces of work. A true Italian indeed.

Ilian Iliev

Taken from Tumblr. See photos here.

Who loves food? Who loves art? I do, and that is why I love this artist. He does food art. Basically, he uses knife to carve on another type of medium which is relatively uncommon in the art world. Although, there has been increasing occurrences of food art in the art world, I feel that Ilian Iliev is the master of this art. Nobody carves fruits like apples, mushrooms and watermelons as well as him. 

Ilian Iliev usually creates motifs and patterns on the surface of the fruit by manipulating the skins and the flesh of the food itself. Sometimes, he makes use of the thickness and natural coloured patterns of the skin of the food itself. 

For example, in his watermelon carvings, he played with the patterned green surfaces when he carved his fruit. He usually carves patterns which consists of a lot of curvilinear and rounded forms. He employs the use of fluidity in his detailed patterns by incorporating the use of circles, swirls and waves, reminiscent to the late Post-Impressionist Vincent Van Gogh who also used a lot of swirls in his paintings like Starry Starry Night and series of Self-Portraits. 

His works usually portray patterns of flowers. For example, he likes to carve images of roses on apples and mushrooms (seen above). His skill in doing so is really revolutionary as the forms are so realistic and it seems as though a rose had really grown out of the apple/mushroom itself. Pretty amazing! 

In the work with the egg, Ilian Iliev cleverly cracks the eggshell with precise straight lines and stacks them together creating a stairs-like effect. The white colour of the shell also suggests a pure and angelic kind of atmosphere. The rose at the top of the shell further emphasizes on the heavenly-like aura of the work. 

In general, his works consists of huge amounts of details in his patterns as he varies his deep gouges to shallow carvings. Thus there are different depths and dimensions in his works. 

There is also another aspect of art in his works actually - Photography. Ilian Iliev is a food photographer by profession so he plays with the angles of which he takes photos of his subject matter (in most cases will be food). Hence, his photos also reflect his artistic take on photography and his positioning of his art in the photographs. 

Seriously, his works are so beautiful that I cannot bear eating those works. From afar they look like waxed candles that were sculpted instead of food as the carvings are just too accurate and impeccable. 

I love food, I love art and I most definitely love food art. Peace.