тест 2016

Behind The Wheel

Be still

my heart.

Don't steal

my breath.

Be still.

Don't fall apart.

Like steel

- be cold and hard.

Don't feel.

Be told. Be smart.

Don't toy

with love.

Destroy

the one

you held

above.

Destroy

the man

I used 

to be...

No joy.

No fear.

Just me

Behind the wheel.

Media Product - 'Beautiful Stranger', Variations of a Portrait

 Vangel Imre, Beautiful Stranger Variations

The subject of my Media product is the relationship between the original image of a person and the several drawn versions I produced from it. The 'Beautiful Stranger' series present three reproductions of a single photo through a different medium and done with different materials.What I find interesting about that is how each new image adds a new layer of meaning to the original by emphasizing on certain aspects of it and leaving out others. I started with a simple pencil drawing which highlights the main features of the model. After finishing that, I scanned it and digitally coloured it with a great deal of help from my brother. For the final third version of the portrait I took the pencil drawing and using an eraser and aqua colour pencils , reconstructed it creating a new coloured version. My idea was not only to examine the difference between drawing from life and using a photo of the model, but also to demonstrate the way we see and change nature as we try to imitate it in Art.

Developing My Media Product - Stage One

Vangel Imre, Beautiful Stranger v1.0

This is the first image I drew for the Media Product Project for the university's Visual Communication module. It is a portrait based on a photo of an attractive stranger I found in a social-networking site. I only used a normal HB pencil to sketch out the proportions of the facial features and finish the whole image.  This is a simple and honest attempt to capture the beauty of a person that I don't know almost anything about. 

And to quote Salvador Dali once more:

"Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.”
I hope this is one of the good ones.

In Memoriam Keith Haring

"My contribution to the world is my ability to draw. I will draw as much as I can, for as many people as I can for as long as I can"
-Keith Haring (1958-1990)

I have found a lot of inspiration in the works of Keith Haring. He was an artists who truly lived for art.
I'm not sure why but looking at his art and reading about him, reminds me of that beautiful quote from Kerouac's 'On the Road' :

the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!

Haring's style was really something else. I was struck by his originality the first time I saw one of his works. His art is bold and simple, energetic and primitive, provocative, accessible, yet subject of many different interpretations.
Here's what his official web page says about his art:

By expressing universal concepts of birth, death, love, sex and war, using a primacy of line and directness of message, Haring was able to attract a wide audience and assure the accessibility and staying power of his imagery, which has become a universally recognised visual language of the 20th century.

I discovered this unique American artist only recently through a book by Alexandra Kolossa, from Taschen's artists series. A very well written and wonderfully illustrated book, here's what the author says about Keith Haring's style in the book's introduction:

Like almost no other artist, he understood how to combine his personality and his art into a single entity. His artistic trademark is the line, formally reduced to its essentials, which spreads out in many ways within the restricted area of the picture and takes proper account of its proportions. And it is always a continuous line, guided by the principle of chance, becoming an outline, then a figure and finally a symbol. Mostly the beholder needs just a brief glance in order to register what is to be seen and understood in his works. The particular fascination or Haring's art, however, lies in his ability to combine this strongly graphic style with a great deal of imagination...Spontaneity and assurance are the outstanding attributes of his work. Thousands wear his T-shirts; millions recognise his style. This was true when he dies, and it is still true today...He copied and integrated what he saw around him. Equipped with a sure instinct for the sensitive issues of his time,  Haring became a voyeur of American society and acted as a medium that every day absorbed and processed inspirations before disseminating them via artistic statements that he quite consciously geared to the spirit of his age.

Keith Haring, Untitled

May he rest in peace 

Happiness In Magazines

What impresses me about the work of Hispanic artist/illustrator Jordi Labanda is his precise and elegant use of colour and line. I am inspired by his talent for harmoniously merging ideas and aesthetics from fashion design, pop art, american retro culture and magazine stylistics, adding his personal touch and creating a recognisable new style.
A style driven by beauty as seen in the fashion magazines, his models wearing stylish clothes and trendy accessories, painted in pleasant warm tones and fresh bright colours with graceful long limbs and stylised features. Labanda's vision of the human figure is highly aesthetic as it is in active dialogue with fashion design - many of his images can be found on several collections of expensive stationary products and clothing accessories, magazines, websites, newspapers and even television adds.
Always smiling, wearing trendy clothes, looking flat yet beautiful, superficial yet idealised, the models in Labanda's images remind me of the happiness we see in magazines.

Michael Borremans

Michael Borremans, The Marvel, 2001

Belgian artist Michael Borremans has created a renowned body of work, acclaimed both for its mastery of the mediums of drawing and painting—and for the surreal and unsettling world he uses them to evoke.

All of Borremans’ work shares a sense of ambiguity and melancholy, with elements of the bizarre creeping into what at first seems like a technically startling, yet straightforward realism. Through imagery harkening back to an undatable past—though there are hints of the 1940s—Borremans creates an austere and oppressive world where things become more and more disturbing the deeper you look.

His second solo show at New York’s David Zwirner gallery shows Borremans working with a more contemporary mise-en-scene. In these new paintings, drawn from photographs the artist composed himself, Borremans turns to larger-scale formats as well as to exploring the genre of portraiture. In doing so, he also turns to the history of painting, through references to the style of masters like Goya, Velazquez and Chardin.

Here's a very interesting interview with the artist himself:
www.artinfo.com/news/story/13454/michael-borremans/