AvantGraffiti

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So I decided to carry this idea of calligraphy/graffiti further by Googling abstract graffiti and was pleasantly surprised at what I found. The artist here, is James Choules aka SheOne.
The image is from a live painting segment from his Show in Hong Kong as posted in HongKongHustle.

Whether this type of thing wets your whistle or not, it'd do you good to take a peak at this other culture for a minute; not every artist comes out of art school. And regardless of whether it's done in a studio, gallery or under a bridge, there's a lot of good avantgarde art being made today. What's most fascinating is noticing how historical, academic art influences these artists works

You can visit his Website and there's a short Bio Here.

This first video includes segments of interview that help fill in the blanks about his career..



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The one below from Vimeo, where you'll find 5 more vids of his work, is much brighter and lighter

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Graffiti IS Calligraphy

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Even though we tend to associate graffiti with vandalism, the truth is that it's just an avantgarde and usually outdoor form of calligraphy. One dictionary describes calligraphy as "fancy penmanship, esp. highly decorative handwriting, . . . " So you could say that using the term CALLIGRAFFITI is really just a bit redundant. I think that there are those who want to take the familiar formalism of what we recognize as calligraphy and give it some street-cred by including drips and brashness. At least that's how I felt about the work of "Shoe" from the last post. There are others though, who might be trying to define a sub-genre. . .

Of all the results from my Image Searches, my favorite work was that of Merrill Shatzman, below(titled Calligraffiti#2 - a woodcut on paper). You'll find this and a dozen other images of her work at Adam Cave Fine Art.



This new term certainly has it's supporters.

The image below is from a Post on Brushsong about the Calligraffiti: Writing in Contemporary Chinese and Latino Art, Show at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena.

Others still, are convinced that their work straddles both worlds and regardless of our opinions, these artists have embraced this description for their oeuvre and consequently any argument becomes a mute point.

The image below from Madny Al Bakry's Website, rounds out our little sampling which I hope has piqued your interest to investigate further.

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Top image is by A1one from Blind Angle.
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More Dots Than Dashes

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This Blog was originally birthed out of my searches for artists who wrote in their paintings. As I was browsing through my many categorized Favorites Folders to do a post this evening, I noticed a tremendously larger amount of artists in the Dot categories than in the Writing and Word categories. This could mean any number of things, but I immediately set out to correct this imbalance by Googling the word calligraffiti. The results are interesting, but the real kicker came when I visited a good descriptive article about the different styles of graffiti at WebUrbanist. Half way down the page was the word Calligraffiti and a paragraph that states - quote Calligraffiti is a combination of calligraphy and graffiti invented by Amsterdam graffiti artist Shoe (also known as Niels Meulman). It’s a somewhat stylized but still easy-to-read lettering style. It brings together the best parts of calligraphy and graffiti by putting beautiful and artful letters into an urban setting. unquote.



I really do beg to differ: there are just way too many artists who have already used that word and cast it aside because it's just too unwieldy. Be that as it may, here is a pic of him - Niels 'Shoe' Meulman - painting his calligraffiti on a coffin. Yes, and you can read about it Here.

Personally, I'd like to see someone pursue GRAFFIGRAPHY.
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Image from Mediamatic.
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Water Words

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This really is just a bit too amazing. Found this video on bash-mohandis.
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Graphic Paintings

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M. Muhraddin's oeuvre has writing, collage, texture and lots of drama. Each work feels like a complete, light meal with a different flavor. You'll really enjoy visiting his Website where he's done us a tremendous favor by presenting his work in such a way that we can see the progression through his career. You can read a brief biography Here. Another important tidbit of information can be found Here.

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Both images are from his website.

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Images Of Language

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It's been quite a while since I've shown the work of artists who are concerned with language. Alexandra Grant is one such artist who uses words as her sole subject matter. Her Website has the same initial, uncertain feeling as her paintings do, but you'll be well rewarded by patiently snooping around. Besides plenty of images of her work and installation shots, there are also pics showing the step by step progress of some of her creations.

What is she all about ? You'll find an explanation of her oeuvre Here, with another interesting image of her work.

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Careful Contemporary Painting

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If you're unaware of the work of Tomma Abts, it's high time you did some remedial work in your contemporary art studies; she commands a very special niche in our Art World.



But if you're like me you've seen and admired her work before and are amazed at how she just keeps on doing her very special, quality thing. The following quote is from a post in Horses Think, about her Show at the New Museum in '08. quote "I develop something without any preconceptions of what it is going to look like, so, to give it a meaning and sense of self-evidence, I try to define the forms precisely. They become, through the shadows, texture, etc., quite physical and therefore “real” and not an image of something else. The forms don’t stand for anything else, they don’t symbolize anything or describe anything outside of painting. They represent themselves."
-Tomma Abts in conversation with Peter Doig from 2004. unquote

Both images are from a Post in Contemporary Art Daily about her current Show at Giti Nourbakhsch. She's represented by David Zwirner Gallery and you'll find tons of images from her Exhibits at GreenGrassi from 2006 and earlier.

And for your convenience here are Image Search results from;
Google, Clusty and Yahoo.
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Applied Paint

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You'll have a ball exploring Marina Kassianidou's oeuvre. And just when you think you're getting a grip on it, she changes things a bit. Very interesting. This woman is obviously not doing realistic watercolors, here. When you visit her Website, check out Research to find out where she's coming from. It was way over my head, but who cares with entertaining work like this ?

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You'll find 15 images of her work at re-title , Here and Here that are slightly bigger than what's on her website - makes it easier to see what's going on with the paint.

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Confectionery Pointillism

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You'd be hard-pressed to find paintings as delicious looking, intriguing and intellectually stimulating as these, by Farhad Moshiri. There are many diverse facets to his oeuvre, including calligraphy, but this particular style of his knocks me off my feet. He actually uses a piping tool to make the Hershey Kiss-like pieces of paint and then applies them to the canvas. It's amazing how the background image of a wedding cake lends itself and becomes part of the whole. This image is from his Show, Blender at the Sorry We're Closed Gallery, about this time last year. He's represented by the Galerie Emmanual Perrotin where you'll find 59 images all together, which presents a good overview of his work. The concise press release for his Show there - Silly You Silly Me, starting the 22nd, gives us more clues as to what he's about.
He's also represented by Kashya Hildebrand. Be sure to read his Profile.

The piece below, Lot #314 titled "Cowboy and Indian (in 2 parts)" just sold for $628,261(Premium) at Sotheby's London Contemporary Art Including Arab & Iranian Art on Friday. (page 20)


Watch Sotheby's Private View Video Here, where they tell the fascinating story behind the painting and go in real close to show the handy work. You really must see this large to fully appreciate it.
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Heroic Collage

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Some works by Rex Ray do have round, dot elements in them and that qualifies him to be seen here, but the real reason I'm posting about him is the inspiration I felt after reading this article about him in the 8/08 ArtWorks Magazine.
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Sometimes we feel like we're having a bit of a rough day, which affects our art-making. Hearing him tell of the experiences he's faced made me realize how cushy and spoiled we can get; letting the smallest things throw us off track. As with any good artist, it's hard to pick just 1 or 2 images to represent their work and whet your appetite to see more.

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So you'll want to visit his Website and there's quite a fascinating bounty of pics and info at Squidoo.

There's a YouTube interview Here, and you can watch him working on one of his larger pieces Here.

Top image from Squidoo, bottom image from Jeff Doe Design.
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Scolloped Color

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There's impasto painting and then there are these luscious creations by Wil Jansen which stun the senses. You'll find that she takes her work seriously and I'm sure there's forethought, but in general the feeling they convey is joyous abandon.

She's represented by and the top image is from the MDZ Art Gallery. The lower image is from her Website, which you'll want to visit to see all the variations of her beautiful oeuvre. Too bad there's not any information on her thought process. It's always nice to have a Wall Text or Artist Statement to explain the concept, but in the end, all art has to stand on it's own and I think this is pretty outstanding work.

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Photographing Lines

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There's quite an interesting story behind these beautiful works by Thomas Ruff in his soon-to-close show, "zycles" at Galerie Rudiger Schottle. Clicking on English in the left column and then More Information, on your right will give you information about the work. Then click on Images, top/right of that article takes you to the images.



If his name rings a bell, the images that come to mind are of the type I wouldn't want to post on this blog; so I'm glad to see he's since turned his interests elsewhere. And once again he's pushing the boundaries of photography and finding new territory in which to exercise his artistic abilities.


This image is one of many installation shots and individual images from his zycles+ cassini Exhibition at Mai 36 Gallerie, about this same time last year.

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Additional images here.

Top image from Galerie Rudiger Schottle.

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Mixed Medium, Words

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I've been remiss in giving equal time to artists who focus entirely on words and text. My initial searches on the Internet were to find artists who wrote or used calligraphy in their paintings but eventually expanded my searches to include genres about text and language, etc. So I've got quite a few folders full of these other artists and their fascinating oeuvres.

Archie Scott Gobber likes to play around with words and does a great job of presenting them to us in a fresh new way. When you visit his Website, be sure to check out Links and News. One Gallery has installation pics from his Show and you'll find more interesting artists at the venues where he's exhibited.
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Persian Mark-Making

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There are other, more colorful and bolder paintings by Belgian-born artist Farzin Nikzad, but this one in particular appealed to me for it's blurred calligraphic elements. I found his oeuvre interesting, but hard to categorize.

You can survey his work by visiting the Mah Art Gallery. Click on Collections for the most images.

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You'll find 5 completely different images at the Pacific Arts Center and a short piece about his work.

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Image is from the Mah Art Gallery.

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Gesticular

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That was the first word that came to mind upon seeing the work of Tony Magar. There's more to his work than just broad strokes, though. Take the time to look and you begin to really appreciate the complexity of the layers in these Ab Ex pieces, which draw you in past the surface bravado.

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The top image is from, and he's represented by the Mike Weiss Gallery. You'll see quite a difference between the works from his 2005 Exhibit with those of the 08 Show.

He's also represented by the New Gallery with an image page Here and Here.

The bottom image is from Chula Speaks Blog - a fascinating read.

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An additional 6 interesting images can be found Here.

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Paper Scroll Pointillism

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Inventive and playful are the words that come to mind when describing these works by Hadieh Shafie, but her oeuvre goes deeper than that. Unfortunately, as is the custom these days, she offers no Statement and you'll have to search for the answers, yourself.

She's not just about paper scrolls though, so you'll want to visit her Website.
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Check out her page at Saatchi for a quicker visual overview of her work.
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