Jammy Custard Studios » Artist Study

Street Art – Beyond the Spray Can

Sarah — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:00:35 +0000

I’ve featured quite a few Street Artists in my Tuesday Trifles at the end of last year, and have had to consciously change my subject matter since to keep some variety in my posts. However, there’s so many different kinds of street art out there, let alone artists themselves, that I felt it was a topic I should explore a little more and give a blog post all to itself. So, here I share with you the different types of street art that I have discovered, going beyond the usual stencils and stickers. Some of you will have seen in the Trifles, but many are new to both me and our blog.

I’m a lover of anything with a strong graphical element to it, and one of these in particular is Street Art or Graffiti. These two terms have very different connotations; ‘Graffiti’ implies vandalism and asbos, whereas ‘Street Art’ (or ‘Urban Art’) recognises the pieces as works of art.

Dictionary.com defines Graffiti as:

markings, as initials, slogans, or drawings, written, spray-painted, or sketched on a sidewalk, wall of a building or public restroom, or the like: These graffiti are evidence of the neighborhood’s decline.

That’s definitely not the kind of thing that interest me; some random thug deciding he’s an artist because he can scrawl a tag, so from now on I’m going to try to avoid using the word Graffiti. What I love is most definitely art…

Government backed projects

This is what I’m going to call ‘traditional’ street art; basically paint on walls. To me, this is the traditional form because it’s the kind of street art I’m most familiar with. You may not agree.

Crono is a Portuguese Urban Art project with the intention of pairing some of the best street artists with huge, beautiful (abandoned) buildings in Lisbon. The idea has already had a significant impact on the ‘look’ of the city and will continue to provide some amazing street art. I love projects like this that give these type of artists a home for their art, and what better home than a big old (ugly?) abandoned building? I saw a lot of this on my visit to Montreal a few months ago, and ‘Approved Graffiti’ areas are popping up around the UK.

Video source: http://www.youtube.com/notblu

In Reverse

The South African group Dutch ink have been making a name for themselves with what has become known as ‘reverse graffiti’ (there’s that word again!), stenciling their artwork by scrubbing dirty walls with steel brushes. This ‘clean’ form of street art is just as temporary as most ‘traditional’ street art, which is forever being whitewashed or tagged, but the artistic statement is made in a more palatable way for those who actually own the walls and buildings that become their canvases. Dutch ink‘s recent project, called Flight 101, depicts the flight of hundreds of birds; a kind of eco-art making a statement to and about the community.

Video source: http://www.facebook.com/DutchInk

Exploding walls

Alexandre Farto aka Vhils is a Portuguese street artist, a little younger than myself, who works in a variety of mediums including wall carvings, billboards, prints and metal. This video shows him, with a rather harsh and violent process, creating graceful and elegant portraits within the wall’s surface. I’m fascinated by this technique, and the notion of putting the art into the wall instead of simply on its surface.

Video source: http://www.youtube.com/vsplisbon

3-Dimensional

Shaka, the alter-ego of French artist Marchal Mithouard, has slowly emerged onto a whole new level of three-dimensional street style of art. His distinctive use of colour and strong visual effects jump at us, almost literally, with an underlying theme of revolt and rebellion. These days a lot of Shaka’s work is created on canvases, not walls, but his style is still more than deserving of a mention here.

Source: http://www.shaka1.fr/

Tape

The final style I’m going to show you is my personal favourite; Tape Art. Max Zorn creates amber portraits using nothing but packing tape and a scalpel, before scrambling up lamp posts to let the light bring them to life with an almost film-grained effect. Zorn’s gallery is full of recognisable and atmospheric portraits, and if you fancy seeing one for real there’s even a handy map to show you where the nearest works are shining away. Unfortunately, that would mean me traveling almost 500 miles to Amsterdam, so I’ll have to make do with his website.

Video source: http://www.youtube.com/MaxZornTapeArt

I hope you have enjoyed this little collection. I wanted this post to be about sharing artwork that you may not have seen before, which is why I haven’t mentioned the well known artists like Banksy, Invader and Shepard Fairey (until then!) I’m sure it’s a medium that inspires many people around the world, so I don’t doubt that I have missed out countless forms of Street Art, but if you know of any I would love to hear about them.

Artist Study: The Brothers Quay

Matt — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 11:00:59 +0000

The Quay Brothers - The Short Films 1979-2003

After rummaging through my DVD collection one evening, I came across a DVD I bought back in University of the Short Films of the Brothers Quay 1979 – 2003.

The Brothers Quay (Pronounced Kway) are identical twins who are surreal stop-motion animators. The majority of their films tend to be made up of found objects, with dolls heads featuring quite prominently.

I was introduced to the Quay Brothers during University and I instantly appealed to them. I’m a fan of Stop-motion anyway, especially in the use of found/everyday objects that we are so used to seeing/handling creates a sense of scale and nightmarish wonder, as these inanimate objects are brought to life, moving and acting in such ways that it may put you off ever handling the object again.

The imperfections, age and decay of the sets, props and characters makes these surreal worlds seem like they exist and have been lived in for a long time. Shots are sometimes blurred or obscured by the amount of dust and cobwebs that makes it feel like we are peering in through an age old window, gazing upon a hidden world.

Below I have included two notable short films that give an insight into the wondrous surreal visions of the Brothers Quay.

The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer

I choose to include this short film as a reference back to an earlier post about Jan Svankmajer. This film is an homage to Svankmajer by including imagery, style and sound that represent his works. For example the face portraits made up of fruit and vegetables resembles Svankmajers use of food and objects to create faces (see Dimensions of Dialogue Part 1).

Left: The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer. Right: Dimensions of Dialogue Part 1

IMDB Synopsis:

In Prague, a professorial puppet, with metal pincers for hands and an open book for a hat, takes a boy as a pupil. First, the professor empties fluff and toys from the child’s head, leaving him without the top of his head for most of the film. The professor then teaches the lad about illusions and perspectives, the pursuit of an object through exploring a bank of drawers, divining an object, and the migration of forms. The child then brings out a box with a tarantula in it: the professor puts his “hands” into the box and describes what he feels. The boy receives a final lesson about animation and film making; then the professor gives him a brain and his own open-book hat.

The film can be interpreted as the Brothers Quay being represented as the Child character whom is inspired and learning from their idol (Svankmajer), to then go out into the world to make their own films.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Street of Crocodiles

Probably their most famous short film that was based on a short novel of the same name. It has been referred to as one of the top ten best animated films of all time by Terry Gilliam.

Wikipedia extract:

The Street of Crocodiles was originally a short novel written by Bruno Schulz, from a story collection published under that title in English translation. Rather than literally representing the childhood memoirs of Schulz, the animators used the story’s mood and psychological undertones as inspiration for their own creation.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Street of Crocodiles Part 2

References

Artist Study: Jan Svankmajer

Matt — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 19:21:22 +0000

Darkness/Light/Darkness (1989)

I first became aware of Jan Svankmajer at an early age and caught part of his film ‘Alice’ on TV once. The imagery stuck with me for years, not knowing what it was I actually saw. It wasn’t until University when I was shown in a lecture one of his short films; ‘Dimensions of Dialogue Part 1′, that sparked my interest to research and learn more about him. This led me to discover that it was him who left these disturbing images in my head of Alice and a dead stuffed white rabbit’s journey in wonderland.

Jan Svankmajer is a Czech filmmaker who has gained a reputation as one of the world’s leading animators. His unique, surreal and sometimes nightmarish animated films have gone on to influence other artists such as the Brothers Quay, Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton to name a few.

Stop Motion animation has always been a favourite medium. I don’t do it as much as I would like, but I adore it most when film makers bring inanimate found objects to life. Jan Svankmajer’s surrealist animation freaks me out and excites me at the same time. The sounds and the movement is perfect and resonates with each of my senses in all the right ways.

Svankmajer’s trademarks include very exaggerated sounds, often creating a very strange effect in all eating scenes. He often uses fast-motion sequences when people walk or interact. His movies often involve inanimate objects being brought to life through stop-motion. Many of his films also include clay objects in stop-motion, otherwise known as claymation. Food is a favourite subject and medium.

- an extract from wikipedia.

Jan Svankmajer along with the Brothers Quay are my favourite animators and film makers who can inspire and stimulate a reaction of nervousness and excitement that will stay with me long after the film has finished. Below are a few examples of his work that I could find of good quality online to share here. I hope you enjoy watching and reacting to these as much as I do.

Dimensions of Dialogue Part 1: Exhaustive discussion (1982)

This was one of the first short films I was shown during University which shows Archimboldo style heads using the tools and implements they are made of to break each other down into identical copies. This film was selected by Terry Goilliam as one of the ten best animated films of all time. The additional chapters are “Passionate discourse” and “Factual conversation”.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Darkness/Light/Darkness (Tma/Svetlo/Tma) (1989)

This is one of Jan Svankmajers more amusing films. The film shows a man’s struggle as he works out how to reassemble himself inside a small room. It amazes me every time how he manipulates the clay flawlessly to keep it intact. He may well use replacement parts which is a common thing to do in stop motion, but the illusion that he may be using and manipulating the same block of clay blows my mind.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Alice (1988)

The fact that the white rabbit is actually a dead stuffed rabbit, sets the tone immediately for the journey you embark on in a totally surreal trip to wonderland. This is the scene where Alice follows the white rabbit into wonderland.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

I hope you have enjoyed, and been inspired by this artist study. I’d love to hear what you think and hope that you will seek out his films and maybe even create works of art influenced by him. To keep up to date on future artist studies and inspirations, you can follow Jammy Custard and myself on Twitter.

References

http://www.jansvankmajer.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_%C5%A0vankmajer