I love how Thomas Hicks combines live action with hand drawn elements. Crank up the contrast and you have beautiful abstracted atmospheric vignettes.
In an over-saturated YouTubed world, it’s always a pleasure to discover a unique voice with soul.
When I moved to New York over a decade ago, the very first cultural excursion I made was to a show that was part of a week-long marionette performance. I’ve always had a thing for marionettes. But with the lack of marionette performances and the many distractions NYC provides, I haven’t seen a show since.
Years later, in the Fall of 2002, I wandered into an unassuming gallery in a then-quiet Greenpoint Brooklyn. It was there that I discovered the disturbingly beautiful artwork of Erik Sanko and Jessica Grindstaff in their exhibit Til Death Do Us Part: Marionettes & Musicboxes.
I recently dusted off the show’s postcard, which has been staring down at me from a shelf in my office ever since, and decided to look them up online.
I kicked myself for not looking them up sooner. I found that I missed The Fortune Teller, a marionette play that they jointly produced through their recently formed Phantom Limb Company. The show’s soundtrack was composed by Sanko and Danny Elfman. Turns out that Sanko is an accomplished musician as well, having played with The Lounge Lizards and John Cale.
I’m hoping that this Winter I can get my marionette fix. Phantom Limb Company will be doing performing their new puppet theater piece American Faust. Best mark the calendar now.
I caught a little blurb for this in this month’s Wired.
Surface View is a UK company that has licensed various photo and art collections and made them available as customizable wallpaper, blinds, or pre-sized canvases.
The comic panels caught my eye, but there are many other amazing collections ranging from the Royal Photographic Society to The National Gallery to Getty Images.
Maybe I can convince the wife to get one of the Silver Surfer ... for our son’s room, of course.
Get the larger customized ones here and the ready-to-buy canvases here.
Went to an amazing gallery opening at 58 gallery in Jersey City last night for the artist John W. Fesken.
Fesken’s diorama’s focus on the macabre. Each series both came alive and became more unsettling with the short stories tacked on the wall next to them. For instance, one Lovecraftian installation of twisted human(oid)s with meat hooks was accompanied by a story about a race that gained their capacity to love by ripping out and eating the hearts of good men.
Fun stuff!
This is the third Fesken show that I’ve seen at this gallery over the past 2 years. All are collected under the title Ehullek Tragedies which seems to be a larger narrative that threads them together.
Fesken also happens to be part of one of my favorite local bands, The American Watercolor Movement.
More from John W. Fesken can be found here.
I couldn’t stop watching this. The combination of the music and the sand art make this absolutely haunting.
I love how this narrative is created in real time without the aid of digital.
More from the artist Ilana Yahav can be found on her site.