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Art

Tin Cans Transformed into Famous Art Historical Self-Portraits by Allan Rubin

Allan Rubin‘s aptly named series CANON presents a range of famous artists throughout history, all rendered from an amalgamation of tin cans. The works are each painted in the style of the artist’s self-portrait, such as a Post-Impressionist Vincent Van Gogh or Neoclassical Angelica Kauffmann.

The body of work grew out of the painter’s desire to work on a smaller scale in his cramped studio. The can sculptures proved to be a perfect solution, and provided an intriguing challenge for Rubin to transform flat images into three-dimensional works.

Throughout the years he has learned the best formula to build his portraits, like realizing that the shape of tomato sauce cans are well suited for heads. “Cookie tins sometimes make good torsos,” he told Hyperallergic. “Bean cans are just right for arms and necks. Sardine cans make great hands. Lids have rings embossed on them that work perfectly for ears, and also become noses that I have learned to bend, slot, and tab onto the faces.”

Rubin’s solo exhibition CANON continues through May 5 at the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance in Narrowsburg, New York. You can see more of Rubin’s uncanny renderings on Facebook. (via Hyperallergic)

 

Art

Expressive Color-Filled Portraits of Friends and Family by Hope Gangloff

Artist Hope Gangloff captures the personalities of her friends and family in brightly colored large-scale portraits. Gangloff’s acrylic and collage paintings show her subjects in intimate settings—often domestic interiors—in poses of relaxation or quiet focus. The artist’s strong but gestural lines create defined shapes that are filled with repetitive marks and bright patterns. Gangloff gives equal textural attention to all areas of the painting, which draws the viewer’s eye to every detail and also contextualizes each portrait sitter in a unique set of surroundings. (If you’re intrigued by this flat field patterning, also take a look at Édouard Vuillard‘s paintings).

The New York-based artist’s large body of work consists of a substantial number of these vibrant portraits. In an interview with Vogue, Gangloff describes her choice of subject as akin to rock climbing:

An outsider who doesn’t look at a lot of art might not understand why I paint similar things over and over again… But there are always micro movements. I’m always working through problems. Rock climbers look for little changes in rocks to help them climb and keep going. When I look at a painting, I’m also looking for the move that’s going to set off something else. The whole painting is like a problem I’m trying to solve.

Gangloff studied at Cooper Union and is represented by Susan Inglett Gallery in New York. In 2017 she was the inaugural artist selected for Stanford University’s Diekman Contemporary Commissions Program, which included a solo show and a weeklong artist residency during which Gangloff painted publicly in the Cantor Arts Center atrium. You can see more of the artist’s portraits, as well as her still life paintings, ink drawings, and political posters on her website and Instagram.

Art

Traditional Paintings by Lino Lago Mysteriously Revealed Beneath Fields of Color

 

Lino Lago paints realistic portraits and scenes in oil and adds a layer of abstracted intrigue using bright fields of color. His recent series, Fake Abstract, is comprised of classically-styled portraits of women, mostly obscured by solid blocks of red, pink, or blue. A thin sliver or squiggle, reminiscent of a finger dragged across a foggy window, reveals a peek at the figure beneath the color. It is up to the viewer’s imagination whether Lago paints a full portrait and covers it in color, or, uses the color as the base and adds the portrait into the blank canvas left by the squiggle.

The artist has also explored juxtapositions of traditional European interiors—dining rooms, parlors, and museum galleries—with unexplained splashes of bright color that appear to explode into the rooms from doorways and windows.

Lago, who is Spanish and resides in Spain and Lithuania, exhibits widely and has upcoming shows at Bredgade Kunsthandel in Copenhagen (April 12), Geraldine Banier in Paris (June 7th), Moret Art in Coruña, Spain (end of June), and Goodwin Fine Art in Denver (November). You can see more of Lago’s artwork on his website.

Art

Flowers, Animals, and Children Intertwine in Stylized Paper Cut Artworks by Kanako Abe

San Francisco-based paper artist Kanako Abe creates elaborate, stylized portraits of animals and children using Ise-katagami, the traditional Japanese paper stencil technique for patterning kimono fabric. Abe learned Ise-katagami in 2012 and her creative interpretation treats paper as the finished product rather than simply a material in the process of image-making. The artist’s silhouettes of youth are also reminiscent of the Western tradition of creating silhouette portraits of a child’s profile. Abe fills these youthful outlines with plant tendrils, blossoming flowers, and moonlit forest scenes.

As seen in the photos below, many of Abe’s works are small, not much larger than the artist’s hand. However, she does occasionally venture into larger territory, as with her life-size wolf and bear paper cuts. Abe most recently exhibited her work in a solo show at the Little Lodge in San Francisco. You can find more of the artist’s work on Instagram. (via Scene360)

History Photography

Over 30,000 Negatives Discovered in Russian Artist’s Attic Reveal a Lifetime of Hidden Photography

Russian artist and theater critic Masha Ivashintsova (1942-2000) lived a secret life as a photographer, taking over 30,000 photographs in her lifetime without ever showing a soul. It wasn’t until years after her death in 2000 that her daughter Asya Ivashintsova-Melkumyan stumbled upon her vast collection of negatives while cleaning out the attic. The photographs showcase an astounding look into the inner world of Ivashintsova, while also providing a glimpse of everyday life in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) from the 1960-1999.

Ivashintosova was heavily engaged in the city’s underground poetry and photography movement, yet never showed anyone her images, poetry, or personal writing during her lifetime. Ivashintsova-Melkumyan shares a quote from one of her mother’s diary entries that hints at the reasoning behind her hidden artistic life, “I loved without memory: is that not an epigraph to the book, which does not exist? I never had a memory for myself, but always for others.”

“I see my mother as a genius,” explains Ivashintsova-Melkumyan, “but she never saw herself as one—and never let anybody else see her for what she really was.”

Some have referred to Ivashintsova as the Russian Vivian Maier, an American photographer and caregiver whose extensive collection of negatives was discovered in Chicago after her death in 2009. A group of close family friends are working to scan the entirety of Ivashintsova’s life’s work. You can view more of her recently discovered images on this website and Instagram specifically created to share her legacy. (via PetaPixel)

Art

Open Mind: New Warped Face Sculptures by Johnson Tsang

Sculptor Johnson Tsang (previously) continues to push realism’s boundaries in his sculptures of faces that are stretched and opened up in surreal ways. In his latest series, Open Mind, Tsang incorporates hand gestures and metaphorical materials like growing leaves and rippling water to convey a sense of open-mindedness in his sculptures.

The artist shares with Colossal that he has always been creative, but due to an impoverished upbringing and poor grades in school, he initially focused on trade work, including as an air conditioning assistant and a potato chip fryer.

Tsang first took a clay modeling class in 1991, during his thirteen-year career as a policeman. He describes his first experience with the material to Colossal: “The clay seemed so friendly to me, it listened to every single word in my mind and did exactly I was expecting. Every touch was so soothing. I feel like I was touching human skin. I found peace and joy in it. I’ve felt in love with it ever since.”

Tsang, now 58, is a prolific creator, and reports that he completes about a sculpture a week. He shares new work on his website as well as on Instagram and Facebook, where he also chronicles works in progress.

Art Illustration

Wondrously Detailed Paintings by Alice Lin Show the Complex Relationship Between Self and Surroundings

Illustrator Alice Lin uses watercolor and pigment on rice paper and silk to create intricately detailed worlds. Human and animal figures are enveloped in pastel-toned bursts of swirling flowers, mushrooms, oceans, and rock formations. Despite their storybook-like quality, many of Lin’s works are fairly large, with some spanning more than three feet wide.

In an interview with Wow x Wow, Lin describes the intention behind her work: “It’s about exploring the internal and external, about the relationships between the two; self and surroundings; human beings and the world… Our body is a container, connected to the outside world and our breath, blood, thoughts, feelings, emotions, dreams, etc. are the content; through this content we are able to experience life, and we are able to learn about art, the world or ourselves.”

The Beijing-based artist shares her work on Behance, and you can also follow her on Instagram.