beautiful things: myeongbeom kim’s capsule worlds

myeongbeom kim, edison, branch+goldfish+glass+steel, 15x15x30in.

yes, it’s another ‘look at this artist!’ post. i’m in the middle of an essay on bill henson and robert mapplethorpe, so i sort of have art even more on the brain than usual. i’m writing a number of other articles at the moment, but it’s a careful balancing act about what gets published where first, and i’m afraid my little blog always comes last. in the mean time, artists it is.

myeongbeom kim, untitled (restroom installation).

and i gotta say, myeongbeom kim is a pretty good artist to showcase.

myeongbeom kim, untitled, candle and thread, 5x4x3in.

i love microcosms. worlds-within-worlds, the universe in a fish’s eye, a stick-insect’s whole life lived out in a terrarium big enough to feel like a jungle. snow-globes and dolls houses. greenhouses and roof-gardens and japan’s sea of trees. a hospital room, or the glass gentleman’s apartment in amelie. the world is full of smaller worlds (and, there is always the biblical and narnia-esque hope, maybe bigger ones). not all of myeongbeom kim’s work is like this, but my favorite pieces are (though arguably i think you could say that installation art is almost always a form of microcosm. one is, after all, installing a new reality or idea into an existing space, creating a world that was not there before and will likely cease to be at a later date).

myeongbeom kim, rest, bed+lawn+pillow, 75x98x39in.

i’m hard-pressed to decide which i love best – light-globe fish-tank, or the tree in the candle? an impossible choice. i did acquire a doormat from the side of the road the other week, though (all new apartments need a doormat) and i noticed last time i looked that it had started sprouting babies tears. perhaps i’ll end up with a smaller version of that grassy green bed by accident? i hope so.

sincerely, from the depths of an art-study-bubble,

nyx x

beautiful things: photography = magic, marc da cunha lopes

mark da cunha lopes, from the ‘vertebrata’ series, title unknown, via trendland.

this photograph by french photomanipulator Marc Da Cunha Lopes just does my head in, in a very pleasant way. i told you bones and pastels were not incompatible!

what this photograph has, indupitably, is the element of surprise; but it’s more than the ‘wait, what‘ moments scattered throughout the rest of the series (‘vertebrata,’ which has just finished showing at rabouan-moussion gallery in paris). there’s something viscerally alarming about this one – of course there is, it’s a huge disembodied head, floating around some ordinary suburban home like it belongs there – or perhaps (more chillingly) is on the prowl. more than that, it’s clearly a parrot, and i’m pretty sure i’m not the only one who wouldn’t want to run into a beak like that in a dark ally.

maybe i just have an over-tactile imagination, but this image actually fills me with a bit of genuine horror. it brings to mind legendary creatures like the nukekubi, a japanese and chinese capable myth capable of detaching its head from its body so the former can float off into the night to devour victims with a mouthfull of shark-like teeth, before returning to its neck in the morning to create a deceptively human whole. in similar fashion the image above instills in me a spine-groping sort of dread, in part because it looks too real to be anything other than terrifying.

mark da cunha lopes, from the ‘vertebrata’ series, title unknown, via trendland.

of course, since parrots aren’t really carniverous one has to wonder whether what looks like a saber toothed-something skeleton might in fact be more lethal. on the other hand, if you’ve ever had interractions with a parrot, you’ll know they do like to…chew things. or chew everything. in something that size you’ve got to admit that’s a little intimidating.

yours, with snappish affection,

nyx.

design/delights: stylecookies from the netherlands

the stylecookie blog/e-zine may be the sweetest thing in the world. of course you’re supposed to buy the things on the site as well as look at the pictures, but i’m less interested in that.

if you’ve followed my blog for any length of time you’ve probably clued on by now to the fact that my aesthetic…oscillates. on some days i like bird bones, blacks and greys, on others it’s all sugared almonds and ellen von unwerth. i like to think that these two ends of the aesthetic spectrum aren’t so much incompatible as complimentary, like a colourwheel, whereby you choose which hues to put together according to how far apart they’re spaced. often the best match is a diametric opposite.

anyway. i found this on a sugared almond day. apparently their current theme is ‘paper’, and if i were the sort of person who took my breakfast eggs seriously (or ate eggs for that matter) i would definitely want one of those heart-shaped fried-egg molds. i’d probably never use it, but i’d really, really want to. i’m also considering making flights of threaded envelopes for my new apartment (!) – or maybe lanterns, or aeroplanes?i would also like (and use) a lightglobe-in-a-box, as per example here:

between stylecookie and anna-wili highfield this has been a week devoted to the art-ish possibilities of paper. next week will be about birthdays, apartments, and being fashionably disabled. oh yes it will be.

yours in mutual appreciation of cello-tape and crêpe paper (just look how happy it makes this woman),

nyx.

~.~

ps: all images via stylecookie

beautiful things: anna-wili highfield’s paper menagerie

anna-wili highfield, robin, 2010.

‘sculpture’ is a fragile sort of word; it defines such a breadth of artistic endeavors that it’s sort of more useful to use in the negative than the positive. anna-wili highfield‘s work is paper-based and so fragile-looking it seems almost more like textile art than sculpture. the pieces seem tennuously held together, their edges rough and flyaway.

anna-wili highfield, race horse, 2010.

despite the obvious presence of structure beneath the delicate surfaces, they appear almost organic, like a fluke composite of dried leaves, animal shapes occurring naturally in the frail detritus of human lives so pretty appropriate for this blog, really. plus. they’re very, very beautiful. don’t you think?

anna-wili highfield, horse in a timber box, 2010.

it’s probably not surprising, then, that i think her pegasus works are most successful. horses – particularly those of greek myth – are powerful, full of tail and rippling of muscle. very masculine, very strong. to cast them in torn papers and wire, then, is a curious breaking down and rebuilding of a classic symbol of virility into something that blurs lines between fierce and insubstantial – a state i, obviously, find eternally fascinating. plus, the movement really works to the advantage of these pieces.

anna-wili highfield, pegasus bust for hermes, 2011.

with the exception of a few of her particularly exquisite small birds, i find the bunched paper tendons and the torn-edge impression of passing wind or speed much more compelling than the scientific stillness of others in highfield’s menagerie.  it’s rare for me to be more interested in wild depictions than scientific ones, but here it works. or maybe i’ve just always been a bit romantic when it comes to flying horses.

yours in delicate solidarity,

nyx

when someone gives you moldy grapes…

nyx mathews, sickly, sticky, sweet, 2011.

…make photographs.

first photoshoot taken with my new Nikon D3100 (aka, True Love In Black Plastic). the rest are on flickr. sticky, sweet, a little grotesque. i got wine on my chin, and had to swallow more than i bargained for when my housemate came home unexpectedly early (we’re rather new at living together; i’m afraid i caught her unawares, traipsing about in the shed with my shiny new tripod (!) and a pile of faintly putrid red grapes).

yours, a little stickily,

nyx