text art « ArtIsEverywhere

Posts Tagged ‘text art’

Paper Art with Secret Text Patterns

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

I was first drawn to the colors and the circular patterns of Hadieh Shafie’s work when I first saw it.

Hadieh Shafie website homepage

There is an exhibit of her work, Ritual: Form, Script, Gesture, through the Popup Art Project in a gallery space just off the lobby of the Artery Building in Bethesda through December 18th. I hope I get a chance to see it. Scheduling is tight with the holidays.

I like her work for the color, paper medium, abstract pattern, hidden meaning, popup-3-dimensional nature, op-art style and the tremedous time involved to produce it.

The article, Paperpatterncolorculture by Emily Warner on the Brooklyn Rail is pretty descriptive. Honestly, if these works are meant to be scriptural, I do not see it. The text is so hidden that the meaning, if this is the case, is hidden as well and Ms. Warner makes a good argument of this. I am more taken with their abstract nature. At the same time I wouldn’t go so far to say that these works are representational of what divides us either.

The scroll paintings are a case in point: peering at them up close, the bits of phrases peeking out along the trunks, or half-submerged in inky dyes, convey not so much transcendence as someone else’s search for it, the visual remainders of an interiority we’ll never grasp. For all their preoccupation with the divine, these works underscore most strongly the stakes of being human and the boundaries that seal us off from one another.

1Hadie_Shafie-web_via Brooklyn Rail, seen on Art Is Everywhere

Hadie Shafie via Brooklyn Rail

2Hadie_Shafie-web_via Brooklyn Rail, seen on Art Is Everywhere

Hadie Shafie via Brooklyn Rail

Go to her website to see many more works that are equally as fascinating as these.

Also, here are some previous posts on:

• Paper art, particularly quilling, which this essentially is but there is no mention of it in the process.

• Popup art, some of my favorite fun artwork.

• Mod Op-Art Style on Slipcovers for your walls.

Now, let’s Kick Start the Weekend with a more subdued than normal but beautiful cover piano piece from the movie American Beauty. I can just visualize that paper bag dancing around. I don’t know why I always loved that scene — maybe because there is a natural force to it that cannot be explained.

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Tags: American Beauty, Hadie Shafie, paper art, text art
Posted in Artists, Creative Process, Culture, Kick-Start the Weekend, Music, Slipcovers for Your Walls (casart blog) | No Comments »

Catalog of Fears

Monday, November 15th, 2010

What do you do with a large blackboard space and a lot of chalk? Well, you create a “mural” with all of the words that catalog your fears, like fear of losing luggage, fear of losing memory, fear of a terrorist attack….I can think of hundreds, like fear of falling off a 16′ ladder extension ladder strapped to a 12′ high step ladder while restoring the faux stone finish on a 17′ high vaulted ceiling. Never want to do that again! My body was aching for days, especially my neck and shoulder from the strain and my calves from the tension of just trying to maintain balance. You don’t realize when you’re up there how every muscle in your body tenses.

I would think Brian Rea’s creative process would be quite a cathartic exercise. It actually sounds like fun and a great stream-of-conscious, brainstorming, doodle. I don’t know if I’d call it a mural, but a mural can tell a story so therein, I suppose it is a mural of words — similar to other textual – word mural/ artwork posts that I’ve written.

Brian Rea FEARS detail from Fast Company

On the opposite wall, he painted a UFO mural called Visions, using a chalk layout and then white paint similar to the process he used for the Fears mural. This reminds me where is that V show this season? I’ve been waiting….

Rea VISIONS_Fast Company as seen on Art Is Everywhere

Rea VISIONS via Fast Company

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Tags: Brian Rea, designs with words, Fears Mural, graphic text, text art, textural artwork, V
Posted in Artists, Creative Process, illustration, Inspiration, Mural Mondays, Murals | No Comments »

Examples of Exotic

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

Normally I find music to go along with my posts for the end of the week. This time, I re-discovered the music before the artwork through my son’s Facebook thread, who knew…..

I just ran across this song, Kiss Them for Me by Siouxi and the Banshees. I loved in the 80′s and that still hasn’t changed. I forgot what a fun song this was, especially to Kick Start the weekend.

Now for the artwork, again, just happened to see this Ford ad. Grabs your attention right?! And it happens to be the perfect lips for Kiss them for me. What I also like about it is the use of textural art, instead of forming the picture as in previous examples, here the words overlay on top of the image — great Photoshop and clever idea.

I’ll also add some exotic artwork — or what I think may be — by Katherine Bowling, from an article I read in Elle Decor. Her paintings do not depict the usual composed perspective. They appear off-center and focus on the mundane, every day aspect of the scene. They seem to evoke a mysterious, exotic, fantasy-feel of images of familiarity. I also appreciate their liquid painterly style as if realism is obscurely viewed through glass. She captures the detail yet glazes over it. The lighting in her work reminds me of the sensuality one might feel while experiencing just the perfect outdoor scene, when everything falls into place as being serene and memorable above all other similar days. This is like when you notice that sunset, that you know occurs every evening but you’ve never quite seen it so beautiful before.

Katherine-Bowling_via Elle Decor, October 2010 issue, as seen on Art Is Everywhere

Article on Katherine Bowling featured in Elle Decor, October 2010 issue

Finally, since I started with how I found my music for this post, I’ll end with with a link to a post about my son Jackson’s artwork by Taylor Kavanaugh, a classmate who graduated with Jackson from high school. I had not seen this photo below and agree with her take on Jackson’s keen photographic eye. Somehow he’s able to capture what we might all take for granted and present it in a intriguing and mysterious way. I wonder where this structure is in the vast Sewanee woods?

Jackson's photo via Taylor's Art Blog

Hopefully, you’ve been listening to the song above, all while reading this post. If not, get to it and start kick-starting your weekend early. It’s almost Friday.

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Tags: designs with words, Ford advertisement, Katherine Bowling, Siouxi and the Banshees, text art, textural artwork
Posted in Artists, Everyday, Family, Kick-Start the Weekend, Music, Nature, Photography, Sewanee | No Comments »

Typographic Mural

Monday, September 20th, 2010

These murals painted at the new Queens Metropolitan Campus in Forest Hills (including Queens Metropolitan High School and the Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning Middle School) in New York by Paula Scher caught my eye as being graphic, colorful and even having geographic significance when you read all of the wording. See for yourself. It’s a map of Queens and then some.

Solarium_13902_620 via New at Pentagram blog on Art Is Everywhere

Paula Scher's Typographic Mural photos via New at Pentagram blog

As the artist state:

“These works marry my love of painting maps with my love of environmental design,” says Scher. “When the viewer enters the atrium, they have entered the painting. They are enveloped by it. Space is altered by it. For that moment in time, all perspectives are skewed. The viewer gets to inhabit Queens in a manner at once, totally familiar and bizarre.”

I find her layout, what every practical muralist should do, even more mesmerizing in that it appears to have been followed to the tee, so that what appears to be random graffiti is actually very thoroughly and thoughtfully planned.

And since this is painted at a school, it is incorporated nicely into the setting as such.

Also, using Golden Paints is wise and I even hope they were donated for such a fantastic, educational project. I think they are fabulous and the most accommodating for all types of mural situations. I have used them for tinting in decorative painting and for outdoor murals and even their anti-graffiti top coating in anticipation of some tagging. Fortunately, there hasn’t been any.