Beck Wheeler
Posted by Amy on Thursday September 2, 2010
From Kate McCarthy I stumbled on the work of Beck Wheeler — an artist who is living in New Zealand. She combines toy making, textile and woodworking techniques to produce sculptures and her work has been exhibited in Melbourne, Spain, UK, USA and Canada.
She is continually inspired by the tradition of folklores and since her move back to New Zealand from Melbourne, Australia – she is inspired by patterns and textures found in nature. She’s also experimenting with digital media and will bring painting, sculpture and digital media together through installation which will culminate in an exhibition entitled The Swanndries Guys, which will be held at High Seas Gallery in Auckland starting 22nd October 2010.
Artist interview: Laura McKellar
Posted by Melanie Maddison on Wednesday August 25, 2010
This week’s interview is with Laura McKellar, an artist living in Melbourne who has an amazing series of work – digital prints on fabric, which she then hand-embroiders. There’s more to this crafty lady than meets the eye, so read more about her in this interview with Melanie Maddison, our chief interviewer on Pikaland!
Website: lauramckellar.com
Blog: lauramckellar.blogspot.com/
Online Shop: www.lauramckellar.bigcartel.com/
Zine: iloveokay.com/
Zine blog: www.iloveokay.blogspot.com/
Etsy: etsy.com/shop/sirseven
Hi Laura, could you tell us a little about yourself, and what are you currently working on?
I am a freelance graphic designer living in Melbourne, Australia. I’m currently working on artwork for exhibitions, album artwork, illustrated ceramic brooches, some logos and thinking about my next issue of my zine Okay.
How long have you been creating art, embracing your creativity, and working towards developing your current style and output?
As a little girl I was encouraged to be creative. My sisters and I would spend a lot of time drawing and painting and using mum’s Derwents.
My uncle and grandfather were both photographers and I was influenced at an early age by them. I collect film cameras and use my photographs with illustrations. I am drawn to images I find in old 50s & 60s pattern books and have collected many which have had a significant effect on my work.
I studied graphic design for 5 years at college but I’ve been making things for as long as I can remember. Learning to use design programs on the computer has definitely influenced how I design my artwork.
How did you first learn to access your creative and artistic talents, and gain the confidence to make art your career?
I grew up in a very creative environment. My aunt is a professional illustrator so from a very early age I learned with a lot of hard work and dedication that it is possible to make art your career. I also learned at school that I could make a living from being creative and have since pursued it!
CLICK HERE to read the entire interview!
The Apples Of Youth and The Living Water
Posted by Amy on Tuesday August 24, 2010
If you haven’t heard already, Arrow to Arrow is a new online gallery and shop that sells beautiful, exclusive and limited edition prints by various artists. Jess sent me a link to a print called The Apples Of Youth and The Living Water by Sophie Alda that’s based on a Russian folklore of the same name, and now I’m in love.
Isn’t her work fabulous? Her style is wonderfully unique and very memorable as well. Her color choices, the way she renders people (critters too!) and the interplay of patterns in each illustration is top notch. See more at Sophie’s website!
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Artist interview: Katy Horan
Posted by Melanie Maddison on Wednesday August 18, 2010
Katy Horan is a painter, drawer, crafter, and maker-of-things. She loves all things folky, spooky and crafty. Originally from Texas, she now lives in Austin.
Some of Katy’s work features in The Dazzle, a group show at Narwhal Art Projects in Toronto, Canada, which opens Sept 9th and runs until Oct 17, 2010.
{Interviewed by Melanie Maddison}
Website: www.katyart.com/
Blog: katyhoran.tumblr.com/
Etsy: etsy.com/shop/Katyart
Hi Katy, how are you? What are you working on at the moment?
I am great, thanks! I’m experimenting quite a bit these days. I am trying to balance the tiny details with more texture and looseness. I am hoping to make some large scale figures that incorporate ghost and widow imagery…should be pretty spooky.
How would you describe your art?
I would say I make bizarro lady monsters out of tiny lace patterns that make my hands hurt. That’s the casual version.
Here’s the formal version: I intuitively combine fragmented visual references with imagery from my own memory to create something that is both ambiguous and familiar. I do this to filter images from my own subconscious while raising questions of what we visually identify as feminine.
What are your daily inspirations?
I get a lot of inspiration from things I read, listen to and watch. I like to use my work as a filter for all the tiny pieces of inspiration I absorb in my everyday life and that remain from my childhood. Folk and ghost stories are a source that I return to regularly.
I am also really into history, so I like to incorporate visual details from the eras that interest me. Right now, I am really into Victorian mourning customs, so there is a lot of widow imagery floating around my head and studio.
How did you first get started in art, is it something that you’ve always been interested in and excelled at?
How long have you been creating art, embracing your creativity, and working towards developing your current style and output?
I always drew. As a kid, I did all kinds of other activities….dance, theater, piano….but art was the only thing that I never got bored with. It always felt more natural to me than anything else.
I always wanted to do something visual. I went to college initially to study costume design, but became more interested in children’s books than theater. I then transferred to RISD to study Illustration. After I graduated, my work gradually began shifting towards fine arts, so when galleries began showing interest and publishers weren’t, I decided to pursue a more fine art sort of path. Since then (around 2006) I have been pushing my work and process, trying to find deeper concepts and create more dynamic imagery.
How did you personally learn to access your creative and artistic talents, and gain the confidence to make art and creative expression your career?
My work is at it’s best when I work completely intuitively. I have always sought that place where the conscious mind shuts up and the work becomes meditative. I listen to audio books to distract the nagging, judgmental part of my brain, so that I can work without thought. It’s been a lot of trial and error to find the best way to get around my neurosis and ADD, so that I can just work and not worry about it!
As far as confidence goes…I am not sure how I kept that up. I am just so self conscious about everything else that it was a natural choice to pursue the art instead of another career.
CLICK HERE to read the entire interview!
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Eleanor Rudge
Posted by Jamie Shelman on Thursday August 12, 2010
Love the thick heavy black lines and mark making found in the work of British artist Eleanor Rudge. The confidence of her marks is aggressively soothing. I could get lost in that abstract elegant tangle of tree limbs for hours or meditate on that pattern of marks made below the mountains all day…
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Pepa Prieto
Posted by Amy on Thursday August 5, 2010
I sometimes get asked about how I find the illustrators that I feature over here on Pikaland. Truth is, there is no set formula. I get submissions every day (you can do so on the contact page — don’t be shy, I know there’s a lot of fantastic people doing fantastic things out there!) and I also do a lot of clicking around the internet, which leads to more clicking, until I get a random surprise and then there’s the eureka moment where I have to share my findings with you. It’s all very compulsive, really. (And of course, if I find my inspiration in other people’s blog post, credit is given — I suggest you do the same!)
This is how I found Pepa Prieto, an artist born in Granada. From her bio, it mentioned that her love for colors and texture grew into the vast array of paintings, drawings, and installations she creates today. Her mix media pieces are beautiful — her recent works are akin to stories immortalized by time. I almost wish that they could come alive as a video game of sorts — wouldn’t that be fantastic?
While waiting for that to happen though, you can check out her shop where she has limited edition silk screen prints up for grabs.
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AJ Fosik
Posted by Amy on Wednesday August 4, 2010
I’m enthralled by the work of AJ Fosik a sculpture artist from South East Michigan. His beautiful 3D sculptures are assembled out of wooden cut-outs that remind me of the dragons and creatures that punctuate Chinese mythology; and also the various masks that they wear! And no wonder – he credits folk art as a big influence in his work. The detail to attention on each of his pieces are amazing.
Read more about him and his work via his interview on Fecal Face.
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Ken Wong
Posted by Racheal Anilyse on Monday August 2, 2010
Oh man. Ken Wong. Yum. Ken is an artist + designer + illustrator from Australia. He is currently an art director for a computer game studio in Shanghai called Spicy Horse. Have I mentioned his art is digital and created in Adobe Photoshop?
Check out his gallery and indulge your cravings with a print.
The Pao Pao girls
Posted by Amy on Friday July 30, 2010
The Pao Pao Girls is a collaborative outfit of two Japanese artists: Aya Kakeda (featured previously) and Fumiha Tanaka who are currently having an exhibition over at the Alternative Cafe. Born in Japan and currently residing in New York, the combination of their work is best described as a mash up of APAK and Betsy Walton!
Their work on display is a mix of surreal fantasy landscapes that showcase their unique inhabitants. Guest curated by Kevin E. Taylor (another fantastic artist), the show is on from July 9th-Aug 12th, so if you’re in Monterey, California hop on over for a visit!
UPDATE: Read about Fumiha’s adventure in the course of running the show on her blog!
{Thanks Meighan!}
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Artist interview: Nathalie Chikhi
Posted by Amy on Thursday July 29, 2010
Nathalie Chikhi is the queen of experimentation. She’s been making art everywhere she goes and no material is off bounds in her creations. Although I am very much taken by her drawings and colorful explorations (particularly Pixels, which is made up of ice-cream sticks!) she has experimented with paper, sculpture, bamboo and even messed around with toy cars — I kid you not! Read on for a personal one-on-one with Nathalie and you’ll soon be inspired to look around for things to make too!
Name: Nathalie Chikhi
Location: Orlando, USA
Website: nathaliechikhi.com
Shop: shop.ikubix.com
Gallery representation: newbloodart.com London, UK
Blog: nathaliechikhi.blogspot.com
Flickr: flickr.com/photos/nathaliechikhi
Facebook: nathaliechikhi
Illustration media: I do art & design so all kind of media and techniques like graphite, permanent markers, vector graphics, acrylic painting, clay, textiles and many more…
Tell us a little more about yourself!
First, I would like to thank you Amy, to give me this interview and the opportunity to share my work with the Pikaland’s community. {Amy: you’re welcome Nathalie!}
I was born and grew up in Quimper, Brittany. I went to art school over there, the only thing I knew is that I wanted to create some stuffs. During my childhood, I was drawing on the last page of my notebook and did some murals in my bedroom. At school, I was better in drawing that anything else.
Where do you live? What stands out about living where you are, and what is your daily schedule like?
I am primary based in Orlando, Florida where I have my home space studio. But I also travel extensively across USA. I have created many pieces in temporary domestic space or hotel rooms. I want to keep doing new artwork even if I am out of my studio. I use the space as a rule like a format of paper or a limited numbers of colors. This limitation of space helps me to experiment with various materials. For example, the series blizzard was done with permanent markers on paper. The series Pixels started in a domestic space, using wood sticks painted in acrylic and continue in my art studio. This process is part of my art practice.
What is great with Florida is the weather. I have also my friends there. Orlando is a growing city, with many things to do, a lot of opportunities for artists and close to Miami.
I am very much 9:00am-10:00pm. I practice art daily, alternating the creation of new artworks with marketing tasks/website updates/inventorying/reading art blogs (and so on).
How did you get your start in making art?
During my time in France, beside my graphic design job, I kept connected to the art world going to openings and art conferences or taking art classes. I have been invited by BD4D to create a flash motion. I did some videos with a creative group of designers which have been showcased at the Centre Pompidou and at the Biennial of Valencia in Spain. I did few paintings and sold some.
But let’s say, coming in the USA has been a revelation of what I really want to do. I decided to build a strong portfolio back in 2005 after I visited New York for the first time. I was really blown away by all the good art over there. It was amazing!
Right after NY, I moved to South California where I really started to paint-draw daily. I found out the series Mechanic and showed my work metamorphosis at the Art Center of Huntington Beach. Back in France, I continued to practice and organized my shows; one in a shop of contemporary furniture in Paris and another one in local cafe in Brittany. It was interesting to confront my art with people familiar or unfamiliar with art. At the same time, I did some textile monsters and illustrations but I felt more attracted by abstract textile works like ovolites.
CLICK HERE to read the entire interview!
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