We’re thrilled to launch our new Guest Curator series featuring tastemakers from the worlds of  art, design, fashion and more.  In this series, we’ll see how art influences their personal style, taste and perspective and learn what role it plays in their lives.

This week, we’ve asked artist Jeff Hamada  creator of Booooooom to curate a collection for us. Running a great site filled with an eclectic blend of art, music, and video- we thought he’d have the perfect eye for highlighting some great works of art. Read more about his process and how art impacts his life below, and then be sure to check out his Saatchi Online curated collection!

Do you collect art?

Yes I do. I’m not rich though, so I mostly collect  work by emerging artists. I’m really fortunate to have talented friends who have also given me artwork.

What is the favorite piece of art that you own?

A large print by photographer Garry Trinh. It is an image of an ice cream truck and a line up of people. It is a hot day, one guy is wearing ass-less leather pants and the very next guy in line is wearing a pair of leather shorts with no shirt. It’s as if the back of the first guy’s pants has been ripped off and the other guy is wearing it – it’s hard to explain how funny it is without seeing it. I’m a huge fan of Garry Trinh’s work, especially the things he notices on the street.

What can’t you live without?

Spaghetti.

Which artist, living or dead would you most like to meet?

I would choose Jim Henson if I could just sit near him and watch him work.

Do you produce art? If so, what sorts of things do you create?

I make text-based drawings, usually with pencil crayon. They kind of act as a diary for me. Many of the drawings are based on experiences I’ve had and the rest are things I’ve overheard.

Did you grow up in an artistic family?

My family was never particularly artistic but my parents put me in art classes as a kid and really encouraged me to draw a lot. I think I took that for granted when I was younger. I used to invite friends over just to draw at our kitchen table and I didn’t realize not everyone liked to do it as much as I did.

What is the driving force behind your blog?

There are a lot of sites out there whose mission is to inspire but I think I’m more interested in encouraging people.  My focus with Booooooom has always been the community. I really enjoy communicating and sharing ideas so the site could be about anything as long as it allowed me to connect with people.

Where do you look for cool new work?

The Booooooom Facebook group has turned into a really great resource. There are now close to 90,000 fans so there’s a ton of work being posted to the wall everyday. It’s cool because a lot of the work is coming from people who haven’t been featured anywhere before.

See Jeff’s Saatchi Online Collection and be sure to check out his site Boooooom.

Noemie Goudal: Les Amants (Cascade)

The Saatchi Gallery’s stimulating 38-strong survey of photographers provides a chance to assess trends. It illustrates the switch away from photography’s being largely about seeking out and recording what’s in the world. Probably only a third of the selection could be described in that way: most follow other models such as searching out pre-existing images to reuse (eg John Stezaker, Marlo Pascual); creating scenarios (eg Ryan McGinley, Laurel Nakadate) or constructing objects (Matt Lipps, Noemie Goudal) specifically to be photographed; or manipulating the photographic process itself (Jennifer West, David Benjamin Sherry). Much the same can be said of the other most interesting current photography shows such as those of Dan Holdsworth at Brancolini Grimaldi, Alex Prager at Michael Hoppen, Shari Hatt at Space Station Sixty-Five, Sarah Hardacre at Paul Stolper, Hans-Peter Feldmann at the Serpentine and Zoe Leonard at Camden, as well as the five shows with which I kick off with below…

Demobilisation Suit – 1945

Stan Douglas: Midcentury Studio @ Victoria Miro, 16 Wharf Rd – Hoxton

To 6 May: www.victoria-miro.com

Confused by the Rodney Graham – Douglas Gordon – Donald Rodney – Dan Graham – Stan Douglas nexus of names?  Well, all you need to know for now is that the last of those has this broodingly powerful show of 16 large format black and white photographs. They’re created in the alter ego of a 1940’s photojournalist: some reconstruct actual images of the time, others are newly imagined versions of such images – such as ‘Demobilisation Suit’, which adds a cold war overtone to the isolation of a shirt for advertising purposes. The twists come from neat narrative links (eg between different types of grip), those telling details – such as of race – which differ from the sources, and the knowledge we now bring of where the fifties led.

Walead Beshty: Travel Pictures @ Thomas Dane Gallery, 11 & 3 Duke Street St James’s – Central

To 26 May: www.thomasdane.com

LA-based Walead Beshty provides plenty of themes to unravel as he becomes the first to make strategic use of the separated nature of Thomas Dane’s spaces. No. 11 shows one of his well-known FedEx boxes, cracked by its successive transits; several of his Travel Pictures, which exploit the chance effects of an airport’s X-ray security machines on his unexposed film of an abandoned Iraqi diplomatic mission; and a 24 hour reel of ‘cold war apocalypse films’. No. 3 has a FedEx box which finally collapsed, and has been shored up by an internal armature; Travel Pictures which have been negated by a hole-punching process; and the 24 hour reel run backwards, which is, I suppose, part of how we see the cold war now.

Steven Pippin: Cannon 35mm shot in the back with .25 calibre

Resistance: Subverting the Camera @ The Fine Art Society Contemporary, 148 New Bond St – Central

To 26 May: www.faslondon.com

Janet Laurence’s Sumatran animals caught in a ‘camera trap’ are one highlight of this stimulating eight artist collection of cameraless photographs and other unconventional approaches. The other is a too-rare sighting of new work by 1999 Turner Prize shortlistee Steven Pippin (he’s the rigorous type, and has just spent ten years working out how to balance a pencil on a skyscraper). Pippin’s ‘End of Photography’ project required a firearm license and hair-trigger electronics: we see the death of analogue means made literal as cameras are shot, documented by an external photographic record, by the shattered cameras themselves, and last – violently beautiful – images extracted from the victim equipment’s moment of impact.

Daily No 10 (Hocker)

Thomas Demand: The Dailies @ Spruth Magers, 7a Grafton St – Central

To 31 May: www.spruethmagers.com

German star Thomas Demand is known for photographing his cardboard models of politically charged scenes so that our slow-burn detection of their constructed nature parallels the journalistic process of uncovering awkward truths. Here he applies the same process of recording an absent reality to his own rather Wentworthian phone snaps of incidental items, elevating their status through the labour he gives them in a move somewhat parallel to hyper-realist painting. That may sound a bit duller than his main stream, but the gloriously dye-transfer printed results work brilliantly. Look out for the mirror made by such mundane means…

Damien Meade – Untitled

The Smallest Composite Number @ Standpoint, 45 Coronet St – Hoxton

To 19 May: www.standpointgallery

Curator Peter Ashton Jones has brought together four painters who start with aspects of still life and arrive at variously abstract takes on the ambiguities around object, painted object, painting as object and the organic development of the object into something else entirely. The interplay is good between Clive Hodgson, Vicky Wright, Brian Sayers and Damien Meade – who takes up an aspect of Thomas Demand’s approach to photography, as the subject of his paintings are his own objects made out of modelling clay and wire. They’re a peculiar and compelling mix of abject, assertive and grotesque.

Otto lettere dall’Afghanistan, 1972

Alighiero Boetti @ Tate Modern (to 27 May), Sprovieri (23 Heddon St to 16 June) & Carlson (6 Heddon St to 1 June)

It’s a tough choice at Tate Modern: whether to queue up to queue further inside a crowded run-through of mostly too-familiar work; or to walk straight in to a beautiful yet unpeopled curation of thoughtful innovation? And if you do choose Boetti, then his current festival continues with two shows in Heddon Street. Sprovieri’s extensive selection of work on paper includes particularly fine late drawings and stamp works: the crescents make for extra visual and political echoes in this one’s typical combination of order (repetition, the postal system, the logic of placement) and disorder (inversions, surplus value, aesthetically arbitrary cancellations). Carlson has a vast and magnificent range of embroidered works.

Painting, 1939

Ben Nicholson @ Bernard Jacobson Gallery, 6 Cork St

To 30 June: www.jacobsongallery.com

Ben Nicholson is also having something of a moment: doing pretty well up against Mondrian at the Courtauld and Picasso at Tate Britain, and now getting all three of Bernard Jacobson’s showrooms. That allows for a 39 work survey which includes top-notch examples of everything you’d want (except a white relief, which is where the Courtauld scores). Jacobson has early landscapes, early abstracts; carved and scumbled reliefs; late landscape-come-abstracts; natural wood constructions; townscape, treescape and still life drawings… After Bacon, Nash and Lewis, our most important C20th painter?

Jamie Shovlin: Various Arrangements @ Haunch of Venison, 103 New Bond St – Central

To 26 May: www.haunchofvenison.com

Back in 2005, Jamie Shovlin showed imagined covers for planned-but-unpublished extensions to the Fontana Modern Masters books on great thinkers, subverting the postmodern credentials of the series’ design and asserting their status as paintings through casually artful dripping. Now they’ve returned bigger and yet subtler: the drips are confined to the sides of the canvas and the barely visible layers behind the front image of 17 acrylic paintings, each bigger than you, which contain 80 possible cover designs between them. Each is a dance between theory (the application of a complex set of criteria to determine the successive colour options) and intuition (Shovlin deciding if he likes the result or will change it) – which may well chime with how the insights of Merleau-Ponty, Benjamin and Derrida et al came about…

Alice Walton: In The Pleasing @ Tintype, 18 St Cross St – Farringdon

To 26 May: www.tintypegallery.com

Alice Walton takes a turn towards the geometric at Tintype, now well settled in their permanent space near Hatton Garden. She has previously hidden and selectively revealed images by maskings of tape: here that role is played by constructions built from a variety of sliver surfaces and placed on the images, which they cover, distort and reflect in turn. Add that this all takes place on a chunky table made from silver-covered insulation material, and that most of the found images masked have a nineteenth century aspect, and you get a sense of the range of dialogues quietly set up. Do: ask to see the collages, too. Don’t: confuse the artist with the Wallmart heiress.

Snowglobe

Sean Landers @ Greengrassi, 1a Kempsford Rd – Kennington

To 6 June: www.greengrassi.com

This show looks like a scholarly library in which Landers, who’s been sending himself up for so long he must mean it seriously, links Melville, Beckett and Dickinson to his own entertaining  screeds on his futile compulsion to make art. The words form the titles of the books depicted in five paintings of loaded bookshelves: ‘I AM NOT A MASOCHIST ALTHOUGH THIS IS WHAT IT IS HAS COME TO’ gives a flavour. The writers come courtesy of eight steel busts of greats who have lived on through their work. Their presence implies the question: will Landers? A devilish Pan stands in the courtyard, ready, perhaps, to comment….

With the recent opening of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s much-anticipated exhibition, “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations,” the enduring chic of iconic fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli is ­­­the talk of the town.

The exhibition, organized by The Met’s Costume Institute, explores the influence of Surrealism and other similarities in the work of Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, two Italian women unafraid of subverting traditional notions of taste, beauty, and glamour in their designs.

Skeleton Dress – Elsa Schiaparelli (1937), Shoe Hat – Elsa Schiaparelli collaboration with Salvador Dali (1937), Shocking de Schiaparelli Ad – Salvador Dali (1936), Shocking de Schiaparelli Ad – Salvador Dali (1936), Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Eye Hat – Elsa Schiaparelli (1950)

Known for her eccentric flair and frequent collaborations with Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, Schiaparelli, who died in 1973, held court alongside Coco Chanel in Paris between the wars. Inspired by the 17 carat pink diamond owned by her client and Singer sewing machine heiress, Daisy Fellowes, Schiaparelli adopted the hue as her signature color, and called it “shocking pink.”

Shocking pink, or hot pink, quickly became a prominent feature in her designs, such as in the heel-portion of her infamous “Shoe” hat. So enamored was she with the color and its suggestive power, Schiaparelli even named a perfume after it, “Shocking de Schiaparelli.” This color, she felt, was “bright, impossible, impudent, becoming, life-giving, like all the light and the birds and the fish in the world put together, a color of China and Peru but not of the West – a shocking color, pure and undiluted’.” Accordingly, the color became impossible for the fête-set of the 1930s and ‘40s to resist.

Looking to introduce some “Schiap” into your own life? Check out this Shocking Pink collection of original and affordable art from Saatchi Online. Art is a fantastic way to incorporate some pink shock appeal into your everyday life – and makes for a great conversation piece at your next cocktail party.

(written by Nicole Garton)

Browse the entire Shocking Pink collection.

Nicole Garton lives in Los Angeles.  She tracks the contemporary zeitgeist, writing about lifestyle trends, cultural events, and creative people with guts.

Inspired by LACMA’s recent survey of  female surrealist artists “In Wonderland“, we’ve decided to launch a “Surreal Showdown.”

We love the imaginative art form that is Surrealism -  – the meshing of ideas about the subconscious mind, the dreamworld, symbolism and the unexpected, and are confident that the Saatchi Online community will have a truly unique interpretation of this art form.

Popularized by artists like Salvador Dali, Andre Breton, Frida Kahlo, and Joan Miro, in the 1920′s, Surrealism still has a consistent impact in the visual language of the contemporary art world as is evidenced in the work of artists such as John Currin, Maurizio Cattelan and Louise Bougeouis.

Given Surrealism’s far reach into other cultural avenues including literature, theater, art and even fashion, we want the community to submit work from any medium so long as it is represented under the style of “Surrealism”.

We’ll be ready to start accepting entries later in the month so be sure to get your work in order, we look forward to your submissions.  We suggest you like us on Facebook to stay up to date with all the Showdown updates.

Of course stay tuned for updates on our participating judges.  The last two competitions were judged by acclaimed artists Wangechi Mutu and Peter Coffin whose work just recently opened as part of the Moca Exhibit “Transmission LA: AV CLUB” curated by Mike D here in LA.

Be sure to look for more updates and see past Showdown winners here.

Favorite material to work with? Paint. The substance itself, the colors, the speed of drying, the dripping, the flowing, the transparency, the thickness, the sound of brushes. I just love it.

What themes do you pursue? The theme I follow now is my “Paradises of paint”, the landscapes of my imagination. In the paint itself all kind of figures and forms reveal themselves. I wipe them out or let them stay. I started it in 2005 as a sidetrack with another theme: “Images of ordination and survey”.The way of working is practically the same. In all the years of being an artist there has always been that need of creating a world of my own.

How many years as an artist? 28 Years now.

Sketchbook? Do you use one? What type? I make little notes and drawings, ideas are written down, collect photos and images, have a large stock of “typical” images. I use these images as memories during work. I find them in magazines, newspapers, leaflets. Earlier I had a photo collection skies and clouds. I still use it sometimes for my painted skies.

Most important tool you use? My imagination.

Where is your studio? My painting studio is at my home, a small apartment in the suburbs of The Hague (Leidschendam), where I use one bedroom and the walls of the living room. My other studio where I keep my stock and make the larger paintings is in The Hague.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist? The best advice was from an art academy where I was told to stop painting because it was all worthless. That was 4 months before my graduation. It gave me an enormous power to go on and to feel prepared for the separation from the institute. Perhaps it was told on purpose? Never asked.

Process> Concept or Process<Concept I really do not care about that.

Why do you make art? I know no other way to express what is in my head, in my thoughts, in my views, in my imagination. Writing a book is not an option to me on this. I cannot stop that it has become a part of who I am. It is the way how I look at myself and the world in general.

Glorious Morning, Oil Painting is available for sale at Saatchi Online for $540.00

Art school or self-taught? Both, when I was about 20 I thought I did not need any school to be an artist. I was one already. Later on I discovered that art academy is a necessity to become an artist with skills, knowledge, vision and a drive that is close to yourself. There is a big difference between feeling like an artist and being one. An art academy is an institute, an environment you need to explore your talents to the ultimate depths and heights. Real art begins after that period, after the degree. Many paintings and drawings of my amateur period I have burnt ritually. No regrets on that, it was all about creativity and decoration. But some are still worth to look at.

Favorite font? The Arial Black, I have all my work titled with it on the backside.

Tattoos? There are so many other nice ways to express your love or identity. In a sense it is very introvert.

Prefer to work with music or in silence? In silence. Sometimes soft piano music or Indian violin music. The last one is hard to find, by the way. The silence of the night I like very much, close to dawn. But not very practical for the social interactions and the work and living I have to make.

Everyone has a vice. Care to call yourself out? My emotions and feelings are very intense.  Hard to deal with sometimes. For myself and others.

What’s around the corner from your place? A large park with trees and birds.

Favorite sound? Birds of any kind. There are ,any seagulls here, but also parakeets and thousands of crows, who settle down every evening in the big trees in front of my studio window. Their sound is electrical, like an old radio or a synthesizer.

Favorite smell? Sweet smelling flowers like roses, hyacinths and lilies. But also the scent of pipe-tobacco and cannabis. Herbs. Tomato leafs (!!!!). Rotting wood, the smell of soil and mushrooms.

Where can we find you outside the studio? Riding my bike to work and do my shopping, visit the city-terraces in summer, swimming, visiting friends and family.

If you couldn’t be an artist, what would you do? The idea of being a vagabond always attracted me.

Day job? Teaching design at a school for interior stylists.

Food or sleep? Food (especially with tomato in it).

Greatest achievement? My open mind and creativity.

Finish the sentence: “I would never be caught dead….” without a smile on my face.

Would you rather be able to make a living as an artist now or become famous after you die? Rather make a living of it now. After my death I can no longer enjoy painting.

Were you popular in high school? Yes, I was the class clown, a  jester for popular people.

Would you rather see your art on a t-shirt or on a billboard? My art is meant for everyone. Every finished painting can find its way into the world. No matter on what it is printed.

Would you ever figure model naked? Sure, why not.

Religion or pop culture? Is this a choice? Religion and ideology are for anxious people and the culture of pop is too much something of nothing, empty shells without content. And religion is too…..

Traditional or conceptual? Conceptual without losing the roots of tradition.

What do you collect? I collect Living Stones, small succulent plants. I grow them from seed and succeed to get them to flower with me. They are so beautiful in colors. They need ample water or food, so that is easy to take care of. For me it is a way of gardening on the two square meters of the sunny balcony of my home.

Favorite contemporary artist? Raquel Maulwurf, Levi van Veluw, Zang Xiaogang, Andreas Schön.

A piece of art you love? Jean Fouquet: The Holy Virgin and the Jesus child (Melun dyptich), 13th Century Pop-Art with Post-Modern colors.

Which living or dead artist would you most like to meet? Francis Bacon or Jeroen Bosch. I feel connected to both

The Search, Oil Painting is available for sale at Saatchi Online for $990.00

Is painting dead? No, painting as an art form is not dead, it is perhaps fallen asleep. Painting images is not the goal. That road is truly a dead end, because producing images has become a skill for everyone and that is a very good thing. The image is democratized. Painting should reinvent itself again and again. It is one of the oldest crafts there is and all possibilities and variations are known to us. But there is always a way out: Your own. That truly personal system of making new images with that old, sticky, amorphous and dirty material called paint. Figurative or not, does not matter. It has to come close to skin.

Favorite brush? The DA VINCI – GRIGIO Synthetics, nr. 12

Painting Inside or Outside? Always inside, in my home studio or in my studio in the City.

Favorite material to work with? Paper.
What is your medium? Found ephemera and old paper.
How many years as an artist? Since I was born.
Most important tool you use? My knife.

“Well its not looking good from up here” is available for sale for $2,000.00 and prints starting at $60.00
Where is your studio? At my home in Islington, London
What was the best advice given to you as an artist? Never give up.
Why do you make art? Because I have to.
Art school or self-taught? Art school.

Prefer to work with music or in silence? Music
iTunes, spotify, records? 6 music, or iTunes
Everyone has a vice. Care to call yourself out? Cheap chocolate and cheesy rom coms (oh that’s 2)
Favorite sound? silence

Cumbrian Bugs is available for sale for $4,500.00
Where can we find you outside the studio? I don’t get out much!
Who are your favorite writers? Murakami, Auster, Lessing.
What could you not do without? Time alone.
If you couldn’t be an artist, what would you do? I don’t know, being an artist isn’t really a choice

Day job? uggh.
Food or sleep? Right now sleep, but mostly food.
Greatest achievement? Getting this far.
Would you rather be able to make a living as an artist now or become famous after you die? NOW, nothing matters but the now.
Were you popular in high school? No, I was a geeky introvert.

What do you collect? Stuff.
Favorite contemporary artist? Robert Rauschenberg.
Which living or dead artist would you most like to meet? Louise Bourgeouis.
Every get hurt ‘on the job’? I stab my fingers on a daily basis.
Outsourcing or handmade? Always handmade.
Feelings on taxidermy? Love love love it.

Jonathan Horowitz

JONATHAN HOROWITZ AT GAVIN BROWN’S ENTERPRISE

Whip smart art guy Horowitz has never been one to repeat himself. Each of his shows is its own self-contained universe. For his clever new exhibition dubbed “Self-portraits in ‘Mirror #1’” Horowitz enlisted friends to recreate, by hand, the dots and strokes of Lichtenstein’s famous 1969 black-and-white mirror painting. The artist addresses notions of authorship, art history, identity and vanity  all with one existential-conceptual gesture.

www.gavinbrown.biz

MsBehavior

MsBEHAVIOR AT THE ARTBRIDGE DRAWING ROOM

This Chelsea jewel box gallery is currently home to a three-woman exhibition that includes the works by Amy Feldman, Polly Shindler and Amanda Valdez. In the words of curator Jordana Zeldin, “For Feldman, moments of material misconduct shake up established compositional codes, while Shindler’s scratch marks aim to evoke a primitive age of symbol and ritual. Valdez also makes room for her materials to act out, situating the resulting mess in the context of human experience.” These definitively unfinished paint or fabric works communicate with each other as they appear to look back at the viewer.  Incontrovertible proof that an exhibition needn’t be big to have a lasting impact. Don’t miss this one.

www.art-bridge.org

New.Traditionalists

NEW TRADITIONALISTS AT MARTOS GALLERY

Arte Povera has never gone away completely, and a few of its most articulate practitioners are highlighted in this exhibition organized by Mary Grace Wright entitled, “New Traditionalists.” Justin Adian, Jess Fuller, Leif Ritchey and B. Wurtz contribute sculpture and wallworks, which pack a lot of poetry into the most humble materials. Each piece exudes consider charm and chops. Adian wraps upholsterer’s foam in canvas and further transforms the material by painting it with industrial gloss, Wurtz, who can always be counted on to astonish, contributes winning, magical box sculptures made in the late 70s from vintage 35mm slides. A humble tree made from similar film erupts from its base like a fountain made of memory.

www.martosgallery.com

Henning Bohl

HENNING BOHL AT CASEY KAPLAN

It’s difficult not to be taken with Bohl’s spacey-but-minimal canvases with colored doughnut-shaped tape dispensers attached at the edges. Of course the torus shape is an outer space form, and the artist’s donuts attached like constellations (or perhaps barnacles) and his mostly monochrome acrylic and spray paint canvases. Circles abut squares and the gallery floor is carpeted with a purple layer of “icing.” Bohl’s canny and deadpan sense of humor dominates this winning exhibition.

www.caseykaplangallery.com

Brian Ulrich

BRIAN ULRICH AT JULIE SAUL GALLERY

Ulrich focuses his lens on America’s need to consume. The exhibition entitled “Is This Place Great or What: Artifacts and Photographs” includes images of industrial sites, storefront windows, signage and large retail venues that have closed.  His documentation of the devolution of a strangely welcoming architectural monstrosity like a Circuit City store is striking. Though apparently still chugging along as a retail outlet, is a monument to the lost promise of a better life for all who enter.  Like Walker Evans and William Eggleston before him, Ulrich mines contemporary life for all that it might reveal about us.

www.saulgallery.com

Benjamin Butler

BENJAMIN BUTLER AT KLAUS VON NICHTSSAGEND

Butler has been making meaningful pictures of trees for the better part of his career. The paintings on display for this exhibition, both large and small, reveal his skills at turning familiar landscapes into near abstractions.  The space in between his trees is as considered and lively as the branches themselves. Butler’s bold, handsome verticals in masterful color combinations depict an up-close wilderness of the mind.

www.klausgallery.com

Michael Bevilacqua

MICHAEL BEVILACQUA AT KRAVETS WEHBY

Bevilacqua puts aside his usual bold colors for this show, and presents black on silver canvases in acrylic and spray paint. The Goth stencils and scratchitti exude a cool chaos that makes disorder seem handsome.  A prodigious purveyor of music into paint, the artist created the paintings while listening to tunes, parts of which might have found their way onto the canvases.  A quietly brilliant show.

www.kravetswehbygallery.com

Valerie Hegarty

VALERIE HEGARTY AT MARLBOROUGH

Political and creepy, Hegarty’s exhibition of sculptural  works is entitled “Altered States” and is, among other things, an investigation of Paddy Chayefsky’s 1978 science fiction novel of the same name.  Memorable ruins are everywhere, Rug with Grass (2012) and Sinking Ship (Large Clipper Ship) (both works 2012) (shown) are particular highlights.

www.marlboroughgallery.com

Michael Mahalchick

MICHAEL MAHALCHICK AT CANADA

I’ve always had a soft spot in my head for Mahalchick’s messy/cool festoonery.  The tongue-in-cheek press release for the show is a study in the pitfalls of art speak. It reads in part: Harvesting, fusing and re-constructing references from myriad sources, he takes an anything-goes approach to the materials he uses to convey multiple meanings in unexpected ways. Consciously, they fall desperately short of the iconic, becoming vestiges posed as emblems for that which cannot be conveyed; a gaping magnitude of impotency, dull tones, vague, nondescript scenes, stripped of emotional propaganda. Better to see this show than to read about it, and there’s a performance screening and artist book signing on Friday April 22^nd.

www.canadanewyork.com

Douglas Florian

DOUGLAS FLORIAN AT BRAVINLEE

Florian, a successful writer of children’s books, is also a painter with some serious talent. His colorful abstractions, this time in oil on wood, are small and stimulating. With yucky greens, burnt yellows and a variety of blues, Florian crams a lot of story in little space. Highly recommended.

www.bravinlee.com

Malick Sidibe

MALICK SIDIBÉ AT AGNES B. GALERIE BOUTIQUE

Award-winning African photographer Sidibé eloquently tells of what drives him to make photographs:

A person has three sides: their face, their back, their profile. To snap a person’s profile is interesting. To see someone from behind, especially my sisters or my mother, is more interesting. When you see a woman wearing a skirt from behind, it’s a temptation. People have had car accidents that way. There was a beautiful woman walking in front of my studio and on the tarmac a man was coming on a Vespa. He saw the woman, forgot the road. A van was parked in front of my neighbor’s house: he crashed into the van!

In conjunction with book distributor D.A.P., agnes b. is currently showing a wonderful overview of the artist’s portraits. An unexpected but relevant exhibition spot, agnes b.  Soho boutique is now under the direction of former Gagosian talent, Monika Condrea.

www.agnesb.com

www.artbook.com

What is your medium?
I work in varied media, including, but not limited to, ink on paper, oil markers on wood panel, spray paint and digital images.  I utilize whatever material will allow me to express what I am feeling at the moment.

What themes do you pursue?
All my work is intuitive.  It is meditative and the process has a calming effect on me.  I allow the work to unfold and when it’s finished it “speaks” out.  Others often interpret my abstract work as what you see under a microscope, such as bacteria and marine life.  In my image-based pieces, I often use old family photographs, as well as shots of places that I feel attracted to.  These works are personal and through them I explore past relationships.  The memories that these photographs bring forth, and the imagined realities that I create digitally by removing them from their original context, all serve to process their meaning.  Although these pieces are emotionally charged, I consider them intuitive as well, because I allow my subconscious to dictate the order and placement of the images that compose them, and the final piece is always a surprise to me.  Moreover, even in these image-based pieces there is a first and last layer of repetitive drawing.  I frequently create large-scale installations; the theme of which is that “everything is connected to everything else.”

Emerging is a mixed media on wood piece 60 x 24 x 4 in available for sale at Saatchi Online for $7,500.00

How many years as an artist?
As a child I was always creating things and drawing, so I can honestly say that I have always been an artist.  While life took me in a different direction, I studied art independently for years, by taking workshops in photography, painting and drawing.  Then, thirteen years ago, I returned to school and earned a Bachelor in Fine Arts.  Ever since, I have been a fulltime artist.

Sketchbook? Do you use one? What type?
I rarely use a sketchbook, although there is always one lying around at home and in my studio.  I mainly use them to write down ideas before I forget them.  Also, when I come across an image that seems interesting to me I cut it out and keep it in my sketchbook.  These books are spiral-bound.

Most important tool you use?
Oil markers and/or ink pens because every one of my pieces begins with a layer of repetitive drawing.

Meditations on the Light is a mixed media drawing on wood available for sale at Saatchi Online for $3,000.00.

Where is your studio?
My studio is in an industrial warehouse district known as the Bird Road Art District.  It is a 1200 square foot warehouse space with 20-foot ceilings, concrete floors and a bay door big enough to fit a truck.  I just moved there about six months ago… It’s the studio I always dreamed of, and it sort of found me.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist?
Just do it… It will reveal itself.

Process> Concept or Process<Concept
Definitely, Process > Concept.

Why do you make art?
I make art because I HAVE to make it… It is a tremendously strong impulse that is ever-present.  When I make art all is good in my life.

Art school or self-taught?
Art school

Favorite font? Helvetica

Tattoos? Don’t have any.

Prefer to work with music or in silence?
I usually work in silence because my work is meditative.

iTunes, spotify, records? iTunes

Everyone has a vice. Care to call yourself out? I can’t say I really have a vice, but I do love red wine.

What’s around the corner from your place?
A Cuban restaurant, a bunch of warehouses, other artists’ studios, auto body shops.

Favorite sound?
Ocean waves hitting the shore.

Favorite smell?
Coffee in the morning.

Meditations Series is a pen & ink drawing available for sale at Saatchi Online. Original: $700.00 |Prints: $60.00

Where can we find you outside the studio?
At home with my husband, my African Grey parrot and my two dogs.  I frequently attend art exhibitions, and I love the movies and dining out.

If you couldn’t be an artist, what would you do? I would probably be a writer or a psychologist.

Food or sleep? Sleep

Greatest achievement? Going back to school and earning my degree in art.

Finish the sentence: “I would never be caught dead …” without my iPhone…

Would you rather be able to make a living as an artist now or become famous after you die? I would rather be able to make a living as an artist now!

Would you rather see your art on a t-shirt or on a billboard? Billboard.

Astrology or astronomy? Astronomy.

Would you ever figure model naked? No… I don’t think so.

Religion or pop culture? Neither.

What do you collect? I collect tools, spray paints, nuts and bolts, lenses…

Favorite contemporary artist? I love Tom Brydelsky because his work has an otherworldly feel to it… It transcends our every day reality.

Favorite paper type? Arches watercolor paper.

Use anything other than paint? Oil markers and ink.

Oil or acrylic? Both

Figurative or abstract? Both

Photo references? I use my own and old family photographs

Is painting dead? I don’t think painting will ever die.

Favorite brush? Palette knifes?

What do you wear while you paint? Jeans and a T-shirt

Painting Inside or Outside? Inside

Monet or Manet? Manet

We’re thrilled to announce the winner of Saatchi Online’s Abstract Showdown. After several rounds of judging, including a second round led by Rebecca Wilson, Director of the Saatchi Gallery London and Nina Miall, Director, Haunch of Venison Gallery in London,  first and second place were selected by internationally acclaimed artist Peter Coffin.

The winning submission is an abstract, wooden sculpture entitled ” It wasn’t me, I wasn’t there” by Josh Welker from the United States.  Our runner-up is an abstract painting entitled “Change” by Nada Velickovic of the UK.  As part of their prize, both pieces will be shown at the Saatchi Gallery in London.  Congratulations to Josh and Nada.

Want to be sure to receive updates about Showdown and other activities?  Be sure to sign up for the Saatchi Online newsletter.

” It wasn’t me, I wasn’t there” by Josh Welker $20,000.00

Change

Our runner- up is an abstract painting entitled “Change” by Nada Velickovic $2,000.00.

Check out all the Showdown finalists here.

Favorite material to work with? Acrylic on paper

What themes do you pursue? I work from my imagination most of the time. I never paint exactly what is in front of me. The subject I paint can be influenced by news events or just the way I’m feeling on a particular day. Even if a piece starts off as a drawing from a life drawing session as in the series of nudes I did a couple of years ago, the final painting will be much different from what I was seeing.

“Artist 2″ 22 x 16 x 1 in Acrylic Painting is Available for Sale at Saatchi Online| Original: $5,000.00 Prints Starting At:$129.00

How many years as an artist?
I knew what I wanted to be from the age of seven. I have been a professional designer/painter/illustrator for over 40 years.

Sketchbook? Do you use one? What type? Yes, I have been using a sketch book or journal from the first day I start art school. Six years ago W.W. Norton & Co., a New York & London based publisher published a coffee table book of my journals.

Most important tool you use? My brain, I hope.

Where is your studio? Battersea, near Battersea Park.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist? From myself on a regular basis, “Keep your ego out of your work”.

Why do you make art? I need to make art. It’s something in my DNA. I don’t feel right unless I’m creating something.

Art school or self-taught? Art school. I graduated from the Art Center College of Design Los Angeles. ( Now in Pasadena ).

Favorite font? Favorite serif font is Requiem, favorite san serif is Gotham.

Tattoos? No.

Prefer to work with music or in silence? Must have music while I’m working.

iTunes, spotify, records? itunes, extensive, eclectic library.

Succulents or cigarettes? I gave up cigarettes 25 years ago.

“Untitled” 22 x 16 x 1 in Acrylic Painting is available for sale at Saatchi Online| Original: $5000.00

What’s around the corner from your place? Battersae Dog & Cat home.

Where can we find you outside the studio? Cinema, museum, gallery, restaurant the usual places.

If you couldn’t be an artist, what would you do? Musician.

Day job? Graphic designer / artist.

Food or sleep? Love food.

Would you rather be able to make a living as an artist now or become famous after you die? Make a living as an artist.

Were you popular in high school? Yes, I got along with everyone because I could draw. From the tough guys to the goodie, goodie students wanted me to draw something on their notebook covers.

Would you rather see your art on a t-shirt or on a billboard? Billboard.

Would you ever figure model naked? No.

Traditional or conceptual? A bit of both.

A piece of art you love? Hylas and the Nymphs by John William Waterhouse.

Which living or dead artist would you most like to meet?
Francis Bacon.

Use anything other than paint? Sometimes found objects, ink, pencil, crayon, gold leaf.

Oil or acrylic? Acrylic.

Figurative or abstract? Both.

Representational or Surreal? Both.

Photo references?No.

Is painting dead? Never.

What do you wear while you paint? Jeans and t-shirt.

Painting Inside or Outside? Inside.

Monet or Manet? Monet