JR is a French artist that has been amazing the world with his Inside Out project.
He is the much deserved winner of this year's TED Prize. This amazing video clip will bring you up to speed on one of the most amazing artists of our times.
May 11, 2011
March 15, 2011
My art on Saturday Night Live
I was really excited to get an email yesterday from long time patron Lori Guirard, who works for Saturday Night Live. They recently used a few pieces of my art on the set.
It was in a parody commercial for Estro Maxx. Here are some pics she sent:
Bill Hader above with Poe's Anatomy, a painting from 2007 and below Lord Byron's Luggage and Patiently.
The fake spot is really funny. It takes a stab at those ridiculous, over-promising pharmaceutical ads we're constantly barraged with. Taking it over the top in typical SNL style.
Not that they need any help, the drug companies do a pretty good job taking it over the top themselves. A lot of those ads are almost parodies already. Here's the full clip:
Thanks again Lori! You're the best :) Love to JP, Nick & Bella xoxo
February 27, 2011
Banksy's New Film: Exit Through The Gift Shop
British Street Artist Banksy's documentary film, "Exit Through The Gift Shop" may win an academy award tonight but all anyone can talk about is if he wins, will he bound up onto the stage wearing a monkey mask (on rare occasions where he does make public appearances he wears one) or will it just be another Banksy no-show (like at his own art shows).
He's mostly known for being unknown. No one, well, no one who's talking, even knows who he is. Although his street name and antics are infamous now, I'm writing this for the few who still may be unfamiliar with him.
If you're unfamiliar with Banksy, you really should check him out. His work is brilliant and ballsy and he is arguably the world's most famous living artist. Forget Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, etc. - I love both don't get me wrong - but Banksy is the current rock star of the art world.
And if you haven't seen his(?) documentary, Exit Through The Gift Shop you should get on it. It gives you an inside glimpse of the street art world in action like nothing else you've ever imagined possible (assuming you imagine those types of things, I do. Often) and if you don't know the importance of the street art movement yet... um, might wanna get on that one too :)
Don't be like those people who turned their noses up an Van Gogh when he tried to sell Starry Night on the streets of Arles hoping only to bring in enough money for dinner (and maybe some bandages) only to have their great grandchildren pay MORE for Starry Night mouse pads a few decades later. Geez, that was embarrassing. Let's try not to do that again shall we?
Just give Banksy an hour and a half of your time and if he can't make a believer out of you... well I don't know what to tell you... you can already buy Banksy mouse pads... he's not going to go away. You are not required to LIKE the movement only to understand the cultural significance and fairly consider it before dialing the graffiti removal hotline... oh never mind, here's the trailer...
New Work: February 2011
I'm now back in the studio full time after a long, unintentional and unavoidable hiatus. It has been a difficult two years since my husband's death and it's taken me a long time to really be able to muster up the creative energy it takes to break new ground with my work. But I'm happy with the new stuff I've been working on this month. I moved back to Albuquerque and the near constant sunshine has got to be helping, too.
But I've got to give credit to my friend Todd, who I've written about before, one of my oldest friends. He's moved out here to help me out, he needed a break from NYC too but either way he's a god send right now for sure, handling all of my shipping, computer work, inventory and all the stuff that has been taking up more than half my time so now I can focus on what I do best. Paint.
Todd in his Badass Rubber Chicken Viking Helmet. He can't work without it. Rest assured that he'll be donning it as he packs up your painting. It's the studio rule.
So now that he's got my back, painting is about all I've done for weeks now. Usually 16-18 hours a day or until I pass out, most of the time not even stopping to eat. I think it's been worth it so far and I'm not showing any sign of slowing down. It feels great to be back in ABQ and working again.
I just finished this one today. Ironic, for sure. Some sort of commentary on our culture and hypocrisy, I suppose. I try not to think too much about things when I work or I think the end product can be ham-fisted. If I keep the process as unconscious as possible my cynical nature seems to find it's way to the surface without even trying.
© Jenny Berry 2011 "Eye Candy No. 4" - 31 x 41
These images are vintage candy and other ads that I've found odd or ridiculous and for whatever reason I've collected them over the years. I've made a large digital collage and then printed it out and hand transfered it to the canvas... a painstaking process that takes longer than it would to just paint the things from scratch... but I really like the distressed, worn, ghostly effect that the transfer backdrop has behind more vivid effect of the painted bottle caps and candy cigarette packs (the ultimate symbol of irony). If I'd painted the entire backdrop it would just feel like another iconic 70's pop art piece to me. The transfer changes everything.
I've worked the paintings below simultaneously over the last two weeks. Starting with a basic black and white transfer of a nude and then working back into them with various mediums until they felt "done". In art school my concentration was figure studies and I always seem to end up back here. I like starting with the transfer sometimes because it feels more like a sculpture than a painting to me.
© Jenny Berry 2011 "Urban Nude No. 1" - 36 x 50
I've read about how Michelangelo was so meticulous in choosing his marble because if he got into it and then found a flaw it would take him so much longer because he'd have to work around the flaw... or scrap the whole thing. That's what it feels like to me. I lay in texture randomly first and lay down the transfer and then, of course, because the transfer always fights and the texture never seems to be where I want it, I'm forced to fight it out until it works.
© Jenny Berry 2011 "Urban Nude No. 2" - 50 x 36
Of course, it would be so much simpler to just plan out the piece in advance and lay everything down so it works like it should and doesn't fight me... but where's the fun in that? For me, art is in the struggle. Problems arise. The artist solves them. I think it's how I improve. So I make sure and make extra problems for myself. I've always been an over achiever. But I really believe that if I stay in my comfort zone I won't grow or get better.
© Jenny Berry "Urban Nude No. 3" - 36 x 50
Yes, I know, my signature bird paintings are well within my comfort zone. I basically repeat them over and over and I sell a lot of them. But as I push the envelope with my other work the birds will follow and evolve as well.
© Jenny Berry 2011 "Urban Nude No. 4" - 31 x 32
Urban Nude 4 (above) was the first painting where I've started to push away from the solid black silhouettes and bring in the very Banksy and Shepard Fairey inspired high contrast, black and white images, something I've been wanting to explore for a while. I've now started exploring this with the birds as well and I'm happy with the result... so fair warning, you'll be seeing a lot of these in the future :)
© Jenny Berry 2011 "Birds On Wires No. 433" detail
Last year I started exploring a series of nudes based on some mildly provocative images of women. Below is the latest in that series. I don't know why I find these images so compelling. Could be the implicit cultural taboo and the series of emotional responses we have to these images that I find interesting. I don't know. They pull a completely different emotional response from people than the more serene nudes. Even though the poses are not provocative at all, more evocative if anything, they seem to hit a different cord than the other nudes.
© Jenny Berry 2011 "Dark Nude No. 3" - 50 x 27
This one pushes the envelope with the addition of the red drips and the zippers for sure. I've always had this thing for zippers in my work. They seem to imply something hidden. Whenever I feel myself having an automatic response to something I see (graffiti, facial piercings, provocative images, whatever) I try to stop and analyze it. Instinct can protect us but letting our culture think for us can be dangerous. I think that questioning process is what draws me to these images and to street art as well.
September 09, 2010
August 29, 2010
Sometimes I feel like an ARTBOT
Okay... I have to be honest. When I saw this video this morning I couldn't stop laughing. I love it. Probably because I know how this little guy feels. I also understand what probably drove the artist, considering current economic conditions, to create an exhibit like this one.
I mean, I love what I do, don't get me wrong but it's HARD sometimes, not physically so much but mentally... emotionally... to paint as many paintings as i do every day.
It is mind numbing, butt kicking hard. Friends call me The Art Machine... we have superhero names for each other, long story... a couple of us have theme music... one of us actually has a bobble head ninja, replica of himself on his desk but I can't name him here obviously cuz of the whole secret identity thingy...
oh and while I'm on the subject of my superhero friends - "Happy Birthday J!!" (It's The Darkness' birthday today. No, really. Facebook just sent me notification. Not that I don't have it memorized J :) <3 U
...So anyway, back to my point... AFTER hours of painting there's the photography, the digital manipulation and color-correcting, the computer work of designing the listing and posting everything on eBay. Then there's the emails, question answering, shipping, packing, tracking and followup.
The ordering of supplies and keeping track of an inventory that at any given moment tops 200 to 300 paintings. Of course we can't forget the blog, web site, Facebook fan page and Twitter updates. Social marketing isn't "the future" it's the damn lifeboat!! sorry... anyway...
All of this taking realistically ten times as many hours as the actual painting. And with the lower prices I'm having to sell paintings at these days, I can no longer afford an assistant to help me with these things so I'm pretty much working around the clock. The funny thing is that I still totally LOVE it. It's still fun to get up and go to work every day.
Even so, I often collapse under the pressure of it and focus on my gallery work for a while—meaning, the more expensive, slower processed, contemplative stuff as opposed to the less expensive, faster processed, intuitive, expressionistic stuff. Sometimes a change of gears for a while clears my head—and then my eBay customers will be harping that I've only got 5 paintings up for sale in my eBay store. But I still love you, even when you harp :)
But even on my downest days I still feel like the luckiest person in the world to be able to sell my art this way... but still... i'm just sayin'... sometimes I feel like an artbot :)
Seriously, this little guy has just got it all figured out. And the thing that really KEEPS me laughing about this is that I KNOW there are people out there that think I don't paint all this stuff myself. While I'm drowning they actually think I've got some robots or something like this going... but alas... I'm not that smart :)
This is the blurb from RobotLiving.com... I have no idea how I surfed my way to that site over coffee this morning, sure I like robots much as the next guy but... robotliving?
Oscar D Torres is a graduate student that has created a robot that paints named Jackoon.
The robot is named after Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. You can see the similarities to the artists in the painting here called Lemon Wasp.
Although the paintings look random, the robot uses a camera mounted on the ceiling to help tell it where to paint.
Jackoon is currently part of the ITP Spring Show.
See also Drawbot, the robot that draws.
Link to the Torres' Artbot Video on RobotLiving.com
I'll think I'll save the Drawbot for tomorrow. Too much for one day. But seriously, Oscar you're my hero :) now try working on one that does birds...
August 19, 2010
Dara Engler is da bomb
I LOVE this artist! Her work's like Egon Schiele and Lucian Freud meet the Simpsons. She's amazingly creepy and brilliant and i love seeing our culture through her eyes.
This piece is one of the untitled cat paintings from her exhibit "Zombies vs. Pirates: Line Up, Shake Hands, Good Game." If there's ever been a better title for a show... I don't know about it ;)
She writes this about the series on her web site (of course, I LOVE this):
As a culture we walk a fine line. Struggling to balance the stresses in our lives. We battle between choosing inactive activities that allow us to hibernate and turn off our brains, and choosing hobbies that will enrich our lives. I paint secluded, vacant, zombie-like figures; who have relaxed in their habits until they have lost time. They have anesthetized themselves and become sluggish, jaundiced, and so lacking muscle tone that they hang over their chairs and defy anatomy.
and what's up with the empty picture frames on the wall? awesome.
August 04, 2010
Banksy strikes again
Picasso would've loved this don't you think? Just way too funny!
Although this exhibit happened a year ago I want to post this for anyone that hasn't seen it because I believe this was just way too important to miss! Check out this article on coolhunting.com about Banksy's 2009 exhibit in Bristol.
The upshot is that with only a few museum officials being in on the fun he went in and changed out a lot of the museum's works with his own pieces. It is just over the top great, even for Banksy. If you haven't read about it yet here you go...
Banksy's exhibit at the Bristol City Museum and Gallery 2009
He never fails to crack me up. He's a constant inspiration but I will say that his Madonna with ipod is a concept I explored in 2008 also...
© 2008 Jenny Berry 'The Non-Thinker'
not that I'm implying in any way that my work inspired his! just that we both noticed the same cultural weirdness... and it inspired us both. I love how we approached it from opposite directions though. I did a painting of The Thinker with an image transfer ipod and he did the reverse.
© 2009 Banksy Crude Oils, Silent Night Madonna and Child with ipod
I think that's why I love his work so much. It's concept before everything. He's a writer first. A thinker. He is exactly what an artist is supposed to be in my opinion... a mirror for the culture.
What more could we be? We filter our perceptions of the world through our own internal system of funhouse mirrors and serve it back in our art.
I'm not sure art should have any agenda other than that. Oscar Wilde thought it was about beauty and George Sand thought it was about ideals. I think some art is about those things. The only thing that seems certain is that the minute someone tries to define it it'll morph into something else.
Time capsules full of Shakespeare and Mozart just aren't the whole picture. If they're the flesh of high art in our culture then Banksy and Basquiat are what? the ego? the anxiety disorder? maybe our shadow... they're certainly the manifestation of the darker things in our culture and that is real, honest and necessary to embrace because we all know what repressing it results in.
I only know that I'm sleeping better at night just knowing he's out there holding vigil over our complacency, poking culture in the eye and kicking the tires of our comfort to see if it can hold up under scrutiny.
July 06, 2010
Shepard Fairey's current project in NYC
This is the PR release taken straight from Deitch Projects web site. If you're going to be in New York any time between now and the end of the year you really should swing by Houston & Bowery and take a look at this piece. It's absolutely amazing!
May 01, 2010 — December 31, 2010
Houston Street and Bowery
Goldman Properties and Deitch Projects are pleased to present a mural by Shepard Fairey to coincide with his exhibition May Day. This project continues the collaboration on this site between Goldman Properties and Deitch Projects, who have previously presented a recreation of Keith Haring’s 1982 mural, and a mural by the Brazilian artists Os Gemeos.
Shepard Fairey’s May Day mural incorporates several of the images and themes that can be found in his most recent fine art and street art work. In this public piece, Fairey tackles an array of subjects including: the reclamation of the U.S. flag as a multi-dimensional symbol, global warming, health care, free speech, activism, and the dysfunction of the two-party system in Washington.
Shepard Fairey’s mural addresses contemporary political themes, but also pays tribute to some of the Pop artists who have influenced him. The American flag and the target reference the iconic paintings of Jasper Johns who is also the subject of a portrait in the May Day exhibition. The newspaper and the May Day megaphone advertisement pay tribute to Warhol's early painted renditions of common subject matter. The mural also weaves in many smaller images and decorative patterns which supplement the aesthetic and themes of the larger images.
The property on which the mural is located has been owned by Goldman Properties since 1984. Tony Goldman has given his enthusiastic support to this project.
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