Life Advice from Stefan Ruiz

I recently picked up a copy of Elephant Magazine, and lost hours of my day in a coffee shop glued to the editorial. Ana Inarra’s interviews are particularly interesting. Here’s a small excerpt from her Q&A with photographer, Stefan Ruiz. As a freelancer, I can relate to his response and believe many of you will too. Here’s an excerpt, you can read the article in full here:

…I prefer working on personal projects for the obvious reason, but finding a balance is difficult. There are constant interruptions. I often have to stop everything to go off on a job. It may take me weeks or months to get back to what I was working on before I went away.

I do commercial work to support myself and to fund my projects. But that’s not the only reason I do it. I wouldn’t like to do only personal projects. Commercial work has given me a lot of access to people and places, and it has exposed me to things that I probably would have never seen…Also with commercial work you have time limitations and deadlines. This teaches you to focus and work fast.

My personal projects can go on forever. I’m trying to learn from my commercial work about finishing things. And finally many of my personal projects have started from something that I was exposed to on a commercial job.

May 28, 2012 | By: Shayna Kulik

Artist Profile: Peter Crawley

Last week we shared some beautiful stitch work from Custhom. As a result, we got a nice tip from Ben Frost, pointing us in the direction of Peter Crawley. Adding layers of complexity while keeping the execution clean and graphic, his Audio Visual Series is a stunning interpretation of music vibrations.

Peter’s illustrations are created by hand piercing various stocks of paper with a pin and then stitching the paper with a needle and cotton thread. The first piece was inspired by a road trip across America, and a desire to illustrate the journey. Rather interesting to see the juxtapose between machine and hand-stitched illustration, isn’t it?

May 24, 2012 | By: Shayna Kulik

Fashion Designers Get Lost in Lui Bolin's Art

Known internationally as the “Invisible Man,” Lui Bolin is renowned for painting himself into the background of notable locations around the world. His recent exhibition Lost in Art at Eli Klein Fine Art showcased his newest pieces, including his recent collaboration with Harper’s Bazaar and fashion powerhouses Gaultier, Lanvin, Missoni, and Valentino.

Liu Bolin met with Jean Paul Gaultier, Elber Albaz of Lanvin, Angela Missoni, and Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli from Valentino, as they became the latest subjects of his camouflaging performance.

The designers underwent the process of becoming nearly invisible within a background of their most celebrated signature designs.

Creating four fantastic photographs, this collaboration stands as a true and marvelous beacon of the merging of fashion and art. In terms of design, it provokes some interesting thoughts regarding how designers can not uncommonly be a seemingly invisible force behind their well-known work. For more information, click here

Eli Klein Fine Art
462 West Broadway
(between Houston and Prince)
New York, NY 10012

May 21, 2012 | By: Shayna Kulik

New York: Looking for Magic

For the first time in it’s 8-year history, the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) presented an art fair in New York last week. The inaugural edition showcased over 60 international galleries from 24 cities representing 11 countries. Lucas Knipscher was on hand, representing Los Angeles’ Thomas Duncan Gallery and it was extremely impressive.

The trained photographer has taken to bending the boundaries of his medium, stretching his skills into alternate realms including the involvement of textiles.

His expanding artistic practices are rooted in finding the “magic” in photography and in exploring the limits of both the medium and of himself. The results of his experimentation are fascinating, engaging and fun.

For more info, click here & here.

NADA New York: 548 West 22nd St. New York, NY 10011

May 14, 2012 | By: Shayna Kulik

Music: Gotye's Illustrative Storytelling

It seems like everyone’s familiar with the Gotye song by now (with over 200 million views) for Somebody That I Used to Know. Impressive, right? The animation’s consistant with the crystal trend we’ve grown accustomed to seeing, though the application’s fresh and fitting for the story. I only just stumbled on the original version after catching up on a blog favorite of mine, Apron Anxiety.

Alyssa puts it best, “Listen to words – holy shit who hasn’t been there, on one end or the other – come on now. I’m supposed to be blogging about good reviews and food-porn and purple carrots and book parties all that good stuff, but it’s Saturday and just want to let it all goooooooooo….”

May 9, 2012 | By: Shayna Kulik

Terry Rosen: On the Street Where You Live

A native New Yorker, Terry Rosen began painting and drawing formally at the 92nd Street Y when she was six. Her professional career took shape first as an advertising illustrator for Bloomingdales and Macy’s then transitioned into textile design, where she honed her knack for bringing life to the inanimate. She designed prints for Oleg Cassini and was the creator of Nicole Miller’s iconic “conversational print” that depicted familiar and found items such as food labels, fortune cookies, and personal ads which sparked a huge trend.

Recently, however, Rosen has turned her attention to developing collages. The contents of her quilt-like compositions are collected from the artist’s travels throughout Hudson NY, the neighborhoods of Manhattan, North Adams, Great Barrington, Dutchess County, and “somewhere between Portland and Portsmouth.” Scouring the ground, Rosen has scooped up the many discarded artifacts of commerce and daily life such as ticket stubs, sales receipts, and fast-food wrappers for her collection.

Her well-honed artistic skill and fascination with “post-consumer behavior, puns and colorful lingo in the deluge of marketing messages, and their connections to real locations and times” informs her work, as she carefully assembles the pieces. Fascinating to behold, each layout looks like a visual poem.

May 1, 2012 | By: Shayna Kulik