Cassidy and Duran

31 10 2011

Cassidy and Duran. Sounds like a singing group. But they are two commercial artists in the fashion industry. This set of work called ‘Faith’  is interesting and ‘blasphemous’. It seems to take its inspiration from the costumes/garments of the Catholic church.

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Photography: Paul Cassidy (www.paulcassidystudio.com)Post and Colour Art: Cristina Durán (www.studio-panorama.com)

Styling: Kattaca (www.kattaca.com)
Art Direction: Pablo Perez Sanmartin (www.pabloperezsanmartin.org)
Make-up: Vicente Oviedo for MAC
Hair: José Andres Navas for Zach
Photography Assistants: Eduardo Borrego, Pablo Jueguen
Set Design: Q Sets
Production Assistant: Belia Martin Tellado
Model: Charlotte van der Sande (Delphoss)

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Categories : art, Culture, fantasy, fashion, parody, photos, religion, Uncategorized

Paul McCartney

31 10 2011

I don’t know why. Like many people of my generation I was buried in Beatles lore. When the Beatles broke up everyone felt they had to pick a camp. I picked Lennon. I’d always found McCartney’s songs a bit sappy. I thought that Paul was the song and dance man and that Lennon was the artist. Turns out I was wrong. They are both artists. You have to investigate McCartney. He has taken an interest in all kinds of artistic endeavours. They have not been greeted with wild enthusiasm. But then everything these guys did after the Beatles was judged by a different standard.

I love McCartney’s art. His paintings are really interesting. They have both an earnestness about them mixed with fun. He does not seem to have taken himself too seriously. But he does take his work seriously.

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Categories : art, Culture, galleries, paintings, the 60s, Uncategorized

Andy Warhol

31 10 2011

I sat in an auditorium for well over an hour. I was almost alone. It was an Andy Warhol film festival. And I was watching a film of the Empire State Building. I believe it was 8 hours long. I could be wrong. But who cares. It was like watching a postcard. I don’t know how people will think of Warhohl a hundred years from now. He may be seen like  his soup cans. A product. Of the 70s.

Warhol tried his hand at a lot of  things. Music, movies, painting, sculpture. Most of his work is derivative. I think there is much less to Warhohl then meets the eye. But he did do one thing. He pointed out that our society is filled with ideas. That a coca cola bottle is an idea. That Marilyn Monroe is an idea. That all entertainment or sports figures are ideas. As icons. Much like the religious icons of the middle ages. (Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the extras.)

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Here is the beginning of a documentary on Warhol. Its pretty interesting.


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Categories : art, Art Shows, Culture, fashion, Uncategorized, video

Stephanus. Again.

30 10 2011

I fell upon this artist’s work. Again. I love this guy’s stuff. I’ll repeat what I said last time I reviewed his work.

Berni Stephanus is one fabulous artist. (http://www.stephanus.com/list_images.php?vars=id_) I say this because I love his work. (And so much of it reminds me of my own work.) His work is filled with that sense of urgency and energy (violence) you see in the best collage work. He started doing collage work in the late-sixties. I started about the same time. (I really got into it when I was unemployed and spent my days watching the Montreal Olympics.) A lot of his work has stories attached to them. And of course there is humour. Read his bio. He’s had an interesting journey.

My opinion hasn’t changed.

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Categories : art, Art Shows, Collage, Culture, cut and paste, photo montage, photos, surreal, Uncategorized

Aaron Leeman

29 10 2011

Out of focus. Too vague. Abstract. Smabstract. All the conventional wisdom of art. Aaron Leeman flies in the face of these criticisms. To create pieces of art that are… interesting. In Kant there is the noumena and the phenomena. We experience the phenomena. The noumena is the real thing, the source of phenomena. Leeman focuses on the phenomena. He is interested in the information in the wire. The sound over the music. That middle world.

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Categories : art, Collage, Culture, galleries, Mixed Media, photos, surreal, Uncategorized

Kitty Litter in the Sky

29 10 2011

The Fred and Me stories started off as a conversation between a philosophy student and a compost. The compost was a god. And the questions would have been philosophic in nature. Than a friend of mine had disaster hit him. His wife was having an affair with the kid who took her groceries out to her car. (That became part of the story.) Now the philosophy student had bigger problems than what is the meaning of life? His wife wanted a divorce. And then Fred stepped in. Fred was their cat. He could talk. Not just suddenly. Always could. But when the philosophy student stopped taking his medication for bi-polarism, the cat, Fred, decided he had to get something off his chest. And so started the series (4 inall) of short novels called Fred and Me.

I called the stories ‘animation fiction’. Like Magic Realism. Everything was alive. And anything was possible.  The stories fit into the category of ‘madcap adventures’. They are free. And worth every penny. You can download them at

Fred and Me Episode 1


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Categories : art, books, Culture, fantasy, fiction, free books, Literature, Novel, surreal, The Novel, Uncategorized, Writing

Sam Spratt

29 10 2011

This guy’s portraits are very impressive. In the corroded skin and violent gashes these faces ring out with power. Their exaggeration makes them fun to look at. I’m not sure that Spratt has any particular insight into the persons he’s painting but there is something about these iconic figures (movie stars) that is intriguing.

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Categories : art, comics, Culture, fantasy, paintings, parody, portraits, Science Fiction, Uncategorized

Wayne White

28 10 2011

There is a lot of shitty “art” in the world. I mean stuff that is mass produced for people’s living room. My parents had one. It was called “Singing Stream”. It was a Franz Johnson. I hated the painting. Especially after I saw a similar one at a friend’s house. It was only slightly different. As if they had moved the centre of the picture over about 6 inches. This is what it looks like except they changed the name to Smiling Stream. Smiling is a great improvement, don’t you think?

Now Franz Johnson was somehow related to the Group of Seven. Or maybe he was one of seven. Or seven of one. I get that mixed up. (Star Trek joke.) This painting sold recently. I guess my folks had a print. Even now that I have discovered its lineage, I still hate it. Still think its garbage.

Wayne White has found a way to save these kinds of painting. And I think he’s done a masterful job. He adds comments. Not underneath. In the damn painting. And they’re large. So large you can hardly see the painting. Which was the intention in the first place.

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Categories : art, Culture, humor, paintings, parody, Uncategorized

Lovers in a dangerous time

28 10 2011

I hate the title. But sometimes you’ve got to embrace the things you despise. Utterly. Actually I don’t hate it. Just the song written by Bruce Coborn. Pretentious. Especially because a friend of mine likes him. And we were born to be contrary. This is a piece I worked on tonight. A kind of slide show which is the seed of an idea I have for a video piece.

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Categories : art, Canadian culture, Culture, music, paintings, photo montage, surreal, Uncategorized, video

Guiseppi Savini

28 10 2011

Its happened to me several times. I was on the coast of Dover. It was 1970. And I imagined that I could see the Spanish Armada. Of course I couldn’t really see it. For one thing it was dark. And I was a little inebriated. But I imagined I could see it. The next time was when I was in Venice. I was standing on a spot that I was sure I’d been before. That evening I looked up a book on Italian art and found a painting that could only have been created at that spot hundreds of years previous. Thats why I like these ‘then and now’ photos of Savini. (Who I could find nothing about.)

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Categories : art, Culture, history, nostalgia, photos, Uncategorized

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