INTERVIEW: Kate MccGwire

There's something intriguing about Kate MccGwire's work that pulls you in and invites contemplation. Many feel like a Borges story given physical form yet they are open to broad interpretation perhaps due to their dual nature. At once, her pieces can be relaxing yet tense. The flow of a piece with beautiful curves also resembles a knot. Another fluid shape is beautiful yet restrained in some way. Yet another looks to be a creature yet there's only a hint of its form. They are static yet full of motion. Some of her works look like liquid in zero gravity, suspended and encased in a jar or cabinet and completely individual like an embodiment of the mortal coil in all its melancholy isolation.

Another outstanding quality to her work is its ability to engage a wide range of people across ages and cultures. The mystery is subtle but compelling and pulls the viewer into the curves and folds for further investigation but no one answer is to be found.

I contacted Kate MccGwire and we arranged a telephone interview. When I phoned, she had just come from the back of a mishap in the set up of a new installation where one of the cabinets cracked. Inwardly, I sighed thinking this would put her in a negative mood but I was soon proved wrong. We managed to cover a lot of ground during the interview and she was good natured and enthusiastic throughout. In fact, one of my regrets is that in text you are unable to hear the smiles that punctuated key points in the interview.

SXF: Is it fair to say you've had a symbiotic life with the river?

KM: Yes, absolutely.

SXF: How has it influenced your work? I think your father was a boat builder?

KM: Yes. I was born on a boat yard in Norfolk. He was sort of an accountant I suppose in London in the textile industry and he moved to Norfolk when he had me, the youngest of four children, to sort of change his lifestyle and embrace what he really wanted to do. He got a job with a boat company so we had a house within the boat yard and we grew up paddling and making things and being by the water the entire time. It was an absolutely idyllic childhood.

"They’re never very specific. I never really want it to look just like one thing."

SXF: And your studio is actually on the water now?

KM: Yes. I got a 20 meter Dutch barge that’s 105 years old. I bought it in 2005 after I finished at the Royal College. I fitted it out and it has a beautiful studio which is about 8 meters long and 4 meters wide and has beautiful natural sunlight all day long. We’re on the south side of a strange little island with no road access on the Thames. So it’s quiet; really, really quiet. There’s no roads nearby and I’m only a half hour from London so I found a pretty perfect little slot really. There are various people on the island here that make things. It’s full of small units. The buildings are also wartime and rather decrepit so it’s one man bands really making light engineering work and joinery and there’s a prosthetic hand maker, boat builders... all sorts of weird things. So whatever you want or need; if I need a piece of steel welded, I can get that done. If I need to get a cabinet made, I can get that done here. So it’s a rather beautiful place really.

SXF: Sounds idyllic. What role would you say colour has in your works? Would you ever consider changing the natural colour of the feathers
KM: No. Absolutely not. I’m celebrating the beauty of the natural thing that people overlook. You see a mallard duck on the river and it looks fairly innocuous and rather dull but when it flies you see this flash of blue and it has I think 6 speculum feathers, blue speculum feathers, but you only see them when they fly. So I’m bringing to the fore things I find miraculous in nature. Those feathers in particular if you turn them over there’s no colour on the opposite side but you turn it back and it’s absolutely iridescent and I don’t understand how that can happen. We couldn’t make it ourselves in such a thin material and in nature, it is there and it is miraculous. And I love the fact that you can get a mallard in the UK and you get a mallard in China and they’ll be almost identical.

SXF: Aside from colour, what other qualities do you recognise in the feathers you work with and how are they important?
KM: Well, I think in engineering they are miraculous in the same way the colour is incredible, in that the bird can actually fly with something that is so lightweight, but so beautifully engineered that they can ruffle their feathers then preen them and reconnect the barbs that reattach each filament together.
SXF: My son will do that picking up a feather brushing them one way then the other to make them like new.
KM: Yes. I was taught actually by a taxidermist how to clean the feathers and you can pick up a pretty dire looking feather and clean it with a series of… sort of like a soapy water initially to get the dirt off it. Then it will look like a bedraggled rat and then you put it in a series of different sands It’s called chinchilla and it’s like a very, very fine sand and you agitate it in the sand and then flick the feather and eventually it all comes back to new. It probably takes five minutes to do each feather so for me it’s not a practical solution within large scale pieces.

"...I’m bringing to the fore things I find miraculous in nature."

SXF: Sounds miraculous.
KM: It is miraculous! Honestly, it will look like something you wouldn't even touch and then you can make it perfect again. I sometimes do that for white pigeon feathers because I haven’t got enough and I get delivered quite a few that are a little bit manky and I can clean them and make them perfect.
SXF: They’re like little gems.
KM:  Yes.

SXF: Some of your works feel like creatures themselves or multiple entities in embrace; is this your intention or do you feel your works are more abstract? They feel like a Moebius strip, you look and think that has two sides but there's actually only one but at the same time that truth doesn't quite settle.
KM: They’re never very specific. I never really want it to look just like one thing. It might resemble a snake or squirming creature but they’ll also resemble the human body and creases and crevices within the human body. I do a lot of life drawing and I’m looking at the armpit creases, the joints between the buttocks and knees. I’m referring to them but I’m trying to be ambiguous with them as well.
SXF: Some of your work feels like a fusion between element and animal, water and bird. Do you feel there is an elemental quality to your work?
KM: Yes, absolutely.

"...now I tend to follow my intuition and I think that is paying off..."

SXF: Is there an element of your work that you feel is missed or misinterpreted?
KM: I think if it’s just described as being “snake like”, they’ve missed the point. When I say that I refer to the body a lot, I believe that you will look at the work and see reflected yourself slightly?
SXF: There’s something recognisable.
KM: That is disquieting because you’re seeing it in a very different way. Also, that the cabinets are so close to the work, to me that’s a sort of suffocation or an entrapment that also I find disquieting.

SXF: From your early work Brood which made use chicken wishbones, your works have had a double edge being both beautiful and yet tinged with a darker side though getting increasingly subtle; is this deliberate?
KM: Yes. I mean certainly with the wishbones as I was collecting those 27,000 wishbones I needed, I was shocked when I found out the birds were hatched and dispatched in only 36 days. So you would think that a chicken might have a lifespan of 6 months or something but it’s just over a month. They were all extremely uniform. So the battery farm chickens are what I used for that and that feeds into the message of the work as well. At the same time I was collecting organic bones not really realising initially that they’d be much different but the organic bones are much stronger, they’re longer, they’re all different colours, they have different shapes and sizes whereas the battery farmed ones are stumpy and white and callowed.

"I also like that you don’t have to know about art to be interested in the work I make."

SXF: Have there been any reactions to your work that surprised  or delighted you or linger in your memory?

KM: I really like it when children have a look at it because they are completely devoid of any coolness. They don’t know anything about art or history or anything and so they have a completely visceral reaction to the work. You see them going round and round the cabinet thinking “I understand this piece but there’s no head, I don’t get it. What’s happening?” So that has been fantastic. I had a piece at Plymouth museum and I saw this group of kids and they just walked around and around the work. And they were looking at each other going “hang on a minute, this doesn’t make sense.” I like that. I also like that you don’t have to know about art to be interested in the work I make.
SXF: Yes, I think that’s part of the brilliance of it; it’s very inclusive.
KM: Yes. I was doing a residency in America and we had various visitors and at the end of the day I was absolutely shattered after having to describe and explain my work and present to people all day long. And then this guy arrived in my studio and I said, “Do you know what? I’m really, really tired. I’d like to know what you think.” He sat down and he was the most eloquent person I could have asked. He just brainstormed about what he saw in the work and it was just amazing. He saw in the work meanings and metaphors and relationships I had never thought about because he was so erudite. So that was incredible and we’ve been in correspondence ever since because he spoke so beautifully about it.
SXF: That’s exciting that you instigated those ideas.
KM: Yes. Yes.

SXF: What was the last important revelation you've had?
KM: Well, I suppose… I’m thinking about scale. I’ve been getting bigger and bigger with the work. I don’t know.
SXF: How would you describe the differences between your early work and your more recent creations?
KM: I think I’m probably trusting in my instinct more and I would absolutely agonise about work in the past whereas now I tend to follow my intuition and I think that is paying off, that I have confidence in what I produce. The weird bit about it is that I don’t necessarily have a very fixed idea of what I’m going to make. I start carving and a form will appear and I’ll stand back at the end of it and think “Oh okay, that’s what it is.” But it’s almost like someone else is doing it. So I carve the element first and then I’ll spend maybe a month feathering  a piece. And that’s a sort of meditative process because all the decision making has gone into the bit where I am carving cause I have to make a decision into how the feathers will lie and how the piece is carved; it’s all set then. Whereas the feathering is more dreamlike and I can think about other things and new works as I’m doing that element of it if that makes any sense?
SXF: Yes. I’ve read before that you consider the next project while working on that stage.
KM: Yes.

SXF: Do you think you would go back to using other materials, we touched on the bones earlier…
KM: I would of course. I’m always looking to develop and I haven’t finished. People say, “Are you going to change from feathers?” And I say, “Yes, I will probably change from feathers eventually but I haven’t finished with what I want to say.”
SXF: The forms have been changing recently, haven’t they?
KM: Yes.
SXF: Previously they were more fluid, like liquid floating in zero gravity but now your work has more points of friction.
KM: Yes.
SXF: How would you describe your relationship to your works.
KM: Well, I have a real problem trying to deliver things. Though I make them and finish them in the studio I don’t like them going, parting from them. It doesn’t feel sad. It just feels like a loss. If I still have them I can still do things to them but if they’re gone, that’s it. So I do find it difficult but I’m having to, because there’s quite a lot of work that is out there now, I have to sort of switch off from that bit.
SXF: Thank you so much for your time, Kate.

Links:
Kate MccGwire
Kate MccGwire (Facebook)
Kate MccGwire (All Visual Arts)
Kate MccGwire (Saatchi)
Kate MccGwire (Aesthetica)
Kate MccGwire (Museum of Art & Design NY)

INTERVIEW Guy Laramée

Seeing Guy Laramée's works, I was at once charmed by them and looking more closely, they bear the weight of further examination. I come from a point of ignorance in terms of this kind of work and it is through this lens that I hope I'll be able to encourage others to join me in my explorations. Mr. Laramée very kindly took time to answer a few of my humble questions and gave kind permission to use the imagery accompanying this post.

This is his artist statement:

The erosion of cultures – and of “culture” as a whole - is the theme that runs through the last 25 years of my artistic practice. Cultures emerge, become obsolete, and are replaced by new ones. With the vanishing of cultures, some people are displaced and destroyed. We are currently told that the paper book is bound to die. The library, as a place, is finished. One might ask so what? Do we really believe that “new technologies” will change anything concerning our existential dilemma, our human condition? And even if we could change the content of all the books on earth, would this change anything in relation to the domination of analytical knowledge over intuitive knowledge? What is it in ourselves that insists on grabbing, on casting the flow of experience into concepts?
When I was younger, I was very upset with the ideologies of progress. I wanted to destroy them by showing that we are still primitives. I had the profound intuition that as a species, we had not evolved that much. Now I see that our belief in progress stems from our fascination with the content of consciousness. Despite appearances, our current obsession for changing the forms in which we access culture is but a manifestation of this fascination.
My work, in 3D as well as in painting, originates from the very idea that ultimate knowledge could very well be an erosion instead of an accumulation. The title of one of my pieces is “ All Ideas Look Alike”. Contemporary art seems to have forgotten that there is an exterior to the intellect. I want to examine thinking, not only “what” we think, but “that” we think.
So I carve landscapes out of books and I paint romantic landscapes. Mountains of disused knowledge return to what they really are: mountains. They erode a bit more and they become hills. Then they flatten and become fields where apparently nothing is happening. Piles of obsolete encyclopedias return to that which does not need to say anything, that which simply IS. Fogs and clouds erase everything we know, everything we think we are.
After 30 years of practice, the only thing I still wish my art to do is this: to project us into this thick “cloud of unknowing.”

I wonder when looking at your work if you are either reverting your materials(books) into their previous state or simply altering them into something unexpected? Is your intention to revert the materials or push them toward something new?

That may sound presumptuous but I really feel I’m not doing anything. I’m rather done by a process that I really do not understand. Therefore, “intentions” get into the work through doors that are mostly unexpected and suddenly I notice that a given “idea”, “image” of feeling has been lingering for too long and that thus it is calling for attention.

“Newness” is part of the process, in the sense that there is always a freshness that accompanies the birth of pieces – well… the good pieces, because for the bad pieces, it is rather a feeling of staleness, but the bad pieces have to be done anyway…

This may sound like I don’t want to answer your question, but it is only that I think we really have – as a culture – to get out of the “maker” paradigm, something that might have been useful in the first days of the industrial era – seeing the poet as a worker – but we also have to remind ourselves that humans have always felt that inspiration came from somewhere else.

And really, I don’t feel I’m working with books. I’m working with feelings (not emotions, they are different to me). I’m glad that this limitation, this limit – books – can provide a channel for inspiration (one thing less to think about…) but it could be anything, really. I feel I’ve worked the same Romantic stuff with installations and painting.

But again, “The Mona Lisa is not a turnip” as Gerhard Richter said. I am pretty much aware of the metaphor – mountains of knowledge return to what they are : mountains – and also well aware that my gesture is a denial of content. But when I enter into a book with the chainsaw, all this is forgotten. I contemplate the birth of a mountain and like always in contemplation, I lose myself in the process. What a relief !

I find your work reminiscent of Haruki Murakami or Kafka in their transformative nature. What artists feed your imagination if not inspire?

Maybe Kafka but I would rather say Borges. Both authors share the same connection to the Fantastic, but Borges is more down to earth. More credible in a sense.

Generally speaking it is painting that inspires me. 19th century landscape painting more than anything. And very old Chinese and Japanese paintings too. It is the contemporary painter Gerhard Richter that made all this legitimate. We are not cut from the past, the past is in us.

You've previously described the euphoria you've felt when finding a beautiful book. To you, what makes a beautiful book and why are these attributes important to you?

I wish I could give you the recipe of beauty. I wish I could have it myself, then I would be rich…! Because really, life, beauty, oneness, all these are synonymous, aren’t they?
Some much have been written of the theories of harmony, what makes something harmonious. But really it is the mystery of it that makes it so appealing.

I currently prefer old books because they transpire dedication, care, etc. In the past, people made books as something which would last. The same with furniture. The spirit of someone who does something that should last long is not the same.
Today it is all rat race, carelessness, except for a couple of craftsmen who still understand what they get from work well done : calm, absorption, increased attention, vigilance, etc. All attributes that are not so far from spiritual practice after all…

One of my favourite works of yours is Tectonic which has a path or path-like thread winding its way through the landscape. For me, it pulled me right in and there I was on the path. What techniques do you use to draw the viewer into your works?

What techniques  do you use to fall in love? There are no techniques for anything.
Contemplation is the thing. If the artist really entered into contemplation, than there are good chances that the viewer will too. As I see it, contemplation is not even a “state” that you “reach”. It is the original soup in which we all soak. Going back to our contemplative nature – and it is really that ; a coming back to what we are – brings happiness. That’s all.

Would you describe a turning point or moment of revelation in your art and explain its significance and impact on your work?

There is turning point everyday Sir ! Otherwise there would be no art. It would be sheer reproduction. Everyday I feel I was mistaken and blind. Everyday I resent my mistakes and whish I should not fall in traps again. The trap of intellection for example. God, the amount of time I spent in this hell…! Thinking that I could make art with ideas, with my training in anthropology, etc. Gibberish.

“Happiness is when the “I” is not”, someone said. I just realized that this is really what I want : to disappear behind the work. Kabir said “ :If you were to free me, free me from myself”.

Links:
Guy Laramée
Guy Laramée (Pertwee, Anderson & Gold)
Guy Laramée (Jayne H Baum)
Guy Laramée (Cool Hunting)
Guy Laramée (Foster White Gallery)

Leigh Martin's DECOMPOSITION

The poetry of Leigh Martin's knitted sculptural works is in the organic quality of knitting itself. I was overjoyed when she granted permission to feature her on SiouxWIRE. See her Etsy shop for prints of her work.

In her own words:

"The [Decomposition] series is a study on the intricate textures of fungi and how they blend in to their natural environment. At a glance and from a distance, these knitted replicas meld in as a part of the magnificent cycle that transforms living plants to detritus and further into minerals that nourish other living plants as they draw these minerals up from the soil. For instance, when viewing the installation at the distance of the bottom photo the pieces appear natural and as though they are meant to exist there. However, on a closer encounter one sees that these are not fruiting bodies at all. The delicate knit stitch stands out and draws you in for closer inspection, much like the intricacies in the texture of fungi draw me in. These elements spur on a stream of questions that carry me meditatively in to a place of introspection. While this is a personal project, I hope that it excites the same way of thinking amongst its viewers, elevating to a greater level of awareness of one's surroundings."

"My purpose and founding ideas for this series revolve around the deficit in our society of interaction and awareness of the details in our natural environment. I am of the belief that connecting to nature in this way is a crucial element to living a fulfilling and present life. Natural intricacies, such as the detailed textures of fungi, consistently draw me in. These elements spur on a stream of questions that carry me meditatively in to a place of introspection. My hope is that this series excites the same way of thinking amongst its viewers, elevating them to a greater awareness of their surroundings."

 "When viewed from afar, the knitted pieces appear natural and as though they belong in the installation’s setting. However, on a closer encounter one finds that the pieces are not real fruiting bodies at all. The delicate knit stitch stands out and draws the viewer in for closer inspection."

"My name is Leigh Martin, and I am a fiber artist and nature enthusiast residing in Central Oklahoma. My career in urban forestry involves connecting people to the trees in their communities. While trees are my greatest love, knitting is one of my greatest passions, retreats, releases and creative impulses."

"I learned to knit at a young age, though it never caught on as a consistent hobby until my college years. Always making gifts for friends or to raise money for various causes, it's only been in the past few years that I've begun knitting for myself. Projects have included knitwear, but more importantly I have devoted time and energy to developing sculptural concepts, designing my own patterns, and experimenting with free form fiber art as a form of expression. I've discovered an exceptionally fulfilling outlet and I am grateful to be sharing my work with you here."

"I hope that viewers take away from my work a greater awareness of their natural surroundings, a sense of how complex every ecosystem is and greater vision for noticing and enjoying these details in their daily life."

"I am pursuing the "52 Forms of Fungi" project in the year 2013 as a challenge for myself in developing new fiber art concepts, construction patterns, and skill related to the technique of my artistic medium. The project directly supports my ongoing fiber art series, "Decomposition" and also serves as a meditative practice inciting creativity and new awareness of natural processes as I learn more about these organisms that thrive amongst us and surrounding our communities."

Links:
BromeLeighad (homepage)
BromeLeighad Fiber Arts (Etsy)

All images used with the kind consent of Leigh Martin - All images © Leigh Martin 2013

DANIEL PALACIOS

I find Daniel Palacios' work extremely beautiful, engaging, and thought-provoking. His work Waves has received a lot of attention in the blogosphere. Though not without reason, I prefer Intrusiones which illustrates sounds and its influence over time. That said, his entire catalogue is worthy of attention.

"The work of Daniel Palacios (Cordoba, 1981), an artist educated in sciences who graduated with a degree in Fine Arts, develops by applying the relations of art, science and technology to space and the perceptual systems as a result of his postgraduate studies which earned him Masters degrees in Art and Technology and Art in the Public Sphere.

Works such as ‘Waves’, ‘Outcomes’ and ‘Kill the Process’ have brought him to exhibitions like ‘Synthetic Times’ at the National Art Museum de China [NAMOC] and ‘El Discreto Encanto de la Tecnología (The Discreet Charm of Technology)’ at the Museo Extremeño e Iberoamerica of Contemporary Art [MEIAC] in Badajoz, the prestigious Neue Gallerie of Graz (Austria) and Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie [ZKM] in Karlsruhe (Germany), one of the main sanctuaries for electronic art on a global level, in addition to taking part in such international fairs as ARCO and festivals of the stature of ARS Electronica of Linz (Austria). His work has received major recognition, including the second VIDA9.0 Art and Artificial Life awards and support for production of his work from the PROPUESTAS programme of the Arte y Derecho Foundation, in addition to being awarded an artist residency at Casa Lutetia (Sao Paulo, Brazil), published in the MIT Press specialist magazine ‘Leonardo’ in “Art from Andalusia for the 21st Century’ coordinated by Ivan de la Torre Amerighi, and the recent Tames & Hudson publication of ‘Art and Science Now: How Scientific Research and Technological Innovation are Becoming Key to 21st-Century Aesthetics’ by professor Stephen Wilson.
He has also given workshops and conferences on the combined use of technology and plastic arts in such schools and centres as the FAAP School of Plastics Arts (Brazil), School of Fine Arts of La Laguna (Tenerife), CRCC (Palma de Mallorca), Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, IAAC (Barcelona), File Symposium at the SESI Gallery (Brazil), Science Week at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Malaga…

Concerning information and electronic technology as tools for creating a process more than achieving a defined representation. Although it encompasses different themes, his work is a set of relationships with the surrounding environment: whether with the physical space itself as we perceive it or what phenomena are happening in it. In a certain sense, he creates situations which invite reflection or represent his own reflections at a specific moment of his research concerning perceptions and the manner in which they influence the way we relate to them.

Contact with reality and plastic languages is a major aspect of his work, which seeks to create situations and not simulations, utilizing ‘reality’ in his installations with the goal of creating plastic, non-digital results. Technology allows him to control what factors come into play in that space, in what measure and what their effect will be. In this way, the public is an indispensable part of the work by participating in its process, while the artist in turn can study their reactions, the one factor he cannot control and the vital aspect of his work."

Links:
Daniel Palacios
Daniel Palacios (Vimeo)
Daniel Palacios

SHOPLIFTER (HRAFNHILDUR ARNARDOTTIR)

"For several years Shoplifter has worked exploring the use and symbolic nature of hair, and its visual and artistic potential. It started as a discovery in an antique shop, a lock of hair encased as a keepsake and shaped as a flower, and has since evolved as an exploration of hair’s meaning - from strength, self-image and beauty, to vanity, decoration and fashion.

Shoplifter has said of her work, “Vanity is to a different extent on the surface of my work and sometimes it appears only vaguely or in an abstract way, but it plays a role whether it is visible in the work or only in the air when I make it. I really respect the human need to decorate oneself and one’s environment, be it driven by vanity and obsession or sincere love for beauty, which in and of itself is vanity at its best.”

Shoplifter has often collaborated with Björk, who used her hair sculptures for the art for her album Medúlla. Other collaborations include Assume Vivid Astro Focus, , ThreeAsFour, and Victoria Bartlett’s VPL.

Shoplifter has exhibited extensively in the US and Europe, most notably at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, where she was commissioned to produce a window installation in collaboration with a.v.a.f. Other exhibition venues include The Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland, White Columns, New York, Amy Smith-Stewart Gallery, New York, Colette Art Gallery, London, Deitch Projects, New York, Creative Time, New York, Gavin Brown Enterprise, New York and The Kitchen, New York."

Björk, wearable hair sculpture 2004

Links:
Shoplifter.us
Shoplifter (The Selby)
Hrafnhildur Arnardottir (Museum of Contemporary Craft)
Hrafnhildur Arnardottir (ArtNet)
Hrafnhildur Arnardottir (Under the Glacier)

TOKUJIN YOSHIOKA

Tokujin Yoshioka's synthetic creations of natural elements in flux are like sculptural photographs, a bit like hitting pause on the world and walking among an avalanche or through the surf. Wonderful.

Born in Saga, Japan in 1967. Worked under Shiro Kuramata in 1987 and Issey Miyake since 1988 and established his own studio, Tokujin Yoshioka Design in 2000.

Some of his most important works are displayed as a part of permanent collections in the world's well-known museums such as Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Victoria and Albert Museum, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum and Vitra Design Museum.

Links:
Tokujin Yoshioka
Interview (DesignBoom)
Super Fiber Revolution (DesignBoom)

HUANG YONG PING

I wish I had more opportunities to experience Huang Yong Ping's works including walking through his Tower Snake installation.





Links:
Huang Yong Ping (Gladstone Gallery)
Huang Yong Ping (Walker Art Centre)
Huang Yong Ping Wiki

Introducing: ERNESTO NETO

Ernesto Neto's organic, epic and sensory works are intriguing, delicate worlds that demand to be explored.

Ernesto Neto was born in 1964 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where he has exhibited since 1988 and from where he continues to work.



Links:
Ernesto Neto (Park Avenue Armory)
Ernesto Neto (Galeria Fortes Vilaça)
Ernesto Neto (Tanya Bonakdar Gallery)
Ernesto Neto (Universes in Universes)
Ernesto Neto (ArtNet)
The Malmö Experience (Dexigner.com)
Ernesto Neto Interview (Kultureflash)
Ernesto Neto biography (BAM-PFA)
Ernesto Neto (Wiki)

Featurette: MANDY GREER

Mandy Greer's work is living, warm, natural, social, and magic. Having just discovered her, I am still taking it all in and will in time post a more substantial post(including an interview) on this artist and her bewitching work.

In the meantime, click on these images to see more of her work or follow the links below. Her blog, A Quickening is also worth a look if you enjoy the Imaginarium.


Links:
Mandy Greer
Mater Matrix Mother
Mandy Greer (Flickr)
A quickening

Featurette: KATE MccGWIRE

Kate MccGwire's organic creations have an eerie and beautiful life that demand attention. Have I dreamed this before?




Links:
Kate MccGwire
Kate MccGwire (phillips ART expert)
Kate MccGwire (Axis)
Kate MccGwire (Re-title)

BANKSY's Manhattan Menagerie

Banksy has set up a pet shop in Manhattan("The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill") featuring fish sticks in fish bowls, sausages as hamsters, a monkey staring blankly at a television and other oddities.

Links:
New York Times
Wooster Collective
Banksy
The Independent

* image: detail from photo by Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

Dolk og Pøbel

What I find interesting about the new work of Dolk og Pøbel is the remote context in which they've placed it. See more of their work HERE. Images by John Inge Johansen/NRK.



Links:
NRK feature (Norwegian)
Wooster Collective feature (source)