Hapshash and the Coloured Coat

If you haven't already guessed, I'm a bit of a psychedeliphiliac (making up words is fun!) when it comes to posters. That and mythology wins me over every time.

Hapshash and the Coloured Coat are an artistic partnership between Englishmen Michael English and Nigel Waymouth from way back in the 1960s, having produced in that decade two psychedelic and proto-prog records and a hamper full gorgeous posters. You can read a review of one of their 'freaky' records at this endearing little site: here. Apparently it's "It’s wayward, repetitive, freaky, and VERY 1967." Interesting.

If one is paying attention you can definitely see the influence of Alphonse Mucha on Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, the vibrant and playful colours are telling an excellent, spacey in this case, tale. Other artists I'm feeling in Hapshash...'s works are Hieronymus Bosch and Max Ernst, mainly because I just lifted those names directly from their Wiki page.....

Anyway, I am really digging Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, it's the intricate detail and the excessive vivid colouring makes me want to sit and absorb it for hours. You can see more of 60s twosome in the odd place of The Who Museum website. Which is very odd thinking about it. Hit it up: here

If you also want to pretend you know everything hit their wiki page for info: here

INSA

That top image is just awesome. I know nothing about, mainly, street art artist INSA, but I spied this on Juxatpoz's website and I thought I had to reblog it. It's also nice that INSA keeps a cool little blog, and that he is quite successful, after some quick reading I see he's been doing some recent visual work for Nike, so if you're a fan of Nike you may know more than me.

The bottom image shows our man has a 'Heel Fetish', and is wonderfully colourful. Streaky abstract colour acting as a backdrop to the refined and toned, and tanned, calf and heel. I do like that image.

Anyway, hit up his blog: here.

EDIT: Blogspot is irritating me again. The top image is a .Gif and is meant to move, but blogspot seems to disagree. Hit here to Juxtapoz to see it properly. Grrrr.

Virgil Finlay

I know very little about Virgil Finlay. According to the insightful Wiki page he was an American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator, and from these images the horror aspect is definitely shining through. These images are goddamn sinister. He liked to work with pen ink and paper, which is quite a time consuming art, so it makes it absolutely remarkable that he produced over 2600 images in his 35 year career. Astounding.

If your interest is picqued don't bother trying to find an official website or fan website, they're useless. Hit up that Wiki page for info, for more quality images hit: here.

That top image is suitable for the time of night I'm writing this (00:07). I half expect to see it rise up and gaze through my window. Creepy.

Good ol' Google.

Sunn o)))

This music is the blackness that is depicted in it's record art. The thick, sludge-like blackness which sticks to you and burns you. This music is dearth and fire, emaciation and immolation.

Around here are the borderlands; bleak, barren and bitter.

This is Sunn o))) and the time is 23:49, I am at home, in my room, at my desk. Safe.

Paco Pomet

I don't normally include three pictures, too cluttery-ish, but Paco Pomet is just too good and I couldn't just pick two. Taking fine art traditional realism and infusing it with striking abstract details, conveying a rather off-kilter image. A feeling of something is not quite right. And, of course, a little humour helps.....

COOOOOKIE!

I insist you take a look at Pomet's excellent body of work which is rather comprehensively stored on his pleasingly simple website: here.

Florian Bertmer

I love poster art. I have actually blogged a few times elsewhere, thematically with High on Fire here and again focusing on the great Frank Kozik here, and yet I keep on finding more and more cool artists. The latest one being Florian Bertmer.

I unfortunately know very little about him apart from the fact that he does some very cool art. And that I am tired and that I can not be bothered to look. However,n what I do know is that the bottom image is beyond way cool, the intricacies and vibrant colour, the beautiful tattooed woman holding a spear(!) juxtaposed to a symmetrical shrieking squirrel lurking behind her is not something you see every day. I love it.

I do sincerely urge you to check out his other works at his blog: here

More images can be found: here

Alphonse Mucha

Alphonse Mucha illustrations are remarkable, his beautiful lithographs feel way ahead of it's late 19th century time. The excruciatingly detailed women detailed in his paintings have influenced countless of pretenders, one of the most obvious contemporary artists off the top of my head is John Dyer Baizely, whose work I am a big admirer of, albeit Baizely has more of a fascination with flowers and dismemberment. It is the warm, perky, natural colours which enamour me to Mucha's work, and it complements the gorgeous subject matter. Amazingly, it is Alphonse Mucha, a name which I indeed love saying, no one's called Alphonse anymore, who was the pre-curser for the French art movement Art Nouveau, which you can read about on good ol'wiki: here.

Moreover, you can read up more on Alphonse Mucha: here. He is indeed an interesting fellow as it seemed he had an internal struggle between his fine art aspirations and his commercial successes.

Alphonse Mucha is a popular guy so you can:

Hit up his official site to read up on the man: here
See a comprehensive list of his works: here
If you feel really good about yourself you can buy his posters: here

After the jump a photograph of the man himself.

Urs Fischer

Urs Fischer is an installation artist and sculptor with big ideas.

Today I'm focusing on his big and scary installation artwork. In my mind's eye his work is quite cinematic, the concave beaten wall looks like a monster is about to burst through whilst the hole looks like a trench or a IED has exploded in the middle of a gallery. Instead of being inward looking and creating a thing, Fischer looks outward to his environment.

Fischer gained my attention when his sculpture of a giant teddy bear is expected to fetch $10 million at auction next month, it is quite a sight to behold, story and image: here.

Unfortunately Urs doesn't have an official site but.....

More images of Urs Fischer's work can be found: here.

Aaaand some more: here.

William Henry Fox Talbot - The Pioneer

I will always have great love and respect for Fox Talbot! He is considered one of the first ever photographers and one of the first people who discovered it. He is the inventor of the Calotype process, which is a process which bares the same principle as Photograms.... to expose a piece of photo - sensitive material to light and but objects in its way to create a opposite-shadow type thing.



(This image reminds me of an image which you uploaded Sean... the one of the tree!)


The idea of photography came to WH Fox Talbot whilst on holiday at Lake Como in Italy, using the camera obscura and camera lucida as aids to drawing. Beginning in 1834, Talbot experimented with a process which he called photogenic drawing, coating drawing paper with salt solution and after it had dried, adding a solution of silver nitrate. By placing a leaf, or fern, or a piece of lace, on the paper's surface and exposing it to the sun, he obtained an image.



In August 1835, Talbot made the earliest known surviving photographic negative using a camera, a small photogenic drawing of the latticed window in the south gallery of Lacock Abbey. This rare item is now in the collection of the Science Museum at the National Media Museum at Bradford.



When ever I think about Fox Talbot I think of a plantive, wholesome man who simply was keen on the flora of his time and who simply wanted to document. Like other pioneers of photography such as Muybridge, Talbot used Photography as a tool to show his interest and to communicate the beauty of the World he lived in.

The End

Gillian Wearing - 'Signs That Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs That Say What Someone Else Want you To Say'

A business man with slick hair and a slick suit may seem to be happy and to have it 'made'. But underneath there is something sinister, he is desperate. Just look under the surface and you dont know what you will face. Gillian Wearing is more of an artist than a photographer. She is a concept artist and a good one at that. She simply uses photography as a tool for communicating her mind. The work which I am focusing on is 'Signs That Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs That Say What Someone Else Wants you To Say'. This is an extroadinary piece of work focusing on the inner-self. No body is who they seem and Wearing knows this well. Wearing walked down a street and asked people to write how they feel, there truths, aspirations and wants, also what is on their mind on a piece of white card, then hold it up to be photographed. This pioneering piece of work i think is incredible. It is something which was not thought of before and is soooo simple but soooo easy to empathise with. I have things which I have under the surface and which i will never tell anyone and which i dont want anyone to know but Gillian Wearing breaks down this wall, she abolishes secrecy and allows these people to really express themselves. She is someone who every keen photographer and artist should know. For her work on the Tate website click here.

Some O' Mine Photographs....

(click each image to enlarge, the top image does look much better when clicked on)

So in Bath it has been glorious weather recently, absolutely beautiful sun, and it is the first day of the year where I've only gone out in a t shirt. Obviously with trousers too, not just the shirt.

On campus at Bath Spa we have a stunning lake which is brilliant for lounging around on a sunny day under a tree, which is just what I did for three hours yesterday reading Ernest Hemmingway. It was good. Then I found a spider had crawled onto my collar which was not cool. Not cool at all.

The bottom image was at a ruins of a mill by a stream which is also on campus and I had to climb through some thicket to get there. It's the view through what I guess was once a circular window.

Fursy Teyssier

'Écailles de Lune'

'Septembre et ses dernières Pensées'

(click either image to enlarge)

I really enjoy French artist Fursy Teyssier's distinct ability of composition. the positioning and placement of colour and figures really lend well to the overall image.

The top image is the record art for Alcest's 2010 record 'Écailles de Lune'. I love the extensive use of blue, the skeletal fish swimming with the moon, the natural flow of the mermaid's hair is wonderful. Whereas the bottom image, Les Discrets 2010 record art for 'Septembre et ses dernières Pensées', shows an odd juxtaposition compared to the top image. Even though this painting is dominated by a towering shadowy giant with a long pointed beak, there is a silhouetted couple holding hands, with one holding an arm up in seeming awe. Looking closer, the hooded giant looks like it's bending down to see what the couple have to say.

I find each image to be really quite sweet, the Alcest one portraying care and intimacy, whilst Les Discrets conveys a closeness of the couple and a trust of the giant.

You can check out more of Fursy Teyssier's interesting artwork: here.

Fursy Teyssier is also the man behind Les Discrets' music, you can check their brand of Shoegaze Black Metal: here.

Ulver

Ulver's 'Shadow of the Sun' is one of the most stunning records I've ever listened to. It is so achingly melancholic, gorgeously warm and just beguilingly simple! Nothing here is conventional yet nothing here is out of place. As a vocal performance, Kristoffer 'Garm' Rygg is probably the hands down best at making grown metalheads weep with joy.

So it is perfect for midnight listenings! The above track is a cover of Black Sabbath's Solitude, but not in the way we're used to it. It is painfully beautiful, so try it out.

You can hit up the rest of the record on Youtube, or if you know how to fiddle with .rar files, well you know where to find them: here.

A note on the record art: It is simple but has powerful elements at work, showing two works of nature coincidentally forming a frame and an image.

Stephen Kasner

'Khlyst'

(click either image to enlarge)

Immediately Stephen Kasner's art is a haunting sight to behold. The dark and brooding images project a moving stillness, there are moving parts but they are dead and are laid in their natural positions. It is extremely bleak art.

The 'Khylst' image is an especially frightening viewing, something so beautiful like a swan, yet it feels cold and lifeless.

Unfortunately, Stephen is actually seriously ill and that he needs to sell his artwork fin order to pay hospital bills, which is an very sad situation to hear about for such talent. You can read more about his problems here. You can read a very insightful interview with Stephen about his art here.

There isn't an official website, so see what Google has to offer: here.

James Jean

'Wave II'

'Hounds'

(click on either image to enlarge)

James Jean is a name I found out whilst bored in Waterstones at christmas trying to buy my Pa a Francis Bacon book but got distracted because of all the other shiny art books were trying to make me buy them. Yep.

Anyway, in my fumblings with the hardback books in Waterstones I came across James Jean's cute little book called 'Rifts' which was a fold out book containing two multi-panelled artworks. You can see the two panels in great detail on his website: Side One and Side Two.

As I have said previously, I have grown particularly fond of Japanese art, and Jean's bold use of colour in 'Rifts' and in hand with the theme, obviously plays really well with my sensibilities. The top image 'Waves II' suits this theme nicely.

Whereas, 'Hounds' is bloody creepy, it looks like skinless dogs accompanying a nymph at night. Eek! Both pieces are very different but shows how broad James Jean's range is, but a common thread of the mythic and nature is apparent throughout his works.

Hit up James Jean's website to explore his coool portfolio: here.

A final image Cherub the Great might like after the jump....

Eadweard Muybridge: Landscape Photography

(click each image to enlarge)

Eadweard Muybridge wrote his name in to the history books for the invention of the Zoopraxiscope, a device which is essentially the first movie projector: "The zoopraxiscope projected images from rotating glass disks in rapid succession to give the impression of motion." Muybridge had helped move photographic technology into film.

As you can see above, Eadweard Muybridge not only dabbled with the creation of film, he was also a most excellent landscape photographer, with my favourite of his subjects being the gorgeous natural beauty of Yosemite Valley in Calfornia.

Photographing Yosemite Valley didn't come without its problems, especially given as it was the late 19th century, here's a short explanation of what Muybridge had to keep in mind:

"Finding the right light and view was the challenging beginning to an equally demanding process of outdoor collodion wet-plate photography. This was the most progressive technique available, invented in 1851. Before taking shots, Muybridge's dark-tent needed to be pitched and his camera equipment and chemicals unpacked and prepared. Then wet plates were sensitised in the tent whilst exposures were made outside; to be developed immediately afterwards."

It is astounding hearing of the process it took to even take one photograph, and the fact after Muybridge's first expedition in Yosemite they came back with 260 images ready to be sold! Phew!

Eadweard Muybridge has a very able website which has all the possible information you could need on his work, including the Zoopraxiscope and Landscape work, aaaand you can access it: here