scarlet canvas

by kreativerama

Artist Liu Bolin, from Shandong, China, manages to camouflage himself in any surroundings, no matter how difficult they might be. Liu works on a single photo for up to 10 hours at a time, to make sure he gets it just right. Sometimes passers-by don’t even realize he is there until he moves.

A solo exhibition of Mr. Liu's work, featuring his hidden portraits from Beijing and Italy, will open June 29 at the New York gallery Eli Klein Fine Art. Wall Street Journal featured an article on Liu's creation. 

Liu Bolin says his art is a protest against the actions of the Government, who shut down his art studio in 2005 and persecutes artists. It’s about not fitting into modern society. Despite problems with Chinese authorities, Liu’s works are appreciated at an international level. This is indeed a very arty and a one of a kind of protest. It is helping Liu gain fame and fortune while garnering support for his cause. 

More pictures of Liu's creation can be found here.  And a video of Liu Bolin at work follows.

by artmeandyou

A scarletcanvas exclusive! Fresh off the easel of Aleks Kargopoltsev!!!

I just simply have to write about Aleks Kargopoltsev. Ever since I  stopped at his studio during my LaConner, Skagit Valley, WA trip a  couple of weeks ago, I haven’t stopped talking about the extraordinary  paintings I saw or thinking about these exceptional paintings…

The woman with violin was a sort of deja-vu moment for me. In one of  my earlier blogs I wrote that as an art buyer, we need to look for the  personal connection with the artwork and with this painting, it just  happened to me! It was like finding a soulmate!


But let us talk about the artist who created this magic. Aleks moved  to the US in 1993 from Russia. By the age of 4, Aleks was drawing and by age 13 passed the rigorous tests that allowed him to enter an art  school in his home town of Kostroma, about 200 miles northeast of  Moscow. He paints landscapes and seascapes in plein air, portraits,  cubist, abstract, contemporary – it is almost like, name it and you’ll  find it at Aleks’ studio!

Here is a sneak peek into some of Alek’s versatile creations – from his  cubist recreation of the Last Supper to shades of the nature that he so  loves…

You can find more of Alek’s paintings here at his website: http://www.aleksandrkargopoltsev.com


Since settling in Arlington, Washington, Aleks has taught at the  Andersen Center in Edmonds, Mukilteo, Tri-Dee in Mt. Vernon, The Gene  Nastri Community School of the Arts, and Alek’s Studio and Art Gallery  in La Conner. If you want to get in touch with Aleks or visit his studio or take classes from him, here are the details:


Alek’s contact details:

Aleksandr Kargopoltsev
Studio Location: 106 S.First Street, Suite B, LaConner, WA 98257
Mailing Address: PO Box 3383, Arlington, WA 98223
Phone: (425)-268-9697
Email: aleksartstudio@yahoo.com
 
I’ll leave you now to soak into the mesmerizing beauty of Alek’s  paintings…


Until next time…

by artmeandyou

A 2007 newsweek article, ‘Which Is the Most Influential Work of Art Of the Last 100 Years?‘ describes Picasso’s, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon as the most influential work in the past century.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, one of Picasso’s most famous  works, was painted in France and completed in the summer of 1907. The  theme of the painting is very simple - five prostitutes in a brothel.  But to make this starting composition, Picasso created over one hundred  sketches and drew inspiration from diverse sources like Iberian  sculpture, African tribal masks, El Greco’s Opening of the Fifth Seal and Cezanne’s Les Grandes Baigneuses.


Still, so many art critiques of the time considered this painting  ugly and nasty.  So what makes this painting so eye-catching? so  influential that it revolutionized the art world? Well…..it started a  new art movement called Cubism. Even to an art novice,  cubist paintings are easily recognizable due to the geometric angles,  lines and shapes included in them.


Personally, whenever I look at one of these creations, I think of  Lego blocks. It is almost like the artist demystified a real-life object into these little blocks by looking at them from different vantage  points and then he arranged and rearranged them just like you would with the Lego blocks until you ended up getting that perfect piece of art – abstract yet letting you see things differently, like never before!


Since Picasso (along with Georges Braque) introduced cubism, over the next several years, he took this art movement to a whole new level,   breaking up his objects and figures into little cubes and re-assembling them in every possible way. Here’s a few more of Picasso’s exemplary  cubist paintings…

My inspiration to publish this blog on Cubism is a Russian artist I met in
Skagit Valley, WA. A remarkable artist, I’ll write about him and his paintings in my next blog.


Until next time…