Dark openings

A strange sexual world Hans Bellmer explores in his drawings...an amazing drafts person, he pushes the limits of the obscene, seducing the viewer with beautiful drawings and dark, hidden subject matters...

Similar to the doll like female forms, the drawing is made up of parts, unified in an unusual and provocative way, the composition is asymmetrical and flows organically from the foreground to the background, between the three eyes...at first glance it seems that the female face's eye is damaged, looking at it again, the viewer notices something more explicit...possibly playing off of the idea that eyes are the windows to the soul, the opening becomes a window to something pleasurable and uncontrollable.

Her face was like a doll's

An exploration of the female form and those things flowing and organic...the work of Hans Bellmer is unique and influential to many contemporary artists...the photographer, Cindy Sherman as an example...the doll like forms have an odd feel to them, an search for something sexual and explicit..the parts are incomplete and partially dressed, amplifying the feeling of the indecent.

His works have minimal color, focusing on the relationship between the organic shape and its contrast to the hard surface of the ground...the neck is incidental, the head is fallen and bent into her chest, a mask, a surface, a lost soul...the limbs do not combine naturally, they lay on top of one another or they crowd, tightly, providing a visual sense of claustrophobia.

Repetiition and repose

It's all in the placement...Philip Pearlstein has made his life work an exploration on the figure, but the environment is what really matters in his work...often the central form seems secondary to the activity in the background...a balance between the monochromatic female form and the intense color and pattern of the rugs, wallpaper and props.

Also essential is the cropping of the figure, there is a feeling of incompleteness, the head cut right above the mouth...the face removed from consideration so we concentrate on the figure as object...in this work there is also the repetition of the leg in the drawing, mirrored in pose to the more complete painted central character.

Nature verses Wo(man)

Amy Stein takes on the issue of environment and the human population encroaching on animal territory...this piece is a great dialogue between wo(man) and bear...standing very still...eye to eye...

The balanced composition between the blues of the pool and bathing suite in contrast to the large black form of the standing bear...the fence separating the two, provides visual separation...the kinetic potential of the bears power to break through and attack...a western stand off, strong visual verticals contrast horizontals in the fence, house and diving board.

Not THE wooden arc

Wooden masterpieces inspired by movies and contemporary culture...this Arc of the covenant is done by Mike Rea...a copy of the original Arc from the popular, Indiana Jones movie is brought to life.

Humor and whimsy play a large role in the works, pushing what we think that can be done through wood as a material...some of his works are large scale, others are incredibly detailed...in this work the pattern and the repetitive elements create a visually stimulating piece...we take in the full context, the smoke and lights enhance the drama of the out of place, wood media.

Love you, lips

I really love jewelry by Salvador Dali, this Ruby Lips brooch is a great example of an innovative piece in its time of creation...formally, the flow of the lips, asymmetrical with blood red in rubies...teeth of pearls, not lined up, not natural, but visually better than the "norm."

The way the gems are set, the gold prong settings move they eye all around...a decadent exploration of a simple image...before Damien Hirst created his diamond encrusted skull, Dali created several pieces of beauty and challenging design.

Designed upside down

The way Lennard Schuurmans using space here is very appealing visually...it has a narrative feel, elements, representational and decorative/abstract are combined to create the foreground...the background is open and stained with marks...this unusual landscape plays with objective, understood forms - animals, plywood and nails, turning these ideas metaphorically and literally upside down to trick us visually.

The piece stretches our imagination of landscape...we are easily deceived because we have been trained to believe what we see as fact...artists can play with us, most are immature and naive to what visual language really means...but you cannot blame the student for what the teacher cannot explain...the design is colorful and has movement and contrast...the flowing of the water up into the picture plane, the cracks in the ground and the rolling of the pink amoeba...well crafted formally.