Category Archives: Plastic Art

Art made from plastic.

Model Artists @ The Plastic Club

1 Reply

Models @ The Plastic Club

Jessica Hummel, Self Portrait took first prize with her photographic trilogy.

The Plastic Club on Camac Street is hosting an outstanding show of art by artists models; who else but models have insight into the world of artists, absorbing and intuiting the complexities of visual arts.  Many of the plastic club models have been mentored by the fine artists they pose for and artists are grateful for the intricacy and nuance of posing.  Susan Stromquist is included in Off the Wall Gallery’s Summer Show of past award winners – her folded chalk and pastels are Rorschach pop melded with classic atmospheric naturalism.

Model Artists @ The Plastic Club

Karl Richard Olsen, Jeno, POR – looks like a bargain since this appears to be what’s known in the art biz as a masterpiece.  Olsen draws and paints everyday, even while walking, honing his eye and exploring new ways to express his vision.  Karl’s Flickr page is very cool and he’s currently completing one self portrait each day for 30 days.

Model Artists @ The Plastic Club

Rob Willis, Self Portrait – you know, DoN had to double check but he knew this drawing is by Willis, last year’s Model’s Show big winner, since a definite style has emerged over time – he’s really handsome, too.

Model Artists @ The Plastic Club

Jenn Warpole @ The Plastic Club’s Model Artists Exhibit.

Model Artists @ The Plastic Club

Echo Shi @ The Plastic Club

Model Artists @ The Plastic Club

Rob Willis @ The Plastic Club

Model Artists @ The Plastic Club

Rob Willis – the paint job on this chopper is Super Kawai, super flat, super cool – DuChamp for everyday life.

Models @ The Plastic Club

Jym Paris, Shooting for the Moon & The Night Has A Thousand Eyes.  DoN LoVeS Jym’s fearless style, infectious personality and spontaneous gesture.  As Antony & the Johnsons sing, “I’m a little boy now, but when I grow up I’ll be a beautiful woman.”

Model Artists @ The Plastic Club

Deborah Dias, Ratamandala.

Model Artists @ The Plastic Club through 8/22 – the club is holding special event workshops with moving model Stephanie Hyland – imagine long, slow croqui’s with the model slowly , steadily changing.  Contact the club for dates and times.

The Messenger is Already Dead – CFEVA Gallery @ 1521 Locust St.

Leave a reply

CFEVA @ 1521 Locust St Philadelphia

 Katie Murken @ Center for Emerging Visual Artists Gallery.

Katie Murken

Katie Murken’s contribution to The Messenger is Already Dead includes the Brancusi-esque columns and layered photo collages (a great steal-able idea – it took her three years to think it up, you can have it for free!).  The cool thing about Murken’s work is the logical conclusions – like, “duh?” – why didn’t DoN think of that; a great meme is hard to find, impossible to control.  In the corner are Scott Pellnat‘s “Land of Horror’s 1 – 4, wax and Barbie dolls”.

 Peter Prusinowski

Peter Prusinowski is a master of the dark room, the gelatin silver prints of Fishtown are evocative of the neighborhood’s long established quirkiness and history.  The blacks are rich and deep, the grays iridescent, the framing & lighting excellent so that the narrative readily absorbs into the consciousness with symbols and signs of civilization.

Peter Prusinowski

Peter Prusinowski @ CFEVA’s The Messenger is Dead.  With Peter’s work the medium is the massage.

CFEVA @ 1521 Locust St Philadelphia

Scott Pellnat‘s room-sized installation is fantastically inventive and enthralling; created in his North Jersey back yard, the sprawling construction is a dream scape of shipwrecks, collapsed highways, hidden chambers and fools gold.  Like a nightmare, there is no beginning or end, only feedback and feelings; Scott explained to DoN not all the teeny bookcases were filled with itsy-bitsy books as if the piece was still a work in progress.  To get to the gallery push the black button in the elevator and you will be transported to a world of dreams, nightmares and extraordinary reality.

View a video clip here.

Grow @ Off the Wall/Dirty Frank’s – Salon @ Plastic Club

Leave a reply

Grow @ Off the WallNancy Barch, Chained Mail, mixed media @ Grow – Off the Wall Gallery.  The use of disposable materials such as the ceiling tile and old slides reek with hidden meaning and memes.  Slides are so anachronistic and ceiling tiles, even though functional at insulation and sound-proofing, are out of style.  Barch’s piece sends obtuse mixed messages stimulating social consciousness neurons to fire in the brain.

Grow @ Off the Wall

 Grow @ Off the Wall Gallery in Dirty Frank’s Bar.

Grow @ Off the Wall

Alisa Fox, Jars, mixed media.

One of the cool things @ Off the Wall is the corner display case where more delicate constructions can be installed.  The team of Jody and Togo extend much effort in branding, soliciting, promoting and selling art from publicity to art cards and posters to installation, the production is always top notch. Off the Wall has hosted hundreds of local aspiring and established artists in their thoughtful exhibitions.

Karl Olsen @ Grow

Karl Olsen, Free Compost, mixed media including ingredients from mustard to absinthe.

Grow is on display through August 7th and includes work by 30 artists including members of the Plastic Club, Photographic Society of Philadelphia and other regional arts groups.  Frank’s has been an outpost for many Plastic Club members and recently Anders Hansen hosted a Salon at The Plastic Club to discuss the Grow show.  In branding the show, curator Jody Sweitzer and manager Togo Travalia, put a new spin on the current “green” trend with a focus on recycled materials and ideas.

Karl Olsen used phylo dough, Julia Fisichella‘s amazing photoshop collages are inspired, Ed Snyder’s floral photograph exquisitely illuminated the concept with an image pinched from nature, Veronica Schmude‘s moody interior photograph is brimming with stolen narrative (Veronica is the guest speaker at this Tuesday’s PSoP lecture series at The Plastic Club).  The Salon was lively: Shoshanna Aron (just back from Israel) pointed out how being “green” is a new concept – that the old paradigm was consumerism, Bob Bohne introduced the topic of the healing power of art and the importance of community outreach, Alan Clawens highlighted how artists resist creating new work for a theme show and try to squeeze old works into new parameters, DoN mentioned bricolage and Burnell Yow!s amazing show at Smile.  The group sipped wine and chatted until sunset and the party moved to Frank’s.  The discussion helped DoN realize that thinking outside the box isn’t always the best approach – sometimes all you need is the box.

Joroko & Yow! – Intuitive Bricolage @ Smile Gallery

1 Reply

Burnell Yow! Dolls of the Apocalypse

 

Burnell Yow! Dolls of the Apocalypse

Burnell Yow!, “Dolls of the Apocalypse“, Smile Gallery.

Burnell Yow! Dolls of the Apocalypse

Burnell Yow!, “Mummy Barbie“.

Exquisite Corpse

B. Yow!, L. Parkes, D. Walters, “Exquisite Corpse #33“, giclee print, 20″ x 16”

Joroko

Joroko,”March On“, mixed media.

Joroko

Joroko, “Subtext“, mixed media.

Bricolage, pronounced /ˌbriːkoʊˈlɑːʒ/, /ˌbrɪkoʊˈlɑːʒ/ is a term used in several disciplines, among them the visual arts and literature, to refer to the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things which happen to be available, or a work created by such a process. The term is borrowed from the French word bricolage, from the verb bricoler – the core meaning in French being, “fiddle, tinker” and, by extension, “make creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are to hand (regardless of their original purpose).”

A person who engages in bricolage is a bricoleur.

Thank you Wikipedia!

Burnell’s dolls are totemic, shamanistic, zen-like, beatific, clever, ironic, dystopian creations repurposing objet trouve and doll parts.  The digital “exquisite corpse” prints are a great stealable idea – so po-mo.

Joroko‘s goth skeletons populating bombed out surfaces, dancing and cavorting with stars, stripes, crosses and words perfectly counterpoints the odd dolls – somehow the energy of the room becomes a bad boy’s fantasy world of stealing your sister’s dolls and ripping the heads off and drawing war scenes with explosions, craters and bodies.  Dr. Deb Miller curated the show – deep.

Plastic Surgery As Art: Michael Jackson, Orlan and Self-Mutilation Performance

1 Reply

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was the penultimate post-modern artist; the indelible impression of a person being able to transform race, gender, age, and identity with the use of mass media is an artform beyond the realm of acceptance for many.  Like a human collage Michael had a tiny doll nose, pretty pink lips, fawn eyes, opalescent skin, Liz Taylor hair and Kirk Douglas jaw line, his thin frame absolutely perfect in the “You Are Not Alone” video.  Only in our futuristic present are people able to transform their physical being to match their internal identity, anyone can change their look, even in the slums of Brazil breast augmentation is big business.  Michael Jackson was a true visionary who understood the synergy of image, performance and marketing to penetrate the minds of people even to the farthest corners of Earth.

The French artist, Orlan, famously uses plastic surgery to transform her image creating ugly/beautiful, intriguing/repulsive, ancient/futuristic changes to her face.  Cheek and lip implants, bulbous forehead adornments, Cruella DaVille hair all mashed up to create a shocking, memorable experience – a design using human flesh as canvas. Check out Orlan’s website – she is a trip!  On David Bowie‘s “1 Outside” album, the CD liner notes tell the tale of a performance artist who cuts off small bits of his body for an audience of connosseurs willing to pay for the privilege of witnessing self-mutilation, the artist cutting off digits and bits of muscle till only one arm remained.  Art is in the eye of the beholder.

Orlan

Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister‘s famous AIGA poster.

DoN LoVeD Michael, always believing he would never harm a child.  A friend once told DoN he saw Michael Jackson with a wheelchair bound child at a ride in Disney World, the people in line went wild asking for autographs but Michael told the crowd he was there to be with the sick kid and devoted hours to making a child’s dream come true.  We are the world.