Wednesday 17 April 2013

Mary Clare Albanozzo - Fine Artist - Sliema

I have visited Mary Clare Albonozzo's gallery in Tigne' Sliema, where she was very kind to open her gallery when visiting hours were closed and let me capture a couple of pictures from her art works.

As I have taken a look to her art pieces, I must say that she's inspired from the environment  human figure and from our beautiful architectural buildings located on our island as her paintings consists of flowers, human figures and buildings.
I must say that Mary Clare loves to experiment with different colours as a couple of her paintings are painted with different colours from the original colours. In her paintings, Mary paints different moments from day to night and yet that's what makes an interesting art piece as colours vary from day to night.

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Here, Mary painted a bush of flowers where she used watercolours as a media. She exploits the world of colours and produces a great painting, as she have used a lot of brush strokes to create such flowers, yet it gives such relaxed feeling cause of the bright yellow colour combined with pink, orange, green and a touch of black and although the image is full in colour, they're still not bold and strong.

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The Breakwater
As I have stated before, Mary likes to paint spots from our Island and here she have painted The Breakwater.
Once again she used water colours as a media, yet this time she didn't use brush strokes techniques but a complete solid painting with light natural colours.
I'd guess she have painted in a cool summer day whereas she managed to create the calm feeling of the beautiful day with light, soft colours that represents the colours that one can see in a sunny day.


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St.Angelo in moonlight
In this painting, she decided to use a black background and pastels to paint.
This artefact is quite different from the others starting from media, colours and ending with the background. Mary have captured our Fort St.Angelo at night guessing in full moon as it can be seen in the top left corner. She uses warm colours for the bottom part as she used a mixture of reds, yellows and black for darkening up some parts whereas I think the colours are reflection of spotlights, and she used a lot of cold colour for the top part as she used a lot of green to create a bond yet mixed with blue, purple and white to create shadows.

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Golden Bay
This is a still life painting at Golden Bay, she painted the landscape in a different way whereas a burst of colours are placed in this painting.
This painting gives me an exciting feeling where it shows a hot summer day as in my opinion the bold patches of orange represents the reflection of the sun. Mary have used natural colours in certain places like the sky and sea and parts of the land, but once again she replaced natural colours to others just like the purple patches in hills and rocks by the sea.



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Oriental Prelude - Denis Calleja - Radisson Blu

I have visited this exhibition and was impressed with the different kind of art works.
Denis Calleja produces several of different paintings made in different media. As I can see he's inspired with oriental things where he's inspired from Western art as one cans notice he paints such as flowers, creatures, birds and other things.

In his art, he creates images where a couple of them are abstract manipulated where he used a lot of glitters especially gold and silver, where he even uses blue, red and green.
His art works are full of lines to produce forms and basic patterns, where he abstracts them to get such great movement 

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Wild Country Flower



As one can see in this painting, Denis produces an art piece made out of mixed media, where he used yellow glitters combined with white and green pen on a black background to produce a flower 







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In this painting, Denis produces an art piece made out of mixed media, where he used a mat as a background where he painted a bird as I can conclude. In this art piece Denis produced an abstract bird form with different painting techniques where one can see several lines and dabs of paint with an explosion of  black, brown, red, blue and yellow colours. 

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As one can see, in this painting Denis produces an art piece made out of mixed media, where he used a mat as a background where as I can conclude he painted an owl. He once again painted in an explosion of colours with his painting techniques of lines and dabs of paint to create such abstractness where one can still see a great composition.
He again uses the same colours such as red, blue, yellow, brown and black but this time he even used a little bit of white.

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In this painting I'd guess Denis produced a sea creature (a sea horse).
He used a black background for this painting which I really like as it really looks good with the colours he used, as this time he didn't use the usual bright colours but he used brown, yellow, white and a touch of red.








Wednesday 10 April 2013

Tiers of Truths by Rupert Cefai (@ ChristineXgallery Sliema) - Exhibition




~ Something about the exhibition - In general

As I can see, Rupert is inspired by everyday life, as the scenes he painted are events during the day where the main activity is the busy life in the busy roads as some backgrounds shows parts of Vallettta and London. 

His paintings represent different moments as some paintings shows a beggar in the street, other shows people crossing the road, people helping other people and another shows someone alone doing something.
Cefai creates an artistic way where he express his feelings about the stories he might heard or an event that have caught his eye, where he interpret it on a canvas 


These subjects reflects his pleasant subjects where he interprets the human figures blended with abstract landscapes where he gives me the impression that he is trying to put people's thinking between the real and the imaginary





Toss a coin
Toss a coin







  





 This art work is done with different media, it shows a beggar in the street as I mentioned before, the human figure is mixed with abstract background  as in the background it shows like it's in Valletta where in middle right top part there are two domes.

It gives me a strong panicking feeling as it's a busy painting with bold red colour, where he even adds blue next to the beggar where it gives a sad feeling as blue is a cold colour and the beggar makes you feel guilty maybe for our waste and beggars are dying in hunger/thirst. I guess that the artist is trying to send a warning about the world's poverty where all over Europe the top news at the moment are money crisis.

It gives me a strong panicking feeling as it's a busy painting with bold red colour, where he even adds blue next to the beggar where it gives a sad feeling as blue is a cold colour and the beggar makes you feel guilty maybe for our waste and beggars are dying in hunger/thirst. I guess that the artist is trying to send a warning about the world's poverty where all over Europe the top news at the moment are money crisis.



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Alice - Rupert Cefai - 90cm x 90cm



Alice ? - Rupert Cefai - 90cm x 90cm

        This art work is made with different media, it shows a little girl playing/doing something alone as I mentioned before, the human figure is mixed with abstract background.
   It gives me a distracting feeling as it's a busy painting with dark colours, where mixes bold patchy background in green, black and white apart from the touch of yellow, red and skin colour to the figure.     I guess that the artist is trying to send a warning about the bullying, where the figure looks lonely doing something alone or maybe a message to take notice of some one else who might be alone and in solitude and help them out as they might not be capable of handling things situations.

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Lord of the Fight - Rupert Cefai - 90cm x 90cm


        This art work is made with different media, it shows a group of people helping each other as something might occurred during this event, as I can see there might have been an accident. 


   It gives me an exciting feeling as it doesn't really show what really happened so one might be dying of curiosity. But as I might think that something bad happened here 1) the title says 'lord of the fight' maby theres a badly hurt person and nurses are helping him to fight his life and 2) the artist used warm colours which represent a warning especially the use of red. He again mixes bold abstract background in touch of cold colours of green, black, white and yellow apart from the touch of yellow, red and skin colour to the figures.
 I guess that the artist is trying to send a warning about awareness to help each other as one day everyone would be in need of another and nobody have to think only about themselves.

                                                                                                                                                                                




Street life 1 - Rupert Cefai - 50cm x 50cm


      This art work is made in mixed media, it shows a group of people crossing the road. 
  It gives me an exciting feeling as it's a busy picture where the artist once again mixes human figures with an abstract background. Although it's busy, one can still concentrate on the art piece, where Rupert chose to paint in one point perspective where it's the person in the middle of the art piece in red. 

  With no doubt, Cefai is showing in what a world we're living in, as time runs by and waits for no one, yet to make money to live today everything is becoming in a hurry and in the same time in a confusion.





Monday 8 April 2013

Explosion of colours .. Carnival in Malta & Gozo

Personally, I simply love it ! yet, I know people who don't really like it.
The silliness  creative costumes, massive artistic floats, loud music, people dancing, drinking all night, picking on people and so on !!



~Malta celebrated carnival as a major activity since 1535, by the arrival of the knights of St.John, but studies show that the first ever celebrations date back to 1470. Till 1751, major activities have been in Valletta, as before Birgu was the main place, now a days people celebrate carnival in different places such as Floriana, Hal Ghaxiak and Gozo.
Maltese carnival is mostly known for the major floats that goes around the main streets of Floriana to the main streets of Valletta with masquerades following the floats behind the first float .. Ir-Re' tal-Karnivall (the king of carnival)
Today, with still the same law since 1920 political figures are banned to be exposed artistically in floats or costumes as back in 1920's political themes used to lead tense situations.



In Malta, one of the major dances done by groups of dancers is Il-Parata (the parade), where 2 groups dance as they're fighting against each other which symbolise the struggle of the Knights of St.John versus The Turks which dates back to 1565.




In Gozo, carnivall is a bit of a different style .. where everyone heads to Nadur and get drunk all night.
Costumes are generally a full body one so one could not be noticed as faces will be hid.
Instead of floats, they use scaffolding surrounded with wood and painted all over, and they travel them by hand as a whole group. They all have different themes, as their creativity is endless, starting with a hospital 'float' and everyone is dressed as nurses and doctors and one will be a patient and will be travelled around the city to a float of chefs, where they'll cook and pass food to people randomly.




Carnival in Malta and Gozo. 2013. Carnival in Malta and Gozo. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.maltamedia.com/features/carnival/2007/02/

Banksy !!

-English based graffiti artist and painter. Born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England.

His art is sarcastic and dark humour stencil techniques graffiti where his art is displayed around England and through the world. He displays his art in public surfaces and public spaces such as with walls and buildings. He does not sell photos of his street art directly himself, but auctioneers does as his graffiti are sometimes removed by graffiti removals.

  

He began to freehand graffiti in 1990 till 1994 with BryBeadZ Crew, yet after by 2000 he returned to stencilling as he realised he saves more time as it is more convenient and produced faster. He remained unknown for a long time as he used to graffiti the walls wearing a mask so no one would know who he is.
Banks used to hide his stencils under a rubbish lorry to hide them from police whereas graffiti are illegal on private walls.

His messages in his art are mainly Anti-War, Anti-Capitalism and Anti-Establishment.
And his subjects in his art pieces are; Rats, Police, Apes, Soldiers, Children & Elderly persons.

  

Banksy have produced an unnoticeable £10 notes where he replaed Queen Elizabeth's face with Princess Diana's and changed 'Bank of England' with 'Banksy of England'. This was done to make people remember Princess Diana's death back in 2004.
They were so unnoticeable where people used them even to buy with them and few realised the difference. Nowadays these notes are being sold from people separately at £200 each.



In  2006, he stood up an exhibition in Los Angeles named 'Barely Legal'.
He have put a live elephant in a room painted pink, and a gold floral background, it's message was to create awareness about world's poverty.
He did get the permit for the elephant, but had to remove it due to animal rights activists, as he removed the paint on the final day of the exhibition.




Banksy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2013. Banksy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy

Origami

Originated in the 17th Century in Japan, which eventually got famous trough the world in the 1900's, the date was set as no evidence is precise for the dates but certain studies closed a case when studied on when the material used was published.
Origami got it's name from 2 words in Japan which means 'Floating paper'. Today it's evolved as a modern art form where the artist's goal is to convert a flat piece of paper to a finished sculpture where one folds paper several of times with different steps to create the desired sculpture. In this art form there is no need of cuts and glue as if they'll be used it will be considered as kirigami as I mentioned before it is only done with folding. There is even another technique which is the Wet folding.
The most famous art piece is considered as 'The paper crane'.
The medium used is plain, coloured or patterned prints and the traditional paper make used in Japan is called Washi, as today different paper is used world wide such as even money notes especially the American Dollar.
Today origami is not only used as art/craft with paper, but it's even being used in engineering structures.

Origami in China is used differently too, where in their traditional funerals the burn folded paper.
Ihara Saikalm have even mentioned origami in one of her poems in 1680 named Origami Butterflies. These Origami butterflies are yet a simple origami piece where they use them in traditional weddings, called Shinto weddings. They'll be these butterflies which represents the husband and wife.

Origami was even used by Samurai warriors, where they used to exchange them between them as small gifts, even known as a good luck charm.

As tools one says that there is no special ones apart from a flat surface and the hands as it's a hand made art piece, but several other use bone folders to create sharp creases, they even use rulers, ball point embosser and paper clips for extra fingers when constructing complex models.
As to Wet folding, they'll be sprayed to keep a better shape once dried.

     
The paper crane                                     Dollar origami

  
Wet origami                                         Complex origami


Kirigami

Origami - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2013. Origami - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origami

Saturday 6 April 2013

Victorian Art - Queen Victoria's Era

Victorian art originated it's name due to styles and art being produced in Queen Victoria's reign back in 1837 - 1901, England.
English artists were producing high fashionable and modern elegance series of arts during the British Empire growth. Victorian art, was even considered as fine and elegant art by the world where artists portrayed high class events


High class paintings consisted of views from the country side such as work fields which gave rural areas a push for popularity.
Artists back then used to paint in bright colours to create emotion. They used to paint in classic realism which was popular in Roman and Greek ages, as a term in colour which were bright they used them to create exciting emotion.

During the Victorian era huge advantage in photography and architectural sectors were made which caused changes in architects and developing technology.  


The Fairy Festival           Shepherd Piper
-The fairy festival - Gustave Dore'          - Shepheard piper - Sophie Anderson

. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.avictorian.com/victorianart.html

Monday 1 April 2013

Japonisme - 1872

Back to the 17th Century, When political changes were being held in Japan and 4 years after Hokusai's death, the American Ambassador made his way to the country and Japan was forced to open world wide when it did a few years later.

This event flooded Europe and all other continents with Japanese goods and Japanese prints, where this gave an impressive impression on Parisian artists. This resulted with famous artists got to painting with this new style as this was something new and left the artists impressed with this big difference in arts. Artists were impressed with the lack of shadows, perspective, flatness, strong bold colours, off centre subjects,
Even Claude Monet had to buy a print, which he have hung up in his studio and resulted to be painted in Emile Zola's portrait background, Emile Zola have even stated that Japanese prints are the First and most perfect impressions. Even Vincent Van Gogh even got impressed with this style, as he painted impressions of waves in his paintings too.
This style got in all paintings, and one French art critic named this movement - JAPONISME - which goes back to 1872.
This style was even giving a boost in posters of plays, dances and anything you could imagine of. 

This revolution in art even opened centres where one can buy oriental stuff where everyone was filling their homes with blue and white porcelain and oriental pieces that even consisted of pearls and so on. 


Monet - Emile's Protrait (middle top -Japanese print)


The wave impression - Vincent van Gogh
Marie Cassatt - Japonisme (clothing, flatness, strong bold colours)


Japonisme Style Poster

(4/4) Hokusai - Private life of a Masterpiece - YouTube. 2013. (4/4) Hokusai - Private life of a Masterpiece - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RuBDt0RNbA.
Japonism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2013. Japonism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japonism.