Thursday, June 25, 2009

Tigers in art


(The one on the top is telling the one on the bottom he's adopted.)

I have a fascination with tigers in art for some reason. Some of my favorite depictions are in Korean art...the have a wonderful sort of demented cartoon quality tempering their fierceness, and the tiger is a central figure in Korean folklore and therefore a common theme in artworks.


See what I'm sayin'? I dig those googly eyes.


This is not a Korean tiger but is by artist Chris Conn- I thought it had similar qualities.


The Vigilant Tiger by Martin Hsu


Walton Ford's Tiger (Thanks Chris!)

Titus Kaphar



Ok seriously go over and check out this Titus Kaphar site. It's ok, I'll wait.
Isn't it great? I'm a little slow to get on the bandwagon on this one but I am a huge fan of this artists work.

"Contemporary artist Titus Kaphar makes oil-on-canvas copies of European and American portrait paintings from the 18th and 19th centuries and reconfigures them in strategic ways to create a dialogue about race, art and representation. His work is at once beautiful and halting as he dances between fictional narrative and history.

A graduate of Yale University, Kaphar makes work that is a timely display of what he sees as an alternative history. He sees his work as "the first sentence in a longer paragraph that the viewer completes." Engaging history through 18th- to 20th-century European and American paintings by noted figures including Édouard Manet and William Blake, Titus places race and social issues front and center."

-From The Seattle Art Museum's website



Chris Berens- White Ones



Chris Berens has a show up in Amsterdam called "The White Ones". On my way to Kenya last month we had a layover in Amsterdam so we scooted over to Chris' new studio to see what he was working on. It is really nice to have your expectations exceeded and Chris certainly did that with this show. You can see it here.



Tiffany Bozic



Well, HI! Long time no see. Sorry about that. I'm going to TRY to keep up the old blog, but the break was well needed.
Anyway- here is a beautiful image by Tiffany Bozic who I've mentioned before. It is entitled "The Raft" and is being released by Joshua Liner Gallery as a print so if you love it that's where you can get it.