Blu has been busy with a huge animation production this year – but managed to find some extra time to work on this wonderful collaborative animation with David Ellis at this year’s Fame Festival.
Its a wonderful piece of work from two artists famous for their stop frame animation.
As part of my research for a new book I was lucky enough to travel to Mexico – stopping in Cuernavaca, Mexico City and Oaxaca. Among the many artists I met were Saner and Smithe. It was great to watch them painting for an afternoon – more to be revealed in the book soon…
I am very pleased to have participated in an article for this month’s Creative Review. In honour of Choque Cultural Gallery’s publication of a fabulous book of woodcut art called Xirugravuras which also highlights the dying art of the Lambe Lambe poster and the Grafica Fidalga workshop – which I posted something about in 2007.
More details on the Creative Review blog…
Also a film made in 2004 by Brazilian designer Cisma brings the workshop to life…
Cisma’s Lambe-lambe 2004 from CISMA on Vimeo.
Choque Cultural have been busy working on new original prints. Some have been produced using the woodcuts and or a mixture with traditional Lambe Lambe woodblock print techniques at the Grafica Fidalga. These include two prints by Derlon and one each by Daniel Melim and Jaca.
Derlon Almeida is a young artist from Recife in the Northeast state of Pernambuco. Having been a graffiti artist since a teenager, today Derlon’s work is influenced by local culture and the traditional woodcut art of the region known as Cordel.
Thanks to Jhoana Mora for inviting me to the Esquina Norte design conference in Tijuana, Mexico in September 08.
The speakers and events were excellent and it finally gave me an excuse to visit Tijuana. Since being a director of Tijuana Design for a number of years in was a coming home of sorts.
I met some interesting designers, animators and artists from around the world. Such as Morning Breath and Aesthetic Apparatus
I also found time to organize a photographic workshop with local students for which we took photographs around the city.
Here’s a link to the next years conference.
I was very pleased to contribute to a book about one of my favourite artists from Brazil.
It’s a beautiful object with stunning design by Pedro Inoue
Calma
The Art of Stephan Doitschinoff
Release: September 2008
Format: 24 x 28 cm
Features: 160 pages, full colour, hardcover
Stephan Doitschinoff’s street alias is Calma. This book presents the emblematic and spiritual paintings and murals that the Brazilian painter has emblazoned on houses, churches and walls in rural villages in his South American homeland. His metaphoric imagery feeds off Afro-Brazilian folklore, pagan and alchemic symbolism and contemporary pop culture. For the first time, Calma documents his artistic journey through these rustic areas and presents the complete visual pandemonium of a young urban artist who creates powerful figurative worlds.
As part of my partnership with Choque Cultural gallery we decided to co-publish some screenprints together with artists that we both wanted to work with. The first up is a print by the French artist Remed printed in Brighton with Artizan Editions. Two colours on Roaspina paper.
The prints are now on sale on the UK website and in the gallery in Sao Paulo.
Remed is artist I’ve been wanting to work with for a while since featuring him in Street Sketchbook. Since then I seem to bump into him everywhere – Spain, France, UK and Sao Paulo…
Mayday bank holiday saw the opening of Cans Festival. Behind the scenes this festival of Stencil Art had been in preparation since Feb 08. I was honoured to be given a curatorial role of behalf of POW to invite artists from around the world who I thought to be producing the best in Stencil Art.
With nearly 30,000 visitors over three days and over 50,000 photographs tagged “Cans Festival” now on Flickr – the public and artists thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Perhaps most gratifying was the level of interactivity, with 651 artists from the public registering to paint their own stencils during the event. The main attraction unquestionably was Banksy, with four new large-scale murals, sculptures and anarchic installations, his work brought in a diverse crowd that art galleries can only dream of attracting. Not to be overshadowed, around 50 artists invited from 15 countries also made their mark with a diverse range of styles and subjects. From the well-regarded stencil graffiti hubs of Buenos Aires and Melbourne to the lesser-known hotspots such as Lisbon and Bergen, the cream of the stencil art world was in attendance.
A number of Brazilian artist friends of mine have been visiting the UK to take part in various gallery shows. To put their spare time to good use I suggested to Mission Print screen printers (who I often work with) that they commission these artists alongside local artists to paint a mural on their buildings in central Birmingham. The results are stunning – many thanks to Missionprint.
Featuring Daniel Melim, Titifreak, Carlos Dias, Milo Tchais, Rodrigo, Zezao and the Ikonoklast crew (Birmingham).
Modart is one of my favourite magazines - I am biased though, as I regularly write articles for them. Issue 14 has the fantastic Adam Neate as the cover star and inside an article I wrote about the talented Brazilian artist – Stephan Doitschinoff.
Issue 15 is due out soon – featuring an article I’ve written about Santa’s Ghetto in Bethlehem.
