Fresh Art Friday: Ski edition

The hubs and I are off on a little ski vacation, so instead of the usual artist highlight for Artsy Fartsy Friday I thought it'd be fun to build a blog art show around the theme of snow.

Katie Paterson

                                 

Katie Patterson is a Scottish born artist who regularly collaborates with astro-physicists, meteorologists and nanotechnologists for her works of art. Neat right? Her conceptually driven work is as pretty as it is intelligent and often carries a really interesting backstory.

In Langjokull, Snaefellsjokull, Solheimajokull (shown above), Patterson recorded the sounds of the three named Icelandic glaciers, cast them and created frozen records of the recordings using water from the original glaciers. The records were played until they melted, nearly 2 hours after they started. The resulting sound is very much like soothing white noise but the concept of listening to such a valuable resource melt while literally melting is so very complex it's beautiful.

Scarlett Hooft Graafland

Photographer Scarlett Hooft Graafland's photographs are so beautiful, special and surreal looking that you're certain they are created in photoshop. Hooft Graafland starts her pieces by selecting a location that feels authentic and unspoiled, then she brings in the tools of her trade- weather balloons, pigments, film and an adaptability to her surroundings that has served her well. In Lemonade Igloo, 2007-2008, Hooft Graffland worked with Inuit descendent Nathan Qamaniq to hand build an igloo of frozen lemonade. The result, a perfectly traditional but salmon colored igloo, is as surprising as it is peaceful sitting out on the icy tundra. 

Mark Ryden 

Ryden is an American born painter creating works within the Pop Surrealism movement- in fact, he's known as the god-father of pop surrealism, so it's safe to say he's established. The Long Yak was part of a 2009 exhibition called The Snow Yak Show originally shown at the Tomio Koyama Gallery in Tokyo. His work is tremendously successful among young urban viewers and catalogues of his work are very popular. Like many artists working in this movement, the works content may be mistaken as cute, but are often disquieting when the viewer spends time with them. Ryden does not generally confirm or deny interpretations of his pieces, but has stated that he enjoys evoking a sense of wonder in the viewer. In the Yak series, Ryden's compositions are completed in monochromatic colors and with a softer tone than many of his previous works. Kristen Anderson wrote a delicious write up of this body of work which can be found here. 

Didier Massard

Massard is a French born artist presently working in photography. As a clearly talented photographer, he spent 25 years shooting commercial work for some of France's most celebrated brands- Chanel and Hermes (Swoon!). Massard now dedicates his time to fine art photography, making real images of imagined scenes requiring elaborate constructions in studio. His pieces are printed on Ektacolor and each is masterfully lit. The piece above, titled Glacier, is dated 2005. Here are 2 good NYT pieces if you're intereested in learning more: Article 1 and Article 2.

I hope you enjoyed the show!

-DBC

** All artwork is subject to the copyright of it's creating artist. This blog post is intended for the promotion of the arts and is not intended to violate or encourage violation of any copyright laws.