Tag: reviews
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Staring Into the Abyss by T.S. McNeil
History is littered with tragic artists. Sensitive souls pouring their heart out onto the canvas with little if any reward, other than the satisfaction of creating beauty where there was none. Names like Van Gough, who never sold one of his own paintings, despite working for his art dealer brother Theo for a time, ringing…
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Sacrilegious Sanctimony – Andres Serrano by Jason Collins
Andres Serrano, who is a born and raised New Yorker, is best known for his controversial artworks and photos. Serrano’s artwork is known to upset people as he often uses images of corpses, unlikely and distributing materials, and has even used feces in the images. Serrano is best known for highly controversial images that contain…
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Drippy Sculptures – Dan Lam by Jason Collins
Dan Lam was born in a refugee camp in Morong, Philippines, as a result of her parents fleeing Vietnam back in 1986. Lam spent the first few months of her life there as her family was waiting to move to Houston, Texas by getting sponsorship from fellow family members. Lam grew up and spent several…
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And Then The Gray Heaven: A Review by T.S. McNeil
In a culture of increasing representation, which can only be a good thing, one of the aspects of humanity rarely noticed are the truly odd. Not the those who are different because of how they vote or what they like to wear or listen to, but the organic oddballs, who are different in the most…
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Mythology and Mixed Media – Devan Shimoyama by Jason Collins
Devan Shimoyama is an American visual artist who is known for the use of mixed media in his artwork. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1989 Shimoyama was exposed to the world of artistic expression at an early age through his mother, who studied fashion design, and his grandfather, who was a musician. Shimoyama went to…
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Storyteller: A Review by T.S. McNeil
The first stories, at least in the Western tradition, were sung. Going back to ancient Greece, long before the written tradition, foundational narrative works such as The Iliad and The Odyssey recited in poem form, often with the accompaniment of a lyre. A bardic tradition carried on well into the 14th century by the troubadour…
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A Thoughtful Still Life: Gabrielle Garland by Jason Collins
Gabrielle Garland is an American artist whose work focuses on a specific subject matter: the home. Born in 1968, Garland seemed destined to become a famous artist as both her parents were well-known artists. At first glance, you can see exactly Garland’s subject matter: houses and interiors. This may seem simplistic and one with meaning…
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Uncanny Valley by T.S. McNeil
One of the less common forms, at least in recent years, for the most part peaking in the late-1980s with H.R. Giger’s work on the original Alien franchise and the Magic Eye book craze. Op Art gained attention through the work of and M.C. Esher. Not a typo on Pop Art, Op Art, short for…
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365 Books in 365 Days – Episode 75 by Annie Walton Doyle
Chrysalis by Anna Metcalfe “She has a power over the people who find her; once you’ve known her, it’s hard to go back to a time before.” While there is always an attraction to a manic, frantic, crisis-led novel, Chrysalis instead unfolds in a still, calm, and even slow manner. This works to maintain an…
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Bell Jar Barbie: A Poetic Rituals Mini Book reviewed by Dorka Tamas
At the first glance, Katy Telling’s pamphlet Bell Jar Barbie reads like a physical manifestation of a Valium-infused surrealist dream of a 1950s housewife. The twelve-page mini book is printed on a similar shade of pink as the Smith memo papers Plath wrote The Bell Jar and many of her poems, creating a magical-poetic synthesis between Telling’s experimental work…