{ Monthly Archives }
August 2011
French Cuisse
As more and more people are starting to Tumbl, there’s actually some variation in the content away from animated dancing gifs and pictures of Suicide Girls. People are starting to use it in newer, more interesting ways. William Matthew Valle is a 19-year old culinary school grad, and he takes pictures of food. Great, so does almost every bubbly, hungry chick in a big city who refers to herself as a “foodie.”
Tangent: I was once in a class where the instructor was making small talk with us before we got started. She was from Minneapolis, and flew out California a few times a year for this class. The conversation turned to food. When asked where she liked to eat here in the Bay Area, she responded, “Nowhere really. I’m kind of a foodie, so I have really high standards when it comes to food. The Bay Area doesn’t really have that much to offer.” I’m not a foodie. I love good food, and I celebrate both eating and making it, and all the aspects of that artform, however, I eat taco bell and frozen pizzas and whatever the hell else I can get my hands on when I’m hungry. I also like the Bay Area, plenty of good things here, but it’s not really my ideal for a place to live. I don’t celebrate its majesty or anything. All that being said, if you genuinely enjoy food as an art and derive enjoyment from it tasting delicious, there are not a lot of places that beat the Bay Area. The point being, that woman is a moron. I saw her eat two bags of sun chips and a drumstick ice cream cone for breakfast. This illustrates why I hate people who call themselves foodies.
Back to my main point: William Matthew Valle has a Tumblr called French Cuisse in which he exhibits photos of dishes he’s made next to photos of the ingredients organized neatly. It’s simple, colorful and beautiful, just like his dishes, and it makes my hands and mind want to be cooking. Since what I’m concerned with most is beauty and inspiration, I’d say Valle’s site is a winner. And what’s more, I would enjoy eating his food, which is a damn good compliment from anyone to a chef.
Paul Cadden
I…I just don’t even know what to say about this. Part of me is skeptical that this is really graphite, and thinks that someone is just being a clever dick with Photoshop. And the other part of me is pretty much shitting himself with disbelief and awe at the level of detail and reality here. I mean, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I will never look at a pencil the same way again, that’s for damn sure. Honestly, I may never look at the things I see with my eyes the same way again; so thanks to Paul Cadden for sufficiently fucking with my perceptions of reality, which were already pretty maleable to begin with.
Videos
Fighting Nature tooth and nail
Andreas Englund
Swedish artist Andreas Englund has a good sense of humor, or at least his paintings do, so I assume that, by the transitive property, he’s also a laugh riot. What I think I enjoy the most is his exploration of mortality and the everyday beauty in the mundane. And fortunately all of that is wrapped up in a humorous amplification through fictional characters. This is probably the same sort of catharsis that really great authors derive from writing that one, perfect, 3-dimensional character that they can control and pretend to be. Hell, that’s why we read them. Maybe an active fantasy life is what we all really need to get some closure on our various neuroses. Time to bring back that imaginary friend, kids.
Wayne White
The day before I leave for a short vacation is always the most stressful, what with the packing, the repacking, the getting-things-done, and getting-there-on-time, the planning adventures and the figuring out what to do in my downtime. So today I’m just gonna slip into a nice, warm, comfortable Wayne White painting and relax my cares away. And after 30 minutes of that it will be back to holding my breath until I’m actually on the plane. Tomorrow around this time you will hear a very loud sigh from SFO, and then some nap noises directly after.
Ryan A.: Our Blood Stained Roof
I’ve mentioned the work of Ryan A. before. And then, as now, I mentioned just one of his comics specifically. This is not to imply that those two comics are the only parts of his works worth paying attention to, far from it. It’s just that those two comics were particularly poignant and significant at the time that I read them. The newest comic, Our Blood Stained Roof, is a great piece of comic arts, perfect pacing, interesting story, simple but well-developed characters, and plenty that I can relate to. The story itself is great, but the way Ryan renders the images is the perfect visual counterpart. I am now a lifelong fan of this dude’s comics.
Till Rabus
Hyperrealism — love it or hate it, it’s still a fucking massive display of skill, and Till Rabus has that skill. On top of that though, the actual subjects of the paintings are interesting, which isn’t always the case with the hyperrealism school. Painting of a pile of plastic junk = boring, but painting of a pile of plastic junk on fire = amazing. And fortunately, Rabus tends toward the surrealistic, so there’s plenty going on in every piece. I’ve always wondered why anyone would waste hyperrealism on things they can see all the time, rather than create something new. To each their own, I guess. My own likes shit on fire.
Dea Lellis
Some tasty, flattened perspective paintings to carry you through the day. If you’ve ever wondered what Norse mythology folk art looks like…now’s your chance to get that burning question answered. I know it was eating you up inside.