43. Gwen Murphy

About two years ago I started to have an obsession with shoes, mainly nike sneakers. Not buying them but as a form of art. In this generation, especially with sneakers, shoes have so much style and design elements that I just can't dismiss. I have been really trying to find an artist that uses shoes as a form of art. I came across Gwen Murphy, who has a fetish for shoes. Now even though  Murphy's style is differnt than mine, I love her concepts and it's a relief that someone likes shoes as much as I do.

Gwen graduated from Boston University of Fine Arts in 1990 with a conentration in sculpture. Murphy began her series in 2005 and have created almost 60 pair of shoe sculptures, using shoes that were second-hand, cast-offs, or found on the roadside.

" Since I was a very young child I have looked at shoes and found them looking back at me, each pair with its particular personality and facial expression. Mouths yawning open, they sometimes look sleepy, grouchy, or fierce."
~~ Gwen Murphy

I love the fact that each shoe is differnet, sometimes you will see her add different facial expressions to the pair of shoes. She gives a worn look to some shoes and a more clean cut astetic to the shoe. I also like the titles of her shoes, some of the titles are a little funny.
I love her work, I found an artist who likes shoes as much as I do. I may be into painting them but its the fact that I get a excited at looking at hundreds of shoes, deciding which one to create next, just as she does.


Pink Menace

One of my favorite pair besides the Pink Menace is the Plant of the Sneakers, where she has used the them of the planet of the Apes. I just wished she would have had a mean facial expression on the Apes. 

Planet of the sneakers

                                        



T-strap



Mens Dress shoes

                                               
                      

42. Alicia VanNoy Call

Alicia does some amazing pieces with animals. He bright vibrant colors, makes her works stand out. She attended Utah Velley University earning her BFA in Illustration.

Im not really into animal paintings, however she is kind of the exception. The first thing you notice is the large color palette. The colors are almost glowing off the canvas. Each one of her pieces have a different feel to them. On top of that she uses many different animals, mainly dogs, that have their own facial expressions. She uses the entire canvas, doing a close up potrait of the animals and almost all of her paintings contained only one subject.


The color scheme for this painting is so cool. I like how she incorperates the different colors into her background as she does on the animals. One can tell that she is very into experimenting with color.
 
This Zebra is my favorite out of her paintings. She adds a feminist touch, with the long eye lashes, and the warm colors beaming off her face.
 
The Cat painting is halarious, reminds me of the movie Cats and dogs. Cats to me are just mean, so the facial expression of the cat is classic.

41. Heide Hatry

Heide Hatry is a very peculiar artist to me. I've reviewed many of her works, really cant figure her style out.

Heide Hatry is very peculiar to me. I've viewed her work and can't figure her out.

She grew up South of Germany on a pig farm. She left home at a young age to school. She studied at different schools in Germany and art history at the University of Heidlbery. She taught at a private art school for 15 years before moving to New York in 2003. She is a very smart individual, editing more than two dozen books and art catalouges. She has had many exhititions around the  world. Her art explores body preformance and exploring her feminist side, and employing animal flesh and organs. Her work without a doubt, causes controversy.

When I veiw her work, I don't know what to think. It's not that I do not like it, but I just have a curiosity to want to veiw her work, to try an gain my own understanding.

    



One of her works I do like, are these two pigs below. I look at this as humerous. When every people are doing any thing nasty in public, you think "PIGS" or filty animals, thats what this reminds me of. The facial expression and the movements are pretty funny to.

40. Adam Brandejs

When I first came across this artist and some of his work, I thought is was Patrica Piccinnini. Adam created these things called Genpets, made a website advertising the pets as if you could actually buy them, and had the world stumped. The Genepets were supose to be living pets, that you could take care of. After doing indepth reasearch everyone found out it was just an artist and his work.

"Genpets are living, breathing mammals. Bio-Genica is a Bioengineering Company that has combined, and modified existing DNA to create the Genpets lineup. Genpets have blood, bones, and muscle; they will bleed if you cut them, and die if mistreated just like any other animal. The electronic components are only in the packages and are for basic life support, outside of the packages the Genpets are wholly organic."

I thought this was hilarious, many stories were posted on line, really advertising this pet. The weird sculpted  multimedia animal is made out of rubber and electronic doodads.

You guys have to check out the website, it seems so legit:

www.genpets.com



Brandejs likes to work with flesh, and meat aswell. He created this nike shoe, from at first glance seems to be just old, but a close up its made out of flesh, ewwww!!

 

39. Joe Martino

Many of my friends who are not artist, believe abstract art is a cop out for artist who really have no talent. And I always have to tell them, that when I veiw abstract art, you see things, it evokes an emotion and sometimes has a bigger meaning than you can see.

Joe Martino art does just that. His abstract expressionism brings a sense a curisoty. Martino explores and experiments with design, color and different media. His works, he says: "Are characterized by a sense of mystery and invites the viewer in". Which I completey get that feeling when I'm exploring his works.

One thing that intrigues me about his art are the textures he creates on his canvas. Martino does this by working in layers of acrylic paint, gesso, modeling paste and them using different fibers, papers and metals. Martino is influence by sience and nature, since he was  a former teacher of chemistry, anatomy, and marine biology.





Artissimo


  

37 and 38 Calixte Dakpogan and Romuald Hazoume

Calixte Dakpogan was born in 1958, in Pahou, Benin. Surrounded by a family of blacksmiths, the traditon carried over to him. Since the was plenty of junk yards in Porto Novo, Dakpogan had endless resources. He started to use scavenged car parts to create standing figures, with the help of his brother Theodore. The brothers earned themselves a commission, to create 100 works for Ouidah in 1992, This was the Fisrt International Festival of Vodum Arts and Cultures. There work remains on permanent display.

Dakpogan uses metallic and plastic to create anthropomorphis figures and masks. His mask, have unique forms, shapes and even adds funky colors.




Ambassadeur

The teeth made of different size locks, is really unique. Some of the materials he used, I can tell what they are, like the eye seems to be a tire and a calculator inside the eye.

Ferme ta gueule

The Mask below is my favorite, Calixte Dakpogan collaborated with Romuald, the next artist im going to discuss on this Mask. What seems to be a can or old cup, has been transformed into a figure, showing emotion. I love the color and how it all molds together. The shape of the mouth is interesting, really helps shape the nose.                               
                                                    

Romuald Hazoume also has some amazing works. I really like how artist use they culture in their art. I haven't been able to travel all over the world, so its interesting to see how they live, and that being transformed in to art.

Hazoume was born in 1962, in Porto Novo. Hazoume is of  Yoruba origin, growing up in a Catholic family.  He began working in the 1980's creating art from discarded plastic containers and gasoline caninsters. Turning these objects in to crafted masks.

Unlike Dakpogan's masks, which have a lot going on, Hazoume has a simplistic approach. The object that shapes the mask, is more distinct and easy to distinguish the item.

 

I like the different hiar styles, amongst the masks, each one has their own different facial expressions. I like both of these artist equally

 

36. Scott Weaver

When I stumbled across artist who used tooth picks, I found plenty that I could discuss. One that stud out was Scott Weaver; this dude took 34 YEARS...not days, not weeks and not months, but 34 years to build his model. Weaver built a 9 ft tall, 7 ft wide and 2ft deep toothpick model of San Francisco. The more fascinating, aspect to his model, are the 4 pingpong ball rolling tracks and several entry points. You can actually play with the model, now thats DOPE! Weaver, before starting this 34 year project, started his toothpick career, by building models and rolling pingpong balls on them.

The "Rolling through the Bay" displays many of the iconic sights in San Francisco, such as the Golden State Park, Bay Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf and many more. The model consist of over 1,000,000 toothpicks. That may seem like it's breaking his pockets, but you can by toothpicks for 99 cents for a pack of 750.

Ripley's Believe it or Not offered Scott $40,000 for the model, but he turned it down. This dude is dedicated and really patient. I think the longest I've took on and of my works, was a year; and thats only becuase I lost my motivation to finish the piece.