Filip Pagowski

Filip Pagowski is a New York based graphic artist that I came across in this months Vogue. His quirky illustrations can be seen on Comme des Garcons' garments, whose recently launched collection "Play" features his work. The "love face" charachter logo has become the face of the collection that is rapidly becoming on of the latest must have fashion trends.
I really like the simplicity and use of colour in these illustrations. They bare similarities to some of those I looked at in the work of latin American photographers Mauro Oliver and Claudio Pousada in Santotipo. The doodle like images have a very real humanistic feel. The pictures are also strong and have a certain presence and power. The bold red white and black create clarity whilst their childlike style combined with adult wit and irony creates a clever juxdaposition that again adds to their strong tone of voice.

















































































(Rei Kawakubo is one of the most famous designers to emerge from Japan. In 1973 she established "Comme des Garcons" which means "Like a Youth". Garcon's style, which did not fit in any of the fashion world stereotypes, has had a significant influence in the industry.
Play is a collection presented by Comme Des Garcons and concentrates on fun and wearable garments.)

blue loo

Just because you are in an art gallery doesn't mean that the exhibitions are the only artistic thing there. Even a trip to the tiolet can be a colourful experience.


















Colour, (more specifically its use and purpose,) is something that really interests me. This blue is so rich. I like the fact that it was chosen for something so dull like a hand towel. The way it has been left all hanging down almost makes it look like running paint... if you squint hard enough.

Around the Gallery... the unofficial "art"

Whilst I was at the gallery I took a few minutes to appreciate the other "art"... besides the exhibitions...

The birds and the bees

Some of the other exhibits...
This display was particularly unusual. The combination of these bold, dark sketches with the quirky 3d bird houses was as unusual as intriging, especially as bees do not live in birds houses... there was no sign of honey or any other bee related things... only bird houses and strange flame like illustrations. Perhaps it symbolised some sort of take over or invasion??? Were the bees attacking the birds... Birds and the bees??? Does it symbolise some kind of sexual war or tension?


These tents were here to advertise the exhibition space at the gallery along with a seperate feedback area for visitors to write comments and leave suggestions.

I realy liked the use of colour here in the oil on canvas piece "Helios" by Gillian Ayres. The paint has been applied so thickly it really gives a rich texture and feeling to the piece.

Fairy Tale exhibition

Yesterday Annette and I went for a look round Leeds Art Gallery down on the Headrow. The exhibition, titled Fairy Tale: Contemporary Art and Enchantment was a culmination of the work of six artists, each through their own media and creativity create their own representations of fairy tales from around the globe. In some cases their work retells famous tales whilst bringing them up to date in new and suprising ways. Others go about represting the tales in more abstract way, allowing the art to be charged with the mood and attmosphere of the story it tells.
In both cases some very interesting and inspiring pieces were created.
My personal favourite was this peice shown bellow.

Although you can't see it that clearly from this photograph, the artist has constructed a tiny paper castle in the far corner. The tiny castle, complete with turrets and towers is a perfect representation of the stereotypical fairy tale castle. The intricacy and attention to detial evident in the enire piece is incredible. The tiny castle appears to be the focal point fo the piece, the pivital point from which everything spreads. Although the initial wow factor is low, once you look closely you start to appreciate the details and delicacy of the piece. Im not sure which fairytale it is supposed to represent, or whether it infact has a deeper meaning, however, the artist really wants us to think about what a fairytale is, what it represnts, to appreciate the way these stories spread, pased on down the generations loosing none of their details and become stronger.

Another piece of interest was Vanessa Jane Phaff's representation of Little Red riding hood (Rotkappchen) The set of 20 red and black line drawings focussed on the more sinister darker side to fairytales. Each of the 20 pictures showed a part of the famous story.

Word Count

Ever wondered what words we use most??
Did you know that Love comes higher than Hate, that You comes higher than Me?
This site appealed to me with its simple typeographic layout and ease of use. The site, perhaps at first seems a little pointless, but i find it quirky and actually quite interesting. It also could be interesting to designers, authors and or anyone creating work that is to be exposed to the general public. Again, a site that uses an advanced graphic layout to deliver new information in an original yet simple form.








This site was developed using data from the British National Corpus, "a 100 million word collection of samples of written and spoken language from a wide range of sources. Word Count presents the 86,800 most frequently used English words, ranked in order of commonness. Each word is scaled to reflect its frequency relative to the words that precede and follow it, giving a visual barometer of relevance. The larger the word, the more we use it. The smaller the word, the more uncommon it is."

http://www.wordcount.org/

(of course I couldn't help but look up a few swear words, childish I know.)

10x10

I followed a link from the Howies website that took me to a very interesting and original site called 10x10. 10x10 attempts to display the worlds' daily events through a series of grid like picutres. Each picutre depicting a story of the days news. The site has a detailed archive of these grids that can easily navigated through to find a wide source of information. The uses an extremely original method of combining news and image to try and give an overall image of the world each day. It's really worth checking out, even just for the site itself.













10x10 describes itself as;

"an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10x10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10x10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life.

10x10 is ever-changing, ever-growing, quietly observing the ways in which we live. It records our wars and crises, our triumphs and tragedies, our mistakes and milestones. When we make history, or at least the headlines, 10x10 takes note and remembers."

I really recommend you give this a look.

http://www.tenbyten.org/