In this essay, Anthony Waichulis, a celebrated Trompe L’Oeil painter and co-founder of Ani Art Academies, answers a question often put to him by his students, ‘How do you get your paintings to look so realistic?’ He answers with a question of his own: ‘What does realistic look like?’
Read MoreWomen as subjects for admiration, representation and decoration, assume a prominent position in the art of J. Louis. Specific models seem to typify Louis’ style, lending inspiration to the artist. Their slight figures are elongated and sometimes placed horizontally within a tall, narrow format, which aesthetically enriches the composition and catches the beholder off guard. His women are often found reclining in languor, with flushed cheeks and gazes that are alternatively piercing and hazed by ecstasy.
Read MoreSalman Khoshroo’s diverse oeuvre encompasses many styles of painting, and, more recently, sculpture. ‘Head Jig’ (2017) and Entwire Series (2017-) use brightly coloured electrical wires wrapped around a wire frame to form the shape of a ‘human’ or ‘post-human’ head. In fact, Khoshroo’s evolution from painting the human to sculpting the post-human reflects the philosophical thought of the visionary futurist, FM-2030, as well as that of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. ‘Head Jig’ and Entwire Series’ ‘HEADMA01’ and ‘HEADFB01’ thus offer a clever commentary on aesthetic and philosophical concerns of the last forty years.
Read MoreDenis Sarazhin’s Pantomime Series (2016-) forecloses ‘language’ in returning to the painterly and figural. He focusses our attention on the body by cleverly frustrating the viewer’s instinctive glance toward the subject’s face. In this way, the artist challenges us to reconsider the communicative potential of the body. Compellingly painted; they reward contemplation. Sarazhin’s ‘return to the body’ without reference to the ‘face’ is an important contribution to the post-language debates that reverberate inside and outside the gallery
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