Inspired by his youthful skating days, artist and filmmaker Scott Ogden merged the vibe and culture of street skating with art.
Now, Ogden andI-20 Gallery in Chelsea transformed an ordinary white-wall gallery into a group exhibition curated by Odgen and gallery director Jonathan Lavoie featuring art “decks”–skateboards–with art by artists like Kenny Scharf, Chris Dorland and Debra Hampton.
The decks are fully functional and come in two types: limited-edition silk-screened skateboards and one-of-a-kind decks designed by hand, and all available in a working pop-up skate shop called MAKE Skateboards.
“My first interaction with art was in a skate shop. I wanted to take what I enjoy and like and recreate this vibe into a fantasy shop,” Ogden said in an exclusive interview with “the bare square.”
While the skateboards float on the gallery’s walls, the rest of space is home to vintage objects, rotating pieces of artwork, skate-related accessories, custom furniture (arranged for sitting and admiring the artwork), and clothing by emerging New York designers. Visitors can also see some of Ogden’s personal throwback boards and vintage artwork hidden in the corners .
Ogden keeps the gallery fresh by rotating the furniture in the back and playing around with the colors of the wall on a regular basis.
But the focus and centerpiece is still the art.
"I-20 Gallery" installation of art skateboards.
Odgen would like to continue with MAKE Skateboards, and will be heading to St. Louis to showcase his exhibit and pop-up shop at the White Flag Project.
“I want to continue to explore with this idea and this project helped me figure out what works and what doesn’t for the future,” said Ogden.
Positioned in the backroom of the gallery, the decks make quite a show, and even include video art. Artist Jenn Ruff filmed her teenage niece in Brooklyn and displays the short video onto a board (lower left), projected from a hidden camera tucked in a miniature ramp.
Artist Kenny Scharf loves to repeat these colorful faces in some of his artwork, making his work especially distinctive. Readers of “the bare square” may recognize a familiar face on the piece Scharf created for Firestone’s exhibit. (We covered Eric Firestone Gallery’s exhibit on nose art, which also featured Scharf’s work.)
Check out some of the hand-made skateboards below, examples of the silk-screened decks located at the front of the gallery.
Art “Deck”-o. hand-painted and video art skateboards at 1-20 Gallery. Exhibit closes Saturday.
I-20 Gallery collaborated with community groups, including L.A.N.D. Studio & Gallery, a creative-outreach program for artists with disabilities. A few pieces of the art created by the L.A.N.D. artists at can be seen at MAKE Skateboards and I-20 Gallery.
The exhibit and shop will close this Saturday after a two-month run. But no worries! In case you don’t get a chance to see the exhibit before Saturday, Ogden is currently working on a e-commerce website specifically for the MAKE Skateboards exhibit and the accessibility for anyone to buy the boards at any time. Make sure to check out the main website of MAKE Skateboard to find out when the website launches!
Meanwhile, the video below gives a little overview of the evolution of the genre from “board graphics” to skateboard art. Enjoy!
Anyone who goes to Venice during the annual Carnevale di Venezi festival will see the canals, the architecture, the colorful masks, and the dramatic, impressive costumes. But if you’re especially lucky, as I was, you might see something unexpected.
As I was shuffling through the narrow and crowed Venetian streets this April, I literally stumbled on a man on his hands and knees rapidly chalking away with his colorful pastels. After getting up and dusting myself off, I saw a Greek goddess reaching out to an immense crowd of onlookers.
Street painting or chalking dates back to the 16th century in Italy. Artists would re-create their work, originally portrayals of religious imagery in churches, on the streets.
Five hundred years later, street artists have taken this craft to another level. Using the anamorphic effect, (a distortion technique which requires viewers to either use a specific device or stand at a specific vantage point to see the image) artists transform flat surfaces into extraordinary 3-D scenes.
Artists fill the streets with images from Renaissance classicism to abstract expressionism. The chalk painting, the concrete surfaces and the architectural surroundings all become part of a 3-D illusion.
Some of the well-known anamorphic street artists include German born 3-D art illusionist Edgar Mueller andKurt Wenner, known for introducing 3-D pavement art in the 80′s.
Mueller has created incredibly detailed pieces focusing on water. Check out this video of the making of Edgar Mueller’s famous Crevasse in Dun Laoghaire.The Bare Square has written about the inspirational use of water in art before!
Wenner likes to mix Renaissance classicism with modern imagination to create exceptional anamorphic images.
Edgar Mueller's Crevasse in Dun Laoghaire.
Another one of Edgar Mueller's chalk paintings seen through a camera with the "bird's eye" effect.
These paintings can last anywhere from a few days to over a year depending on the climate, frequent movement of pedestrians and cards among other factors.
Although 3-D anamorphic art can be categorized as a style of graffiti, anamorphic moves away from the traditional style of displaying images and words. Anamorphic art lets viewers engage and interact with the images.
U.K. based artist Julian Beever
Kurt Wenner
I know I will forever remember the 3-D artwork of Venice–long after it disappears from its concrete canvas on the street.
posted by admin in Street Art and have Comments Off
[Editor's note: This is the final part of The Bare Square's 6-part series describing alternative media. At these links, find and enjoy the earlier articles covering art on water, egg cartons, hands, aircraft nose artand marker art.]
The beauty of nature often inspires artists–landscapes, nature artists, plein air, etc. Today we look at artwork where nature is the medium for the art.
Spanish artist Lorenzo Durán is known for his series of cut-away leaf art. Each work is unique because of the forms and colors achieved before and after dying, and his deft and detailed cutting hand.
"Sheet 16", Lorenzo Duran, leaf (2011).
Duran creates his works in Guadalajara, Spain, and sells them via his website. However, you won’t find prices on his site. He sells his art “Voluntad” or “At Will”. It seems the buyer sets the price (except for shipping) based on what the buyer thinks is fair.
"Deer", Lorenzo Duran, leaf (2011)
New York artist Lai-Chung Poon, a long-time nAscent Art New York artist, created a series of artworks incorporating leaves and flowers and conveying her relationship and connection with the flora.
"Cyclamen", Lai-chung Poon, Watercolor, plants and ink on watercolor paper (2008)
The muted colors of the pressed flowers contrast with the bright colors of her palette, and the connection with nature is striking and expressive. She also displays the formal name of the plant typographically, adding to the personality, beauty, and meaning of the pieces.
"Rose", Lai-chung Poon, watercolor, plants and ink on watercolor paper (2008)
We hope you enjoyed reading about these alternative media as much as we enjoyed sharing it over the last couple of weeks. If you have tips on other new and exciting media you’d like to share, e-mail us at baresquare “at” nascentartny “dot” com.
Please check back every weekday for the most unique views, the latest exhibits, and newest insights on fine art you’ll find on the web…or anywhere.
Share with your friends, click “Like”, and stay tuned for a special announcement!
[Editor's note: This is part of our 6-part series describing the alternative surfaces artists use to display their artwork. Read the first three parts about art on water, egg cartons and airplane "nose" art!]
A Kentucky man thought his basement looked a little bland, so he covered his walls with something new and unique. Inspired by Picasso and author Agatha Christie, he bought $10 worth of markers, and covered the walls of his basement with themed, all-black drawings.
Now, the medium of markers, Sharpie pens, gel pens, and highlighters are nothing new. The younger crowd of marker artists like to display their designs on accessories like shoes, bags and hats. But artists are using their ink on some pretty imaginative surfaces to create vivid designs and images; not just on walls.
Take, for example, the styrofoam cup, a product used everywhere for coffee and picnics, then just dumped in the trash.
In a brilliant stroke of aesthetic recycling, a California artist took the ordinary white Styrofoam cup and transformed it into something worthy of display.
The California artist, Boey, started drawing on the cups as a hobby back in 2006, but his fashionable-looking cups are now sold for hundreds of dollars around the world.
Each cup takes a few hours to several months to complete. Some of theimages, specifically portraits of people and animals, are created by using a pattern of dots. You will never want to drink out of this cup!
Another creative canvas for sharpie artists like Boye is the body of a car. Here’s a $200,000 Lamborghini covered with hand-drawn Sharpie designs and a clear coating. It took more than 1,000 hours to complete.
In April, we wrote about the Volvo S60 Art Sessionwhere 10 street artists spent 5 days painting a Volvo S60 in Zurich, creating layer after layer of unique artwork.
nAscent artist Eddie Alfaro has long specialized in delicately crafted fine artwork created using Sharpies. One of his works is shown below.
Think you have Sharpie skills? If you want to show off what you can do with a Sharpie, submit your artwork for this YouTube event which will be posted on YouTube on Aug. 27. Send us what you entered and tell us how you do!
- Kulsoom
posted by admin in event,news and have Comments Off
[Editor's note: This is part of our 6-part series describing the alternative surfaces artists use to display their artwork. Read the first two parts about art on water and egg cartons!]
Airplane “Nose” Art: This decorative painting is a long tradition in U.S. aviation. Pilots and maintenance crews during the World Wars would show off their creativity and pride (and some repressed sexuality) by putting art on their flying machines .
Crews would decorate their aircraft with all types of images and slogans. Often they depicted popular cartoon characters in their paintings and designs, or they adapted a graffiti style, which was the earliest style of nose art (sometimes nice, sometimes naughty).
But the most popular subject for these men were women: film stars, mother figures, girlfriends back home, wartime heroines–even Betty Boop.
Curator Carlo McCormick concluded an exhibition last Sunday called Nose Job at Eric Firestone Gallery in East Hampton, featuring the noses of abandoned Air Force aircraft.
Firestone and McCormick collected a wide range of nose cones from airplanes in various shapes and sizes. The two invited a collection of contemporary artists to take these artifacts and turn them into pieces of fantastic art. This is quite a creative act of aesthetic recycling!
Kenny Scharf's 'Coney" (2011) made with spray paint on aircraft nose cone.
A few months ago, “Jen Recommends” noted a show at the Paul Kasmin Galleryfeaturing the works of the L.A. street artist Kenny Scharf, one of the artists for the Nose Job exhibition.
Richard Prince's "Destroyer" (2011) made with a collage and acrylic on aircraft nose cone
Swoon's "Untitled" (2011) of mixed media on aircraft nose cone
If nose art isn’t for you, look through The Bare Square Store for artwork created by the world’s finest emerging artists starting at $20.
