Banksy

Banksy's work fascinates me. There was a time where I just saw his work as just well thought out graffiti. Only now after really starting to appreciate it I have begun to realise that a lot of his work is a statement on the world he lives in. If you take a look at Banksy's website he explains his work in New Orleans and I appreciate how much he values what graffiti actually means to inner city culture. I was particularly interested by his comments about New Orleans' phantom Grey Ghost (see below), "he's done more damage to the culture of the city than any section five hurricane." That's a very powerful statement in favour of graffiti.



I love some of the work and you have to think that a lot of planning goes into each and every one of his pieces. Something that you perhaps can't say of other graffiti artists who act upon instinct. I especially love his "Rat Girl" piece where Banksy has been opportunist in his creating of a rat out of cracked plaster on a wall. Brilliant.






This last piece is from back home in the UK and as a visual piece is so successful. You would stop and take notice of something like this just like the workmen in the photo.

Headingley Triangle Arts Festival

http://www.triangle.org.uk/artday.htm

Last Sunday, after going to the Saltaire Arts Trail, I attended the Headingley/Cardigan Triangle Art Day. This day follows in a similar fashion to the Saltaire festival as residents open their houses up to the public to show off art work from local artists. It was again a nice chance to have a look at what was being produced locally and gave me some real ideas, especially when it comes to photography for my projects. Again I would recommend this annual event when it comes around again next year.

There poster could do with a rethink though...is it a Microsoft Word job?...

Saltaire Arts Festival

http://www.saltaireartstrail.co.uk/

Last week was the Saltaire Arts Trail in Saltaire, Bradford. As part of the annual Saltaire Festival the public are invited to walk around the streets, halls and houses of Saltaire which display the work of artists, photographers, sculptors and designers alike. The picturesque world heritage site Saltaire was the perfect backdrop for the event and the work on display was very impressive. It was a nice chance to take a look at the amateur work out there and it was a chance for them to display their work for free. There was the chance to purchase work but I found it nice to just walk around, take it all in and perhaps even take inspiration from some of the work on offer. It was my first experience of the festival and I look forward already to the event next year.

On another note I was very impressed by the brochure design (available on the website) and the website design, as you would expect from an arts festival. It did make me laugh that the arts festival falls under the main Saltaire festival and the website for that is awful...take a butchers...www.saltairefestival.co.uk

Some of the brochure pages are below...

Liverpool Skyline - Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/liverpoolcityscape/index.aspx

As part of the Liverpool Capital of Culture celebrations and events Ben Johnson has created an 8ft by 16ft painting of Liverpool's cityscape. It has taken him and his 11 assistants three years to paint.

The 8ft by 16ft canvas includes several thousand individual buildings from a vantage point high above the River Mersey.

Johnson took over 3000 reference photographs, consulted architects and historians and produced thousands of detailed drawings before undertaking the painting.

This is not the first cityscape that Johnson has created having already created them for Jerusalem, Zürich, Hong Kong, Chicago and Paris.

The paintings are unbelievably detailed and earlier in the year you could go to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and watch Ben at work. The result now is fantastic and well worth seeing.

Jeffrey Milstein

Jeffrey Milstein is an American photographer whose latest project, Aircraft, featured in June's Creative Review, focuses on the "The Jet as Art".

Standing at the end of LAX airport runway Milstein photographed the undersides of incoming aircraft to look at the designs that distinguish companies from competitors and plane models from others.

A somewhat boring medium you would think but what the photography has captured is the beauty of the machines by removing all motion and simply placing the images on a white background.





http://www.jeffreymilstein.com/

This project of Milstein's is available in his book "AirCraft, The Jet as Art," published by Abrams.

I was reminded of the project after looking at the stamps created by True North for the 100 years of motor sport. Both using the idea of removing all motion to represent the beauty of the machine.

Some of Milstein's other projects are also very intriguing, especially his project "Industrial Archeology". Examples of this project are shown below.

Street Art in Toronto

These images are again taken in the heart of Toronto. To watch this guy in action was fantastic and there was an immense sense of respect for what he was doing. In a busy street that is crowded at the best of times the public did not walk on his work, instead they stopped and admired even for a few seconds. Debatable whether that would be the same in the UK.