Author: tessafang

The Face2Face project (2007) is to make portraits of Palestinians and Israelis doing the same job and to post them face to face, in huge formats, in unavoidable places, on the Israeli and the Palestinian sides.

JR pasted these paired portraits up in locations on either side of the Separation Wall. The artist did not annotate the images, and so passers-by had to guess which face belonged to which side of the conflict. Despite the huge perceived differences, JR proved that little, visually, separated these two communities. 

Stuart Davis is an American painter that was well known in the 1940s and 1950s for his colorful and bold style. Davis often aimed to convey a political messages about marxism, class struggles, and the Great Depression through his paintings. Personally, I really love the way he can make odd shapes, striking colors, and text come together in a cohesive yet chaotic way.

ARTECHOUSE (Art + Tech + House) is an interactive art space that first opened in Washington D.C. in 2017. This space features several month long exhibitions that bridge art, science, and technology to create one-of-a-kind multimedia experiences. The space has featured works by innovative artists from all over the world who use technology as their primary medium. Since its opening, ARTECHOUSE has expanded to open locations in Miami Beach, FL and New York City, NY.

Favela Painting is a series of artwork in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that aims to collaborate with local communities to create public artwork. The three-work series was lead by Dutch artists known as Haas&Hahn with help from the locals of the area. The project was first ideated when Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn (Haas&Hahn) were struck by the poor living conditions of Favela and had a desire to transform the community and living environment through community-driven artwork. Eventually, Haas&Hahn envision coating the whole hillside of Favela in beautiful colors and artwork.

Marian Bantjes is a Canadian based artist that works in design, typography and illustration. She is especially know for her extremely detailed and precise vector art and her work has been published in more that 100 books/magazines. She regularly travels to speak at art conferences worldwide.

Helen Frankenthaler was an abstract painter that played a major role in The Color Field Movement of the 1950s. This abstract painting style explored colored, flat spaces independently from the traditional constraints of image making (such as line, subject, form, etc). Frankenthaler created her most influential work in 1952, entitled Mountains and Sea (pictured above). Part of the success of this painting was the invention of a new technique called the “soak-stain process.” In this process, Frankenthaler used turpentine to thin her paints and poured them onto a blank canvas. She then allowed them to soak completely into the surface, giving her paintings a unique style and texture.

Frankenthaler drew inspiration for this method from Jackson Pollock, who also laid his canvases on the floor, but poured  thick enamel paint onto them instead. Frankenthaler also decided to use an unprimed canvas which allowed the paint to soak completely into the material rather than accumulating on the surface.

The soak-stain process became an integral part of the Color Field Movement and was adopted by other abstract artists of the time.