BEAUTY: Mixed Media--Haruki Ogawa

Japanese painter and mixed media artist Haruki Ogawa embeds paint and industrial materials in crystal-clear acrylic resin, creating arresting little cubes of texture.

Top to bottom: Conceptual Sculpture; Object #1; Object #5; Semi Object #2 (detail); Semi Object #2; Three Dimensional Drawing #1; Three Dimensional #2

Haruki Ogawa at Frantic Gallery:
http://www.frantic.jp/en/artist/artist-ogawa.html

BEAUTY: Ceramics--Pierre Williams

The mash-up sensibility of ceramicist Pierre Williams is wonderful. His figures are tattooed with a mix of classic blue and white Delft china patterns, chintz-like florals, modernist stripes, and stunning gold and silver metallic glazes.

http://www.pierrewilliamsceramics-art.com/index.htm

BEAUTY: Sculpture--Aron Demetz

Italian artist Aron Demetz has always worked with the human figure. His classical yet somehow minimal people have been rendered in bronze, in wood covered with pine resin, and now, in his latest series, distressed wood. But the distressing occurs only in certain areas, wearing away the torso, or back, or face of a figure. The results are compellingly tactile as well as disturbing, appearing as if a fungus is taking over a body. The shredded, organic grain of the wood is brought out but we are not used to seeing a person torn open, suggesting fragility and the layers of psychological states we all have under our "surface."

I was originally going to post only these photos of his distressed wood figures but after I went to Demetz' website, I became enamored of an installation he did several months ago (September 2012) as part of the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. Called "La credenza della memoria" or "the belief of memory," this fascinating installation was in the famed Caffe Florian, off the San Marco Piazza in Venice. Demetz built a replica of their original Chinese Room from 1858, and carbonized the entire space with a blow torch. Installed over the real Chinese Room, the blackened space references the meditation process, whereby an individual, in order to find one's own spirit, starts in chaos or darkness but moves toward light. The fire burns and purifies, and from this primordial place comes light and color. I love his addition of new-growth blossoms coming out of the charred ceiling and walls.

It all reminds me of Maarten Baas' "Where There's Smoke" chair which receives the same charring technique but then receives a tough, heavy layer of acrylic, sealing in the damage. Marvelous!

http://www.arondemetz.it/
http://www.maartenbaas.com/

Animal Furniture

Spanish artist Maximo Reira has crafted a series of zoomorphic luxury chairs. The octopus is especially wild...I can see using it in a very minimal interior where the focus would be on the form.

http://www.maximoriera.com/html/

BEAUTY: Sculpture--Mihoko Ogaki

Japanese conceptual artist Mihoko Ogaki's series "Milky Ways--Breath" features fibre-reinforced plastic figures of dying or dead people with entire galaxies or even universes inside them. Small holes in the surface of the figure allow star maps to be projected onto the surrounding walls. This simple yet profound image is breathtaking in its scope of meaning. The pieces are rife with the ideas of cycles, transformation, transmogrification, macro and micro, and our connection and place in the reality around us.

http://www.mihoko-ogaki.com/index.html

I am sure I have posted these images before, but here they are again because they are so relevant to the art of Ogaki.