Elevating the Mundane to the Sublime; Mary Katrantzou A/W 2012

A pencil, a spoon, a hanger, a chess piece, a typewriter, an hedge: for autumn/winter 2012 Mary Katrantzou discovers the beauty in the everyday, transforming the banal into a stunning collection where product placement becomes placement print.

As always with Katrantzou, a simple concept becomes dazzling in execution: engineered around complex shapes, lavishly embellished or knitted into the fabric of the dresses themselves. No sequin is left unturned. With the collaboration of the Parisian couture embroidery house Lesage, a selection of one-of-a kind pieces is produced. Victorian bustles, hints of Elizabethan corsetry and elaborate, intricately shapes offer ample canvas for decorative exuberance. Pencils and erasers jump from print to starling reality.

Consistently, continually pushing her visionary technique forward, Mary Katrantzou creates a paen to pure color, potent print, and the wildest reaches of the human imagination. As she pointed out "Color is the fruit of life," a quote from Guillaume Apollinaire.

Mary Katrantzou

Autumn / Winter 2012

View more on the slideshow

Courtesy of Mary Katrantzou

Images Catwalking

OVERWORLD; Fashion Follies meet Mario Bros

Inspired by Mario Bros, the two mascots of Nintendo, "Overworld" is a fun animated collages from the duo fashion photographers Pamela Reed and Matthew Rader (AKA Reed + Rader). Enjoy this playful show!

Overworld

Copyright © Reed + Rader

Cushnie et Ochs's Dress, Y-3's Stripe Dress and Cardigan

Louis Vuitton

Rick Owen's Coat

Giorgio Armani's Jacket, Balenciaga's Dress

Thom Browne

Jean Paul Gaultier's Jacket and Shorts, Christian Siriano's Coat

Manish Arora's Jacket, Blumarine's Dress

Thom Browne's Fringe Jacket, Max Mara's Jacket, Sonia Rykiel's Top and Skirt

Courtesy of Reed + Rader / VMagazine
This post is featured on the Huffington Post

Leonora Hamill: " Art in Progress "

 Winner of the 2012 HSBC Prize for Photography, the Franco-British artist Leonora Hamill started Art in Progress three years ago while she was doing an artist's residency at the Academy of Fine-Arts in Guangzhou, China.

Art in Progress features a selection of images from Hamill's extensive exploration of art schools across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Her photographic series of empty studios contributes to a greater understanding of the vital role contemporary art plays in an ever more global cultural dialogue. Her images, shot with a large format camera, allow the viewer to imagine the artistic experimentations that took place in these schools.

Art in Progress will be on exhibit at Podbielski Contemporary, Berlin
From March 10 to May 5, 2012
Leonora Hamill's first monograph published by Editions Actes Sud, will be launched during the opening week of the Rencontres Photographiques d'Arles in July 2012.

Leonora Hamill lives and works in London and Milan.

Art in Progress

Copyright © Leonora Hamill

Sculpture I Paris, 2010

Drawing I Hanoi, 2010

Painting III Warsaw, 2011

Painting II Havana, 2009

Photography I Poznan, 2010

Sculture II Saigon, 2010

Sculpture I Baroda, 2011

Sculpture I Santiniketan, 2011

Sculpture I Tetouan, 2011

Painting I Krakow, 2009

Drawing I Liege, 2010 

Courtesy of Leonora Hamill
This post is featured on the Huffington Post

Graceful, Ephemeral and Opulent; The Art of Susie MacMurray

A first encounter with the work of artist Susie MacMurray inevitably places the viewer right at the centre of the key issue in her work - the tension between extremes of sensual and aesthetic response: Ying / yang; anima / animus; soft / hard; a dress / not a dress; love / death; freedom / constraint; power / submission.
--- Excerpt from the accompanying catalogue of the exhibit "The Eyes of the Skin" at Agnew's Gallery.

Susie MacMurray's use of materials is provocative and perturbing. A bridal gown is ironically made out of thousands of household gloves, an allusion on domestic reality. Each glove is turned inside out to reveal its pale downy interior, like flayed skin, they are testament to the vulnerability of humankind. Though disparate in their appearance, each of MacMurray's work is linked by its evocation of the body or the bodily. Transforming the banal - hairnets, balloons, wires, cling film, pins and household gloves - into the graceful and opulent, the creations emerge as spectacular sculptures.

Susie MacMurray lives and works in Manchester, UK. Her work was recently on show at the Victoria & Albert Museum's The Power of Making and has previously been exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, Manchester Art Gallery, Museum of Art and Design, NY, and the Museum of Architecture & Design, Los Angeles. Her most recent art pieces (The Eyes of the Skin) were on view at Agnew's Gallery, London.

Susie MacMurray

Garment Sculptures

A Mixture of Frailties, 2004
1400 yellow household gloves turned inside out, calico

Gladrags, 2002
10,000 fuschia pink balloons, rug underlay

Icon, 2002
15,000 metallic blue balloons, rug underlay

Widow, 2009
Black napa leather, 43 kg adamantine dress maker's pins


Feast, 2011
Food wrap, thread, steel bracket

Wax pieces
Anima 2011
Rubber air compressor hose, wax, steel bracket

Animus 2011
Rubber air compressor hose, wax, shell bracket

Swarm II, 2011
Wax, steel pins

Attachment 2011

Wax, fish hooks

Drawings

Gauze Bandage no. 6, 2011

Ink on paper

Stretched Hairnet no. 1, 2011

Ink on paper

Courtesy of Susie MacMurray / Agnew's Gallery

This post is featured on the Huffington Post