Pablo Piatti's stunning "Baroque Impressions"

Wouldn't you like to live or spend some time in these lavish interiors painted by Argentinian artist Pablo Piatti!!

Pablo, when did you start this series on Baroque Impressions, and what inspired you?

I started this series on Baroque Impressions a month ago, triggered by Alexander Sokurov's film Russian Ark, which I probably watched 4 times since it came out in 2002.
The opulence and the feeling of fin de siècle is so tangible in the film, one can almost smell the scent of the oil paintings of the Hermitage galleries, the myrrh and incense hanging in the rooms filled with exquisite furniture carved in exotic woods.

Where are these magnificent interiors that you painted located?

Most of the interiors I painted are located in Germany and some in France. I didn't want to use specifically Russian palaces, that was the starting point and a quest for this kind of interiors where more is more, and also as a reflection of wealth in times when the rest of the population in those countries was struggling to survive.

From a more decorative point of view, I like to study the use of color and the proportions at that time, to see how timorous we are today when it comes to combine elements, furniture, curtains etc....
~~~Pablo Piatti

Pablo Piatti lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium.

PABLO PIATTI

Baroque Impressions

Marble Hall, Ludwigsburg Palace, Germany

Bedroom of Empress Eugénie, Musée National du Château, Compiègne, France

Dining-room at Herrenchiemsee Palace built for Ludwig II of Bavaria, Germany

Marie Antoinette's Cabinet Doré at Château de Versailles, France

Bedroom of Napoléon II in Compiègne. Musée National du Château, France

Oval Hall, Sans Souci Palace built for Prussian King Frederic the Great. Postdam, Germany

Dining-room at Herrenchiemsee Palace, Germany

Small interior at Weissenstein Palace, Pommersfelden, Germany

All images, courtesy and copyright © Pablo Piatti

Chinese New Year; The Year of The Snake

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR!!

Rice cakes, dumplings and long life

Via Chinese horoscope

Some offerings at a Chinese restaurant

50 Fabulous Frocks at the Fashion Museum in Bath, UK

This year 2013 the Fashion Museum celebrates its 50th anniversary in Bath. The 50 Fabulous Frocks exhibition will include the iconic and influential names of 20th century couture - Schiaparelli, Poiret, Vionnet, Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent - as well as today's most desired fashion designers and brands - Erdem, Burberry, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, Ossie Clark, Comme des Garçons and John Rocha. This display will show both the richness of the Fashion Museum's collection as well as key moments in fashion history that continue to provide inspiration for modern day designers along with makers of period TV dramas and films such as Downton Abbey, The Great Gatsby and Anna Karenina.

Also on display will be curious pieces from the Fashion Museum's world-class collection of original objects, such as a Champagne Dress worn at a fancy dress party in Edwardian times.

We hope that the 50 Frocks illustrate a 'slice' of the Fashion Museum collection, which numbers between eighty and one hundred thousands objects and has become a source of inspiration for fashion fans around the world. Some of the pieces in the show illustrate a personal wardrobe moment, while others mark an iconic moment in fashion history.
~~~Rosemary Harden, Museum Manager

50 Fabulous Frocks

Tartan Satin Dress, mid 1860s

Courtesy Fashion Museum, Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bath, UK

Champagne bottle dress worn by an unknown lady at a fancy dress party in 1902

Courtesy Fashion Museum, Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bath, UK

Ball dress of cream silk net embroidered in gold metal strip. late 1820s

Courtesy Fashion Museum, Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bath, UK

Bug jacket and dress by Schiaparelli, London 1938

Courtesy Fashion Museum, Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bath, UK

Gold lattice work and lace dress by Paul Poiret, 1925

Courtesy Fashion Museum, Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bath, UK

Black lace Rocha dress
Copyright © Chris Moore at Catwalking .com
Courtesy Fashion Museum, Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bath, UK

Red / Navy blue lace dress by Erdem
Copyright © Chris Moore at Catwalking.com
Courtesy Fashion Museum, Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bath, UK

White cotton lace dress and moulded leather collar, 1999 S/S collection by Alexander McQueen
Courtesy Fashion Museum, Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bath, UK

50 Fabulous Frocks

Fashion Museum, Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bath, UK

Exhibition opening day, February 2, 2013
Courtesy the Fashion Museum, Bath, UK

Alain Delorme's "Little Dolls"; A Contemplation of Children's Dreams and their Parents' Fantasies

The series Little Dolls questions the identity of the little girls who are playing with their looks as candidates of beauty contests. Through a pixel surgery as Alain Delorme puts it, he captures and changes the girls' looks and brings a sour criticism of how our society uses innocence.

Nowadays, little girls want to look like their idols: Lorie, Priscilla, Britney Spears… The “Lolita phenomenon” keeps growing, really ingrained in our society. These baby

women can be seen everywhere: on TV, in magazines, films, etc… My series “Little Dolls” questions

this phenomenon.

This work has been inspired by a photography of a little girl, taken for an advertising campaign of the

multinational company Mc Donald, an apostle of the standardization of the way of life. This little

blond head for magazines, as sterilized as the cake in front of her, was being offered a Barbie doll in

the end of the shooting. This gave me the idea of hybridizing her face with the one of the toy. A body

mutation operated by computer tools, in the same artistic line as Aziz and Cucher or Inez Van

Lamswerde. Creative works where one plays with pixels as a scientist does with genes, to recreate the

Man, the child here, at will.

The process is always the same: a little girl, a cake, a colourful background and the parents. Then the

transformation begins, thanks to a software retouching images. I apply a mask on the face of the little

girl and remodel the nose, polish the features and modify the carnation, change the colour of the eyes,

of the hair and recomb her. The background, position and proportions get standardized. This form of

digital plastic surgery erases the real, replaced by completely artificial image. However, despite the

lifting and relooking, I wanted to keep a certain idea of childhood. The hair can be somehow tangled,

the nails are not well-groomed, the clothes, the accessories remain and help producing an impression

of reality which leaves its identity to each image. This operative mode leads to a form of personalities

normalization.

The “Little Dolls” series is ambiguous. Neither family photography nor advertising imagery, the

representation oscillates between womanhood and childhood, fantasy and reality. The digital

technology subtly infiltrates the image, as the aesthetic codes of adults have impregnated the world of

childhood. The digital photographic creation that I present here with “Little Dolls” wants before all to

mirror our society, reflect the children’s dreams and their parents’ fantasies.

~~~Alain Delorme

Alain Delorme lives and works in Paris, France.

Alain Delorme

Little Dolls

 Astenza, copyright © Alain Delorme

 Emma © Alain Delorme

 Anissa © Alain Delorme

 Lilou © Alain Delorme

 Hanna © Alain Delorme

 Evencia © Alain Delorme

 Sarah © Alain Delorme

Tara © Alain Delorme

Courtesy of the artist
Alain Delorme is represented by Magda Danysz Gallery

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