baby art blog

o.m.f.o. - omnipresence
aes dana - leylines
lee perry / dubblestandart / ari up - return from planet dub
dub terror - dub terror

ahilea - cafe svetlana
binder and krieglstein - alles verloren
don peyote - eternal now
h.u.v.a. network - ephemeris
kanka - sub.mersion
kiril dzajkovski - [all soundtracks]
manyfingers - our worn shadow
mitsoura - dura dura dura
mondkopf - galaxy of nowhere
murcof - the versailles sessions
ozric tentacles - the yumyum tree
paniks - ethnotica
peter hammill - thin air
project zlust - incubator
string forces - silky way
sub dub - sub dub
tzolk’in - haab’
venetian snares - horsey noises
watcha clan - [everything]

art pants for art bums

issue 42 of xfuns in the post which is, primarily, a digital art magazine from taiwan - this is something else i don’t know how/where distributed but it’s rather splendid and it includes me! - if you think of “hi fructose” magazine as a less grotty version of juxtapoz, think of “xfuns” magazine as a less grotty version of “hi fructose”! - it has interviews (all in english) and several pages of art devoted to the subjects listed below, divided into three sections:

computer graphics: soa lee, loic zimmermann, cris ortega, michael kutsche, pascal blanche, aoki takuto

dark illustration: natalie shau, trevor brown, gerald brom, jennifer perry, tama, ueda fuco, brian w viveros

geometry art: jan kruse, joao oliveira, arnaud loumeau, maroto

each artist gets asked some similar questions (like “could you describe your work process?”) so it’s interesting to compare the answers each person gives - highlight of the tb interview:

Which artists or people do you admire most?

I admire many artists. Too many to list or pick out favourites. I’m jealous of the talent of many younger artists. But, although I sound quite negative about my own artistic abilities, if I’m honest and shamelessly lacking modesty, I would say the artist i admire most is myself! (~laughs!~). I’m more interested and curious to see what Trevor Brown does next more than anything else.

a self-published (?) ken-ichi murata post card set - printed on matt card which loses some detail in the darker areas but the quality is very nice - they come packaged in a translucent brown envelope and plastic-bagged - price 1700yen - more info here - i have two extra sets myself if anyone anxious to get their hands on them and can tempt me with something to send in exchange

related post: princess in the underworld

new-ish book of the photography of shuji terayama

Rubber Duck is the newest collection of works by Karen Hsiao. Brightly lit and highly stylized, each piece features a girl sitting in a bathtub with a rubber duck incorporated into the composition.

The first series in the Rubber Duck collection, The Black Ducks, debuted in May 2008 at the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, CA. The show garnered Hsiao a book deal with Babytattoo Publishing. Her first book is set for release sometime in spring 2010.

“wtf” says suzanne taking the words out of my mouth in (once again) exposing certain suspect slight similarities to a trevor brown painting, namely “rubber duck” - also li’l miss sticky kiss in the above “piece”, just for good measure - kinda amazing that someone can take the idea from just one of my paintings and make a whole book out of it - but of course that’s the typical tenuousity of “fine art photography” (especially the proliferation of self-nominated amateur fine art photographers) - and similarly typically, i doubt i will be acknowledged as the source inspiration - but whatever, why should i care?, i should be happy my work is so incredibly brilliant everybody can’t stop swiping my ideas

the doll is old, the props (gachapon toys) are new, the photography is inept : )

a shrine to my work has been built (with permission) on second life - sl as it’s referred to, is “a free online virtual world imagined and created by its residents” - for me literally a whole new world i know next to nothing about as yet, and have actually deliberately avoided as it looks like a potential timesucker - anyway, you can visit the trevor brown hospital at this location - tho, as i write, you get a notification: “your desired location not currently available - you have been moved into a nearby region” …so i guess it’s still being worked on - it’s being constructed by gattina dumpling (of the hotel dare project) who has just supplied me the following pix and blurb

I was Trevor Brown when I was a child.

I had Barbie dolls, jointed arms and thousand-yard come-hither stares, plastic legs that were easily broken and discarded amongst crayons and rubber Princess jewelry at the bottom of my toybox. Barbie now with a new haircut, shorn with red safety scissors and her tiny doll head exposed, black magic marker painting her lips and electrical tape tightly wound around her curvy synthetic body. I think, as a rule,most forms of doll extreme makeovers performed by little girls are done to Barbie and her counterparts , we are more careful with our babydolls, we tend to nurture them and adore them until we get our first Barbie, and then they are thrown into a pile to be forgotten, they have no pink Trans Am, no townhouse with working elevator, no breasts to be at once fascinated by and terrified of.

But Trevor plays with babydolls too.

I had seen his work in Answer Me! in 1994 and was reintroduced to his work when he illustrated the cover of a book I was in that was published in 2000. Pigtailed nurses crouching in corners surrounded by shiny medical implements, amputee latex-clad fetish doll parts piled in a corner, tiny, gossamer winged fairies impaled on metal spikes with blood gushing from their chest cavities. Bruised and bandaged with braces and cervical collars, black-eyed dolls squint at the viewer, a necklace of barbed wire and sharp razor blades encircling their tiny throats.

“Pornographic”, “Disturbing”, “Exploitative”, “Offensive”..

I don’t feel it. Maybe because I’m a japanophile and have a penchant for anything girly. I am also quite fond of medical art, and medical equipment as fashion accessories. Trevor’s art is all of this, cute and shocking and humourous and … I think his art is for girls. Girls get it. Girls who mutilated our Barbies and ourselves, girls who carved the names of teenage boyfriends into our forearms with dime store razorblades, girls who pierced our own noses while sitting on the bathroom counter, sucking on a cherry blowpop to distract us from the pain.

Girls who wear legbraces and are always on the lookout for the perfect bloody skin. Girls who swoon over Blythe dolls and have Tokyo dreams.

We are honoured that Trevor has allowed us to showcase his work at The Hotel Dare. All images are copyright Trevor Brown. For more of his amazing art, please visit http://www.pileup.com/babyart/

This room was made possible by Gattina Dumpling, Daniel Luchador, Katat0nik Pidgeon, Marie Lauridsen, Allegory Malaprop and Helianthus Mesmer.

kiddies on the game forums currently squabbling over whether “prototype > infamous” - of course none of you baby art blog readers could give a toss but as i’ve nothing better to post about i’m gonna add my more adult and superior considered objective tuppence worth - prototype is shite, infamous pwns, nah nah nah! - both games are a “next gen” mature and sophisticated(?) re-take on the old comicbook rubber underpants and tights superhero thing - your choice is a nerd with a silly backpack (infamous) or a nerd with a silly hoodie (therefore must be effing kewl) (prototype) - infamous (i’m near the end of playing) involves zapping baddies and clambouring over a richly detailed post-apocalyptic (yay!) cityscape - prototype (never played) involves excess use of the eff word and excessive gore (told you, mature and sophisticated!) and flying about amidst crappy cardboard boxes with windows painted on them cg - tbh, i was really preparing to hate infamous after, while waiting for my pre-ordered copy, i heard some hyper reviewer foaming at the mouth with a stream of inanities like: “…you get awesome powers which each have three awesome levels of awesomeness which is totally awesome..” - hmm, level four retardation! - but turns out the game is in fact awesome - and prototype (never played) is poo poo, so there!

by rogner5th