Artists Describing Their Art:
Istvan Szil - Istvan Szil/ crossingthetsdottingtheis Artist's Statement My work is based on the reconfiguration of materials and images . I alter objects and materials with the extreme sense of irony; choosing to address philosophical questions and cultural issues through employing succint humorous gestures. I constantly collect images from the internet , recognizing its search option as an unparaleled oportunity to gain access to wide variety of visual material. I alter the collected images by digital means to accommodate my comments relating to their source or context they were culled from. My sculptures enact visual stunts calling into question how objects are utilized within everyday life citing both the subtle marks that become embedded within objects and also also the effect that objects have within space. I am interested in the vocabulary of advertising and its ability to deliver the maximum of information in reductive , visual bites. Overall, my work shifts the use value of commonplace objects and images , through my subtle interventions. I invite the viewer to reflect upon these meticulously selected entities that are normally encountered within everyday life and by manipulating their functionality , I invest these objects and materials with a unique yet accessible sculptural presence. ...
Sarah Longlands - I trained at Bristol and Manchester, where I gained a BA hons and completed my post-graduate studies at University College London Slade School of Art. In the words of one of my collectors Ostensibly realistic, her work goes beyond this to explore the nature of reality, and of time and space. The artworks are refined, emphasizing her knowledge and meticulousness in the chosen medium. But her art is not just representational it also has a rare imaginative flair. The objects are changed into something which is beyond the original and which creates a kind of parallel ideal artistic reality. If this sounds a little like surrealism, then maybe that is not so far from the truth, but the work is subtler than that. Having previously exhibited in many exhibitions in both the United Kingdom and France, Gold Fish Galleries in Sarasota, Florida then in the Lincoln Centre in New York and done many commissions for people both in London, the provinces but also in The United States, I finished a commission from Cunard Line in 2003, through the art consultants Onderneming Kunst to do six oil paintings for the penthouses on board the new Queen Mary 2, launched in ...
Barbara Shepard - Although I had a grounding in many techniques and processes and an academic training in drawing and painting from nature, archetecture and the model, my early work became abstracted and sometimes it was in 3d or relief using mixed media. Gradually it honed down into painting and drawing mainly due to studio restriction and other themes to do with the body started to emerge. I moved away from abstraction and in the late 1980's and early 1990's themes were to do with redefining the feminine and picturing the female nude from a female perspective. My current work is concerned with different aspects of human expression and especially a different face of masculinity. It seeks to re-configure the male in art. I am interested in how this translates into the aesthetics of a pictorial image, creating beauty in composition, colour and mark making. Taken from a close up perspective, they explore female desire and male vulnerability. The male model is the observed rather than the observer. It isn't an attempt to do a role reversal and objectify the male but to illuminate aspects of male character little seen on public view. Composed of close up parts of ...