Carol Dronsfield is a Brooklyn based photographer who uses advertising detritis as inspiration.
Her photography is used almost as a mosaic where she focuses in on a portion of a much parger image, often including areas of distress or detritis, and using that abstracted portion in part of a much larger work of art. The effect of of a fully formed abstract piece of work that stands apart from its original form and look.
Artists take risks in their materials but Nadia Martinez and her work with computer parts must deal with a larger array of potentially unhealthy materials. And yet, her sculptures, constructed with these discarded parts hold a certain poignancy and presence. She says, "El Bosque de Qualtron (Qualtron’s forest). - Qualtron was the name of a computer parts manufacturing company that went bankrupt after 20 years in business. I found an inherent beauty in the abandoned parts and created a forest out of the 100% man-made materials giving them a second life. Every sculpture represents something from nature, an animal, a tree, water, etc. or a memories from Honduras."
Her work has taken her to the Museum of Art and Design in New York City where she is an artist in residence every Friday until mid 2016. The museum notes that --
Nadia Martinez works in a variety of mediums, with her work reflecting on daily encounters and experiences that are often difficult to express in words. Martinez strives to make statements that are positive and uplifting and draws from her background in architecture to explore the interaction between humans and nature and the qualities that shape our faith and values today.
At MAD, Martinez will use computer parts to create sculptures and jewelry that respond to the inherent beauty in abandoned materials by giving them “second lives.” She uses assemblage techniques, along with mold making and casting methods. Martinez is also interested in visitor response, namely, visitors’ reactions to her work and how their insights and thoughts can inform her process.
Martinez studied architecture at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras and received a certificate in fine arts and a diploma from the National Academy School of Fine Arts, NY. Martinez exhibits in New York and internationally. For more information please visit her website: www.nadiamartinez.com.
Passionate about the world of photography, Lorna Barnshaw is devoted to
celluloid film, but more explicitly to camera-less techniques. She offers an usual medium - 3D printing - to create her art.
“Photographers were supposed to do more than just see the world as it is…they were to create interest, by new visual decisions.” (Sontag., 1979)
Barnshaw creates through a means of destruction, employing the material
nature of celluloid film that allows it burn, blister, mark and contort,
producing abstract still and moving images. By utilizing some sensitive compounds it became possible to create true
motion from a singular image, as opposed to the illusion of motion
generated by a series of images propelled at 24fps. In the ‘Still Movement’ series, motion was created with an application
of wax that melted and morphed with the heat generated from the lamp of a
slide projector.
The work explores the current coexistence of analogue and digital
mediums in both film and photography. Taking advantage of the
materiality of celluloid film and the ethereal elements of digital, the
two are united portraying a sense of nostalgia whilst welcoming the
future of technology. True motion can only exist in reality or analogue
format but it is digital that enables the work to exist everywhere. Key influences include artist, Tacita Dean and filmmaker, George Melies.
In her recent series she explores the latest innovations in 3D printing and augmented reality that morph the human form to become even more realistic and somehow magical. Mask-like human face sculptures form the ‘Replicants’ series. The series is inspired by creating digital simulacrums of the physical world. Barnhaw’s passion for the convergence of digital art and sculpting has led her to created a triptych of 3D Prints that represent human faces. Each facial sculpture has a different aesthetic depending on the different computer applications and software used in its creation, such as Autodesk, 3D scanning or computer animation. “I interfered with the software as little as possible, comparing the digital attempts at replicating reality”, Barnshaw expresses in her website.
Debuting in the art scene with no formal art training, Chiho Aoshima’s work transcends traditional techniques of representation. Aoshima uses computer software to create beautiful and erotic worlds of ghosts, demons, schoolgirls, and exquisite natural landscapes. Her work is printable on any surface; from canvas bags to giant wallpaper installations. “My work feels like strands of my thoughts that have flown around the universe before coming back to materialize,” Aoshima states.
Aoshima’s work has garnered international renown with a number of high profile projects. She collaborated with Issey Miyake in 2003, with her artwork featured in the spring/summer collection. In 2004, she was invited to participate in the 54th Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, where she unveiled her largest wallpaper piece to date, measuring 106 feet (32.5m ) in length by 15 feet (4.8m ) in height. In May 2005, as part of the Little Boy project, her ecologically-themed “City Glow” and “Paradise” series covered ad spaces throughout the Union Square subway station in New York, greeting commuters as they passed. In a solo show in 2005, Aoshima presented both her first sculptural work and a 5-screen 7-minute animation piece.
With a mastery of computer technology and a vocabulary of images drawn from Japanese comics and animation, the Tokyo artist Chiho Aoshima creates fantasy worlds in which hybridized creatures are participants in the composition's narrative as well as elements in a decorative scheme.
Magma Spirit Explodes. Tsunami Is Dreadful, a mural that spans a 40-foot wall, is a narrative of almost cinematic scope and complexity. Nature and humanity wreak havoc in myriad ways, from tidal waves to fiery conflagrations and war. These disasters, however, have been carefully choreographed; bright flames to the left of the composition give way in effortless transition to volcanic puffs of smoke that are in turn transformed into the blue-green expanse of a tsunami.
At the center of the mural, a giantess presides; she displays the round-eyed prettiness and flowing hair of a stereotypical animé ingénue. Belching smoke and snorting flames, arms and hair tendrils flailing wildly, she is soul and mistress of the mayhem, alluringly beautiful yet terrible in her anger.