Peeta

Teatro (theater) Marinoni, Venice 2012

Yespray graffiti Jam, Settimo Torinese, November 2012

Bosnia and Herzogovina, Graffiti Jam, September 2012

Paris, March 2013

Early on in the history of abstract art, painters gave up the illusion of depth and embraced the limitations of two dimensions. At the time it was an innovation, an acknowledgment of truth in art, but it also led eventually to a whole slew of painters who filled entire large canvases with a single undifferentiated shade of a single color. I won't even name names. But the illusion of three dimensions on a flat surface is just too appealing. It's a trick. Of course it is. Sometimes it can seem like magic, akin to a woman floating weightlessly over a table upon a stage. The artist here, Manuel Di Rita, from Italy, goes by the name Peeta. He started off as a graffiti artist, and though he also produces works on canvas for galleries along the same lines, it's the graffiti that appeals to me the most. Perhaps it's because of the context, in which the illusion, the trick, is augmented by the immediate and undeniable fact of the the flatness of the wall it's painted on. The dichotomy creates an almost immediate and visceral sense of delight. The work is fun. It needs no explanation. A child can appreciate it as easily as an adult and I mean that in the best possible way.
To see more go to his website: www.peeta.net or to his flickr page.

Matthew Picton

"Dresden - burnt"

"Dresden" - detail

"Dallas"

"Dallas" - detail

"Venice"

"Venice" - detail

I love maps. I love art. And so of course I love art maps and map art. Matthew Picton's work has involved maps for quite some time and his most recent pieces are beautiful sculptures that also incorporate text and sometimes imagery. These city maps portray some cultural or historical aspect of the particular place that will no doubt be familiar to most viewers. Dresden was notoriously fire-bombed in World War II resulting in horrific civilian casualties, and the artist recreates the scene meticulously scorching his model to reflect the scale of the damage. In Dallas John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The artist lines the route of the ill-fated motorcade through the city with images from that very day. His portrait of Venice uses pages from Thomas Mann's class novel "A Death in Venice" as well as the musical score for an opera based on the book by Benjamin Britten. Each piece is carefully layered with meaning, often referencing painstaking research. These details enrich the work without being required for immediate appreciation. There is something incredibly enticing about the three dimensionality of the maps that would no doubt make one want shift about over them, casting back and forth for different angles that subtly change one's perspective, and possibly to peer into the narrow roads and alleyways to get glimpses of fragmented words or images. It makes me glad that he provides at least one detail shot of each piece and usually more. There is plenty more of these maps on his website as well as many other bodies of work all worth looking at on his website: matthewpicton.com

Bijijoo

"Jacqueline and the Dragonfly"  oil on panel  24" x 38"  2012

"Alex and the Pill Bug"  oil on panel  36" x 24"  2012

"Alex and the Pill Bug"  detail

"Preparation for a Demonstration of a Pick-Axe"  oil on panel  13" x 19"  2013

"Ghost no. 1" oil on panel  24" x 36"  2012

Bijijoo is the presumed pseudonym of an artist in Portland, OR who is apparently obsessed with giant insects, decapitated celebrity heads, and people holding hams, just for starters. Not all of these obsessions are represented here - you'll just have to look through the rest of his work yourself. He is also, it turns out, a Ph.D. chemist (trained as a biophysicist), and quite possibly a satanist. Oh and a clown and a collector of broken dolls too. This is all as a way of pointing out that his art goes beyond the paintings and strays into areas of conceptualism and avant-garde humor. Have you ever heard of the giant goose that some claim haunts old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest? No? Well you can read all about it here. Did you know an episodes of the TV show "30 Rock" featured characters holding hams, and that the entire concept behind this was unfairly stolen from the mind of bijijoo? No? Well you can follow the course of his litigation here. The world of Bijijoo is a complex cascade of satyrical humor, where nothing is quite what it seems, or perhaps it is but also something more. But in the end it is the paintings, various series that operate around conceptual premises (Presidents holding hams, still lives with celebrity heads, etc.,) that are at the center of his creative enterprise. And the paintings have steadily matured over time allowing his dark humor to haunt the viewer with disturbing realism
visit his website: bijijoo.com.,
And for plenty more go to www.flickr.com/photos/bijijoo

Joana Garrido

untitled, digital,  2012

untitled,  digital,  2012

from a series "Buildings Have Feelings Too",  digital,  2011

"#4 Optiker"  digital,  2010

Sometimes digital art can be dismissed by people like me who still get their hands (and clothes and everything else) dirty with actual paints and brushes. But that's simply unfair. Every medium is it's own thing and new ones have as much to offer as the old. What is sometimes frustrating is how often digital artists try to mimic other media. Joana Garrido never makes that mistake. She loves the very noature of digital manipulation and although the pieces I've selected may not show it (I just grabbed what I ;liked the most) she tries a little bit of everything, pushing boundaries and finding out what kind of effects she can get, what works and what doesn't. In other words, she's an artist. And when her stuff works, as it usually does, it can be fairly breathtaking. These are not just backdrops for fantasy flicks and sci-fiction video games. They're images that stand alone, drawing the viewer into a singular visual experience. Enjoy.
You can go to her website at joanagarrido.com but it will just tell you to go to www.flickr.com/photos/onomatoh/