Nanami Cowdroy

Nanami Cowdroy

Nanami Cowdroy was born in Sydney, Australia with close bonds to her mixed Japanese-European heritage. Growing up with such contrasting cultures and surroundings, has greatly influenced her style of art and creative expression.

By intertwining complex characters and highly detailed objects her pieces reflect a juxtaposition between foreign and familiar entities and environments. Her imagination is illustrated through works which are elaborate and exotic. She is drawn to subjects, which may on the surface seem delicate or fragile, but are given strength and depth through her pen and ink techniques, intricate hand illustrative style and mixed media compositions.

Her signature detailed style reflects a refined monochrome pallette with her name 'Nanami' (meaning 'Seven Seas' in Japanese ) stamped in red. Fluid line-work, watery creatures and Goldfish are some of her favourite subjects, and distinctive forms which are featured in her artworks.

Art Deco Furniture Designs That Jazzed Up an Age

Art Deco Furniture Designs That Jazzed Up an Age

In terms of art, one of the more decadent sights in New York right now is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: a large gallery dense with French Art Deco furnishings from the museum’s design collection. Passing through this array can make visions of gray fox wraps, diamond-studded cigarette holders and Josephine Baker dance in your head.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/arts/design/11deco.html?_r=1&ref=arts

Andy Warhol?

Andy Warhol

I second that, Andy is the bomb.

Andy Warhol is the best! I can't believe this sold!

The Art Market: Seeing dollar signs

By Georgina Adam

Published: November 13 2009 23:46 | Last updated: November 13 2009 23:46

This week’s auctions of contemporary art in New York saw the market take a distinct upswing, with energetic sales culminating in an astonishing $43.8m given at Sotheby’s for a rare silk-screen painting by Andy Warhol. “This was an unbelievably strong sale,” said New York dealer Christophe Van de Weghe on Wednesday night. “People just wanted to spend money tonight, they were tired of holding back.” The auction house had just raised $134.4m in its 54-lot sale, well ahead of its high estimate of $97.7m (presale estimates do not include commissions; results do). Only two lots failed to find buyers.

While the Warhol was widely expected to beat its $8m-$12m estimate, many were astonished at how strongly it performed. Dating from 1962, “200 One Dollar Bills” comes from Warhol’s second series of serial images, and had a highly desirable provenance, having belonged to Robert and Ethel Scull, early patrons of Pop Art. According to Bloomberg, it was being sold by the London-based collector Pauline Karpidas. There were gasps in the saleroom when a Christie’s staffer on the telephone jumped to $12m immediately after the opening $6m bid, and applause and cheers rang out when the hammer came down at $43.8m.

“When you bring great quality you get great prices,” said one of two unsuccessful underbidders, the trader Alberto Mugrabi, whose family already owns several hundred Warhols.

Another Warhol on offer was a red-and-green self-portrait given in 1967 to Cathy Naso, then aged 17, who worked as a receptionist at Warhol’s Factory. She had kept the work in a cupboard until this year. “Fresh as the day it was made,” said auctioneer Tobias Meyer as he hammered it down to the London jeweller Laurence Graff for $6.1m, well over its $1m-$1.5m estimate. “I am overwhelmed by the price – Warhol made me famous for 15 minutes,” Naso commented, while Graff said, “It’s a gem!”

Expanding Islands of Trash

ABOARD THE ALGUITA, 1,000 miles northeast of Hawaii — In this remote patch of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from any national boundary, the detritus of human life is collecting in a swirling current so large that it defies precise measurement.

Scientists say the garbage patch is just one of five that may be caught in giant gyres scattered around the world’s oceans. Abandoned fishing gear like buoys, fishing line and nets account for some of the waste, but other items come from land after washing into storm drains and out to sea.

Plastic is the most common refuse in the patch because it is lightweight, durable and an omnipresent, disposable product in both advanced and developing societies. It can float along for hundreds of miles before being caught in a gyre and then, over time, breaking down.

But once it does split into pieces, the fragments look like confetti in the water. Millions, billions, trillions and more of these particles are floating in the world’s trash-filled gyres.

















































- Lindsey Hoshaw for The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/10patch.html?hp

Andy Goldsworthy a British Sculptor

Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist living in Scotland who produces site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. Goldsworthy works directly with nature and uses a variety of natural materials in his art including leaves, twigs, flower petals, pinecones, sand, snow and stone. Through the use of natural materials, Goldsworthy creates temporary and permanent sculptures which address issues of growth and decay. The idea behind much of Goldsworthy’s work is that artwork has a natural life that eventually must end.

Goldsworthy constructs his pieces using found instruments. These instruments are, for example, a stick with which he scrapes sand or thorns that he uses to stick leaves together. He also uses nature as a means to shape his works. For example, in some of his works he uses icicles, which go through a freezing and thawing cycle.

Following the theme growth and decay, he sometimes uses the negative processes of nature to illustrate to affects of nature in a life cycle. This best is illustrated when a sculpture made of sand is dismantled by the tide or when clay enveloping boulders burst during the process of drying.

Theo Jansen

Dutch artist Theo Jansen has been working for 16 years to create sculptures that move on their own in eerily lifelike ways. Each generation of his "Strandbeests" is subject to the forces of evolution, with successful forms moving forward into new designs. Jansen's vision and long-term commitment to his wooden menagerie is as fascinating to observe as the beasts themselves.

His newest creatures walk without assistance on the beaches of Holland, powered by wind, captured by gossamer wings that flap and pump air into old lemonade bottles that in turn power the creatures' many plastic spindly legs. The walking sculptures look alive as they move, each leg articulating in such a way that the body is steady and level. They even incorporate primitive logic gates that are used to reverse the machine's direction if it senses dangerous water or loose sand where it might get stuck.

Royale De Luxe Theater Company

Nantes, the home town of Jules Verne, is situated in western France. Here, near the river Loire a giant deep-sea diver sleeps gently, waiting for his task to begin. Sadness marks his face even as he sleeps. He has been searching the world over for his missing niece and although he may not know it, the end of his search is coming. The diver or scaphandrier as he is known in French will be paraded through the streets of this historic city at the beginning of the Estuary 2009 arts festival. The biannual festival gives the French mechanical marionette street theater company Royale de Luxe the opportunity to unveil their latest creation.

Water Bottle Chandalier pics

These are pictures of the water bottle chandelier.

The Recycled Water Bottle Chandelier

Recycled water bottle Chandelier. My first project for the class was a sculpture made from recycled water bottles. The original idea was to create a water catchment system from water bottles in the shape of a giant funnel. As the idea progressed it morphed into a chandelier instead. This is less functional than a water catchment system, but is still beautiful. With the lights off in the room, the chandelier emits light in the shape of the patterns on the water bottles which can be seen on the walls of the room.

Week 1

Oberg Utzon, AC (9 April 1918 – 29 November 2008) was a Danish architect most notable for designing the Sydney Opera House in Australia. When the Sydney Opera House was declared a World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007, he became only the second person to have his work recognised as a World Heritage Site while he was still alive.






















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Satoru Abe is an American painter and sculptor. He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1926. He attended President William McKinley High School, where he took art lessons from Shirley Ximena Hopper Russell. In 1948, after spending a summer at the California School for Fine Arts, he decided to pursue an art career in New York City and attended the Art Students League of New York where he studied with George Grosz, Louis Bouche and Jon Carrol. He married a fellow student and returned to Hawaii in 1950 with his wife, Ruth, and daughter Gail. After returning to Hawaii, Abe met local artist Isami Doi, who would become a close friend and mentor, and began a series of copper work experiments with fellow artist Bumpei Akaji. In 1956, Abe returned to New York and found a creative home at The Sculpture Center, where his original work attracted the attention of gallery owners and others. In 1963, Abe was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Abe returned to Hawai'i in 1970.




























Antoni Plàcid Guillem Gaudí i Cornet (25 June 1852–10 June 1926) – in English sometimes referred to by the Spanish translation of his name, Antonio Gaudí [3][4][5] – was a Spanish Catalan [6] architect who belonged to the Modernist style (Art Nouveau) movement and was famous for his unique and highly individualistic designs.

First Week of Classes

This is the first week of classes. I missed the first day of classes for ART 153 because I was still shopping for courses... There will be more for me to add once I get started on the coursework.

-Matt