'So Many Sub-Genres', 2009 Acrylic on Aluminium 125 x 120 cm
Super sweet still life paintings by Melbourne-based artist Dane Lovett, have a young, fun quality not unusually attributed to this style of painting. 2011 was a big year for Lovett, after being featured in RUSSH magazine’s art issue, the artist was invited to exhibit his first solo show, ‘Peach on Peach’, at Colette in Paris. He was also awarded the Australia Council Tokyo Studio residency. (more…)
Background Andéol 'Purple Atomic'; photography 'Pink on Pink' by Eleanor Ackland
Andéol (a special project of Think Positive textile designer Emilie Cacace) recently visited India to shoot its latest collection ‘Veda Maya’. The launch of ‘Vedas Maya’, a 20-piece digitally printed scarf range, will be accompanied by an exhibition of textile, illustration and photography by Andéol and friends.
Along with music by SLOWBLOW, food by SandwichFace, henna, plaited hair wraps and Indian-spiced punch.
6pm, 30th January 2012
Fraser Studios
10-14 Kensington Street
Chippendale
(left at the Clare Hotel, off Broadway).
Images from RUSSH, Vogue and Ossie Clark, with Vintage Library Paisley samples
Paisley is one of the most iconic and recognisable prints. The paisley motif originated in Kashmir, India, where it is known as the symbol of fertility, taken from the early shoots of the date palm. The design became very popular in Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom, in the mid-1700s. Original paisley shawls from Kashmir, brought back to Europe by the East India Company, were hand embroidered by Indian artisans and sometimes took up to 5 years to be completed. In some cases shawls were worth more than a London apartment! (Napolean Bonaparte’s wife is said to have used Kashmiri shawls for gowns, upholstery and bedcovers.) To keep up with the demand the Scottish town of Paisley began to manufacture the print, hence the name ‘paisley’, as it is known today.
By the late 1800s paisley was over-manufactured and out of fashion. Then came the 1960s and paisley was back – with a vengeance! Perhaps considered the print of the era, paisley was made famous by the likes of Mick Jagger and The Beatles, and admired for its exotic, elaborate aesthetic and Eastern influence suited to the hedonistic and rebellious hippie culture of the time.
After the spring/summer 2012 shows it would seem paisley is ready for a revival, featured in the collections for Jil Sander, Stella McCartney, Jonathan Saunders, J.W. Anderson, Haider Ackermann and Clements Ribeiro, where the rich earthy spice colours of 60s paisley have been replaced by pastels (Jil Sander and Jonathan Saunders) and blues (Stella McCartney and J.W. Anderson). Haider Ackermann’s paisley motif print was the only one that echoed the traditionally rich colours of the paisley print. Intricate and sensory, a new twist proves paisley to be a permanent…
The Spectator from kate shaw on Vimeo.
From her latest exhibition, 'Wilderness and Mirrors' shown at Sullivan and Strumpf November 2011
Australian artist Kate Shaw has extended her work on landscape painting creating a video titled ‘The Spectator’. The melting, moving quality of her paintings is brought to life as clips of pouring paint are layered with footage of natural disasters of the 21st century. Fascinated by the way the pouring paint can resemble motion in the natural realm – avalanches, lava flow, waves on the shore and landslides – Shaw’s paintings are created by pouring acrylic paint and looking for images within the patterns as they naturally form. She then samples pieces of the dried poured paint to create a larger image. The result is swirling hyper-coloured fantasy world, beautiful yet ominous. (more…)
Trippy collage art by Japanese New York-based artist Hisham Akira Bharoocha. (more…)
After admiring all of the hand painted signs of India we recently discovered a site that is working to preserve the art of Indian street painters. Many sign writers and street painters are rapidly going out of business with the development of desktop prints. Hand Painted Type works to collect the original font sets of these artists and convert them into digital files to serve as a record of their work.
This font was developed by Kafeel from Delhi. Visit the Hand Painted Type website here. (more…)
Andéol – the side project of Think Positive textile designer Emilie Cacace – has a new website! Her upcoming collection of digitally printed silk scarves “Vedas Maya” will be released in January 2012. Sign up the Andéol mailing list for updates.
It’s is rare for a menswear label to consider itself print-based – digitally print-based for that matter. London-based label Agi & Sam is the product of ex-Alexander McQueen interns Agape Mdumulla and Sam Cotton. Sam completed a illustration degree, while Agi graduated with a degree in fashion design, thus a label with a print focus seemed the perfect way to amalgamate these skills. Believing digital prints to be latent within in the industry, they hope to bring new life and depths to their print art.
For their Spring/Summer 2012 collection they began with the Mexican festival ‘El Dios Del Muertos (The Day of the Dead). It would seem thorough cultural research was an important part of the design process. Agi and Sam explain that after intensive investigation their interest was honed in on the workwear of early 20th-century labourers and farmers of Central America. In particular the story of kidnapped mine workers, known as the Bisbee Deportation. In 1917 Mexican American miners had been striking when they were captured by vigilantes, driven 16 hours through the desert, left in New Mexico without food or water and ordered never to return to Bisbee. Struck by the clash of cultures and the pervading social binary of the lawful and the lawless Agi and Sam developed vivid digital print designs representing these influences. The result: 3-dimensional weaves, traditional geometric Aztec prints, a blanket check with the texture of wool and bright dip-dye gradient prints. (more…)
Mother Ganges, Varanasi
Here are some photos from our trip to India taken on 35mm, medium format and Polaroid film by Eleanor Ackland. (more…)
Canine Cameo Silk Crepe de Chine; image from NY Swash stockist Maryam Nassir Zadeh
London-based design duo, Swash, create custom prints from their own illustrations and watercolours. Their muse: pet whippet Candy. (more…)
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