Dennis Cooper + Gisèle Vienne
These eerie, alluring, adolescent life-size dolls were created for the theater/performance pieces collaborated on by writer Dennis Cooper and Gisèle Vienne since 2004. As Cooper says, “We consider the dolls to be actors in our works almost on a par with the human performers, and, although the dolls aren’t credited individually in the works, they each have names and fictional biographies constructed by Gisele. These biographies are used to determine which roles might be suited to their ‘personalities’. Some of the dolls have been featured in multiple works, and several have played both male and female roles.”
Tags: bizarre, blood, dolls, eerie, expressive, innocence/menace, life-sized, lolita-esque, performance art, sinister arts and crafts, surreal, symbolism, theater, trauma, uncanny, white
“Femme Fatale” at Cella Gallery
Femme Fatale, a show exhibiting the work of over 35 contemporary artists, curated by Nicole Bruckman and Stephanie Chefas, is open at Cella Gallery in Los Angeles from February 25th to March 17th. A sample of the works featured is below.
L’ingenue by Stella Im Hultberg
A Letter to Three Wives by David BrayTags: 1950s, alien beauty, art shows, enlarged eyes, femininity, hauntingly beautiful, innocence/menace, lolita-esque, lolitaism, otherworldly, pop surrealism, queens, realism, religious imagery, retro, sexuality, stella im hultberg, sweet/melancholy
Lost Fish’s Alice
These beautiful images are from the book Alice, à travers le miroir, a French edition of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There illustrated by Lost Fish (see my previous post on her).
Tags: (twists on) traditional art, alice in wonderland, children, cute little girls, dollflesh, fragility, historically inspired, illustrations, innocence/menace, lolita-esque, lost fish, neo-victorian, pop surrealism, porcelain, precious, queens, red and white, surreal, sweet/melancholy
Mark Ryden Print
Yay, I received my very own print of Mark Ryden’s Puella Animo Aureo today! It shall go next to my Dilka Bear print.
Tags: lolita-esque, mark ryden, pastel, pop surrealism
Poor Little Dears: The Sinister and Mysterious Childhood Depictions of Hikari Shimoda
Hikari Shimoda‘s creepy paintings of children depict them as sweet, sinister, wounded and abused. The eerie mouths, asymmetrical, strange little faces and one-eyed appearance (often one milky eye, one bruised and bloody-looking) of these alien but painfully familiar little beings, rendered in bright or pastel, almost child-friendly, but also quite subtly mixed and profound, colors, all serve to give a creeping sense of the corruption of innocent childhood, an inversion of the saccharine bliss associated with little children.
As Shimoda explains in her artist’s statement, “Contrasting with my daily cheerful demeanor, my unexpressed emotions accumulate inside of me. I feel like an outsider, isolated, lost, and have a hard time building relationships with others, but I never give up being part of the world. The secret to survival? Observe, feel, and listen to yourself. I stand in front of my canvas and confront it, releasing all the built-up unverbalized emotions, the chaos, and the unnoticeable darkness. Even though I know my contrasting side will be shone in the light with no place to hide, I paint to live and to be connected in this world. I accept and understand myself more through my artistic processes than anything else. As I know myself more, I can see others better.
My motif is mainly children. They are nobody, and yet, they could be somebody. They could be me as a small child, or they could be somebody’s inner child. Children, as ambiguous of an existence as they are, reflect my personal world and the universal problems that society today has.”
Tags: bandages, bizarre, bruises, children, colorful, cute n creepy little creatures, distorted bodies, dollflesh, injuries, innocence/menace, lolita-esque, mute, neo-victorian, pastel, surreal, twins/doppelgangers/doubles, unnaturally colored flesh, wound
Sas + Colin: Colin Christian
Colin Christian makes larger-than-life sculptures of space-girls, aliens, and femme fatale creatures, in a style I dub cyber retro-erotic which takes influence from many different subcultures. Statuesque and cast in fiberglass and silicone, these cartoonishly exaggerated, indomitably perfect figures with piercing, gigantic, pellucid eyes, featuring campy titles such as Adventures on Planet Freud and The Callgirl of Cthulhu, are a sort of oddball mixture of his diverse inspirations, including “old sci-fi movies, pinup girls/supermodels, anime,” and “H. P. Lovecraft.” I find some of his work to be not to my taste, bordering on obscene or downright creepy (not to say disturbing), but these pieces below I do like. Also check out Sas’ art in the previous post.
Tags: alien beauty, bizarre, cartoony, cyber aesthetic, distorted bodies, doll-like, enlarged eyes, erotic, fetish, futuristic, life-sized, lolita-esque, monsteresque, pinup, pop surrealism, realism, retro, sci-fi, sculptures, sinister arts and crafts, space girls, strange beauty
A Portrait of Nana Rapeblossom by Akif Hakan Celebi
Breathe, Wounded Child 11 by Akif Hakan Celebi
Model: Nana RapeblossomThere’s something I just like about this.
Tags: akif hakan celebi, expressive, lolita-esque, portraits, strange beauty
Ray Caesar – “A Gentle Kind of Cruelty”
Ray Caesar (see my previous post on him here) is currently exhibiting a solo show at Jonathan LeVine Gallery, entitled A Gentle Kind of Cruelty.
Images from the show below via Blood Milk, Hi-Fructose, and Arrested Motion. I love the beautiful detail shots taken by JL Schnabel of Blood Milk, which show the true marvelousness and beauty of Caesar’s work as it would appear close-up in person.
Tags: 1940s, 1950s, art shows, colorful, cute/creepy little girls, doll-like, dollflesh, femininity, hauntingly beautiful, historically inspired, innocence/menace, interiors, lolita-esque, monsteresque, neo-victorian, pop surrealism, ray caesar, retro, sexuality, victorian
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