DAY 2411 - Circlus VI

Painting by Chris Daniels

DAY 2410 - Attack on Neocotari City

Painting by Dan Hernandez

DAY 2409 - B

Painting by Motohiro Hayakawa

28 DAY 2408 - Winter

Painting by Marie-Dolma Chophel

DAY 2407 - Do not Objectify Me 05

Painting by Camilo Restrepo

DAY 2406 - Diente de Leon

Painting by Paula Duró 

25 DAY 2405 - Contorno

Collage by Andrés Gamiochipi

DAY 2404 - Annie II

Photography by Angela McCormick

DAY 2403 - Calveras de los ISIS

Print by Art Hazelwood

DAY 2402 - Brown Bear Bath

Photography by Mike Coulter

DAY 2401 - BK X

Photography by John Coulter

DAY 2400 - Diosas

Painting by Álvaro Izquierdo

DAY 2399 - Renaissance

Photography by Angela McCormick

DAY 2398 - Eggnog Cow

Artwork by Brett Hollis

DAY 2397 - Peaks

Print by Manuelita Buendiaz Jr.

DAY 2396 - Untitled XI

Photography by John Coulter

DAY 2395 - Rumspringe

Artwork by Shae Meyer

DAY 2394 - Roof-deck with Hot Tub

Painting by Tara Kopp

Review by John Coulter

Tara Kopp paints peculiar scenes of daily events, from vacuuming, take out dinners, to tooth brushing.  She captures a strange other worldliness in each piece.  There is a surreal directness to them. 

The source material for the painting are miniatures and not photos of real apartments which adds to the eerie atmosphere.  The doll like people both trivialize what humans do all day, and add a unique psychological/behavioral element to the works. Though the figures are slightly alien, they go about human business in a relatable way.  The figures are just generic enough that they could be anyone.  The simplicity of the dolls used as reference allows for each piece to be relatable.  Kopp makes strangers familiar.

Garage with Bench Press’s long format allows views into multiple rooms with the protagonists separated.  The separation of the figures and the viewer highlights modern isolation.  The omniscient view into the routines of others is stimulating.  The cutaway diagrams provide an intimate voyeuristic view of common domestic scenes.

Kopp makes the daily and mundane exquisite.  The works have an enjoyable quality of an awkward family photo.  Visit the artist’s website and collect her works.

DAY 2393 - Omega Shell

Sculpture by Paul Apart

DAY 2392 - El Bloc del Narco. Narco Museo

Artwork by Camilo Restrepo

DAY 2391 - Giddy Hick Up

Artwork by Brett Hollis

DAY 2390 - Merlina

Painting by Paula Duró and Alejandro Sordi

DAY 2389 - Meteors

Print by Manuelita Buendiaz Jr. 

DAY 2388 - OBSCURITY REVIEW

Artwork by Paolo Cirio

Review by John Coulter

Paolo Cirio is a political activist and artist.  His conceptual projects question ethics in the digital age.  Privacy, data collection, and surveillance are his subject, as well as his medium.  

His work takes place out of the gallery, not simply documenting social issues,

but directly engaging them.  If artists of the past printed protest posters, artists of the future must make works which are actual tools for the change they wish to see.  Making a painting about Wall Street exploitation will do nothing to deter the current practices of the finance industry, and this is why new methods are needed.  Such methods are far more important than classical techniques, in today’s turbulent, political state. 

There is precedent for work like this.  Mexican artist Minerva Cuervas counterfeits and distributes useful items, such as subway tickets, food coupons and student ID cards.  Using one of Cuerva’s works has a direct impact on the participant, that a framed painting of a subway ticket would not provide.  

This new form of art works within the language of mass media and advanced capitalism to deconstruct it.  While Cirio’s earlier works such as Street Ghosts playfully examine the relationship between the internet and the real world, his recent works directly engage the target.  Amazon Noir was a project in collaboration with Ubermorgen.com which exploited a technological flaw to hack Amazon books and provide them for free.  It was eventually shutdown.  With Loophole for All, Cirio hacked and published information of account holders who used tax loopholes and offshore Cayman Island banks.   

Two of Cirio’s most powerful projects are Overexposed and Obscurity, which function in similar yet opposite ways.  Overexposed circulated photos of government officials from NSA, CIA and FBI, involved in the Edward Snowden leak.  The photos, taken from social media without permission of the owners, are then displayed publicly in streets and galleries.  Here, Cirio publicized private information on surveillance authorities who themselves seek to control and censor information.

Obscurity functions oppositely, in that it obfuscates information that has unethically been made public.  If published online, a mugshot can haunt a person for a lifetime and damage a career.  Current privacy laws do not provide enough protection, even for the falsely arrested and innocent.  Many websites monetize shaming individuals as entertainment.

Obscurity is a project which aids in the anonymity of those with criminal records published online.  By cloning the mugshot websites, scrambling names, and blurring images Cirio pollutes the internet with similar but false data. 

I can’t stress how genius this tactic is.  

Dan Shultz’s Internet Noise is a web project that randomly visits websites to fill ISP databases with noise.  This confuses companies gathering data on web history by flooding them with arbitrary web traffic.  There is a concept in Brave New World that the truth will become indistinguishable from a sea of trivial untruths.  

Both Cirio’s work and Internet Noise function similarly in that they mask personal records with massive amounts of homogeneous information: effectively nullifying the original.  By republishing the scrambled information, it makes it harder to find the true information amongst the static.  This also makes it more difficult for search engines to identify the original information through the noise of the false information.  

More artists need to abandon the paintbrush if they are seeking to do anything more than decorate.  Follow the Paolo Cirio’s work on his website and here on SharksEatMeat. 

DAY 2387 - Untitled XII

Photography by John Coulter

DAY 2386 - The Soccer Player

Artwork by Brett Hollis

DAY 2385 - REVIEW - Three Graces of Capitalism, TINA, Miss Giving and Naked Greed

Print by Art Hazelwood

Review by John Coulter

Art Hazelwood is an artist who has been politically active for years.  His works give a striking voice and form to union workers, prisoners, the homeless, immigrants and others.  His repertoire includes prints, books, paintings, murals and posters.

Hazelwood possesses a style reminiscent of other social story tellers.  An undulating rhythm moves the narratives along much the same as a Thomas Hart Benton.  His paintings and prints examine the social condition honestly, with a pinch of farce and criticism.

Some of his tragic prints such as Slaughter of the Innocents or Celebrants Interrupted have a grotesqueness that would scare Goya. Yet the mood is an accurate reflection of his nightmarish subjects.  They do more than tell the plight and struggle of the American people, many of his posters stress a call to action for a specific community meeting or other political action.  Many artist’s prints and street art resemble xeroxed high school band posters or worse. Hazelwood’s work hold’s the weight of a Bellows or Grosz.  They are meaty and detailed.  Their gorgeous eye catching imagery, stands out on the streets.

Hazelwood collaborated with Michelle Maren Williams on the mural House Keys Not Handcuffs which embodies his monumental painting style.  The masterpiece depicts a grand scene of a whole community interacting, on par with a Diego Rivera.  

Visit the artist’s website to learn more.

DAY 2384 - Halloween Costume Ideas

Artwork by Sasha Baranovskaya

DAY 2384 - Woman on the Verge of a Modern Breakdown

Painting by Morgan Santander

DAY 2383 - Vikinger

Lithography by Shae Meyer

DAY 2382 - Winter

Hair and Photography by Angela McCormick