The New Matrix of Artist’s Emotional States
February 1st, 2012
Animated pen and ink drawings
January 13th, 2012Hand painted ocean in HD ( Brooklyn series ) – animated pen and ink drawings, 2011. Painted, animated and edited by Mirena Rhee. Music by Al Dimeola, John Mclaughlin & Paco Delucia – Azzura.
Hand painted ocean (HD) from mirena rhee on Vimeo.
animation still - click for a high res image
animation still - click for a high res image
anonymous
January 11th, 2012This piece was inspired by a climbing wall I saw in Brooklyn. A climbing wall is usually littered with tiny boulders of various shapes and sizes and your climbing path is marked and color-coded with tape. Say, black tape with a stripe designates a VO, a beginner’s path, a dark red could be a V6, a path for only experienced climbers. I thought the climbing wall was a good metaphor for life, with the tape off.
V6 ( Brooklyn Machine series ) - 4 x 6 inches, pen, ink, gouache and acrylic on hot pressed board, 2011
This piece went this past weekend to Cheim & Read’s Postcards from the Edge.
The Indian Painter’s palette – the most seductive colors..
January 8th, 2012..I have seen to have survived many centuries and hold their power, on paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art mounted a lavish Indian painting exhibit and I managed to catch the last day and take notes, photography was not allowed.
The ultimate geek list of pigments used in Indian Painting:
White pigments:
1. Lead White ( basic Lead carbonate )
2. Zinc White ( zinc oxide )
3. Chalk ( calcium carbonate )
Red/Orange:
4. Cinnabar ( Mercury sulfide )
5. Vermillion ( Synthetic Mercuric Sulfide )
6. Lac ( primary colorant Laccaic Acid )
7. Red Lead ( Lead tetroxide/orange red )
8. Realgar ( Arsenic disulfide/bright orange red mineral )
9. Saffron ( Crocetin and Crocin )
Yellow:
10. Opriment ( Arsenic trisulfide/soft yellow )
11. Indian Yellow ( Magnesium euxanthate/ originally from the urine of cows fed mango leaves )
12. Gamboge ( yellowish orange )
Green:
13. Verdigris ( Basic Copper Acetate/dark bluish green pigment )
14. Malachite ( Basic Copper Carbonate )
Mixtures to make green – Indigo and Indian yellow
Blue/Violet:
15. Ultramarine ( Natural Ultramarine is the ground, separated blue particles – lazurite – from the gemstone Lapis Lazuli )
16. Azurite ( basic Copper Carbonate/frequently found adjacent to Malachite )
17. Indigo ( Indigotin )
Earth Pigments:
18. Iron Oxides
Black/Gold/Silver/Tin:
19. Carbon
20. Gold Ink ( Gold particles with gum ), similar with Silver and Tin ink
21. Beetle wings ( to represent Emeralds )
Inks:
22. Carbon inks ( Lamb black )
23. Metallo-gallic ink
24. Indian ink ( naturally )
25. Willow Charcoal
26. Lamp Black ( soot from fat, oil, tar )
27. Ivory Black
Gums:
28. Ghatti gum
29. Suresh
30. Gum arabic
Postcards from the Edge benefit for Visual AIDS is this Weekend
January 6th, 2012I am participating in Postcards from the Edge benefit for Visual AIDS with a very special piece..
Hosted by Cheim & Read, 547 W 25th St, New York
The Preview Party is tonight:
Friday, January 6, 2012 from 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Benefit show:
Saturday, January 7, 2012 from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Sunday, January 8, 2012 from 12:00 – 4:00 PM
Were-Rabbit on the wall.. a Bulgarian style feast, with a twist..
January 5th, 2012As part of an Action Art project over the holidays, I invited my artists friends over for a Bulgarian style feast, with a twist.. As Bulgarian tradition dictates, you have to paint on the walls for food:)
The twist was that my friends and participants didn’t know that all the walls were tarped for painting.., I advertised the event as a sit down dinner with all the trimmings of a family event. I wanted to completely detach the action from a specific result and let things unfold.
..and here are the results
\\ Ink, brushes, charcoal, sharpies, pastels on butcher paper, red lights
The next day, I took photographs of all the walls in natural lighting..
In addition to drawings, there Were-Rabbits, poems and cryptic messages..
even a Were-Man..
Occupy Wall Street and Magritte also showed up.. with parts of a Christmas tree
So what was best of 2011..
December 30th, 2011.. My brother taught me how to fish.
And how do the grand Satyagraha at the Met Opera, the De Kooning exhibition at the MOMA, the La Carte D’Après Nature show at Matthew Marks gallery, moving studio 4 times, shaking hands with 470 people in three days during Open Studios compare to my brother’s fishing – they don’t even come close second.
Fishing is a philosophy and also a sport, a very zen way to gamble and a fusion of the Romantic and the Classical way of thinking. You could be well prepared, in a Classical way, to fish.. but fish has the very Romantic approach of not getting caught.
the Plank constant
December 9th, 2011Insofar as we understand the universe – if it can be understood – our doings must have some desire for order in them; but from the point of view of the universe, they must be very grotesque. As a matter of fact, the idea of “order” reminds me of something Jack Tworkov was telling me that he remembered of his childhood.
There was the village idiot.His name was Plank and he measured everything. He measured roads, toads, and his own feet; fences, his nose and windows, trees, saws and caterpillars. Everything was there already to be measured by him. Because he was an idiot, it is difficult to think in terms of how happy he was. Jack says he walked around with a very satisfied expression on his face. He had no nostalgia, neither a memory nor a sense of time. All that he noticed about himself was that his length changed!
Insofar as we understand the universe – if it can be understood – our doings must have some desire for order in them; but from the point of view of the universe, they must be very grotesque. As a matter of fact, the idea of “order” reminds me of something Jack Tworkov was telling me that he remembered of his childhood.
There was the village idiot. His name was Plank and he measured everything. He measured roads, toads, and his own feet; fences, his nose and windows, trees, saws and caterpillars. Everything was there already to be measured by him. Because he was an idiot, it is difficult to think in terms of how happy he was. Jack says he walked around with a very satisfied expression on his face. He had no nostalgia, neither a memory nor a sense of time. All that he noticed about himself was that his length changed!
Willem De Kooning, written in 1950 for a lecture series at Studio 35 on Eighth Street in New York.
100 percent Ultra Violet to the power of 9
December 1st, 2011I went to Ultra Violet’s studio this past weekend to take photographs of her and her work. Ultra Violet said the first person she met off the boat ( arriving from France in the 60’s ) was Salvador Dali. She became his muse, and later on, became a muse to Andy Warhol and a superstar in his Factory.
Ultra Violet with her piece 99 percent
Ultra Violet's piece IX XI in memory of the 9/11 attacks
tiny versions of the IX XI pieces
What do Ultra Violet, Quantum tunnelling and Bhagavad Gita have in common?
November 30th, 2011Surmounting Uncertainty.
Ultra Violet
says 99 percent certainty is 100 percent certainty.
Quantum Tunneling
Quantum Mechanics says a particle has a definite probability of being anywhere in the entire universe. Although any real distance from the particle’s expected classical path is infinitesimally small, since Quantum Mechanics is a statistical theory those small probabilities must be counted! Quantum Tunneling is a fascinating effect that arises out of these small probabilities. ( I certainly, 100 percent didn’t write this )
Bhagavad Gita
Philip Glass’ Satyagraha is based on Bhagavad Gita and sung entirely in Sanskrit, without titles for the audience. Bhagavad Gita says the world is not for the doubting man.
Math for Artists: Exponents and Radicals
November 23rd, 2011A friend of mine I used to work with at Lucasfilm recently shared this.. He is a brilliant technical mind, the guy behind the most advanced technology of special effects simulations created by Pixelux Entertainment. Naturally, artists and engineers at Lucasfilm were locked in eternal friendly battle of the minds, where engineers of course always had the upper hand since entertainment industry today is essentially a high-tech industry. So we had many inside jokes regarding the math abilities of artists.
Math is a language, and choosing Peet Mondrian’s colors is no accident, for Math is not only an abstract language but also a visual language. Visualization in mathematics, or mathematical notation, was invented in the 16th century and it immensely liberated mathematical discovery. Like musical notation, modern mathematical notation is strict and a few symbols could convey very complex ideas.
Exponents
Radicals
I went to mathematical high school and participated in a few Mathematical Olympiads, although I am the worst student of math as I relied mostly on my pattern recognition ability rather than study. When I moved to the States I did some of the comprehensive IQ tests and scored pretty high; but my pattern recognition was the highest at 147. I have my own definition of pattern recognition and it’s the ability to predict an outcome based on two or three reference points. As in life and math, trouble is if you think you have two or three reference points but in fact only one is a solid ground and the rest.. simply conjectures.
Some of the Mensa tests I take for fun do involve little math but sometimes they do refer to elephants, some with pink and green stripes, some all pink and some all blue..
A rare book of nothing
November 21st, 2011Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University published the Voynich manuscript online, which scientists assert (with 95% confidence) was made in the 15th century. It has about 240 pages of text and illustrations that have never been deciphered as to their meaning. The writing looks like a language, the illustrations look like plants, biological or cosmological diagrams but with no …meaning. In the context of the 21st century this clearly is a work of art.
Voynich manuscript
The Art of Occupy Wall Street
November 14th, 2011Yesterday I went to Liberty Plaza and took photographs of The Art of Occupy Wall Street. Including Lego OWS and the very special Octopi WS by the guy who Paints Outside his Own Box.
A few more digits
November 12th, 2011Painter Scotto Mycklebust, is putting together Revolt magazine, an art-talk large format, limited edition paper. I am heading down to Occupy Wall street to take some photographs for the first issue. Also saw De Kooning show at Moma for the second time.. barefoot because my shoes were too tight and I couldn’t think properly. I took the shoes off, and this being New York, no one seemed to care except that I gained a different perspective.. could be the height but this time I loved De Kooning’s last paintings.
