What happened to the red ceiling of XQUISITE CORPSE ? I decided to wear it /
I wanted to swim in it all along.. that's why I scouted the Garment District in Manhattan for 50 yards of the most beautiful red ( as soon as I find the card of the store on 38th st - I will publish it. The most amazing place, swimming in beautiful fabrics and amazing people. I owe our red to them )
The red ceiling..
Hands Chart /
Why do I always draw hands - because hands are the most mysterious objects I know well.
Wearable Paintings /
My intent here is a bit vague as much as the dress is obvious. In my work I have always been interested in the third dimension and its intersection with the flat plane. So I crafted an object, a sculpture that carries a two-dimensional message. Also, as with my work, I wanted it to be very personal and an invasion of personal and mental space.
Come out and paint - XQUISITE CORPSE Open Studio /
XQUISITE CORPSE Open Studio ( and party )Saturday, March 10, 12-6 pm and party 6-11 pm 526 West 26th street, studio 723, New York, NY 10001
A Collaborative art project.. with a twist.
Please be cautious,
this will not be a usual art party,
you may need to wear art on your sleeve.
The XQUISITE CORPSE will drink the new wine and art will be made by all and not by one!
Paint, painting surfaces and booze will be FREE, make sure to wear comfortable clothes, if anything.
http://xquisitecorpse.mirenarhee.com/
XQUISITE CORPSE is part of High LIne Open Studios - Chelsea - 2012 and Armory Arts week New York.
Thanks to Ian Mack.
If you'd like to give someone a hand this Valentine's day /
Animation stills from my Winter Diagrams are now available as prints on Saatchi online
Winter diaries - new animated drawings, music by marcus fischer / mapmap.ch /
I have kept a diary since I was 13 years old. In these I write and draw sketches of personal and found work. In a way, they are diagrams of a past and a future, usually written in both English and Bulgarian, sometimes a sentence starts in English and ends in Bulgarian, sometimes I write English words in Cyrillic; sometimes I write Bulgarian words using the English alphabet. There are a lot of made up words and lots of drawings.
My last notebook is red.
These series of animations are the red notebook equivalent. In them I use my latest drawings and paintings, they carry the mood and the sense of place and space I currently occupy - Brooklyn, New York.
No digital manipulations for the drawings have been used - they have gone in as they are - I scan them into the computer and animate them. The hands are pen and ink drawings on hot pressed board, a very smooth velvety surface produced by an American paper company. The red background is a Crimson Red Intaglio ink monotype on Fabriano papers ( an Italian paper praised since the Renaissance ).
For these compositions I was inspired by Marcus Fischer's amazing album mip~map/for friends this winter.. and my friends as well.
Painted and animated by Mirena Rhee
Music by marcus fischer / mapmap.ch
I have kept a diary since I was 13 years old. In these I write and draw sketches of personal and found work. In a way, they are diagrams of a past and a future, usually written in both English and Bulgarian, sometimes a sentence starts in English and ends in Bulgarian, sometimes I write English words in Cyrillic; sometimes I write Bulgarian words using the English alphabet. There are a lot of made up words and lots of drawings.
My latest notebook is red.
These series of animations are the red notebook equivalent. In them I use my latest drawings and paintings, they carry the mood and the sense of place and space I currently occupy - Brooklyn, New York.
No digital manipulations for the drawings have been used - they have gone in as they are - I scan them into the computer and animate them. The hands are pen and ink drawings on hot pressed board, a very smooth velvety surface produced by an American paper company. The red background is a Crimson Red Intaglio ink monotype on Fabriano papers ( an Italian paper praised since the Renaissance ).
To score these compositions I used Marcus Fischer's amazing album mip~map/for friends this winter.. Please, support his work: marcus fischer / mapmap.ch and visit his blog.
Winter Diagrams: December ( Brooklyn machine series )
Winter Diagrams: December ( Brooklyn machine series ) from mirena rhee on Vimeo.
Winter Diagrams: January ( Brooklyn machine series )
Winter Diagrams: January ( Brooklyn machine series ) from mirena rhee on Vimeo.
Winter Diagrams: February ( Brooklyn machine series )
Winter Diagrams: February ( Brooklyn machine series ) from mirena rhee on Vimeo.
A few great things - Damien Hirst's Spot paintings, The Happenings at Pace /
I had heard so much criticism about Damien's Spot paintings before going to the three New York shows, that I had the sneaky suspicion I am going to love them. They gave me pleasure - pleasure is hardly an argument - you either like having it or not. The flavor colored paintings made me want to lick every single dot, were named after various chemical substances and defied Jerry Saltz's argument "You see one, and you really have seen them all." In fact, they all tasted different. When I think of Damien - I also can't help but think of Zaphod Beeblebrox. Hey, if that artist's intent is to make a lot of money - that is not a reason to reject the work - although this is not my intent but can't speak against that being someone else's. The spots aren't things by themselves and they do not create a traditional artistic value (via the artist's hand ). We all know from math that a dot cannot be defined as having a substance, it's a destination. Each room of the three Gagosian galleries was brilliantly hung - thus all the paintings in a room worked together with scale to triangulate space and create a giant, Three-dimensional musical piano ( you know, the toy ones - i had one when i was a kid ).
It was a pure pleasure to indulge in the simple language of color, to occupy the space within the dots and just listen to the music.
When I think of Damien - I also can't help but think of Zaphod Beeblebrox. Hey
The exhibition Opening at Pace gallery's Happenings: New York, 1958-1963 was packed with the Who's Who in the art world today. Although the crowds for the most parts obscured the actual show - I think it was more or less the point. The exhibition opening was, all over again, a Happening on its own.
Works by Jim Dine, Simone Forti, Red Grooms, Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, Lucas Samaras, Carolee Schneemann, and Robert Whitman.
Ai Weiwei at Mary Boone, questions, answers and the pigments of imagination /
Ai Weiwei's Sunflower seeds at Mary Boone gallery in Chelsea.
One thing I learned - when art asks questions - please, do not answer. Asking is fun. Answering, on the other hand, is not.
Christopher Russell's strange, beautiful grey obelisks at Julie Saul gallery. Grey is a pigment of your imagination..
The New Matrix of Artist's Emotional States /
This is how an animation starts /
Animated pen and ink drawings /
Hand 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 animation - Screens:
Anonymous /
This 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.
This piece went this past weekend to Cheim & Read's Postcards from the Edge.
The Indian Painter's palette and its most seductive colors /
..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 /
I 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 /
As 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.. /
.. 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.