Relentless

Tessa Farmer - the conjurer of demonic fairies.

She calls it ‘a bid to reignite childlike curiosity’. It seems, then, that the old adage is true. Kids do the nastiest things. Tessa Farmer is a hugely talented British artist, she makes fairies out of roots and insect carcasses. Her creations cleverly expose the darker side of childhood experimentation, she constructs fantasy worlds of mutilation, torture, predators and prey. Tinkerbell this is not.

But, what happens when you’ve finished, there is a picture taken, and your art is out in the world? Once released, images have a life of their own; they end up online, where they are saved, altered, and passed on. This repurposing of art can have interesting outcomes.

In an exploration of this and some of its most subversive manifestations, London’s Institute of Contemporary Art is midway through running an exhibition called Dispersion. It’s a look at how images disperse and get re-appropriated in the modern world, through the eyes of seven artists, and spanning a range of topics from porn to advertising.

For more information about the show click here

A forthcoming exhibition will reveal the brilliance of the Baroque.

The Baroque: an era of artistic excess and brilliance; an age of pornography, sex and violence, of Caravaggio, Bernini and Rubens. This April, the V&A in London launches its spring show, Baroque 1620-1800: Style in the Age of Magnificence, a no-holds-barred assault which should befit the complexity and grandeur of this great period in history.

It kicks off on April 4th and will run until July. For more information, follow the link below.

Baroque 1620-1800: Style in the Age of Magnificence

Banks Violette provides a snapshot of the human psyche in situ.

In light of our own Rev recently going live, we wanted to share some points of reference of the project. The Rev is an abstraction of a complex idea, as much as it is a dynamic portrait of anybody's favourite music.

Analysing the evolutionary changes that condition our perception of Art.

The Royal Institution of Great Britain offers an event that aims to shed light on cognitive neuroscience and the processes that allow our brains to create and appreciate art.

It does look a bit like The REV, but that's all in your mind. And that's a fact.

This is a microscopy (photo taken through a microscope) of what lies at the core of all art - a neuron. A more elaborated explanation of art and the developmental process that has shaped our minds to undersrtand and create art is provided by the Royal Institution of Great Britain in collaboration with the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. The event takes place on 17th March 2009 and is part of the Brain Awareness Week. More here and here.

High wire maestro Eskil Ronningsbakken steps into some shoes left by an extraordinary man.

Eskil Ronningsbakken, a 29 year-old Norwegian, is like a 49 year-old Frenchman. The latter, Philippe Petit, tightrope-walked between the Twin Towers in 1974; the other, Ronningsbakken, recently biked upside down 1000ft above the Norwegian Fjords in harsh winds. Both are Artists.

As Petit wound down a career in soul-stirring performances, he left a hole. There was no natural successor, no one to grip us like Petit had, no one to hold humanity in his thrall. But now we have Ronningsbakke and his arsenal of extraordinary feats:

"What I do is draw a picture with vulnerable human beings and their bodies in the surroundings of mother earth. That's the balance between life and death, and that is where life is."

Such a poetic approach aligns him far more closely with the school of Petit than it does with less considered stunts underwritten by the safety harnesses we, the public, can’t see. In 2007 Ronningsbakken balanced on a single ice cube 65cm by 35cm in size suspended on two ropes 1000ft over Dovrefjell National Park, in Norway. He also balanced on a trapeze upside down beneath a hot air balloon.

Simon Schubert’s art puts perspective to paper.

At a glance, Simon Schubert’s art appears completely ordinary, simply because paper rarely manifests itself as white, pristine, and uncrumpled. And when it does, we are probably staring, rather than looking at a blank page, in preparation to work on it.

And this is exactly why the artist’s work succeeds - he very skilfully confronts our past experiences. The amount of detail that he achieves by simply folding and creasing is almost incomprehensible. This is further compounded by the pure surprise at just how expressive a sheet of paper can be, without having ever had contact with a brush.

Ever found it difficult to look away from a wreck? Try looking away from these.

The ocean has been the focus of all sorts of enquiry from the very ancient of times. There has always been a sense of danger and mystery, a conflicting relationship.

A relationship based on both gratitude for what the ocean has given us, as well as anguish at how impenetrable and dangerous it can often be. There is no shortage of stories that document the tragedy and hopelessness of these aquatic disasters. After all, one of Hollywood's largest-grosing films is pretty much just that (with a tiny bit of romance and human tragedy, of course.)

“Insects have always fascinated me. These tiny little self-contained mechanisms that can walk up walls, fly, and jump 20 times their own height. They inspire me and at the same time remind me of how primitive our own technological advancements appear when compared to nature.”

Check out more of Christopher’s work here.