Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step – Lao Tzu

Angles Mirror & Fan Mirror

Angles Mirror & Fan Mirror:
Daniel Rozin made 2 new mechanical mirrors: “Angles Mirror” and “Fan Mirror”. Just watch the videos and you’ll see what they’re about. You can see both and more new work by Daniel at Bitforms NYC till April 6th. If you don’t know his work, make sure you visit his website!

Big Air Package: The Largest Inflated Envelope in History by Christo

Big Air Package: The Largest Inflated Envelope in History by Christo:








Big Air Package is the latest project from artist Christo installed at the Gasometer Oberhausen in Germany, a facility that still holds the record as the largest disc-type gas holder in Europe that was converted into an exhibition hall in the 1990s. Big Air Package is the largest ever inflated envelope without aid of a skeleton (Gasometer Oberhausen bills it as “the largest indoor sculpture in history”) and reaches 90 meters high, with a diameter of 50 meters and a volume of 177,000 cubic meters. The work was conceived in 2010 and is Christo’s first major work after the passing of his wife and artistic partner Jeanne-Claude in 2009. Via the official press release:

Big Air Package, Project for Gasometer Oberhausen, Germany was conceived in 2010 by Christo and will be on view from March 16 to December 30, 2013. The sculpture, which is installed inside the former gas tank, was made from 20,350 square meters of semitransparent polyester fabric and 4,500 meters of rope. The inflated envelope is 90 meters high and 50 meters in diameter. It has a total weight of 5.3 tons and a volume of 177,000 cubic meters. [...] The “Big Air Package” nearly spans the distance from wall to wall of the Gasomter, leaving only a small passage to walk around the sculpture. Two air fans creating a constant pressure of 27 pascal (0.27 millibar) keep the package upright. Airlocks allow visitors to enter the package. Illuminated through the skylights of the Gasometer and 60 additional projectors, the work of art creates a diffuse light throughout the interior. Inside the sculpture, an extraordinary experience of shape, space and light is provided.

Christo says that “when experienced from the inside, that space is almost like a 90-meter-high cathedral,” which is easy to see just looking at these incredible images. The installation opened this weekend and will remain on view through December 2013. You can see many more photos courtesy Wolfgang Volz here. (via farewell kingdom)

Realistic Urban Landscape Paintings of Chicago and New York by Nathan Walsh

Realistic Urban Landscape Paintings of Chicago and New York by Nathan Walsh:












Many painters working from photographic source material employ a wide variety of techniques to arrive at a final image. This will involve anything from loose sketching beforehand to complex grids, where a photograph is translated into paint box by box. Such is not the case with British painter Nathan Walsh who instead relies on elaborate drawings reminiscent of architectural blueprints before every committing paint to canvas. This deep reverence for the underpinning geometry and perspective gives each work a sense of life that might otherwise not be present in something created with the mechanical aid of a camera or software.
Walsh tells me his primary source materials are not photographs but pencil sketches drawn on-site, for example the Chicago pieces above began from over 100 drawings he then references in his studio. In this way he can easily alter the position and size of any particular element, a process he likens to “building a world from scratch”. Personally I think the process is more akin to building the entire world in his mind so he can better represent it later in his paintings, each of which takes up to 3-4 months to complete. Via his website:

I deal exclusively with the urban landscape and aim to present a painted world which in some ways resembles the world we live in. I am fascinated by the city, it’s visual complexity and constant state of flux. The act of painting is an attempt fix this information and give vision to our experience of living within it. [...] The work aims to create credible and convincing space which whilst making reference to our world displays it’s own distinct logic. This space is created through drawing, which I see as fundamental in establishing a world the viewer can engage with. Drawing allows me to make human pictorial decisions instead of relying on the mechanical eye of a camera or software package. This process is open ended and changes from one painting to the next. Whilst I employ a variety of perspectival strategies, these methods are not fixed or rigid in their application. Working with a box of pencils and an eraser I will start by establishing an horizon line on which I will place vanishing points to construct simple linear shapes which become subdivided into more complex arrangements.

You can see numerous final works at a much higher resolution, as well as initial drawings over on his website. Walsh will have work at the Changing Perspectives technology conference in Paris later this month, and is working on a solo show at Bernarducci Meisel Gallery in November.

Artist Hong Yi Plays with her Food for 30 Days

Artist Hong Yi Plays with her Food for 30 Days:










For almost every day last month Malaysian artist/architect Hong Yi (who often goes by the nickname Red) created a fun illustration made with common (and occasionally not so common) food. Her parameters were simple: the image had to be comprised entirely of food and the only backdrop could be a white plate. With that in mind Yi set out to create landscapes, animals, homages to pop culture, and even a multi-frame telling of the three little pigs. The project, which still appears to be ongoing, has been documented heavily around the web, but if you haven’t seen it all head over to her Facebook and read an interview on designboom. Photos will also be appearing on her Instagram at @redhongyi.

Alive Without Breath: Three Dimensional Animals Painted in Layers of Resin by Keng Lye

Alive Without Breath: Three Dimensional Animals Painted in Layers of Resin by Keng Lye:









Singapore-based artist Keng Lye creates near life-like sculptures of animals relying on little but paint, resin and a phenomenal sense of perspective. Lye slowly fills bowls, buckets, and boxes with alternating layers of acrylic paint and resin, creating aquatic animal life that looks so real it could almost pass for a photograph. The artist is using a technique very similar to Japanese painter Riusuke Fukahori who was featured on this blog a little over a year ago, though Lye seems to take things a step further by making his paint creations protrude from the surface, adding another level of dimension to a remarkable medium. See much more of this series titled Alive Without Breath over on deviantART. (via ian brooks)
Update: I have some additional details from the artist that I’d like to add here, as this post seems to be getting a lot of attention. Via email Lye shares with me:

I started my first series in 2012 where all the illustrations were “flat” and depth was created using the layering of resin and acrylic over the different parts of the illustration. This year, I started on the octopus and it was purely an experiment; I just wanted to see whether I could push this technique to a higher level. After applying acrylic paint straight onto the resin, I incorporated a 3-D element in this instance, it was a small pebble for the ranchu and octopus. For the turtle, I used an egg shell for the turtle shell and acrylic paint for the rest of the finishing. The whole idea here was to give the art work an even more 3D effect therefore you can have a better view from any angle. I think there are still many other techniques to explore.

So to be clear the elements that extrude from the top of the resin are actually physical pieces that have been painted to match the layers of acrylic and resin below.

Landfill Harmonic: An Upcoming Documentary About the ‘Recycled Orchestra’ in Cateura, Paraguay

Landfill Harmonic: An Upcoming Documentary About the ‘Recycled Orchestra’ in Cateura, Paraguay:

Cateura, Paraguay is a small city that has grown atop a massive garbage dump and is regarded as one of the poorest slums in Latin America, a village where people live among a sea of garbage. Incredibly, the landfill itself is the primary form of subsistence for many residents within the slum who pick through waste for items that can be used or sold. Prospects for most of the children born in Cateura is bleak as gangs and drugs await many of them. But then one day, something amazing happened.
A garbage picker named Nicolás Gómez (known as “Cola”) found a piece of garbage that resembled a violin and brought it to musician Favio Chávez. Using other objects collected from the dump the pair constructed a functional violin in a place where a real violin is worth more a house. Using items gleaned completely from trash pair then built a cello, a flute, a drum, and suddenly a wild idea was born: could a children’s orchestra be born in one of the most depressed areas in the world? As you can guess the answer was yes.
Now a group of filmmakers, producers, and photographers are trying to tell the story of the orchestra through a documentary titled Landfill Harmonic. The orchestra seems poised to offer many of the children opportunities outside of the slum— they are already planning a multi-city tour around the U.S. The movie is currently being funded on Kickstarter and just passed the halfway mark today. Watch the video above and you can learn more over on their Facebook. Backed!