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Trent Parke’s epic and personal body of work The Black Rose premiered to great acclaim at the Art Gallery of South Australia in March 2015. Created over seven years, the series explores universal themes – birth, death, love, loss, memory and the passing of time. It started out as a conversation with some of his fellow Magnum members on the concept of Home. Parke was inspired to understand his own story and to excavate his own histories, which had become buried under day-to-day life for many years. Despite the very personal nature of his investigation, Parke’s work reflects more broadly on our attempts to make sense of personal stories, dreams and chance. Stills Gallery is delighted to be able to present a selection of works from this significant series.

Parke is a storyteller who makes art out of everyday occurrences. His responses to daily life are raw, fast and intuitive. His understanding of the photographic medium is profound – whether it’s the nature of light and how it is rendered on film, the ability to anticipate an action before it occurs and be ready to capture it, or the recognition of the narrative and emotional potentials and of an image or group of images. In The Black Rose at AGSA Parke also included stories, diary entries and video works. Much like Life, the exhibition unfolded over time and space – revealing itself over a number of rooms, each with a particular theme, the universe, home, death etc., the viewer drawn to make their own connections between the images – the stark white face of a child, the dust strewn back of an ornate mirror, ants devouring a black butterfly. Each image builds upon another and the eye becomes alive to details and visual echoes.

Exhibition runs: October 7 – 14 November, 2015

Stills Gallery
36 Gosbell Street
Paddington NSW 2021
Australia

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Bastiaan Buijs‘ designs are on the edge of art and function, which makes that a dialogue arises, this making sexual taboos discussable. “The normalization of ordinary sex toys in my opinion,” says the artist, “contributes to the breaking of taboos around sexuality. Shining a light on the dark sides of sex challenges people to make bedroom secrets discussable. The aesthetic design contributes to the normalization of the toy itself. It is not only the freak who ventures into this,but also our everyday neighbours who exhibit this toy in their livingroom as a piece of art, a statement
or a lust object.”

via designboom

Grandfather’s Clock

The Satyr

Grandfather Clock

Polish artist Natalia Rak’s work embodies a colorful, almost surrealistic reality. With the use of color she dramatizes her pieces in a clashing obscurity. The fine arts graduate has been passionate about painting from a young age, she explored different techniques and media before she found herself in the rush and freedom of street painting. She has been affiliated with graffiti for a couple of years, spreading her strong character across walls all over Europe and the US. Her first solo show at the Montana Gallery in Barcelona, “Butterfly Effect” is a synergy of humor, hyperrealism and heavy mystery. Her work resembles a dark comic book; the details create a reminiscence to a very intimate place between nature and the imaginary, a roll back into childhood imagined scenarios encountered with the sensuality of maturity. —Ivonne Alcántara

The show will run until the 4th of December.

NATALIA RAK “BUTTERFLY EFFECT” | MONTANA GALLERY | BARCELONA

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Branding and design firm Substance, have designed Bibo, a French fine dining restaurant in Hong Kong, that goes by the same name as the street artist behind it. “French fine dining is brought to street level in Hong Kong at Bibo. Serving up a modern take on classic French cuisine, wines of merit and back-to-the-roots cocktails, Bibo is a passion project that gives a nod to bohemian lifestyle. It is a concept that redefines understated luxury. The ongoing and ever changing project is an international first that sees a collaboration of the world’s most renowned contemporary and street artists together in one space. From installations by Vhils, Invader, JonOne, Stohead, Kaws, JR, Mr Brainwash, Ella & Pitr, Mist, MadC to hangings and works by Banksy, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Daniel Arsham, Jeff Koons, King of Kowloon, Shepard Fairey, Takashi Murakami, Yayoi Kusama to name a few, this pioneering project is set to open minds to a new way of eating and of seeing art. “Bibo is a space that I had never seen before; I wanted to see it but couldn’t find it anywhere. It’s a vision that passion has brought to reality,” says Bibo, a discrete person behind the project.”

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Stoul brings to life an origami influenced woman for this interior mural

Vienna-based street artist Nychos seems to have a fascination with anatomical diagrams, turning some of his murals into creepy dissections. His signature style features the anatomy of his characters, layer by layer, through colorful, explosive compositions. And his focus on some of our favorite childhood characters like The Little Mermaid or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Though he’s based in Vienna, this artist has hit up other street art locations, including the streets of Brooklyn, NY.

American artist Cheryl Kelley draws only old muscle-cars. Using high-gloss oil paints the Texas-based artist manages to capture the beauty of these iconic vehicles from a bygone era better than any camera ever could. The talented artist finds her inspiration at classic car shows and museums, where she takes high-resolution photos of vintage Chevrolets, Camaros or Corvettes that she later uses as guidelines for her impressive creations. Working with glossy oil paints on aluminum panels, Kelley is somehow able to reproduce not only the tiniest details of the vehicles, but also every reflection, ultimately producing masterpieces that look more realistic than their photographic references. “The first thing that I am drawn to is the beauty. I find myself getting lost in the reflections of beautiful cars when I stop at traffic lights,” Cheryl says about her fascination with classic muscle cars. “These big engine cars, seemingly fueled by raw testosterone, were ironically most definitely feminine in form. As a twentieth century American icon, the muscle car is remembered for its speed and power. My paintings are about the feminine sensuality of the surfaces, the Mel Ramos-like perfection of female form,” – Cheryl Kelley. Enjoy!

Diego Fazio aka DiegoKoi is an Italian artist from the town of Lamezia. Born in 1989, the self-taught illustrator first started as a tattoo artist and says he was initially inspired by the artwork of Katsushika Hokusai, a highly influential Japanese artist from the Edo period.

Diego only began drawing in 2007, yet his hyperrealistic pencil drawings on paper and wood have garnered him international acclaim. Each portrait can take up to 200 hours but the results speak for themselves. At only 23-years of age, the future is bright for this rising star.

Don’t stare too long at these zoetropes by John Edmark, a lecturer inStanford‘s art department and a member of Autodesk’s artist in residence program.

The 3-D printed sculptures are designed around the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical sequence of numbers that can be used to create a spiral, and the “golden angle,” a pattern often found in nature, like in the angles between the florets on sunflowers. The sculptures come to life as they’re rotated, blooming into hypnotic works of art with the help of a little lighting magic. To animate the sculptures, Edmark spins them very quickly, capturing movement with a rapid shutterspeed (1/4000th of a second) to create a seamless stop-motion animation. The same effect can be recreated using a strobe light synchronized toflash every time the sculpture rotates 137.5 degrees.