Art, Sculpture, and Design
Our recent visit to Dia Beacon introduced me to the magnificent minimalism of Agnes Martin. She correlates her work to abstract expressionism, and I would classify her as an atypical painter's painter. She uses very subtle glazes, washes, color balances, and muting to make soulful and reflective painting. This is the type of work I would love to collect.
This is my studio in China for ceramics production. I miss the tremendous access to all things ceramics - Clay, Glaze, Kilns, Carrymen, Mold Makers, Casters , its an amazing place from another time. I am editing a video with some highlights currently. I will post it soon!
Frieze Art Fair 2015 -
Contemporary Art Market reality selfie on Randall's Island! Wonderful afternoon out at the art fairs with the expected collision of admiration and revulsion. I think the take-a-way that I have the morning after boils down to life for all people, the artist included, is a Mantra. Craft a clean, curious, precious, whatever-your-leanings mantra, make adjustments but stick to the basic tune, and live by it.
I love Sundance, but I can't go back there . . . I can't go back there without a project. My recent experience in China gave me all the pulp I needed to write a script, and submit it to the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab.
PING NOIR
Alex is a Brooklyn based artist that is entering into an exciting phase of his career making fine art installations in the form of porcelain ceramic relief sculptures. He has found a charming ceramics village in Jingdezhen, China where he can effectively produce his large scale installations, as the village has a long heritage of ceramic tradition, and a workforce dedicated to the intricacies of porcelain production. Throughout his several trips to China he has developed a close working relationship with Ping, his translator, ceramics consultant, and project manager. She is a petite, but feisty task master, with a boisterous personality. Approaching 30 and single, the societal pressure of marriage starts to take a toll on Ping, and her parents, aunts & uncles arrange countless blind dates to get her engaged. They settle on an Army Captain who happens to be the captain of Ping’s cousins company. Her family is more enthralled with what they deem a mutually beneficial pairing, than the quality of Ping’s future husband. Seeing this, Ping takes matters into her own hands and invites Alex over for dinner.
Sundance Film Festival 2015 ! I’ve been coming to this festival for ten years now, exploring emerging cinema and brainstorming for the future. My top screening this year is ‘Dope’, written and directed by Rick Famuyiwa, It is a teen pop, afro-america influenced, punk infused, 90s rap style culture film funk mash-up. The film also features original punk-rock hip hop music composed by Pharrell Williams! I truly appreciate the american art scene when films like this featuring so many different communities and back grounds premieres here in Park City.
I’m so happy when I can hook some one in. Or rather when It hooks them in, (but i’m proud to be a tiny messenger.) I would love to get you all in! Its good also to go all in.
I think I believed as a young person that being an artist meant you get a bunch of paint in a studio, and you go to work, crazily, for hours on end, and then you get recognized by a gallerist, and life will be perfect. Surely, it is sort of like that, however, making good work isn’t the end, and its not very easy to make ‘good’ work, even if you are trained and informed and inspired. I have found that a tremendous amount of internal discipline and fortitude lets me command my present and puts me in a place where I can get closer to it.
This is my ode to yoga post. the wonderful third pillar waiting to sustain you. if you listen to me long enough, i might get you too …
'Eggs and Glam', 46 x 46 cm, Metal Plated Porcelain, 2013. All rights reserved-Alexander Kellum
Alexander Kellum is a New York City based artist. I do business as a decorative artist, as Alexander Kellum dba Atelier AK. Streams of income for an artist include, galleries, collectors, teaching, art installations, and decorative arts.
This fall it seems all i’ve been doing is gold leafing. Up until Christmas , we spent months with Boyd Reath gold leafing at the Plaza . Since then we’ve been gold leafing in Cresskill, NJ, and the Far Rockaways.
There are so many great artists all across New York teaming up to work together on these projects. It’s impossible to know them all and I am always surprised when I look at New York Magazine and see their ‘Best of’ New York section listing some artisan I have never run across. In my experience , the best decorative artists in NY are Boyd Reath , Mason Nye Murals, Vicki Khuzami, and of course Alexander Kellum, of Atelier AK. :)
These are images from my recent art installation at Christian Dior’s Hong Kong store at Pacific Place in Admirality. I have a huge debt of gratitude to Peter Marino Architects for pulling for me in this commission, and making it possible. Thanks to everyone involved!
check out my recent Triptych commission for a private client entitled ‘Sign Language’
Christian Maychack
I found this artist on the NYFA.org website. He received a 2012 fellowship in painting. I really appreciate his work. He has a masterful understanding of materials, composition, and innovation. Sometimes I am underwhelmed by the art I find being supported by foundations, in this case, the sentiment is just the opposite. Not only is Maychack pioneering pigments and epoxy clay as an artistic medium but he is using them to cleverly explore the nether regions bridging painting and sculpture. His use of wood is playful yet precise, using complementary characteristics of the material as a mirror of itself in this piece. The ‘mirroring’ of the character of wood as both a material for structure and a material for malleable shape-storming is purposeful. It facilitates the negative space that happens inside the frame and the abstract work with epoxy clay that happens outside of it. The result is that the movement of the piece, the essence of its energy expands in every direction. Left to anchor this unwieldy motion is unfettered clumps of Cadmium red pigment (or is it Napthol?), and sweet, ethereal light green swirls in the epoxy clay, grounding the viewer, and showering them in vibrant red and green waves.
These guys are out of control good. Studio Job. polished bronze cast art furniture.
My friend Ross McDonnell being a genius, photographing, living and working in the gang addled communities of Mexico.
http://lightbox.time.com/2013/02/12/auto-defensa-rough-justice-in-mexicos-lawless-mountains/#1
Reblogged from Sight Unseen: Peter Shire at the Santa Monica Museum
I love this sculpture in all its sleekness. It is like a more fashionable Calder mobile.
Hiroshi Senju
Nightfall 2007
I watched ‘Anna Karenina’ this weekend, and saw some videos of Anish Kapoor on youtube. Ive been tensing my brain, to figure out what to make or do next. And I think that all we can do, is make something that we can give, refined and sophisticated, so it can be gratefully received and appreciated.
Holy Hell. I was walking by Gallery NeC today on a casual Hong Kong Christmas stroll, and ran across these. These would be impossibly complicated to build , and therefore, impossibly beautiful.
WoW - vid
'Sail Vase' , 14 x 12 x 9 cm, porcelain dipped linen, gas fired cone 6
This is from my recent creative trip to Jingdezhen, China where I was sculpting, sample making and process brainstorming : )
Tom Friedman, ‘Untitled’, 2000
Wow, I saw this while taking one of my imagination walks in the Hong Kong Public Library. Construction Paper! I love his medium for this work.
