Zatista The premiere source for original art online

by Tony Cenicola for the New York Times

Educational posters grace a golden wall, with Scherer’s collection of  mid-Century ceramics—many by Gunnar Nylund. Notice how their colors and shapes are reflected in the pulley diagram.

by Tony Cenicola for the New York Times

Pages from a guide book identifying the birds of New York state paper the walls, surrounding a birdcage sculpture by the Brazilian artist Vik Muniz.

by Tony Cenicola for the New York Times

I’ve been trying to take a peak into the homes of artists to see how they decorate their interiors and, of course, hang art on the walls. Hunt Slonem, a painter based in New York City and Louisiana, has such a flair with clutter (I’m not being derisive here—that’s what he calls it). And I’m very inspired by his talent for its placement. Just look at all of those paintings, and candlesticks and brocade panels in his dining room. There are many more paintings on that one wall than you would find in many homes, and it works really well.

Photograph by The Selby, courtesy of New York Magazine

He calls this room the Lincoln Room—several of the portraits are of Abe, and Slonem painted them. The chair also came from the hotel where Lincoln was taken after he was shot. Again, the canvases creep across the wall—there isn’t just one solitary piece over the sofa. And look at the collection of green glassware on the sidetable, which matches the gorgeous wall paint so beautifully. The vibrant orange curtains set off any danger of matchy matchy.

courtesy of huntslonum.com

And the Rabbit Room! Apparently Mr. Slonem loves to paint rabbits as much as they like to, well, you know. The placement of many rabbit paintings certainly suggests that trait. He paints them quite beautifully.

Photograph by The Shelby, courtesy of New York magazine	courtesy of art-interview.com
courtesy of huntslonem.com

You can see in this gorgeous, riotous painting of orchids how the colors of the surroundings Hunt Slonem has created for himself inspires his artwork. What’s on your wall that inspires you?

Portraits often depict very powerful people — those who have a lot of control of the world around them. Yet they are still art. What the artist had in mind and what the subject had in mind will never be exactly the same. One example is President Lyndon B. Johnson’s official White House Portrait. Johnson chose Peter Hurd to create his image on canvas for the White House. But when Hurd showed the image to Johnson, he said it was “the ugliest thing I ever saw.” Hurd later gave it to the National Portrait Gallery.

"The ugliest thing I ever saw." -Lyndon B. Johnson

Official White House portrait of Lyndon B. Johnson by Peter Hurd

And then there’s the type of portrait that may not be well-liked in the end due to circumstances entirely beyond the artist’s control. This sculpture portrays the former leggy lady of Victoria’s Secret, Stephanie Seymour. Her husband, Peter Brant, owns it. Soon it may be all he has left of her, as they are getting divorced (messily).

The mounted (simulated) torso of Peter Brant's soon-to-be ex-wife Stephanie Seymour, by Maurizio Cattelan (1 of 3)

Artists creating self-portraits have a better time of it generally (no, we’re not going to get into Van Gogh and his poor old ear, here). Andy Warhol made hundreds of self-portraits during his lifetime. Here’s the last one he made, a few months before his death:

Last Self-Portrait, 1986 Andy Warhol

Frida Kahlo portrayed herself after her divorce from Diego Rivera as two starkly and painfully separate women (that’s a portrait of Diego in the hand of the colorfully dressed Frida):

Painting Title: The Two Fridas 1939 Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City

The artist Kehinde Wiley has taken classic, famous pieces of European portraiture and replaced the original subject (in this case Napoleon) with young unknown African-American men:

Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps, 2005, by Kehinde Wiley (9' x 9')

Bonaparte Crossing the Alps at Grand-Saint-Bernard by Jacques-Louis David 1801 (8.5' x 7.25')

Portraits don’t have to be limited to human beings. Here, one of Zatista’s artists, Sam Dolman, captures a cow pausing between chews of cud:

Suspicious by Sam Dolman

Ben 1, by Rob MacInnis

The photographer Rob MacInnis created a series of images using farm animals:

Cameron, by Rob MacInnis

Keira, by Rob MacInnis

We’re all familiar with the routes in our lives—the streets we drive along on our way to work, the trails we trace as we move from one home to another, or the maps we gaze at as we plan our vacations. Art reveals itself in these patterns, as shown in this clean, graphic representation of New Orleans created by Zatista artist Fred Doyle:

New Orleans, LA, by Fred Doyle — Digital on Canvas, 24.0 ” x 36.0 ”

Some artwork based on maps uses novel media. This map by Aaron Koblin shows the contours of the United States through commercial airline traffic:

Aaron Koblin’s “Flight Patterns” shows a real-time image of the aircraft flight paths over the United States. Courtesy of the Victoria & Albert museum

Or this artwork by Simon Elvins, which used blind embossing to depict the quietest parts of  London, using data from a British government agency that maps noise levels in order to adhere to European Union noise regulations:

SILENT LONDON by Simon Elvins Blind embossed etching - 735x500mm - Edition of 10

Others show places reimagined in very personal ways:

SIMON EVANS Home Country, 2008-9 Paper weaving 58 5/8 X 42 1/8 inches courtesy of James Cohan Gallery

Or produce accurate renditions of actual places in novel ways. Here, a rolling stamp of Santa Monica that produces a map of the city on the sand:

Santa Monica Art Tool by Carl Cheng-photo courtesy of jdlasica via Flickr

You can see more examples in The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography by Katharine Harmon (Princeton Architectural Press; 2009)

Courtesy of the Princeton Architectural Press

While researching tiny art for my previous post, I came across some examples of art that were not small in size themselves. Instead, the artwork portrayed tiny subjects—or subjects that at least appeared tiny.

NPR’s “The Picture Show” featured some extremely beautiful microscopic images assembled by scientists at the University of Wisconsin for an exhibit called “Tiny: Art From Microscopes at UW-Madison.” Who knew fruit fly embryos and mouse lungs could be so gorgeous?

A series of images from the blog Pink Tentacle shows paintings of tiny insects made with the aid of a microscope by the Japanese artist Kenbikyō Mushi No Zu during the mid-nineteenth century. Below is one example of the paintings from the scroll.

from Kenbikyō Mushi No Zu's (”Illustrations of Microscopic Insects”), published in 1860

Tilt-shift photography, on the other hand, portrays full-scale images in a way that makes them appear to be miniature godzilla sets. While digital cameras create this effect via software, film cameras produce it with a special lens. Unlike a standard lens which have a fixed focal plane, a tilt-shift lens has a focal plane that can shift and concentrate the focus onto one point. The image below is a full-scale image of an airport.

Vincent Laforet for Smashing magazine

The tilt-shift effect on video is even more disorienting. The people in them look like tiny claymation sculptures moved in increments from frame to frame. They’re not! Keith Loutit’s video, Beached, is an awesome example that’s really worth watching. Enjoy!