January 5, 2014

Colourized X-ray still lifes by Arie van ‘t Riet

Filed under: Art,Photography,Technology by Branko Collin @ 9:38 am

tulips-arie-van-t-rietArie van ‘t Riet is a medical physicist who became an artist by accident.

My Modern Met writes:

One day, his colleague asked him to take an X-ray of one of his art paintings. It was a thin object and van’t Riet had never done something like this before, but as he said, “it worked.” This got him thinking about what other kinds of thin objects he could X-ray and flowers came to mind. He started with a bouquet of tulips. The analog image, or the silver bromide X-ray film, resembled a black and white negative. It was digitized, inverted, and then selectively colorized in Photoshop. “And then some people told me that’s art,” he humorously states, “and I became an artist.”

Many more amazing colourized X-rays can be found at the My Modern Met article linked above and at Van ‘t Riet’s own website.

(Link: Boing Boing)

Tags: , , , , ,

November 10, 2013

Tjalf Sparnaay’s hyperrealistic paintings

Filed under: Art,Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 9:29 am

Tacky or serious craftsmanship? The hyperrealistic paintings of Tjalf Sparnaay have to be seen to be believed.

A friend of a friend bought a lithographic print of the painting shown above and hung it over her dinner table. According to the friend, Guuz Hoogaerts of the Filles Sourires blog, “you have to see it for real. The print is even on the small side. You keep looking — at least I did.”

To get an idea of the scale of the original paintings, check Mr Sparnaay’s website (linked above) where he has several photos of him next to a work in progress. Sparnaay paints still lifes containing fast food, marbles, trinkets for tourists, flowers, and so on.

Personally I’d go for something like the portion of fries shown below even though the subject may not provide the Hilversum-based artist as much of an opportunity to go wild with textures and reflections. Ketchup, though? What kind of abomination is that?

Tags: , , ,

October 1, 2011

Still lifes at FOAM

Filed under: Photography by Branko Collin @ 9:00 pm

Today I went to a photography workshop at FOAM Amsterdam, which is why this posting is a bit later than you might expect.

The photo museum on the Keizersgracht (Emperor’s Canal) organizes a different workshop each month, and this month the theme was still lifes, tying in neatly with FOAM’s birthday exhibition Still/Life. The workshop fee of thirty bucks gets you a guided tour through the museum in which the teacher points out what makes specific photos special. After that you get a short generic introduction to the basics of interesting photos, and then you get an hour to practice what you have been taught. At the end one photo per student gets discussed. I thought it was well worth the money.

Why a still life exhibition? Curator Colette Olof explains on Youtube:

This year we’re celebrating FOAM’s tenth anniversary. The whole year we’re looking towards the future with the question: “What’s next?” We thought it would be nice to make one exhibition with a theme based on the history of FOAM. In 2001 we opened the very first exhibition at FOAM with a Dutch theme, The Dutch Light, and it was a group show with Dutch photographers curated by Erik Kessels. Now ten years later we thought it would be nice to do a group show again with only Dutch photographers.

[…] The still life is also a classical Dutch theme. In the 17th century the Dutch and Flemish painters were known as the best still life painters in the world.

The Still/Life exhibition runs through October 26. My boring attempt below.

(Illustration top: Fruit, 2008, Krista van der Niet)

Tags:

April 25, 2011

Modern still lifes by Richard Kuiper

Filed under: Photography by Branko Collin @ 10:54 am

Behold this 17th century painting, the delightful play of dark and light. Except it is not a painting, or even from the 17th century, as Hans Aarsman points out:

Look carefully now. Doesn’t the dark grey tablecloth look remotely familiar? It’s a plastic bin bag, just torn from the roll, the folds unmistakably plastic bin bag folds. The plates are made of plastic too. The lemon, the cans, everything is made of plastic. Close examination will reveal the casting seams. The fish is inflatable.

This doesn’t celebrate the old, it celebrates the here and now.

(Photo: Richard Kuiper)

Tags: , , , ,