Artist Shout Out: Bruno Kurru

Bruno Kurru is an artist and graphic designer based out of São Paulo, Brazil.

Artist Statement:
Bruno Kurru’s work often surfaces as a response to the environment in which it is presented, and is characterized by a strong relationship between elements of line drawing and appropriated materials, creating an unexpected and yet harmonious ensemble.

His work isn’t born from certainties, but from questions about what to do and how it should be done. This involves discussions that begin in the choice of material and reach a peak where renewed juxtapositions and collages become essential.

*Note: The translation from Portuguese to English is a little rough so please forgive any mistakes.

Kurru is currently represented by Zipper Galeria and Samurai Ginga.

See more of his work here

Acrylic and bitumen on canvas, 40cm x 50 cm, 2010

Mixed media on paper, 42 cm x 29 cm, 2010

Artist Shout Out: Tom Berenz

“Untitled (Pile 6)” – oil, acrylic on canvas, 60” x 74”

Target – oil on panel, 48″ x 48″

According to Jane Simon of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art:

Responding to the environmental and social devastation caused by natural disasters, Tom Berenz depicts the physical remnants of man-made structures subsumed by the crushing forces of nature. In his painting titled Target, a building sits in ruin, its exterior ripped open to reveal a tangled mass of collapsed beams- the complex grid of its structural framework reduced to a collision of metal and concrete wreckage. Using muted tones and austere geometric forms, Berenz imbues this image of sensationalist destruction with an almost meditative stillness.

For the past four years, Tom Berenz has worked on a series of disaster paintings, each inspired by photographs documenting the aftermath of natural tragedies across the United States. Although the clash between man and nature is an ongoing theme throughout much of his art, Berenz has streamlined his artistic approach to the subject in more paintings: “Blurring the line between abstraction and realism,” These works emphasize form over narrative. In his latest large-scale paintings, Berenz rejects painterly and gestural forms in favor of flat, precise paint application and hard-edged geometric shapes. This results in a striking dichotomy between the strong emotional subtext of the work and the stark rigidity of its execution.

Berenz currently lives and works in Madison, WI.

See more of his work here

“Collapse” – oil, acrylic, spray paint on canvas, 60” x 72”

“Thanks 4 Nothing” – oil on canvas, 36” x 48”

Artist Shout Out: Adam Friedman

“No Vestige of a Beginning, No Prospect of and End” – screen print, acrylic, gel transfers, and collage on panel, 16″x16″

Artist Statement:

In his book, Basin and Range, John McPhee explains, “If you free yourself from the conventional reaction to a quantity like a million years, you free yourself a bit from the boundaries of human time.” I prefer to view the world from a geologic assimilation of time. The human understanding of its duration is skewed and relative to our experience and mortality. On a roughly 4 billion year timeline of Earth’s history, the human inhabitance is barely even visible. Needless to say, the Earth was here long before humans, and will be here long afterwards. I believe that for human beings to think we have the power to completely destroy the Earth is an expression of our vanity and arrogance. Words like “apocalypse” or “doomsday” have inherent religious connotation and suggest that the end of the world coincides with human extinction… But the Earth will go on with or without us, and I take comfort in that fact. Through all of the damage that human beings inflict on the earth (and therefore each other), nature will recover.

In my work I attempt to visualize the imperceptible geologic process by compacting millions of years into a single moment. Rocks bend and grow. Entire mountains crumble in an instant. And the environmental damage that human kind has left in their wake has long since healed. I’m drawn to how geologic processes (erosion, orogeny, etc) relate to our institutions (financial, governmental, etc). I strive to present an era that defies human intervention in the landscape. An optimistic view of the natural world, post human presence.

See more of Friedman’s work here

“That Which Swells” – acrylic, screen print, gel transfers, and collage on panel, 35″x60″

“Oceans Before and Behind Us in Time” – acrylic, screen print, and collage on panel, 18″x12″

Artist Shout Out: Grant Miller

“PW-975″

“SVB-374″

Artist Statement:

In Grant Miller’s most recent body of work he shows not only how we receive various influences, but also how information effortlessly moves through space and time to affect society in our everyday existence. The culmination of these forces is a common occurrence. The work portrays this culmination of forces and shows how the resulting image reflects a moment of clarity in our lives, which is what we understand as reality. Miller’s work reflects complexities of society and acknowledges the influx of information and multiple viewpoints being processed simultaneously. The landscape of society is full of checks and balances with few black and whites. The most interesting factors are very seldom the single events, but observing where and how the events overlap, accumulate and reoccur.

The process of constructing Miller’s paintings mirrors the construction of history, and furthermore the natural process of editing and gathering information. He starts with architectural interiors, symbols, and marks. Once these marks are laid, he continues to react to the previous information. For every action there is a reaction. He uses a combination of structure and a vocabulary that is inherent to painting as elements to formally define space. Much, if not all of the early information is completely covered, and the viewer is left with a painting that has been continually built upon the previous action or mark thus mirroring the construction of history. The path to the present may not always be known. In history as in these paintings you can see through to some of the early influences, while some are completely invisible but necessary to the finality of each piece.

Grant Miller lives and works in Kansas City, MO

See more of Miller’s work here

“TL-192″

“RW-507″

Artist Shout Out: Lee Piechocki

Still Life With Napoleon Crossing the Alps and Packing Blankets

I’ve been meaning to write about the work of Kansas City based artist Lee Piechocki since exposed to it nearly a year ago at Wonder Fair‘s group show I Think We Are Making Progress. Initially I held off posting Piechocki’s bold Pop-Art infused, slightly Neo-Expressionistic landscapes and still lifes because quite frankly not many people were reading The Rathaus at the time. To make sure I remembered I added Piechocki to my “to be blogged about in the future” list which I promptly lost shortly thereafter causing me to forget. Then recently while perusing the new issue of New American Paintings Magazine – Midwest Edition I came across Piechocki’s work, and all my best laid plans came rushing back. Congratulations to Piechocki for making the magazine. The artist statement below is taken directly from the issue.

I read, talk and write about art as much as I make it. I also voraciously consume images, for better or worse, almost exclusively through media interfaces, be they books, magazines or the internet. At times I let the imagery wash over me, soaking into the fabric of my subconscious. At other times I very consciously and systematically investigate it, loving nothing more than to find trends, connections and tendencies. My work is a pastiche, a culling out of what I find provocative, compelling, suspicious, or seductive within the texts and the images I see.

Lately I have been interested in, among other things, emergent phenomena, the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions, 17th Century Dutch still life painting, Nicolas Bourriaud’s concept of Relational Aesthetics, magical thinking and witches.

It’s All Over Now – Summer Solstice

Still Life With Cat

It’s All Over Now – Vampire Picnic

See more of Piechocki’s work here