Artist of the Week: Samira Harris

Samira Harris is a UK based artist. Here are paintings from The spirit collection. It consists of meditative pieces, after over four years of doing black and white images Samira finally felt ready to move into colour last year. From her website you can also find two more collections; the body collection which presents pieces resulted from years of working with dancers and models focusing on expression and movement. The humanity collection is a reflection of Samira's feelings and thoughts about the nature of living and the more painful aspects of life. The three collections span the last ten years of Samira's artistic career.

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http://www.samiraharris.com/art.html

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Artist of the Week: David Gremard Romero

This week's artist is David Gremard Romero, who I recently discovered. Instead of introducing him to you myself, I let the artist speak to you through his own artist statement.

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The central preoccupation unifying all my work is an engagement with the practice of the old masters, particularly those of the Baroque and Rococo periods. Their perfection of craft, their exploration of narrative modes, and their explicit connection to history and politics are a source of continuing fascination and inspiration to my work. Embedding contemporary iconography and themes in a classical figurative craft, I seek to tease out the hidden relationships and continuities between classical art and current culture. As a gay, Catholic, Mexican-American artist, the complex themes of race, sexuality, subjectivity and identity find themselves entwined within the baroque parade of Mexican wrestlers, mythic hermaphrodites, imagined superheroes, and beastly cherubs that populate my imagination, my drawings, and my paintings. -David Gremard Romero-

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You can find more David Gremard Romero paintings and other info at: http://www.gremardromero.com/home.html

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Artist of the Week: Peter Berlin

This week’s artist is Peter Berlin, the notorious gay porn star of the early 1970s. He is best known for his groundbreaking porn films. What is less known is that the countless covers and photos layouts of Peter Berlin in gay magazines through the late 1980s were all taken by Berlin who is himself a professional photographer. His assignments routinely took him to Paris, Rome and London where he photographed celebrities including Sophia Loren, Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Brigitte Bardot, Alfred Hitchcock, Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Chevalier, Richard Widmark, and the clothes designers: Pierre Cardin, Karl Lagerfeld and Valentino. When Peter turned the camera on himself, he played each of two roles on different halves of the separately exposed negatives wearing his hallmark crotch grabbing costumes (all designed and executed by Berlin). Even less known, is that Peter Berlin is a gifted graphic artist. When the handling of black and white negatives in the darkroom occasionally resulted in prints that were slightly underexposed and grayish, he used his touch up pen and brush to darken the lines and increase the contrast. Soon he was using oils, acrylics and watercolors permitting him to enhance, embellish as well as colorize his black and white prints.The next step was the complete transformation or elimination of the backgrounds. He also started cutting up his photographs and creating collages with single or multiple self-images using different backgrounds from magazines including their covers and interior street and nature scenes. Berlin's talent as a graphic artist is perhaps best shown in his detailed pencil drawings which are well represented in this first exhibition of Peter Berlin's art.The body of Peter Berlin's creative work defies easy characterization. He challenges conventional notions of art and pornography and is perhaps alone with Tom of Finland in having created iconic images of masculine drag. For Peter Berlin's official website, go to www.peter-berlin.com.

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Artist of the Week: Sami Lukkarinen

Sami Lukkarinen is a Finnish artist who collects images from the net - different kind of images that people post in different forums, to present themselves via virtual world. From these images he does these pixel paintings (see below). He also does paintings of buildings with the same technique. I find his idea & art interesting, I think his way of creating art is unique and intriguing. I would not say all of his paintings are beautiful in a conventional way. I selected here the ones I liked, you can find more from his website. I like the freshness and originality of his concept. Share your thoughts on how you like them! Here is a link to his own website, in case you want to see more of his works: http://www.samilukkarinen.com/cv/?cat=collections

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Vaahtopoika (Bubbleboy)

Eevertti

E-lovena

Juzmo

Marizi

No.7

Steel Vagina

Boze

Russian Bride 3

Laura

Penis Enlargement

Omakuva (Self-Portrait)

Church of Pirkkala

Artist of the Week: Pierre et Gilles

Pierre et Gilles, Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard are gay French artistic and romantic partners. They produce highly stylized photographs, building their own sets and costumes as well as retouching the photographs. Their work often features images from popular culture, gay culture including porn (especially James Bidgood), and religion. Pierre Commoy, the photographer, was born in 1949 in La Roche-sur-Yon. Gilles Blanchard, the painter, was born in 1953 in Le Havre. After art studies, they moved to Paris in 1973 where they met in 1976, and began to work together. People photographed by Pierre et Gilles include: musicians Marie France, Marc Almond, Marilyn Manson, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Erasure, Nina Hagen; and model Naomi Campbell, actress Catherine Deneuve, actor Layke Anderson and designer Jean-Paul Gaultier. Personally I don't like all of their work, but I find the mix of reality and fantasy interesting. They are very unique and masters in what they do, even if some images lack a bit substance. Here is a selection of images I find beautiful, enhanting, provoking and interesting.

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