Art Smart: Halloween Train

It's been like a million years since I last posted an Art Smart. But now I'm back with the Japanese Chooo San! She uses acrylic paint to well paint  very disturbing pieces on bodies. I stumbled upon her works while looking for halloween costume ideas online and I must say I'm very glad I did. Her paintings are so realistic and so whack and so very very very disturbing...perfect for halloweenieee!!

Art Smart: Saliva Bubbles

I've always been a fan of Julia Randall's works. The way she makes the lips look that realistic is so ridiculous. At first glance, I thought they were photographs! I'm such a sucker for hyper realists so it's really no surprise that I go gaga for Julia Randall. As you guys can see, the lips seem to be doing the whole saliva bubble thingy. Hihi I used to do this whenever I'd cry as a kid. The most vivid memory I have of doing this is when I was around 3 or 4. I'd wake up at around 9am all alone save for our housekeeper since my parents would be working and my sister would be at school. I'd go sit at the top of the stairs and just bawl my eyes out while calling out to my mum. Whenever I'd say 'mama' a bubble would for from my saliva then I'd get distracted by it and eventually stop crying hehehehe.

Art Smart: The Creator of the Tiny Men in Grey Suits

With their tailored grey suits, lonely and utilitarian auras, I immediately thought of the Pixies from The Fairly Odd Parents when I saw Isaac Cordal's installations. Just by looking at them, I find myself being submerged into a pool of sadness and bleakness. I wouldn't voluntarily want to feel this way but I guess that's what makes his works stand out. They really make you feel something. Even if it isn't the usual gooey stuff you feel when you look at something really inspiring, it's cool nonetheless. 

I've been prepping this for quite some time and I never had the chance to post it til now since I always felt like it wasn't the right time. What made me think now's the time? We read this story for our Filipino class and its called 'Ang Kwento ni Mabuti' by Genoveva E. Matute. Roughly translating, it means The Story of Good because 'mabuti' means good in our language. The story is told from her student's perspective seeing that Mabuti is an elementary school teacher. It is said that Mabuti is just a plain old teacher but the student's perception of her changes after she comforts him/her in the library while he/she cried his/her heart out over a very trivial problem. She then slips up and says that sometimes she wants to do the same; cry and feel sorry. 

After that encounter, his/her becomes intrigued by her. The student suddenly had the urge to find out just what made her want to cry. Mabuti carried on teaching Filipino literature but the student whose eyes are now open, noticed that in everything that she taught, she made sure that her student's got to see the beauty in everything. Then one day, while telling the class about her daughter's dreams of becoming a doctor someday, another pupil of hers offhandedly commented about Mabuti's daughter's father. This made the teacher's face drain of its color and that's when the narrator noticed something was amiss..

And our homework that was assigned to us over the weekend is to find out what exactly is up with the absent father of Mabuti's daughter using the remaining cryptic paragraphs given to us. I shared this with you guys because the dominant message in the whole story was that to achieve great happiness, you have to go through great sorrow as well to really appreciate it. I thought of Isaac Cordal's installations and I'm thinking they're the 'sorrow' branch of art. I don't know. I think if you wholly want to appreciate art, you ought to get down and look at some melancholic and raw pieces first to really give you variety and some sense of what you're engulfing yourself with. 

Art Smart: Pakayla The Photo Painter

Pakayla Biehn mixes photography and painting together by taking double exposed photos and well, painting them! On a thumbnail, they look like photographs but up close you could see the strokes her paintbrush made. She also dabbles on hyper realism painting which basically is the act of tryna make your paintings look like pictures. Ahh this has been an old recurring fantasy of mine; to be able to make such realistic paintings that theyd be mistaken as photos huhu. 

Her paintings are so beautiful and she herself is very pretty + she seems nice + her name is really cool heehee. What's not to like about her?

Art Smart: Alien Hair Salon Catalog Artist

I love my hair. I am now growing it out so I could have tresses like Miley Cyrus..or possibly a mermaid. When I first started out drawing, I had quite a hard time drawing hair. I wanted and tried so hard to capture the shiny-ness, the flow-yness and the softness. Enter Winnie Truong! Before I watched the videos on youtube about drawing hair and all, I used to stare at her works and just try to decipher how she manages to make the hair look so dang realistic.

But what sets her drawings apart, is that theyre just downright..weird. To the point that I found them a wee bit disturbing! They remind me so much of the illustrations in Black Hole the comic book mehehe. I can imagine these drawings as a part of some alien salon hair catalog thingy.

Art Smart: Mary With Her Zombies And Fuglycorns

I may have found my idol in the form of Mary Doodles. She is everything in my opinion that is awesome in this world all rolled into one kickass artist. I'm not really a fan of doodling and doodles but her works have instantly become an exception! She's famous on youtube for her doodles and for the costumes that she makes for Epic Rap Battle hihi. 

Looking at her colorful works is such a breath of fresh air from all the weird and disturbing works I have been surrounded by lately. Plus, her fondness for zombies just made her a million times cooler than she was in the first place if that was possible hehe. Go check out her blog and videos if you want an instant cheer up-er!

Art Smart: Objective-Is-To-Creep-You-Out Girl

Meet Ronit Baranga. She's a sculptor. She makes pots. She also molds creepy little fingers and mouths to her works. Yes, you'll buy a normal looking put then when you take a glimpse of the bottom, you'll find a parted mouth. Totally normal, right? But anyway, the glistening sculptures and their eerie stillness are just so frightening. I can't imagine what a person would do if ever he or she would stumble upon his works in the year 3000 all tucked away inside an antique store or something. They'd think we were such a creepy generation hehe.

Art Smart: Intravenous Liquid Gold

I have read a lot of Young Adult books about how teens can go from normal and all of a sudden this climactic event serves as a catalyst to the landslide of situations that help or contribute to the 'transcending' of the person. I'm not sure if I'm using it correctly but by transcend I can imagine that as we live our lives, we're sort of in this semi-liquid bubble that shades us from seeing life in all its glory, we live normally til we scratch the surface hard enough and we get a glimpse of how ethereal and magical living in this world is. From then on, it depends on us whether we keep 'digging' and eventually create a hole big enough to keep a clear view or we could also let the hole heal like a wound, sealing us back in the bubble thingy. 

Anyway, pardon my preachy preachy stuff above, it just came at me while looking at Maria Sardari's works. Seriously felt like I was looking in the whole transcending thing from another person's point of view. I know words like ethereal and magical have been abused by me, but her works..could be summed up by those. Considering that she's only a teenager, she has a very very very promising career ahead of her fo sho. I hope a lot of people can see her works.