Dancing Urchin

Illustrations: Birds

Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill. Watercolours and pen on paper. 20 x 20 cm

Crimson-breasted Shrike. Watercolours and pen on paper. 20 x 20 cm

Hoopoe. Watercolours and pen on paper. 20 x 20 cm

Pearl-spotted Owlet. Watercolours and pen on paper. 20 x 20 cm

The battle is never ending.

Flashback: Ethical discussion in Isola Utopia

The "Spectacles" of Public Art.

Last week a public sculpture titled “Perceiving Freedom” was revealed on 6th November in Cape Town, when South Africa celebrated 20 years of democracy; it is meant as a tribute to Nelson Mandela. I learned about this project on Facebook where disgruntled commenters called it out for its shameless use of Mandela’s name and for being a billboard for the brand Ray Ban. It got me thinking about our project we did, and also the "butplug" incident of Paul McCarthy and public art in general.  

Two years ago two friends and I created a work in Milan, a pair of 3 meter long “Ray Ban” style sunglasses made out of cardboard titled “Monument” that we left in a public space to be torn apart by passersby. Our work was born out of a workshop during our studies where we were challenged to come up with a proposal for a public work that took in consideration the collective memory and history of the area where we were based. This was hard for us, as we were three foreigners who have only been living in Milan for a few months. Instead, we chose something; a symbol which we thought encapsulated the Milan of the moment, pink Wayfarer shape sunglasses. Sunglasses for us was the smokescreen of Milan and all its insecurities, all the fashionable people hiding behind their sunglasses and the precarious lives of immigrants selling the fakes on the street (there were a lot pink ones). For us the idea of a monument could never be permanent and our work wasn’t clean and sleek, it was messy, vulnerable and held together with sticky tape and kept up with stilts made out of wooden broomsticks. There were many flaws in our work, we were terribly disorganised. We did not involve the public very much in the initiation of the work, but we included them by allowing them to strip it apart and break down a "Monument". Our sunglasses had a  completely messy appearance which saved from looking like an ad campaign for sunglasses. Now in the light of the new sculpture revealed, I am reflecting on this work again and also the meaning of making in art in public spaces.

I ask myself these questions:

Does the work leave space for interrogation of its context?  Does it acknowledge the vulnerability of public space? Does it consider its public? Does it ask its public to participate and to reflect or does it only offer fashion and consumption, holiday photographs and selfies? 

I found this beautiful reflection by Rebecca Hodes on the new sculpture, I also remembered a text I read years ago by W.J.T Mitchell on the violence of public art.

The Precarious Life

I have started a new Tumblr that follows a precarious life, documenting subjects such as gentrification, inequality and other things that either lead to a precarious life and the growing gap between rich and poor.  It has some of my little illustrations and instagram thoughts. 

Happy Haloween

One of my favourite subjects to draw: Toulouse the best dog ever!

The Vertical Jungle; Salon Orizzonti Occupati - Vienna Secession

Here are some details and a close-up of my drawing that was in exhibition during Isola Art Center's salon in Utopian Pulse – Flares in the Darkroom. The drawing is part of a series of drawings and a story I wrote all under the title The Vertical Jungle. The prototype of the storybook have been in several exhibitions with Isola Art Center such as the exhibition 1:1 at MSUM in  Ljubljana. The book is being revised and improved, so more about that in the future.

(The photographs are not exactly the best, if anyone has some tips on how to photograph big drawings).

Starting the day

Some things

An old map of Trento in exhibition at MART in Rovereto. Great exhibition.

Painted walls in Trento

Drawing: insomnia sucks.

Drawing: I'm fighting some inner monsters.

Drawing: Dreamy mountains

 I babysit to make ends meet. Me and the 7 year old boy I look after made these colourful prints from folded paper boats coloured in with felt pens. 

Moments and things.

I try to do a weekly drawing/ moment which I post on Instagram and Facebook.

The sea spew out everything. 

There are moments when it is hard to focus on work and one needs to be pulled back to earth.

Chocolate slogan cake

Inspiration: detail of Mountains by Matteo Rubbi

Autumn

Drawing, lets talk about gentrification, Milan.

Me in the winter

This was a little sketch I made to illustrate how cold I felt in Berlin in the beginning of the year. Winter is here again...Background and frontal figure doesn't really blend, probably I need to find a better solution.

Hipster Chickens

Holiday Sardine

I took a much needed break in December, returning home to  South Africa. It involved staying with my family at the beach, seeing old friends and doing a little as possible. The only thing I did was this tiny little painting for my mother.

Little illustration

The Black Crow

Friends: Wei-Ning Yang

Wei-Ning is a Taiwanese girl who has been living in Milan the past two years, she is currently doing the Visual arts and curatorial program at NABA with me and part of my group of friends that I call family here. Apart from having admirable style and knowing where to find shoes for cheap, she is also a very talented artist who experiments with video, print and illustration. I am hoping to show some more of her work, but here is some postcards that she made based on one of her videos. As friends she gave each a few as gifts.  These scans do not seem to capture how wonderful they are. 

Final mix of Summer basics series, 2010

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Fashion illustration, Summer basics series, 2010

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