Artist : Melissa Campa

Artist : Melissa Campa

Melissa Campa

Mexico

Title: … y vivieron felices para siempre. / Blancanieves (Snow White´s happy ending)
Technique/medium: coloured pencil on paper
Measurements: 42 x 56 cm
Year: 2008

Melissa Campa was born in Hermosillo, Mexico. She is Bachelor of Visual Arts and has won several art prizes and fellowships in her country. Her first works were caracterized by representing young female figures, through which attempts to reflect the world she confronts everyday. But her subjects have been changing into different ways of expressing herself and creating art. The visual language of her painting is violent, and has been influenced by expressionist artists, such as Egon Schiele. While the delicate minimalist structure of her drawings make use of a personal and introspective side.

Title: Tan frágil (So fragile)

Technique/medium: Acrylic on paper
Measurements: 56 x 41 cm
Year: 2008

Title: Princesita (Little Princess)

Title: Princesita (Little Princess)
Technique/medium: mixed media (acrylic, oil pastel, plastic buttons, string and metal rings on canvas)
Measurements: 100 x 80 cm
Year: 2008

Artist : Ray Jones

Artist : Ray Jones

Ray Jones

United States

Winter: Nest
Sumi Ink on Khadi handmade paper 56cm x 76cm
Bio: Ray Jones grew up in Miami, Fl just catching enough of the 80’s to afford nostalgia. With a BFA in illustration from MICA and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, he spends days and nights in his studio drawing or thinking of ways to improve his double bass pedal technique. He loves dogs. He tolerates cats.

Autumn At war with deceit

Winter Invitation

Autumn To bury future lovers 01

Autumn To bury future lovers 02

http://www.jonesray.com
http://ramenj.blogspot.com

The 4th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale

LIVE and LET LIVE: Creators of Tomorrow
2009.9.5 - 11.23
Fukuoka Asian Art Museum and surrounding area
http://www.ft2009.org/

by Iwakiri Mio

The curtain has now closed on the fourth Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (FT). It would be fair to say the true worth of this exhibition - with its well-established format of inviting a sizeable contingent of artists to Fukuoka and running a jam-packed, highly organized art exchange program involving the local community, in addition to the usual display of artworks - only becomes fully apparent once it is over. As well as additional displays of records and art from the exchange programs run during the show, in an initiative by a local elementary school the Museum even hosted a mini exhibition dubbed the 'Atago Triennale' in which children copied their favorite works from the FT; all in all making for a vibrant, upbeat event.


An army of participants donned Cambodian Leang Seckon's 90m-long work Makara and paraded through nearby streets and a shopping mall.
Courtesy Fukuoka Asian Art Museum


This kind of very local enthusiasm is in my view the most appealing feature of the FT. Here is a show that refuses to lounge about in the museum galleries, but is perpetually on the go, energetically evolving. A particularly impressive product of this Triennale's art exchange program was Cambodian Leang Seckon's 90m-long Makara, a serpent that took over two months to complete with the help of local volunteers, and was paraded around the surrounding shopping precinct as part of the Triennale opening. Other intriguing art exchange offerings included Nomura Makoto's Concert of Bathwater of bathtime rhythms staged at a public bathhouse and also from Japan, AHA! who assembled and screened 8mm films of households remaining in the traditional heart of the city, in the process shedding light on some fascinating local history.


Nomura Makoto's Concert of Bathwater 31 October 2009. Word has it the steam from the baths and the enthusiasm of the participants made the final performance a hot one indeed.
Courtesy Fukuoka Asian Art Museum


Wong Hoy Cheong Doghole 2009

That Asia is home to a mixture of multiple contemporaneities is a message conveyed also by previous FTs, but the exhibition plan chosen in competition for this FT really did visualize this particularly well. At Reizenso, an external venue suffused with that ambience typical of old apartment blocks, Singaporean Wong Hoy Cheong's new work offered a powerful presentation of memories from the Pacific War, in a new form befitting the present day.

General opinion has it that the international status of Asian contemporary art has changed dramatically in the last few years. Plus one senses that naturally, the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum is under pressure to revise its own standpoint and direction. An approach that also attempts to embrace the applied arts, and a methodology that builds exhibitions on fieldwork, are indeed important and must be maintained, but one suspects the Museum does need to be more cognizant of current conditions. In that sense, this FT did come across favorably as flinging open its gates and making an earnest attempt to accept new realities. There are glimpses of pride in having played a role - quite apart from trends in the art market - in building the foundations of the current Asian art boom. This being the case, it was no bad thing to have so-called international stars like Cai Guo-Qiang, Navin Rawanchaikul, Suboth Gupta, Michael Lin and Huang Yong Ping adding glamour to the show. The dynamism of the exhibition would have been particularly impossible to achieve in the absence of the works by these artists.


Huang Yong Ping Python 2000
Collection of Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation, Switzerland
Photo: Imamura Kaoru, Courtesy Fukuoka Asian Art Museum

Personally, I did find it surprising that someone such as Yao Chung-han of Taiwan, in a sense very much an artist's artist, was selected for this 'exhibition for the local community', and was impressed by the broadmindedness of the Museum in commissioning him for the closing performance. I wonder if those who were there when he employed his body and light to produce thunderous tones heard him knock on the door of tomorrow.


Live performance by Yao Chung-han using fluorescent lights. Behind him is Asai Yusuke's Doro-e (Earth painting): One Tree Forest (Father’s Tree) 2009

ART iT Photo report: The 4th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale 1
ART iT Photo report: The 4th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale 2

Konoike Tomoko: Inter-Traveller

Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery
http://www.operacity.jp/ag/exh108/index.html

by Hara Hisako


Konoike Tomoko: Inter-Traveller - People Playing with the Dead 2009
Photo Nagare Satoshi, Courtesy Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery
© Konoike Tomoko

This exhibition could be described as a compilation of Konoike's work over the last ten or so years.

The moment I stood at the entrance I felt I was being enticed into a story. The huge eyes staring out from the mountain painted on the fusuma seemed to be warning me not to overlook any of the events I was about to experience in the depths of the earth ahead. Passing through the parted fusuma, which formed a kind of gateway to the underworld, I entered a space surrounded by sheets of thin white fabric in which Konoike's original drawings for mimio (2001) were arranged in a spiral pattern. Looking down on visitors from above as they gaze intently at the open pages as if peering into specimen cases is Virginia - Set Me Free, Fly from My Restraint (2007), from which sprout four white wings and a number of antlers and from whose vagina-like opening can be seen a pair of frail legs only.

The paintings that make up the four-part Story Series are hung at just above eye-level on all four sides of a room whose walls and floor have been painted deep red, and appear to tell a story with scenes showing a creature resembling Virginia from the three-dimensional piece from the previous room in a forest and on water. After passing through this room, filled with the fragrance of a Casa Blanca lily with enormous flowers that stands in the middle, one enters a space surrounded by twelve fusuma paintings, the four in the middle depicting a skull emitting golden breath, the four on the left people with butterfly wings, and the four on the right creatures with bodies that are half wolf and half human. One gasps at the mysterious world that opens up before one, which, in stark contrast to the brightly colored paintings in the previous room, is conjured up using black ink, powdered calcium carbonate, and gold leaf. Konoike majored in Nihonga at university, and all of the works on show exploit to the full her painterly talents in the form of her powers of description and brush skills as well as her ability to model two-dimensional work into three-dimensional form.

Before the scene changes there is a sign. It informs visitors how far they are from the earth's crust in terms of depth. Next is Earth Baby (2009), a giant baby's head covered in broken pieces of mirror that revolves inside a darkened room reminiscent of a womb. The mirror fragments reflect the light and make the room sparkle fantastically like a mirror ball. The baby with its striking wide-open eyes and crying mouth is an innocent creature yet at the same time seems to possess a violent, unpredictable streak. When one thinks about it, so-called 'humans' are nowhere to be seen in this exhibition. The characters in Konoike's stories are beasts whose thoughts and actions we have no way of comprehending.

Without realizing it I found myself sucked deep into the world of these impressive stories and identifying with the characters that appeared in it. Perhaps because aromas, sounds, and lighting had been used so effectively that I experienced it with my entire body, I realized that even after I had finished viewing it that it was impossible to erase it from my memory. Somehow the artist had managed to create an incredibly powerful space that gave an impression both of delicate femininity and tremendous fear. The exhibition title expresses everything perfectly. Visitors will do doubt find themselves taken on a journey through a rift in space-time linking the thresholds between the inside and the outside of the earth, and between life and death.


Earth Baby 2009, Konoike Tomoko: Inter-Traveller people Playing with the Dead 2009
Photo Nagare Satoshi, Courtesy Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery
© Konoike Tomoko

Exhibition Tour
Konoike Tomoko: Inter-Traveller - Twelve Wolf Poets
9 October - 6 December
Kirishima Open-air Museum
http://open-air-museum.org/ja/art/exhibition/konoiketomoko

2009.12.16
幻燈ダンスholon[森田太朗(ダンス)＋森田こころ(幻燈OHP)＋マロン(音楽)]

[gallery]

この間、満月の晩、今までで一番の「月の虹」を観ました。月輪にはっきりと大きな虹がありました。まるで大きな目の様に、冷えた冬の空に浮かんでいるのでした。夕焼けや自然の大きな景色を観ると、心がスーッと風景と同化し、その観たものと自我が溶け出すのをいつも感じます。私と云うものがここに在りながら、無くなってゆく。僕は曾祖母に幼い頃に教わりました。その体験がholonになったのだと思います。よかったら観てください。今回は、来日アーティスト"Jessie Smithユニット"コンテンポラリーダンスとの２本立！！お楽しみに。(森田太朗)

Part1


Part2


Part3


Part4


Part5


Part6


Part7


Part8

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昨今のよく見かける映像と音楽。技術の発達によって今や誰もが気軽にそういった、音楽と映像等のコラボレーションが出来るようになった。勿論それは何ら悪い事でもないし、面白い作品やライブが出来るのならば全く問題にならない。しかし、問題と思えるのは、何もかもが手軽になってしまった今、改めてその方法論自体を見直すべきなのではないか、と考えてしまうことがある。
表現に自分が一番しっくりするものを使えば良いだけの話なのだが、、、。

まるで宇宙を旅しているかの様な感覚。遠く見放された宇宙というよりも、母親の胎内での胎児の夢かの様な曖昧すぎる記憶。独りだけど優しい気配がある宇宙。一時間が瞬く間に過ぎて行った感じがした。まるで夢でも見ている様な、見ている最中は刻々とその一場面がありありと過ぎて行くのだが、覚めてしまえば、その時間経過が曖昧に短く感じられる。

ダンスが作り出す影、を包み込むイメージ.
氷や炭酸水、霧吹き、油など日常にある物を使って積みぎ出されて行く映像には、その物
変化がありありと目の前に起こる。「水滴がしたたる。氷が溶ける。色が混ざる。」等の単純でも「どのように」変化するのかが完全に分かり得ない、リアルタイムな変化。
そしてそれらを包括する音楽、音楽というのか音像というのか。

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Live show at KD Japon on 2009.Dec.16th.
Gento Dance holon(幻燈ダンスholon) is an art project of Morita brother based in Nagoya, Japan.
Taro, buto dancer, was like dance in the space, like soul in the cell on each organs. The visual is made by two over head projectors. The visual from his two OHP is far from psychedelic visuals from 60's or 70's. The light and shadow express the organic and analogue-tic movement are makes us kind of relaxing Because most vj use PC and software to generate visuals in recently. Sometimes, this make me feel like to keep up date myself in daily life.
Every move and every sound is too analogue and direct to our feeling.
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Reviw : ■Grand Hallway（Tomo Nakayama ソロ） ■Shenandoah Davis ■野村和孝 ■Gofish

Reviw : ■Grand Hallway（Tomo Nakayama ソロ） ■Shenandoah Davis ■野村和孝 ■Gofish

2009.12.21 at Tokuzo, Imaike, Nagoya, Japan



野村和孝 / Kazutaka Nomura
aka PWRFL Power


Tomo Nakayama
from Grand Hallway


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野村和孝 / Kazutaka Nomura
aka PWRFL Power


不思議な魅力を持つレーベル、Half Yogurtからの001番。基本的に弾き語りなのだが、途中でブレイクする実験的な奏法でほんの少しピリリとするナチュラル・エレキ＆ボーカル作。また違うのだが、戸張大輔を初めて聴いたときのハっ！とした感じを思い出す。
（Text by LOS APSON?）

プロフィール
作曲家ジョンケージによって基礎付けられたシアトル市コーニッシュ芸術大学作曲を卒業後、同市での“Block Star Contest”で数百の応募の中を単身優勝。楽曲“It’s Okay”が全米TVCMに使用される。同年、Clap Your Hands Say Yeahの東海岸ツアーのオープナーを務めた他、Daniel Johnston、Deerhoof、Gang Gang Danceらとの共演も果たす。Slender Means Society（ポートランド）、Popular Noise（ブルックリン）、Impose Records（ニューヨーク）等から作品を発表後の最新作。

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cute novelty. And I mean “cute” in the worst sense of the word. I mean in the current SNL sense. Or, if you’ve caught this IFC sketch show, in The Whitest Guys You Know sense. It’s more concerned with being precious than being funny, and that’s neither fun nor intriguing. I don’t see how goofy naiveté augmented by ornate guitar work qualifies something as attention worthy — but here it is. Everyone loved “Lazy Sunday,” and I thought it was just another current SNL example of cuddly, cult of cute bullshit. But it was still way more clever than anything on here. Faust mixed humor and musicianship in infinitely more intriguing ways. Ween have as well (though they’ve frequently come off like beer swilling, misogynistic jerks in the process).

At times, the songs seem simply confessional, with awkward, un-poetic observations. But the music is just pleasant, and the singing is naked in a snicker-inducing way, rather than charming (i.e. -Phil Elevrum). Then there’s the references to texting and digital cameras that only adds to the cutesy, ain’t modern love kooky-type lameness. The only people I could recommend this too are those who are easily charmed by sparse and superficial gimmickry. Anyone with discerning taste will suss this out for the sicky sweet nothingness it is right off the bat.
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http://halfyogurt.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/pwrflpower
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Tomo Nakayama
from Grand Hallway


シアトルを拠点に活動するGrand Hallway / グランド・ホールウェイのボーカル、ピアノ、作詞作曲を担当するTomo Nakayama / トモ・ナカヤマは、高知県出身で８歳まで東京都町田市で過ごした後、シアトルに移住。2000年に彼の初めてのバンド、Asahi / アサヒを結成し、2002年にファーストアルバム”Head Above Water”をリリースする。（アサヒではギター、ボーカルを担当）Jeff BuckleyやLowを思わせるそのサウンドは音楽メディアで高い評価を受け、特に地元シアトルのラジオ局KEXPではヘビーローテーションを獲得。同 局のNorthern Music Chartで５位にランクインする。アサヒは西海岸を中心にThe Velvet Teen、John Vanderslice、Junoといったバンドとツアーを回り、着実にその知名度を上げていった。2004年、トモはJen Woodのジャパンツアーにバックバンドメンバーとして参加。その際、ソロでオープニングアクトと務めたことがきっかけで& Recordsの関係者の目にとまり、アサヒの「ヘッド・アバヴ・ウォーター」は2004年7月に日本でリリースされることになった。

2005年にアサヒは解散。以降トモは長年の友人であり、プロデューサーのJeramy Koepping / ジェラミー・コーピング（シアトルのサイケデリックバンド、Voyager One / ヴォヤージャー・ワンのプロデューサー兼ギタリスト、ほかにアサヒ、Jen Wood、Dolourなどのシアトルのインディーバンドを多数プロデュース）とデモ制作に入る。トモは初めてピアノで作曲し、彼がフェイバリットに挙げ るNina Simone、Rufus Wainwright、Elliott Smith、Rachel’sといったアーチストからの影響を伺わせる方向性を見出し、新しいバンド、グランド・ホールウェイを結成した。

トモ、ジェラミーに加え、The Maldives、Lillydaleで活動していたベーシスト、Erik Neumann / エリック・ニューマン、インストバンド、Joules、Vermillionのドラマー、Bob Roberts / ボブ・ロバーツがバンドに参加し、グランド・ホールウェイは2005年秋にライブ活動をスタート。2006年夏、シアトルの音響芸術支援団体、Jack Straw Productionsからのサポートを受け、デビューアルバム”Yes Is The Answer”の制作に入る。このアルバムは、ストリングスをフィーチャーし、美しいピアノの調べとトモの繊細なボーカルが心に染み入る、素晴らしい作品 となっている。「イエス・イズ・ジ・アンサー」は、世界に先駆けて日本でサイドアウトレコーズからリリース。ジャケットアートワークは、独特の世界観を持 つイラストレーションで知られる日本人のデザインチーム、PCPが担当する。

グランド・ホールウェイというバンド名は、テネシーを拠点に活動するSilver Jews / シルバー・ジューズ（レーベルはドラッグ・シティ、PavementのStephan Malkmusも結成時のメンバー）のボーカリストであり、詩人でもあるDavid Berman / デヴィッド・ベルマンの詩、”The echo in a grand hallway”から取られている。独特の深い音像とたゆたうような繊細なボーカルを特徴とする彼らにふさわしいバンド名だと言えるだろう。トモは、上記 のフェイバリットアーチストのほかに、ニール・ヤング、ビョーク、ビートルズ、久石譲などもフェイバリットに挙げている。

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Tomo Nakayama was born in Kochi, Japan, on the island prefecture of Shikoku. Surrounded by high mountains and rolling oceans, beneath a forest of camphor and orange trees, a sense of expanse and atmosphere was instilled in the boy at a young age. At the age of eight, he moved to the equally green and blue paletted surroundings of Seattle, atop a hill overlooking the placid waters of Lake Washington.

The fist song Nakayama learned was a Japanese folk song about a dragonfly. He would often lie in the grass of his neighboring elementary school at night, singing the dragonfly song, segueing to the deconstructed half-melody of a Catholic hymnal, which he would inevitably twist into the bouncing pomp of the South Vietnamese anthem (with made up lyrics) that his father had taught him. To him it was all one song.

*Random Fact – As a child, Nakayama was a fan of Pete O’Brien of the Seattle Mariners, and dressed as the player for Halloween.

After buying a Vivaldi cassette tape and listening to the Four Seasons movements night and day, Nakayama took up the viola at the age of 11. He then taught himself to play the guitar, drums, and piano (mastering none…ahem.), and began to write songs, most of which he kept to himself until he was 19.

Asahi was the name of his first band. They played shows in Seattle, toured a few state lines, and recorded a few songs, all of which were engineered by Jeramy Koepping (Voyager One). They released an album which came out in the U.S. in 2002, and in Japan in 2004, and made many friends, and grew up and grew old as brothers and sisters until they couldn’t stand each other any more.

After the dissolution of the band in the beginning of 2005, Nakayama and Koepping collaborated on a few songs. They called the thing Grand Hallway, inspired more or less by a David Berman poem – of hallways being an empty unused stage, “an outdoors that is somehow indoors,” connecting the various venues of our daily activities. Which is where this story begins: a new adventure, something akin to those early years of a life, when style and genre hold no meaning, and music is a pure reflection of the world as you and you alone perceive it.

Of late, bassist Erik Neumann (ex-Lillydale, Tennis Rules) and drummer Bob Roberts (Joules) have joined the fold, bringing not only their classically trained skills but also their unabashed enthusiasm, making Grand Hallway less of a studio project and more of a living, breathing entity.

In December of 2005, they released their first recording, a four song ep entitled “harbinger.”

The not much else to say, because everything is beginning.

Seattle PI
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http://www.myspace.com/grandhallway
http://gh-dec21.d.dooo.jp/top/
http://grandhallway.com/
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Shenandoah Davis
from Grand Hallway


After a childhood spent being homeschooled by her mother at the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, Shenandoah Davis began teaching herself piano at the age of three and continued her classical studies up until college, where she decided to audition as a classical voice major despite having no prior vocal training because she worried that her self-taught technique would not be enough to gain her admittance. She studied classical voice, piano, jazz guitar and harp during college, swore off classical music after completing her degree, and began composing on her own. In the winter of 2006, a series of travels and tribulations led her to Seattle, where she currently resides.

In addition to collaborating with Seattle’s Grand Hallway and Jack Wilson, she has shared stages with Sera Cahoone, The Lisps, Ian Cooke, The Maldives, and Paper Bird, and has been featured in The Stranger, Setlist, and Sound Magazine.

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８歳までを東京都町田市で過ごし、日本の情緒すら 感じさせるその楽曲群で
母国のアメリカだけでなく、日本でも多くのファンを生んできたGrand Hallway&Asahiの
日系フロントマン トモナカヤマ。最近では、新作『Promenade』を発表、
リリースパー ティーのチケットは即ソールドアウト、地元レコード店では名門Sub Popの
作品群を抑えチャート上位入りするなど、シアトルを代表するバンドのひとつとなりました。
Shenandoah DavisはGrand Hallwayでアコーディオンを担当。幼少時にはピアノを独学で、
大学では声楽とジャズを学びました。FeistやJoanna Newsomを思わせるスタイル、
確かな技術に裏打ちされたミニマルなピアノ伴奏でメキメキと頭角を現しています。

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http://shenandoahdavis.com
http://www.myspace.com/missshenandoah
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Gofish
from NICE VIEW

ジャンルではないGofishさんの暮らしの中にある「唄」という佇まいにとても共振します。 「song for a leap year」の一曲目のレコードと今のレコードとの揺れの違いに唄い続けているGofishさんの歩みを感じる事が出来て何故か嬉しくなります。
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http://dopplernahibi.jugem.jp/
http://www.myspace.com/gofishjp
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