Oddity Central |
- Denimu – Using Old Blue Jeans in the Name of Art
- Dining with the Dead at India’s New Lucky Restaurant
- Japanese Fisherman-Turned-Artist Creates Skeletal Artworks from Dead Animals
- Chuck Close’s Incredible Fingerprint Portrait Will Blow Your Mind
| Denimu – Using Old Blue Jeans in the Name of Art Posted: 09 Jul 2012 02:22 PM PDT
It’s hard saying goodbye to your favorite pair of jeans, even when they’re way beyond wearable, but English artist Ian Berry has found a way to avoid throwing away denim, by using it to create beautiful works of art. Netherton-born artist Ian Berry, who now lives in Sweden, has made quite a name for himself after his unique art, called Denimu, took the art world by storm. It’s hard to believe the idea of using old denim as medium for his art came after a call from his mother, Christine, asking him to clean out his room. "It was about six or seven years ago my mum was clearing out my old room and she wanted me to go through my things. I found loads of old jeans and denims and I noticed the different colors and shades. I kept hold of them but it was only about 18 months later I began to do something with them." Little did he know his experiment would soon make him and his denim art famous all over the world. Ian quit his full time job in advertising to focus all his attention on art. It was a risky move, and he remembers his girlfriend’s parents asking if artists could make a living in this day and age. But his gamble paid off and soon his denim artworks were the stars of sell-out shows in Sweden and the US, and his pieces were sold to private and public collections all over the world. Now, he’s getting ready to show off his talent in his home country, where he’s never had an exhibition. Iain Barratt, director of the Catto Gallery, told the Examiner: "It's extraordinary what Ian does, it's not until people see it close up and touch it they can see how he's created these wonderful scenes. And what absolute treasures they are. Ian conjures remarkably detailed portraits and urban landscapes using nothing more than discarded jeans – the effect is extraordinary." Denimu art is as simple as it is beautiful. Ian Berry uses old jeans, a pair of scissors and some glue to create all his incredible detailed works of art. After five years of working with Denim, the English artist has managed to fill seven closets with old pairs of jeans, so it’s safe to say he has plenty of material for his future works.
Denimu – Using Old Blue Jeans in the Name of Art was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Dining with the Dead at India’s New Lucky Restaurant Posted: 09 Jul 2012 07:10 AM PDT
In a land like India, where life and death intertwine so naturally, and reincarnation is such an important part of religion, what better place to build a restaurant than in the middle of an old Muslim cemetery? They say the milky tea and buttery rolls at the New Lucky restaurant in Ahmedabad, India, are to die for, and I can’t help but wonder if that has anything to do with all the graves scattered between the tables. The bustling establishment is build right on top of a cemetery, but that doesn’t seem to bother the clientele who comes in to enjoy a refreshing cup of milk tea and some soft rolls. In fact, Krishan Kutti Nair, the owner of the creepy restaurant thinks the location is good for business. ”The graveyard is good luck. Our business is better because of it”, he says. Photo: Rub City But the New Lucky wasn’t always located on the cemetery. Back in the 1950s, a man named K.H. Mohammed opened a tea stall outside the cemetery, and Nair helped him run the place eventually becoming his partner. Business was good and the place started expanding until its walls started encircling some of the graves. It might sound odd to us westerners, but in a country where three times the population of the US is packed into an area one-third the size, space is at a premium, and it’s common for graveyards to serve multiple purposes, including commercial and even residential. Photo: India Mike Although the green-graves are randomly scattered through the restaurant, making it difficult for visitors to find their way, the New Lucky’s waiters have mastered the art of shimmying between graves with trays full of tea in their hands. They’ve gotten used to working surrounded by the dead and say there’s nothing odd about it. Customers don’t seem to bothered either, on the contrary, they think it’s convenient to have a place to drink some tea after they’ve visited their dead relatives in the graveyard. But the eerie place is also frequented by old men arguing politics in the morning and young couples during the evening, and most of them feel the graves just add to the ambiance.
Krishan Kutti Nair doesn’t know who the graves in his restaurant belong to, but local historians suspect they are the resting places of relatives of a 16th-century Sufi saint whose tomb lies nearby. Regardless of their inhabitants, one thing is for sure, Nair doesn’t plan on removing them anytime soon, despite people’s advice to make more room for customers. Every morning he wipes them with a damp cloth and decorates them with fresh flowers, as he considers them his good luck charms. Sources: The Associated Press, Vagabondish, Zoomin.uk Dining with the Dead at India’s New Lucky Restaurant was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Japanese Fisherman-Turned-Artist Creates Skeletal Artworks from Dead Animals Posted: 09 Jul 2012 05:28 AM PDT
Believe it or not, the Japanese use fish for something else than sushi. Take Iori Tomita, a former fisherman who now creates creepy works of art from various dead marine specimens. 28-year-old Iori Tomita uses scientific techniques of preserving and dyeing to transform dead fish into brightly-colored glowing pieces of art. The former fisherman applies over 10 different chemicals to each specimen, which break down the muscle proteins, making it transparent and revealing the skeleton. He then uses red and blue dyes to highlight the hard and soft cartilage. It sounds easy enough, but it’s really a complex eight-stage process which takes Tomita three months to a year to complete, depending on the size of the animals he’s trying to turn into morbid works of art. The young Japanese artist first encountered transparent specimens at a fisheries university he was attending in Iwate prefecture, Northeast Japan, when he was 19-years-old. It was an epiphany for him, and since 2005 he has been trying to create his own skeletal fish, only for artistic purposes. His first attempts often ended in failure, but after seven years of intense practice, he’s proud to say 9 out of 10 attempts are literally a glowing success. Tomita, who became a fisherman in a town in the Iwate prefecture, after graduating college, collects his material from the wharf and fishermen, and turns them into unique artworks. “These specimens which you see here are actually animals that have died for some some reason or whose carcasses were discarded from pet shops or fishermen. I use those animals which passed away and repurpose them,” he says. Shinsekai Toumei Hyouhon, or ‘The New World of Transparent Specimens‘, as this creepy art is known as, is created using dead animals, but Iori Tomita thinks it brings people together and makes them appreciate life by observing death. In Japan, his art is especially popular with women in their 20s and 30s, but the artist now wants to expand overseas so the whole world can enjoy his skeletal specimens.
Japanese Fisherman-Turned-Artist Creates Skeletal Artworks from Dead Animals was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Chuck Close’s Incredible Fingerprint Portrait Will Blow Your Mind Posted: 09 Jul 2012 04:30 AM PDT
It’s not every day that you get to have your mind blown by a phenomenal piece of art, but today is one of those rare days. Feast your opticals on this unique portrait made by Chuck Close using only his fingerprints. Entitled Fanny/Fingerpainting, this giant portrait was created in 1985, and depicts the artists’s wife’s late grandmother, Fanny. The oil on canvas artwork was executed using a technique developed by Close himself which involves the direct application of pigment to a surface, with his fingerprints. By adjusting the amount of pigment used and the pressure applied on the canvas with his fingers, Chuck Close managed to capture every crack and crevice of the subject’s face, just like a high-definition silver-toned photograph. Chuck Close is recognized as one of the most talented American artists, and his photorealistic paintings have been exhibited in various national galleries, but Fanny/Fingerpainting is definitely his most impressive masterpiece yet. Although not as realistic-looking as what Chuck Close can produce, Judith Braun’s fingerprint artworks are also incredibly detailed and fascinating to look at.
Chuck Close’s Incredible Fingerprint Portrait Will Blow Your Mind was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
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