For many years now, social media and especially Instagram and Pinterest have helped me to discover some talented visual artists. From paint to digital art pieces and photography, this is an ode to these amazing persons who highlight my virtual everyday life besides superficiality and nonetheless stuff. Let me introduce you to Benoit Paillé, Bijou Karman, Bruno Gadenne, Holly Warburton, Louise Zhang and Nicolas Stathopoulos arts.
BENOIT PAILLÉ
The Canadian photographer is a wizard of photography. During his travels around the globe, he always captures people, animals and nature around him with a strange eye. His vision of nature, confers him a singular way of expressing what he sees. From a urban landscape in Linfen (China) to the exotic jungles in Tulum (Mexico), Benoit Paillé shows us that alternatives sights exist. His using of neons and infrarouge/thermal effects, gives some movements and vitality to the things and the persons on his pictures. Out of this world, the photograph has succeeded to translate his art and adapts it everywhere he goes. He never changes the nature, he gives it a touch of abstraction, by the most beautiful ways : by letting colors and reality talk by themselves. His pictures are just alive. They are beyond reality.
Let you guide by his vision of life and his art, follow him on Instagram : benoit_paille/Benoit Paillé.
BIJOU KARMAN
The illustrations of the Los Angeles artist are incredible. They mostly turn around women and the multiple feminine ways of being a woman. Her illustrations depict the numerous and diversity of womanhood, nobody is missing : white, black, yellow, red, beige, curvy, thin, dark haire, kinky hair, muslims and covered woman, it’s about feminism and representation. It’s colorful and rich. Sophisticated and moderne, the illustrator and graphical artist has created a new of expressing her feelings and her world which is styled, bright and bold. Zebra or floral patterns to big hoops and 60’s sunglasses, Bijou Karman never lacks to give some glamour to her portraits. She never misses the chance to present us some feminine historical figures and some futures cultural figures, on her Instagram. Her art is about empowerment and woman beauties. A total feminist militant, we can totally sense her activism in her drawings. She joins art and reality and I love to see it. Her illustrations are a bowl of fresh air.
Don’t forget to follow her on Instagram : Bijou Karman.
BRUNO GADENNE
I discovered Bruno Gadenne art’s at the La Fab gallery in Paris few months ago. And I’ve been totally impressed by his paintings. The Parisian painter pieces of work remind me of the impressionism paint era. His paintings are dark and deep. It’s strong and full of force. Every touch of color strengthens the paint. Sometimes chaotic, Bruno Gadenne paints are livid and we can almost feel the force of nature in every paint. The using of grim colors (dark blue, mauve, forest green, black or grey) surprisingly gives life and beauty to his visual artwork. It seems that the painter is stuck in this big forest and he’s trying to find the end of the path. From darkness, we are looking at the birth of a new life, a now form of expression. Many of his paintings are trees and palm trees on fire, maybe a metaphor to the death of nature and deforestation, that is visible all around the globe. The fact that most of his paints represent nature and mostly forests and rivers, prove us that the painter is a total nature and environnement appreciator. It’s never the same forest, never the same representation and it’s never the same energy. A total balance of colors and ideas, the antagonism, the day and the night, the sun and the moon. Bruno Gadenne paintings shine in a peaceful mess, shaking the room by shutting everybody mouths and let the trees and water bring us in a poetic and vivid feeling.
Follow him on Instagram : Bruno Gadenne.
HOLLY WARBURTON
It’s been many years since I follow the mysterious illustrator on social media. And she always finds new ways to surprise me. Her visual universe is full of colors, bright colors (orange, yellow, light blue, pastel mauve). Holly doesnt’t seem to have a straight and linear story, she is guiding by her emotions and memories. Portraits of unknown men with strong features as they are suffering from the burden weight of life, a couple of women loving each other, children, a bunch of people walking on the street, random figures of ghosts, valleys of flowers, countryside, the illustrator describes us a new story on every piece of art. Some artworks remind me of the singers and musicians Anna Wise and Jon Bap album covers. They also remind me of the provincial and « old France ». This part of France where people live around calm and natural places, far from the craziness of Paris or Marseille. The France of Marcel Pagnol movies. Close to farms and villages. Holly tends to draw some recurring patterns : love, spirituality and solitude, emotions and feelings everyone can deal with. Holly Warburton draws people of everyday life. When it comes to nature, the abstraction of the forms tend to take a big place. Her illustrations are sometimes faded, like we can’t see or we are forbidding to see. Her paints have a veil of mystery that only her can decode. And this mystery delivers an attraction. Sometimes candid sometimes violent, Holly Warburton universe is rich and complex. Holly Warburton illustrations are close to post-impressionism paints but they are way more modern and realistic. Holly Warburton is a sociologist and poetic illustrator and artist.
Follow her on Instagram : hollywarbs/ Holly Warburton.
LOUISE ZHANG
The artist is a solar power force. At the first sight, we can’t clearly distinguish the meaning of her paints. But this confusion is the main key to her art. Louise Zhang visual world is reuniting space and an idyllic sphere. Cercles and spheres full of kindness, softness and candor. In those concentrated spaces, Louise Zhang is mixing a tons of different feelings : those cercles are just some new planets brought to the world. Each planet has its main color, its main energy and identity. Some paints can recall the 60’s and 70’s visual identity with the magma lamps, the dreams under certains drugs, this feeling of love, liberty and freedom. Louis Zhang is also giving a blink to her Chinese heritage and we can see how. The cercles she paints, those new planets and echo systems are reuniting new energies and matters. It feels like the ying and the yang have merge and give us the colors that we all know. But in Louise Zhang world’s, the ying and the yang mixing is candid and fresh. Those new planets are barely populated and this is maybe the aim of the painter : the birth of new planets and worlds prospering without the human kind. Louise Zhang art’s is modern, ideal, warm and spatial, it’s futuristic.
Follow her on Instagram : louise_zhang/Louise Zhang.
NICOLAS STATHOPOULOS
To continue and finish this article on the spatial path, I present you Nicolas Stathopoulos art’s. Nick Stath is a concept artist and illustrator. His artwork is all about space, outdoors, the universe, the outside. With his illustrations, you can never be bored. I choose this illustration to introduce you to him because it’s this illustration that convinced me to follow the artist. Nick Stath illustrations are about the future, a new planet or a dystopian world where everything has changed and is floating around. There are no humans around except those two persons. These two persons seem to survive or are maybe they are maybe the last humans alive. We don’t know who they are but they are travelling and looking for something, a purpose maybe a new human being or form of life. Because Nick Stath illustrations are full of space and magnitude. His illustrations with his use of digital and graphic dimension parts are maybe a blink to Star Wars movies or the NASA, because they are from outer space. Through those illustrations, the artist expresses his will to explore and discover a world without us, a world full of Bauhaus buildings and brutalism mansions, sublime utopian buildings that we can commonly see in futuristic movies and tv shows as Alien or Westworld. Those characters visiting this new world are very small but their presence is clearly important in most of the illustrations. They remind us humanity even if it has decreased. Wherever Nick Stath is taking us, I want to go too because his illustrations are light, stellar and peaceful. They are doors to new planets : Mars or Venus, a place without humans has never looked so beautiful and vibrant. Each illustration is a celestial exodus.
Follow him on Instagram : nick_stath/Nick Stath.
Thanks for the reading.
Lunaticharlie.
Follow me on Instagram : @pointzeroworld – POINT ZERO WORLD.
POINT ZERO WORLD 