beinArt International Surreal Art Collective - The ever-expanding online gallery of surrealist, psychedelic, esoteric, outsider, fantastic, lowbrow, erotic & visionary artists

Art News

INSIDE artzine #12

February 28th, 2008 by Jon Beinart

INSIDE artzine News from Jenzzz: 

New art from the black hole: INSIDE artzine #12

More fever-visons from the deepest sewers of the planet: Paintings, digital collage, sculpture, stories, poems, interviews & reviews from Europe, USA, Australia, Japan, Brasil, Turkey, Hong Kong.

Be prepared for Chris Mars, Mike Bohatch, Naoto Hattori, Alessandro Bavari, Kris Kuksi, Karl Persson, Tristan Schane, Chet Zar, Rodrigo Braga, KD Matheson, R.S. Connett, Viron v2.0, Autopsy Babies and many more.

A4/8.5" x 11", 40 pages, full color, fully sick, quality print/paper, english, 5 Euro / 7.20 USD / 8.30 AUD.

INSIDE artzine can be purchase from:

Germany, Europe, World: INSIDE artzine website (banktranfer/PayPal).

USA: Parcell Press

Australia: Polyester Books 330 Brunswick St, Fitzroy, Melbourne.

France: La Petroleus.

Previews can be seen at: www.inside-artzine.de

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Group Show at Mondo Bizzarro

February 26th, 2008 by Jon Beinart

Chris Mars’s PaintingsBily Shire Fine Arts Group Show at Mondo Bizzarro Gallery.

March 1 - April 3, 2008.

Including works by Chris Mars (right), Liz McGrath, Scott G. Brooks, Daniel Martin Diaz, Glenn Barr, Scott Musgrove, Ana Bagayan, Gary Taxali, Shag, Bob Dob & Nathan Ota.

Via Reggio Emilia 32 c/d 00198 Roma, Italy.

Tel: 06 44247451.

The Bead Game Animation

February 26th, 2008 by Jon Beinart

I recently found another incredible example of stop motion animation. The Bead Game won the 1978 BAFTA Film Award. Ishu Patel (Born April 20, 1942, in Jalsan, India) is the award-winning animator responsible for this masterpiece. Ishu Patel is also on the National Film Board of Canada and currently teaches animation and storytelling in India. Enjoy!

See more Surreal Animation on YouTube.

Sketch Theatre

February 22nd, 2008 by Meg Smith

Sketch TheatreI recently came across Sketch Theatre, a website that showcases footage of artists sketching in fast motion from the first mark to the finished product. It truly is astounding to watch these drawings come together. Artists featured include Chet Zar (right), Michael Hussar, Shawn Barber and Meats Meier. It is fantastic that aspiring artists have the opportunity to watch other contemporary artists produce these sketches.

‘The Fly’ by Konstantin Bronzit

February 20th, 2008 by Jon Beinart

Presenting a short animation: The Fly by Konstantin Bronzit. Please turn your volume up before viewing. The sound of the buzzing fly is very irritating. In this film a fly destroys the peace of a meditating Hindu statue.

'The Fly' won Best Animation Film (International) at the 'Drama Short Film Festival' 2003 and Audience Award at the 'Sweden Fantastic Film Festival' 2004.

More Surreal Animation.

Peripheral Vision: Simon and Ben Kelly

February 16th, 2008 by Jon Beinart

Simon Kelly’s GalleryPeripheral Vision is an exhibition of paintings by brothers Simon Kelly and Ben Kelly that explores the outer limits of the creative imagination.

Alan Lane Community Gallery - 18 February - 13 March 2008.

Warrnambool Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia.

Please join local artist Vivki Couzens for the closing of the exhibition from 2-4pm on Sunday 9 of March 2008.

Freak Box: Brett Ingram’s Animation

February 15th, 2008 by Jon Beinart

I recently got in contact with a film maker whom I have a lot of respect for. I discovered during our correspondence that Brett Ingram is not just a documentary maker, but is a great animator in his own right. Brett Ingram (who directed 'Monster Road', the award winning doco about legendary Bruce Bickford) is the animator behind Freak Box (right). I asked Brett to describe his short animation and give our readers a little background information about himself. Here was Brett's response:

"What do a monkey, a robot, and two numbed out teenagers have in common? The symbiotic processes of the idiot box, as it turns out.  Freak Box is a stop-motion satire of the lulling evils of television – an electro-mechanical circus where viewers lose – and find - themselves in the hopelessness of a pixel array constructed by monkeys and robots."

"At the time I made Freak Box, I was freelancing as a sound mixer for documentaries, commercials, and various cable television programs. I also directed a couple of episodes of a “documentary” program about dog breeds on Animal Planet. In my youthful naivety, I was astonished at the level of manipulation of the content by the producers. Each episode was completely formulaic with cinematographers following “style sheets” for uniformity and the whole bit. Network executives constantly challenged my choices in subjects (mainly dog owners) based solely on their appearance or manner of speaking. The whole experience reminded me of a circus, one where monkey minds orchestrate productions carried out by robots to produce homogeneous faces on a screen watched by couch potatoes."

"I became interested in stop-motion animation in film school. Bruce Bickford was invited to our local film festival one year and I was charged with helping him conduct a stop-motion workshop. Watching Bickford gradually animate a morphing head frame by frame over the course of six hours was mesmerizing and left a lasting impression."

"I never received any formal training in animation. Inspired by my brief experience with Bickford, I learned everything by trial and error. Once you understand the basics of stop-motion and how the illusion of cinema works, the rest is an application of imagination and problem-solving skills through endless hours of labor."

"From the beginning it seemed to me that straight character did not fully exploit the creative possibilities of stop-motion as a medium. I was drawn to the surrealism of the Brothers Quay, but found even more inspiration from their acknowledged primary influence, Czech animator Jan Svankmajer. Svankmajer’s work was more original and idiosyncratic, yet his stories and the ideas they communicated were paradoxically more universal. I digested the work of Bickford, Svankmajer, the Quays, and others before experimenting to find my own aesthetic."

Brett Ingram's Website.

See more Surreal Animation on YouTube.

Visions in The Mischtechnik Seminar

February 15th, 2008 by Tim Anderson

Caruana & Holden SeminarCome spend three weeks in a 14th century village, learning Old Masters' techniques from a new generation of Visionary artists. Experience communal living in Torri Superiore, an eco-village in the foot-Alps of the Italian Riviera, just two steps from Ernst Fuchs' home atelier and the  Torri Superiore is a labyrinthine village of spiraling stairs and narrow passages, built from the local limestone in 1300. In this cozy and creative atmosphere, students will develop two original works: one following the classical Mischtechnik employed by Ernst Fuchs, and the other following a modern variation developed by the teachers and employed in their latest paintings.

Laurence Caruana and Maura Holden will lead the seminar together, setting up their easels and painting alongside the students…. Visionary methods and materials, practical tips and secrets of the craft - all will be demonstrated and applied hands on. You will learn how to make fine lines, apply smooth glazes, eliminate brush strokes and paint details like eyes, hair, jewels and halo's. The teachers wish to guide their students with intuition, humor and understanding, knowing that these techniques are not easy, and require much patience and skill. For more information and to register.

The Seminar will take place from July 12th - August 3rd, 2008. 

Please visit: Maura Holden's site or Laurence Caruana's site.

H.R. Giger Museum Gallery presents Vincent Castiglia

February 11th, 2008 by Meg Smith

Vincent Castiglia’s GalleryVINCENT CASTIGLIA - "Iron Oxide Visions on Paper"

"Feeding" (right), 2005, 36" x 54".

The first solo exhibition of paintings by Vincent Castiglia will open at the H.R. Giger Museum Gallery in November of 2008 and run through mid 2009. Master Swiss-surrealist, H.R. Giger, and his wife Carmen Scheifele Giger, Co-Director of the museum, were first introduced to the artist and his work in 2005, which eventually resulted in an invitation to introduce his work to the many international visitors of Giger Museum in Gruyeres, Switzerland.

Castiglia works in the tradition of surrealism and visionary art. When asked for his artist statement, the artist replies, “My paintings tend to depict iconographic forms, vital and necrotic juxtapositions, and reinterpretations of transpersonal experience”.

Castiglia, an internationally renowned New York based tattoo artist and painter, has exhibited his works on paper at museums and galleries in the US, Switzerland and England, including in the 2006 group exhibition of the Society for Art of Imagination at The HR Giger Museum Gallery, Switzerland, The Museum of Sex (New York), The Mall Gallery (London, England) Canvas Los Angeles (Los Angeles California), Fuse Gallery (New York), Art @ Large Gallery (New York) Gallery Lombardi (Austin Texas), C-Pop Gallery (Detroit, Michigan)The 7th Annual Dirty Show (Detroit, Michigan) and Ludlow Gallery (New York), where Castiglia's artwork received its first back-handed compliment, having his artwork stolen right off the gallery’s wall.

The HR Giger Museum, inaugurated in the summer of 1998 in Gruyeres, Switzerland, will celebrate its 10 Anniversary this Summer. It showcases the largest collection of Giger’s work on permanent public display, encompassing his paintings, sculptures, furniture and film designs, including his work on “Alien”, “Poltergeist”, and “Species”. The top floor of the Museum houses Giger’s private collection, which includes over 600 works of art by Salvador Dali, Ernst Fuchs, Dado, Bruno Weber, Günther Brus, Claude Sandoz, François Burland, Friedrich Kuhn, Joe Coleman, Sibylle Ruppert, Andre Lassen, among many others.

The Giger Museum Gallery is located in the adjoining wing of the museum complex, above the H.R. Giger Museum Bar. There, since 1999, and now on a twice a year rotating basis, Giger utilizes the three room exhibition space to show the work of artists, mostly those already in his private collection, in an effort to help broaden the art appreciation of visitors to his museum. Previous exhibitions have been for Wessi, Prof. Ernst Fuchs, Hans Bellmer, Fred Knecht, Stelio Diamantopoulos, Martin Schwarz, Claude Sandoz, Günther Brus, François Burland, Rudolf Stüssi, and the Society for Art of Imagination. Currently on exhibit are the paintings of Victor Safonkin.

The artist will be present at the opening. Castiglia's solo exhibition at the H.R. Giger Museum Gallery will run for six months.

For more information visit the H.R. Giger Museum website.

Vincent Castiglia's Website

Barany Artists' Website  

A Cabinet of Natural Curiosities

February 7th, 2008 by Jon Beinart

Christian Van Minnen A Cabinet of Natural Curiosities

Group Show at Roq La Rue Gallery

2312 2nd Avenue, Seattle WA 98121

Ph: (206) 374-8977

Opening Friday, February 8th 6-9pm

runs through March 1st

Artists: Christian Vanminnen (right), Femke Hiemstra, Travis Louie,