Brooklyn Art Project

Detail of Caitlin Hackett’s In the Aftermath
ballpoint pen, water color, colored pencil, ebony pencil and gesso; 56.4×67.2″

As a child, my librarian grandmother made sure I had ample supply of books, which thankfully included plentiful fairy tale books that I took to for life. One of the things that caught my eye and mind most were the illustrations of Arthur Rackham whose mysterious black spider-webby illustrations melted my senses further into whichever story was fascinating my imagination at the time.

Fast forward 30 years to this recent summer, I came across the work of newly graduated Caitlin Hackett. Caity seems to have channeled Rackham’s spirit into her work. Her flowing lines, often drawn with ball point pen not only remind me of my favorite illustrator’s work, but also mimic the familiar lines of nature: the grain of wood or flow of water. This and her muted color palette contrast wildly with violent and fantastical imagery creating wonderful dissonances. Her main subject matter comes from her childhood experiences with nature having grown up with redwood forests in northern California and her love of the fantastic worlds her child-mind invented during those times:

Ever since I was a child I always drew animals, and often I would invent species, going into great detail to create fantastical ecosystems for them, explaining how each aspect of their body helped them to survive in whatever world they lived in. I based these invented creatures both on real animals such as seals and bears, and also on mythological creatures. Growing up I was also exposed to a lot of local mythology, because the area of California I grew up in was also the traditional home of the Wiyot tribe, amongst many others. When I create my creatures now they come straight out of my head and may or may not end up representing my original idea once on paper, but this flexibility and transience in ideas is part of what makes it so enjoyable to make these monsters, they are never the same and they never come out exactly as I planned, much like the real world. Although I do not specifically or intentionally reference any mythology in my work now, I have certainly be influenced by it throughout my life, and those influences certainly have an affect upon, and show up in, my drawings.

Since graduating from Pratt, her work has been featured in six exhibits and her work is being picked up extensively by the blogosphere - she has even been featured here on the Brooklyn Art Project. Keep an eye out for this rising star and see her work in person whenever you can.

Caitlin’s work will be on exhibit for Anagnorisis Fine Arts in a solo show entitled, “Wilderness”, from February 5th through March 9th at the White Rabbit on Houston in New York City. You can view her work online here as well.

Opening reception:
Friday, February 5th
7-10pm
White Rabbit
145 E. Houston (btw Eldridge and Forsyth)

To boot, Caity will have affordable limited edition prints on rag paper available of her Masquerade drawing, each individually altered by hand. This will be a great opportunity to get some wonderful work for your walls!

Masquerade; ball point pen, micron pen, gold ink, colored pencil and water color

Thanks for coming back to the BAP blog. Did you know you could subscribe free to our daily curation of our most popular member paintings, illustrations, films, photography and design? ART FEED.

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THIS WEEK’S PROJECT

This week you can win a Japanese Moleskine sketchbook for tweeting a link to art that you like on BrooklynArtProject.com.

It can be any kind of art on BAP: drawings, paintings, photography, sculptures, etc. We’re curious to see what you love. Be sure to include the hash-tag #bapbook2 in each tweet so we can track all the submissions.

THE WEEKLY GOODS

Moleskine Pocket Japanese book

“The Moleskine Pocket Japanese book offers a unique notebook design influenced by the traditional Japanese horizontal emakimono scrolls.
Perfect for drawings, collages, and sequences, this book contains one sheet of heavy-weight sketch paper that is folded into 60 accordion pages.
Every Moleskine product is thread bound and has a cardboard bound cover with rounded corners, acid free paper, a bookmark, an elastic closure and an expandable inner pocket that contains the Moleskine history.” - MoleSkine.com

WINNER SELECTION
We’ll be giving away one Moleskine Pocket Japanese book to a lucky participant in the curation project. All submissions are tracked by #bapbook2 so please include this in your tweets. Winner will be announced on BAP, Twitter and Facebook. The more art you curate, the higher your chances of winning.

THE DEADLINE
The project closes at Midnight on Friday, February 5th so you have one full week to curate your heart out.

For questions email us at info@brooklynartproject.com

Of all art, graffiti probably has the widest discrepancy between the off-handed-ness of its creation and the intensity of the art theory surrounding it. So it’s no surprise that added to the mountains of academic papers and discussions is a movement to catalog and organize its slap-dash squiggles. Which, of course, leads only to one thing: Robots.

Graffiti tech has grown like crazy in the last few years, spurred on mostly by the Graffiti Research Lab (check out their EyeWriter project, and the various laser-tagging rigs they’ve developed. You might have seen one at MoMA.). Then there’s Jurg Lehni’s spray-painting robot Hektor, another spray bot called GraffitiWriter, and now this.

Read the entire article here at Fast Company

Sculpture of birds made out of old records by Paul Villinski

On New Years Eve, at the amazing loft party where Anagnorisis Fine Arts hung some of its artists’ work, I got word that my friend, artist Ted Reiderer, was putting together an art installation in the old Tower Records space on Broadway in NYC.

Ted, who I know from my stint with the Antagonist Movement not too long ago, creates sculptures, paintings and more using a wide variety of mediums. His work unfailingly centers around punk rock of the seventies and the cultural ramifications of such a movement. His work is intelligent and attractive. It’s aesthetic appeal is very modern with, perhaps, just a hint of pop.

The exhibit at Tower Records, Never Can Say Goodbye, is a wonderful idea for many reasons. Curated by Manon Slome of No Longer Empty, Steven Evans of the Dia Art Foundation and Asher Remy-Toledo also of No Longer Empty, it features work by multiple multimedia artists. Each work explores the ways our culture accessed music in the not-too-distant past. For many years Tower Records was the best place to go to buy music you needed for your collection no matter what genre or mode (they still sold cassettes years after CDs had become the norm). The place had five (?) floors and a multitude of eyecandy. This New York location closed down several years ago due to the proliferation of online sales, and, to make the closing more tragic, the entire building has sat unused ever since as if to rebel against the new ways of the world as much as it can.

In comes No Longer Empty to save the day. From the exhibit’s site:

Never Can Say Goodbye illuminates the economic and social changes caused by the emergence of the Internet as the dominant means of music distribution. In its heyday, Tower Records was sales central for indie and contemporary music, as well as a gathering place for musicians and music lovers. Today, in its place, is a virtual landscape without architecture, sales staff, and community traffic. Freely downloading selected songs have created an empty space where a music store once thrived.

As I mentioned, I knew I wasn’t going to make the opening party, but I did manage to get a sneak peek while they were still installing the show. Teds work, Never Records, “an installation complete with record bins, album covers, music posters and a performance stage” is interactive. As you flip through the records, you read through what could be lyrics split up amongst each cover design. I was also really excited about Paul Villinski’s sculpture of birds rising up above a pile of records (pictured above). Overall the show is crisp, intelligent and fun.

This show is one of those exhibits that merits a visit not only by any art lover, but also by all music lovers, New Yorkers and tourists alike. All will find something to love and enjoy. Those of you who frequented the store in its day will not only get an eyefull of great art, but will also have the chance to reminisce a bit.

There are several events attached to the exhibit including musical performances and a lecture. This show is not to be missed!! The exhibit which opened this past Friday, January 15th, will be up until February 13 (hours are Wed - Sun 12pm- 7pm). The old store, in case you don’t remember, is on the corner of Broadway and East 4th Street. More information can be found by clicking here.

We wanted to let you know that the Red Cross has teamed up with MGive.com for an easy way to donate $10 to relief efforts in Haiti through your cell phone. It only takes a few seconds and about $2 million has been raised this way. Things are tight for all of us these days but if you can help, this is a great way to do it.

1. Text ‘Haiti’ to 90999 (a Red Cross #)

2. They’ll respond asking you to text back ‘HELP’ to confirm. $10 will be charged to your cell phone bill.

3. Let a friend know about it

Thanks to Brooklyn Art Project member Zannah Mass for letting us know about this great way to help our friends in Haiti. Zannah runs cultural development programs for DUMBO Brooklyn including the successful First Thursdays DUMBO Gallery Walk.