What is art if not a study of light? This is a question I have grappled with for many years, since taking Photography classes in high school. It seems to me that most traditional art forms are about just that, and those that are not intrinsically about it are often shaped by it.

There are many artists that experiment with these ideas in their daily work, one of which is New York’s own Kumi Yamashita. I call her work “shadow sculpture”, because that seems to be the best way to describe it.

Some of these images you might have to enlarge in order to get the full effect, you can do so by simply clicking on them. Sculpture is about so much more than just form and (sometimes) function. Sculpture, being an object made in three dimensions and standing in a space, casts shadows. Kumi’s artwork takes the actual artwork out of the equation, and makes the artwork about the casting of light and the casting of shadows.

I am always searching for new ways of making art, because if we don’t continue to experiment and find new processes then art becomes rote. Kumi Yamashita is on to something here, I think that much is obvious. As I said, she is not the only artist working in “shadow sculpture” and I encourage you to seek out the work of Tim Noble and Sue Webster (who make shadow art from recycled materials), among others.

Proch is a Polish graffiti artist and animator who not only works on walls, but also on paper and canvas. There is a certain street art mentality to all of his work, regardless of what surface it’s executed upon. Music is an important influence on Robert, and you can tell in the improvisational nature of many of his brush strokes.

The title of this painting (above) is “Jazz in free times #1“. The subject matter matches the visual style, much like many of the painters and musicians of the Harlem renaissance. The painting below is called “Tweens“, and has a slightly different focus. The nervous hands near the top of the canvas, and the hands that cover the eyes of the central character, speak to the anxiety, angst and stress that young people are faced with today.

As mentioned earlier, Robert also works with animation. He has a channel on Vimeo, and I would highly recommend checking it out. Below is a short example of one of his animations, titled “Skoki“.

Skoki from robert proch on Vimeo.

Lenka is not one of those artists that sticks with a medium. She is, however, the type of artist that sticks with a message. Her message, which I like to call the harrowing aftermath, transcends all of her work no matter what it’s made out of.  She was born in the Czech Republic, and moved to the United States in 1989. I’d like to theorize that the great Chernobyl meltdown of 1986 somehow informed her artistic mission, though I’m not sure if that’s actually true.

She’s communicating the idea that our actions, as humans, have inevitable and often dire consequences that we neglect to take into account. It’s a heady message, I know, but is nonetheless worth exploring. Art is an excellent medium to get this message across, because nothing can produce an emotional reaction in humans like visual imagery. These paintings are powerful. While she does also work with paper, metal, and other materials, I find her paintings to be the most powerful medium she works with.

I would highly recommend visiting her web site, which has images of most of her work, including installation and sculptural work.

Yong Ho Ji (or Ji Yong Ho, I’m not sure which is more correct) makes sculptures out of old tires. The decision to use recycled materials, and tires nonetheless, says a lot about our environment (whether or not the artist meant it to). But putting all that commentary aside, I would just like to explain how absolutely awe-struck I am by these works. I mean, they’re awesome.

These few examples don’t really do any justice to the breadth of the work, either. You should check out the website to get a better picture of the wide variety of organic forms this person has built out of tires. Aside from sculpting herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, anthropods, etc… there is also a whole section of hybrid animals, including hybrid humans:

Isaac Cordal’s minute sculptural work reminds me a lot of Slinkachu’s Little People. In a bid to transform the urban environment, Isaac builds his small people (usually around 25cm tall) in concrete before reproducing them with silicon molds and places them in the margins of our urban landscapes.

You could find, if you look hard enough, examples of his work in Berlin, London, Brussels, Barcelona, and on his website. He also does some interesting installations and video art, which you can also find on his site.

This is exactly the kind of “guerrilla” artwork this world needs more of. Art doesn’t belong only in a museum anymore, it belongs in the streets for everybody. Some of Isaac’s ideas echo my own, that the real beauty of life is in the small details. A brief glimpse at my photographic portfolio is further evidence.

Upon first examination, the work of Belgian artist Kris Trappeniers appears to be ballpoint drawing.

If you had a chance to look at his Flickrstream, however, you would find some photos of his work in mid-process. He does use ballpoint pen, but he also uses x-acto knives to meticulously cut out his contour drawings and use them as stencils on various surfaces.

The result is a kind of topographic map of the human face. There is an illusion of surface and contour, although the pieces are very much two-dimensional. It is an excellent lesson in contour, where it’s very easy for us to see how lines and gestures can give the appearance of depth and texture.

There are many different kinds of street art. This particular variety happens to be beautifully and painstakingly rendered on a very large scale. Mac is a graffiti artist, his only message that of pure aesthetic beauty. He’s taken one of the artists’ worst nightmares (the human face) and makes it look easy.

His work is very painterly, even though he uses no brushes. He is a bit of a mysterious figure, despite being a perveyor of the legal kind of graffiti, and there is very little information out there about his methods.

What I do know is that his work is widely commissioned, and his murals often become the stuff of landmarks. MAC reminds us that our old antiquated notions of street art are in desparate need of an upgrade.

You might not have thought that toilet paper rolls could be turned into anything awesome, because that was what I thought. We were wrong. To say that Anastasia’s work is visually interesting would be a grand understatement. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but when an artist makes the conscious decision to use a recycled medium, their artwork says something about the act of recycling and reusing. But, with Anastasia’s work, I think the real focus of the artwork is somewhere else entirely.

Lighting plays a very important role. You can see from these two examples below how much of a difference lighting can make. The only way I can say it is that when the scenes are lit from the back, they come to life.

It should also be noted that Ms. Elias is a busy woman. She is also a painter, illustrator, and collage artist. Her portfolio can be accessed on her website (which you may have to translate from french), and I would highly recommend you pay it a quick visit.

Tom Bagshaw, an English artist, works digitally. He is both an artist and a commercial illustrator, a prime example of the “industry” of art and the jobs available. His personal work is at once creepy and quirky, baroque and contemporary, mystical and humorous. You might not have thought those categories coincide, but Tom Bagshaw is the proof.

His mastery of the face is evident, something that has always eluded me. One of the finer qualities of his work is the mystical aspect, in my opinion. The otherworldly sense I get from these pieces is enchanting, and it helps me enter into them with ease.

You can find much more of his work at his website, which is registered under his commercial moniker Mostlywanted.

The paintings of KC Collins are at once abstract and true to life. I equate them to freeze frames from a movie or other motion picture. They have the overall appearance of scenery, as viewed through a car windshield that has been dappled with raindrops.

Inspired by both historical and contemporary artists (including: JMW Turner, Franz Klein, Anne Stahl and Elin Neuman), Collins’ work, like Slinkachu’s, reminds me of some work of my own. The idea of artwork that is simultaneously gestural and motionless has always interested me.

Collins’ went to Elon University and has won several accolades for her work, including the Elon Annual Art Show and the 2010 Mayor’s Choice Award, among others.