There are people who are trendsetters and that's that. Illustrators and artists whose very unique way of illustrating the imagined world are blazing a trail. This is the case of Nicholas Di Genova, our beloved Die Young 005, which despite a dozen vulgar drag impersonators without ethics or pride, he keeps creating, growing, improving and going deeper in his own style. Nick's almost scientific explorations of imaginary animal mutations are approaching step by step to the creation of a short of pseudo-mythology. The new works of Di Genova show the conception of a creative nature without limits, a step ahead of the natural evolution of the species.

Preemptive Evolution is the title of the exhibition at Gallery Dukan Hourdequin in Paris, which compiles the latest creations of Di Genova, an upward evolution in complexity and elaboration. If you have the chance to attend the opening in Paris on November 10, do not miss it! The experience of seeing his works for real is priceless. The exhibition will be open to the public until December 3.

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Sometimes we like to imagine how it was the childhood of an artist, just by judging their works, sometimes we are absolutely right and many others were wrong. And that's what we gonna do right here with David Gómez Maestre, who presents his new works under the title Welcome to the Tribe at the gallery Espai Tactel in Valencia. From November 11 until January 7, 2012.

Imagine: Once upon a time there was a mother who avidly read gossip magazines. There was once a child in the living room of their home that instead of going out to play in the street, he preferred the company of his color pencils. And the combination of both passions, mothers and sons, evolved into David's passion for photography, models, fashion and glamor... And the drawings that once were scars, warts, black teeth and eye patches on the faces of the protagonist of the gossip stories, nowadays became tribal masks, geometric patterns and ornaments from mystical inspiration. His tribe is full of pop icons like Michael Jackson, Freddy Mercury, Amy Winehouse, Woody Allen and designers like Karl Lagerfeld, but also friends and models embody this the-last-of-the-last in indie aesthetic.

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It was long time ago when a few graphic designers earned international reputation, close to be rock-stars, from that Olympus can remember Büro Destruct, The Designers Republic or eBoy among many others. But times have changed and the increasingly vast network of networks and their derivatives, communities and social networks proclaim new graphical icons each day, less famous but more abundant and diverse. Just like in the music scene, each new day brings new talents and you have to be ready and open to catch the last new trend. One of these, who has been shinning on his own for a couple of years and that we have published several times at our online gallery, is Alex Varanese.

Absolutely devote fan of robots, typography, retro aesthetics and predominantly warm colors, Alex Varanese combines perfectly all his knowledge: the use of 3D tools, vector and photo retouching domain, high doses of typography, tasteful compositions, good technical skills with animation and video, but mostly a vast visual culture that allows him to rescue the past and evolve into the future. Do I hear more?



YES! He also makes the voices and music for his latest creation: Danton Diphthong, the video you can watch over these lines. And judging by those 20 minutes of animation, he also has a great sense of humor. C'mon, this guy is definitely a diamond in its purest form!

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If you take a look to the art of Nick Gentry, you could say that he has a disturbing obsession with floppy disks or any kind of obsolete media formats. Or we could say that as part of a generation that grew up surrounded by the first personal computers, floppy disks, VHS video tapes, polaroids photos and audio cassettes, he is inspired by the sociological impact of a digital culture that evolves as fast as becomes obsolete.

Gentry uses old disks as a canvas to build a collection of numerous portraits, making a comment on waste culture, life cycles and identity. The life and personality of this old recycled junk is a big part of each artwork.

Nick Gentry is a British artist graduate of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. He has exhibited recently at Contempo art fair in Munich, Stroke art fair in Berlin or Whisper Gallery in London. His next show will be at Scope art fair, part of Miami Art Basel, from Wednesday 30th November to Monday 5th December 2011.

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Her name is Jessica Fortner and is an illustrator, sculptor, maker and grower of things, design enthusiast, reader of books, designer of sites, thinker of things, and lover of animals. She also loves the symmetry, geometry, and weird fractal-ish things that occur when she is drawing without a pre-conceived plan.

Jessica Fortner was born in Toronto, Canada, where she lives and works. Focusing on editorial, advertising and children’s illustration, she works in both traditional and digital media at her studio, a tiny room with a big window with views to Toronto’s downtown.



Jessica’s illustrations have appeared in publications such as Juxtapoz, Ammo Magazine, Digital Arts, and Pork & Mead. She is co-founder, editor and designer of the online arts magazine Squidface & The Meddler, and also founder of the arts site Tangled Fingers.

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A day like today, last day of October, we could not avoid being drawn into the celebration of love for our dear deceased ones. What in Spain is the eve of the All Saints' Day, the celebrated Day of the Dead in Mexico, or more popularly known as Halloween in the north american culture. We will not make history, or tell where all this comes from... But we want to invite you to a great graphic art exhibition held at Cosmo Gallery in Barcelona.

Adrián Paczka

Day of the Dead: Alive mexican collective show was inaugurated on October 28th and runs until November 27. There you can see a collection of some of the best graphic artists and illustrators from the contemporary Mexican scene, many of them regular collaborator in our pages, as Jimena Ramirez, Seher, Mr. Kone, Dhear, Frank Misterio, Kraken, Lerms, El Grand Chamaco, Netoplasma, News, El Tonder and many more. The starting point that has united all these artists is the final point in our individual journeys: Death represented through its universal symbol, a skull. Behind the cut you can see some of the works exhibited, but if you are in Barcelona we highly recommend you to pay a visit to the show.

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We have fallen in love with the last art piece of Nik Nowak. It’s called “Panzer” and it could be the perfect christmas present for any experimental music artist. Nowak has pimped a mini-dumper machine with elaborate audio equipment and loudspeakers. It looks like a tank but it’s a bass monster.

Nik Nowak is young German artist, born 1981 in Mainz, that lives and works in Berlin. He studied Fine Arts at Berlin University UdK with professor Lothar Baumgarten. Nowak creates dialogues between painting and music, drawing and object. His sculptures are high tech hermaphrodites: toy tanks posing as mobile boom boxes and sound machines on motorcycle wheels are producing robust beats.

Nowak likes aggressive music and the physical experiencing of bass. In general, he starts conceiving his machines with drawings and mockups from wood and Styrofoam. Then he works on the real thing in steel, wood and fiberglass. “Panzer” was presented at Infernoesque Gallery in Berlin on September 9th, 2011, where he played live on his tank.

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Some days you want it all go to hell. Yes! that's right! We live in a corrupt society: politicians, bankers, speculators... But we have to stop or our blood will start boiling. And above all this, what can we do? Should the art commit to a political, social or economic discourse? Some argue that art should be independent of all this bullshit. But we believe that the art is part of its creator and that creator lives in this society. Therefore making a speech or not in your own work is already in itself an statement. The artist we are presenting you today has no doubt about who the enemy is, the center of his criticism and works, and we applaud him, with you all: Andrei Molodkin.

Of Russian origin (1966, Bouie - Russia) and without mincing words, his work is a direct attack on the state, the capital, the Catholic Church and other organizations and institutions that we all have in mind. We discovered his work a few years ago at the ARCO art fair and since then we've been following him. Quite easy, because his work has a strong personality, not just due to the background of his speech, but also for his style and technique: sculptures-installations in methacrylate usually filled with oil, this black and viscous liquid that some have called "black gold" and it has become the reason of invasions, wars and power struggles.

The Station Museum of Contemporary Art wishes to announce its upcoming exhibition, Crude featuring the works of Andrei Molodkin. The opening reception will be Saturday, November 5, 2011, from 7 - 10pm. And for everybody that won't have the chance to pass by and see it, here you have a good collection of his most significant works.

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Many of you already know Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, perhaps through the lengthy article that we published in Belio 030, or maybe you just know her work because more than once it has been published connected with the work of fellow Icelandic Björk. Today we present at Belio a long report on her new exhibition / work: Crepusculum.

The Schrin Kunsthalle of Frankfurt hosts from the 29th of September until January 8 the show with an installation, new video art pieces and illustrations. Gabríela Friðriksdóttir has conceived the installation whose Latin title Crepusculum means “dusk” or “twilight” and whose mythical spatial atmosphere results from the contrast between light and dark. In a dusky desert landscape – an intermediate realm between day and night – the artist’s mysterious system of signs is combined with a new film production, tones, and sounds, as well as eight original medieval manuscripts, to create a fantastic universe.

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Here we show in images how it turns out our collaboration at Capetown II, where we let loose and expand our newest publication: They Live. Translating from the paper into action once again the ideas in our last issue. With this purpose we counted with the collaboration from the photographer Gonzalo Puertas, who immortalized the inauguration attendees in our room. These photos were projected on the following days together with fragments from the original film at our room in Hostal Delvi, which became for a few days in a perfect scenario for a Carpenter's movie. Behind the cut you can see the results and some photos from Gonzalo.

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Illustration by Gabriel Moreno

As promised! If you could not attend the past weekend to the Capetown II show. Don't worry... Here you have a visual review we prepared for you, so you can see some of the works displayed there. Tomorrow we will show in detail the installation that we developed in Gonzalo Puertas. So, you know: Next time don't miss it!

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Yes folks! If you are today in Madrid, you should not miss the opening of Capetown II, a collective art exhibition organized by Capetona which shows the latest trends in photography, illustration, photography, video, etc...

From the 20th to 22nd of October in Madrid, the Delvi Hostal in Plaza Santa Ana is transformed in Capetown. The second edition of this special artistic and cultural event is headlined by the artists Sergi Margalef, Gabriel Moreno, Cristina Guitián, Óscar Llorens, Eduardo Bertone, Jordi Oliver, Joan Tomás, Lluís Artús, Jaap Van Den Beukel, Mathieu Courivaud, Pedro Walter, Ángela Martín-Retortillo, Pablo Pro, Geso, Pablo Baudet, Mario de la Iglesia and David López Quincoces.


Belio Magazine in collaboration with photographer Gonzalo Puertas participate in the event with an installation inspired by our most recent publication: They Live. During the opening Gonzalo will take photos of people who want to be part of the action, which will be screened the following days at the installation that we have prepared. So you are advised... If you want to stop by TODAY is the opening, it will start at 20.00 h. Join us! You're welcome.

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If you had the opportunity to see and enjoy a work from Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters) no doubt that it will have been recorded in your mind. In Belio we mentioned their work on other occasions, but certainly they have always deserved more attention, since their work belongs to those mind games between design and contemporary art that we enjoy so much at this house. Touches of visual poetry, impossible objects, and large doses of irony, in works ranging from watercolors paper to installations in museums, galleries and urban environments.

Portaviones

The Cuban Dagoberto Rodriguez and Marco Castillo are the minds and hands behind the collective Los Carpinteros, an artistic tandem that has earned international fame with their installations and sculptures. They take inspiration from the physical world, particularly architecture and urban structures, furniture and design objects, tools and construction materials in order to craft works that express a visual syntax dwelling on the contradictions between object and functionality, art and the everyday, practicality and uselessness. Last Saturday was the opening of their new exhibition, this time at Es Baluard Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in the city of Palma (Spain).

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This is not the first time that the work of Loius Lambert, better known as 3TTMAN occupies our attention. Earlier we had introduced his work to you, and this time we want to invite you to the opening of his new exhibition Du cop à l'Ane. Which opens today at Delimbo Artspace at 21:00 h. in Seville.

At a first view the work of 3TTMAN could go inside the big bag called street art, obviously, because of his activity and presence in urban environments, and his past as a graffiti writer. But if Lambert's work draws our attention is because his work scape with good taste, style and specially sense of humor, from this label with musty smell. Lambert explores all possible formats, not only painting, but also collage, sculpture, ceramics, etc... A good representation of his most recent works is what you can expect at Delimbo today, in what is his third collaboration with this project in Seville.

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Today we want to highlight the work of the english illustrator Ellis Nadler, especially his amazing “Cards of Wu”. A satire on the Tarot in a set of 78 woodcuts. Original prints are 30cm x 20cm on Zerkal White paper. This is a work in progress and images are being added on a regular basis. A deluxe collectors' edition is planned as a boxed deck of outsize cards with a decorative patterned back.

Ellis Nadler studied at London College of Printing and Goldsmiths College from 1971 to 1975 and got the Postgraduate Diploma in Printmaking at Brighton College of Art in 1981. Since then Nadler has worked as a freelance illustrator for clients worldwide in advertising, publishing, editorial and design.

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On October 25 begins the second edition of the Art Direction Master led by Melik at the school of creativity Zink! And this time Belio Magazine will be part of the program. To be exact, the 25th and 26th of November we will be offering a conference and a workshop at the headquarters of Zink! in Valencia (Spain).

The Master is aimed for students and professionals who want to update themselves on the latest trends in design, creativity and advertising art direction. Among the guest creative minds you will have the chance to meet Soon in Tokyo, Pedro Pan from Neo2, Brosmind, Iban Ramón, Oscar Llorens, etc. Each workshop/conference is focused in one subject. In our case the subject of our workshop is located between art and design, we will challenge the participants with a creative mental exercise. If you want to sign up, you have more information behind the cut or at the website: www.facebook.com/direcciondeartevalencia.

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Consequence of the chance or the fate, as you prefer to believe, there are individuals with whom you will encounter in different stages of your life. That's the short of connection between the artist we present today, Félix Fernández and Belio. It seems as if the time elapsed between the collaboration of Félix in our past Belio 016: Fear and his current show passed by in the blink of an eye. Apparently nothing has changed, Félix remains being Félix, his work still has the same introspective tone, interesting and disquieting.

Let ́s grow from the series Revolving walls

However, during the last seven years the work of Fernández has gone through a logical evolution: On the one hand, a marked improvement in the technical and narrative aspect of his videos, and on the other hand a more conceptualization of the message in his work. Crossed Lines is his latest project, developed in Berlin and New York, the author defines it as "an approach to a conceptual and aesthetic analysis about the relationship between the terms matter and spirit. Both terms are usually presented as antagonistic, but in this case they are presented as two sides of the same coin, which in this case is the same because they exist."

Right here you can watch his video filmed in New York, and behind the cut there is a few more pictures part of the show Crossed Lines, the exhibition opens today at the Museum of Contemporary Art Gas Natural Fenosa and will be open until February 26, 2012.

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José Pulido and his brother design and produce t-shirts, greeting cards, stickers, art prints and other accessories with a special sense of humor, pride and history. We have fallen in love with their designs, especially those who are a skull version of certain characters from famous movies.

Mis Nopales is the small company based in southern California that these two brother created to sell their own products in 2004. They strive to celebrate their mexican culture through the various products that they offer. As they say: “Our focus is to provide quality products with a unique flavor, like frijoles and nopales! We believe that everyone should be proud of their culture and history, no matter who you are. Be proud and no te rajes!!”

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From time to time we rediscover artists, illustrators and designers who had contributed to Belio Magazine many years ago, when by chance we come across again with their work on internet. At the beginning you don't recognize their work because it has matured very positively. Then it's when you realize that what we had published long time ago is just a shadow of their current work, so we are really impress by their progress. This is the case of artists such as Matt Lyon (C86), Patricio Oliver (PO!) or Raymond Lemstra.

Raymond Lemstra is a Dutch illustrator who participated in the Belio: 019 Alice issue. His work refers to the illustrative nature of primitive drawings and sculptures. Raymond finds interesting the distortion as a result of selective emphasis; parts of interest are emphasized, unimportant parts reduced or left out. For his characters this means they come out big headed, where focus is on the face and the body is trimmed to its essential properties. He deliberately applies this primitive logic as a method.

As Raymond says: “In childhood, one encounters and experiences many things for the first time. Through curiosity and imagination, these moments are lifted to almost magical heights. As you get older, new impressions become more scarce and it's a rare experience to be surprised by anything. I try to bring back the sense of wonder we remember from being a child, bridging the young and mature, by creating a contained fantasy world populated by my characters.”

On November Raymond Lemstra will show his latest artworks in a solo show that will take place at Bold Hype Gallery in New York. Good luck Raymond!!

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Today at Belio we present you the work of Penique Productions, a collective of artists from different disciplines who performs temporary installations with colorful inflatables, occupying complete spaces of all kinds and dimensions: a bathroom, a basement, a staircase , a whole apartment, and so on.

El Sótano de La Tabacalera

The project began at the University of Barcelona with the first inflatable Espai 1 in 2007. And since then, projects have been developed at Nottingham Trent University, the Festival Cerka'l Piera (Barcelona) where they got the first prize with the installation La Capella, the State Project Market in London, and so on. One of his latest projects was developed this year in the basement of the well-known occupied cultural center La Tabacalera in Madrid, as you can see in the following video and the photos behind the cut:

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