In the Flesh: Aleah Chapin's Aunties Project. When we hear the word “nudes,” we expect to see young bodies – the smooth, taut ones that painters usually paint and photographers photograph. Aleah Chapin, an award-winning artist who is quickly making her mark on the art world, paints a different type of nude: She makes huge, hyperreal paintings of older women’s bodies with all their wrinkles, sagging skin, cellulite, scars and grey hair. In her series of oil paintings called the Aunties Project, for which she won Britain’s prestigious BP Portrait Award, Chapin captures her models’ aging bodies – and much more: joy, caring, support, humor and a “take me as I am” attitude. We recently asked Chapin a few questions about her work; she responded via email from her home in Brooklyn, New York. How did you, a young woman in her 20s, became interested in depicting older women’s bodies?
I’ve been obsessed with realism since I was a child. Is “Auntie” really your aunt? My mom is the only woman I have painted who I am actually related to. Bryan Lewis Saunders - DRUGS. "Near Death Experience" 25I-NBOMe Abilify / Xanax / Ativan (dosage unknown in hospital) 90mg Abilify (after 3 months usage 3x maximum dose) 1 sm Glass of Absinth 10mg Adderall Alcohol 10mg Ambien Ativan / Haloperidol (doseage unknown in hospital) Bath Salts 15mg Buspar (snorted) 4 Butalbitals (doseage unknown) Butane Honey Oil 250mg Cephalexin (painted w/ watercolor pencil, water and cephalexin) 1/2 gram Cocaine Computer Duster (2 squirts) 2 bottles of Cough Syrup 1 "Bump" of Crystalmeth 20mg Cyclobenzaprine 4mg Dilaudid 1 shot of Dilaudid / 3 shots of Morphine (In the ER with kidney stones) DMT (during and after) 60mg Geodon Hash Heroin (Snorted) Huffing Gas (during and after) Huffing Lighter Fluid 7.5mg Hydrocodone / 7.5mg Oxycodone / 3mg Xanax Khat (chew and tea) 3mg Klonopin 300mg Lithium 10mg Lortab (Shitty) LSD Marijuana (Kine Bud) Marijuana (G13) Marijuana Resin Morphine IV (doseage unknown) Psilocybin Mushrooms (2 caps onset) 2mg Nicotine Gum (after quitting smoking for 2 months) Nitrous Oxide Opium 7.5mg Percocet.
Top ten deserving data visionaries. Ecstatically manipulating the new signals and sensors that chronicle everything about our lives, data art pioneers are developing a visual lingo that makes data more expressive and relevant than ever. Taking the intersection of art, technology, and commericalism one step further, last week saw Doug Aitken take off from New York City on a nine-car train chock-full of musicians and artists like Patti Smith and Peter Coffin. Trekking cross-country, they plan on staging live multimedia events at each station, while a production team captures the whole experience online. In the spirit of Aitken's Internet-fuelled vision, here are our ten data visionaries who we think also should've been invited along for the ride.
The Youtube self-portraits (2007-13) of this 27-year-old internet artist are meticulously-edited, hynotic videos that start out normal, then morph into glitchy, pixellated mutations. Salvador Dali’s Christmas cards. Salvador Dali designed a series of nineteen Christmas cards between 1958 and 1976. These greeting cards were specially produced for the Barcelona-based company Hoechst Ibérica, and presented Dali’s take on traditional Christmas celebrations. While popular in Spain, Dali’s greeting cards were not as successful in America, particularly with card manufacturer Hallmark, who thought his “surrealist take on Christmas proved a bit too avant garde for the average greeting card buyer.”
Rebecca M. Bender, Assistant Professor of Spanish Language and Literature has written a fascinating blog with more pictures of Dali’s festive work, which you can view here. Happy Holidays! Christmas 1974 Christmas 1960 Christmas 1959 Christmas 1962 Dali’s Christmas design for ‘Vogue’ 1946. Dali as Santa—Feliz Navidad! Shag.