Dark touches of surrealism… the art of Alexandra Manukyan

We can’t resist the work of Artist Alexandra Manukyan, with dark touches of surrealism it could make perfect tattoo inspiration too… 

‘Forest Awakening’, 36”x18”, oil on canvas
‘Forest Awakening’, 36”x18”, oil on canvas

 

‘Wastelands of Lament’, 40”x30”, oil on Belgian linen
‘Wastelands of Lament’, 40”x30”, oil on Belgian linen

 

“The central theme that unites all my paintings examines how seemingly separate and isolated life experiences actually disguise the extent of our individual and communal bonds,” says Alexandra Manukyan of her work. “The ‘masks’ and the accompanying identities we all assume depending on the life role we must play, obstructs the conscious mind from acknowledging what truly unites us through the isolation and chaos: our shared encounters of pain, loss, desire, and longing for serenity and acceptance. The false facades we all manufacture to adapt and belong also renders most blind and lost in a world where the meaningless has somehow become meaningful and the idea of a shared honest self devoid of hidden agendas all too infrequent.”

 

'In the Absence of All', 18x36 in, oil on canvas

‘In the Absence of All’, 18″x36″, oil on canvas

Miniature Ink II

Miniature Ink II kewpie by Jondix sneak peek

ATOMICA GALLERY AND THINGS&INK MAGAZINE PRESENT:
‘MINIATURE INK II’
OPENING NIGHT: WEDNESDAY 23rd SEPTEMBER 2015

Atomica Gallery and Things&Ink magazine are delighted to announce Miniature Ink II, the second exhibition featuring miniature original artworks from over 100 of the world’s leading tattoo artists.

Join us for the opening reception on Wednesday 23rd September (exact location to be revealed soon) with complimentary drinks kindly provided by Sailor Jerry.

Rsvp@atomicagallery.com, or attend our Facebook event.

There will be no preview list of artworks, first come first served!

MORE INFORMATION AND ARTISTS TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON…

Have a look at last year’s celebrity and cocktail filled Miniature Ink opening night.

Keep an eye on the #MinitaureInk and #MiniatureInkII hashtags for more kewpie capers.

Check out what some of the artists have been up to on Instagram…

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 Top image by James Stittle

Blackpool Tattoo Convention

Our editorial assistant Rosie attended the second ever Blackpool Tatcon  held at Norbreck Castle Hotel in Blackpool last weekend. After entering a competition on tattoo blog Inkluded’s Facebook page, Rosie won free Sunday passes. Here’s what she got up to on the day…

The convention ran for three days beginning on Friday 14th- Sunday 16th August. I travelled to Blackpool, somewhere I have never been before, on Sunday the last day of the convention. The venue was a castle shaped hotel right on the sea front and was home, for the weekend to over 100 tattooists and traders. The convention hall was made into corridors from the tattoo booths and there was a stage at the front to showcase the entertainment.

Rosie getting tattooed by Emily Dawson

I didn’t plan to get tattooed at Blackpool as I was there to blog Things&Ink and see the sea. But at conventions it is so hard to resist with everyone around you getting tattooed! The lovely Emily Dawson, owner of Holy Ghost Tattoo in Rotherham, created a cute cactus for me inspired by the art of Anne Knispel.

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The convention was packed full of tattoo artists demonstrating a wide variety of styles from traditional hand poked to realism, to watercolour and neo-traditional. There were artists from all over the country and many that I had not seen before. I love going to conventions and discovering new artists, styles and ways of doing things. As I am from the Midlands it was great to see so many artists from the North of England that I admire and follow on Instagram.

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Similar to many conventions the entertainment focused on burlesque performances, live bands and acts such as sword swallowing. Many tattooists commented that the music was far too loud, I had to agree as I was shouting when introducing myself to artists.

There were also awards at the end of each day for categories such as best apprentice, best small colour and best of day. These are a great way for artists to showcase their creations and be praised for their work.

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Jakub Hendrix won Best Large Piece on Sunday

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Ashley Luka won second place for Best of Sunday

There was also the Banana Ink stand, who were also at Liverpool convention, where convention goers could have a go at banana skins. The aim being that people will see how hard tattooing really is and the skill needed to do it, but I wonder if it will encourage people to buy a machine and have a go at creating tattoos at home?

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The organisers held a charity auction which not only had items gifted from the traders, including a taxidermy chick on a skateboard but also one of a kind art pieces. The conventions organisers prior to the event had sent artists skulls in the hope that they would decorate them in their own style. The most popular being an bio mechanical skull with a working camera in one of its eyes. All the proceeds went to haematology and Leukaemia charities.

chaThis is only the second year of Blackpool Tatcon, it is a really young and new convention, so I’m really excited to see what the convention has in store for next year… 

Film Review: Kingsman

Our guest blogger is hobbyist film and TV series reviewer and writer Harry Casey-Woodward. On th-ink.co.uk Harry will be writing a series of posts in which he will be sharing  his opinions on things he has watched. In this post Harry will be reviewing Kingsman… 

Kingsman: the Secret Service, 2015, cert 15, dir Matthew Vaughn, 2/5

I am not a fan of spy films. I feel the genre has been over done a tad. As fun as they can be, there’s only so much I can take of gadgets, cars and smug, woman-exploiting heroes armed with cheesy one-liners. If there’s a brand of action thrillers I fall for, it’s westerns and yes they can be horribly clichéd too. But the genre has produced a handful of genuinely good films, about human drama and conflict playing on the vast stage of the American historical landscape. Whereas most spy films, with the exception of those based on Le Carre, don’t have much going on under the shiny cars, pretty actors and explosions.

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I enjoy the silliness of James Bond and I like the grittiness of the new ones. I’d just rather watch a more human, even grittier hero than someone who always looks good, always gets the girl and always wins.

Kingsman does indulge in spy movie clichés, but somehow it didn’t annoy me. Now on DVD and blu-ray, the plot follows a young man named Gary or ‘Eggsy’ (played by Taron Egerton), who is offered an escape from his inner-city life and his violent stepdad by an old friend of his deceased father’s: Harry Hart (probably Colin Firth’s best role) a gentleman tailor who actually works for a private spy agency called the Kingsmen, run by Michael Caine. Under the guidance of Harry and another agent Merlin (Mark Strong), Eggsy is indoctrinated into the intense training programme to become a Kingsman agent. Meanwhile, a wealthy techno-wizard named Valentine (played by Samuel L. Jackson with a lisp) has a scary plan to solve mankind’s damage of the environment with SIM cards.

You can tell this film was directed by Matthew Vaughn. I didn’t like Layer Cake (mainly because it had Daniel Craig trying to swear) but I liked the Kickass films because they were… kickass. In fact the Kingsman film has a lot in common with Kickass. Both are about teenagers finding their heroism through excessive violence. Kingsman does it better than Kickass, as in Eggsy is a more likeable underdog character than the nerdy Kickass hero. The plot is also more interesting if farfetched, a tribute to the old Bond movies. There’s even a scene where Colin Firth and Samuel L. Jackson are reminiscing about them.

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The best thing about this film, however, is that it maintains a hard, violent edge as well as being a humorous farce, with dramatic stunts and intense, stylized action. Actually maybe the action is too intense and stylized. I do enjoy stylized violence but Kingsman does it to the point where it’s no longer realistic, which I feel is more important. There’s also a scene which is basically a massacre shot like an action scene and set to the guitar solo from ‘Free Bird’. I felt a bit uncomfortable that such gratuitous slaughter was set up like we were supposed to enjoy it.

The other problem I have with the film is that while it strives to be a decent spy flick rather than just a goofy spoof of Bond like Jonny English, it still indulges in some of the worst aspects of the genre. For example, a Swedish princess crudely propositions amoral relations with Eggsy and of course he accepts with suave confidence. I heaved a frustrated sigh when the same ‘hero-has-spontaneous-sex-with-random-floozy’ ending was used just to needlessly big up the hero and we’re expected to cheer him on for being such a cad.

To be fair, the film doesn’t deal with subtlety. While the recent Bond films are trying to appeal to an older, serious audience Kingsman is definitely a spy movie for teens of today, with lashings of excessive violence, language and chavs turned spies. But there is still something for the Bond lovers, with sharp-dressed gentleman spies wreaking havoc with pens, umbrellas and a dash of patriotism. The whole thing is a rollercoaster of guilty fun, paying tribute to the classic spy formulas while delivering a harder, darker and funnier breed of action thriller. Plus the hero has a pug.

Do you agree with Harry? What did you think of Kingsman?

Images from IMDB

The Brute Style of Sebastian Klimek

In Issue 11 (The Fruity Issue), writer and philosopher Kimberly Baltzer-Jaray wrote a piece titled Stay Real. Keep Simple. Live in the now. Ignorant Style where she discussed the importance of the “shits and giggles” tattoo and interviewed French graffiti artist turned tattooist, FUZI. Along with that article we included some beautiful photographs, some of these were taken by FUZI and some were created by a talented friend of Kimberly’s, Sebastian Klimek, on the day FUZI tattooed JOnas in NYC… Kimberly explores more below…

Sebastian and FUZI share some similarities in that both are self-taught artists; both find inspiration in the streets and with the everyday people walking them; both like to break rules and do not identify with any set style, but rather create their own. In this way, they are more avant-garde or ‘anti-art’ like the 20th century Dadaists were. Sebastian’s photographs are rather eclectic and even at times a bit chaotic in subject matter, technique or distortion, and thus he describes them as ‘Brute style’. In fact, he doesn’t think of himself as an artist at all: “I don’t consider myself an artist. I don’t want to take nice photographs, but rather I want to capture interesting content. I dislike mainstream or commercial photography. You could say photography itself guides and rules my ass. I experiment a lot with different mediums, digital tools. I draw with my camera; I prefer to say that I created the images or made the photograph rather than shot or took.” As to influences on his photography, he only mentions loving the work of Daido Moriyama and Japanese aesthetics in general.

As a photographer Sebastian is very spontaneous, he tries not to think too much when he shoots since “thinking too much causes conflicts.” He’s also quite ethical in that he refuses to photograph homeless people or beggars because “it’s being a vulture for a cheap shot.”

For Sebastian, photography and creating images is a self-therapy for pain, specifically social anxiety disorder (SAD). Photography is a form of interacting with people that is without verbal content, it is a way to be part of the social situation without the pressures of conversation and proximity, and thus it his a way to cope with and overcome SAD. Capturing people on the street through his lens and images is a way of communicating at a comfortable distance, silently, and in many ways without judgment. Sebastian says, “Basically, I’m waging a war against social anxiety disorder, which has been torturing me since my teenage years. People think I’m quiet or even shy, but that’s not true. I’m pretty fuck’n loud, but I get choked when I need my communication and photography skills the most. I fear embarrassing myself, which is the biggest issue with SAD. But if you keep yourself in the shadow of a disorder, it’ll eat you and ruin your life, and you’ll end up institutionalized. Capturing people on the streets is a way for me to overcome and heal. So, there is a very deeply personal and meaningful subject for my photographs.”

It is here we see that his photography very much fits with his life philosophy when he adds, “They [his photographs] are the beginning of something greater.” For Sebastian, any misfortune in life leads to something greater and positive. In other words, setbacks and difficulties are opportunities for bigger, better and greater things.

Sebastian was born in Poland and moved to New Jersey when he was 17. With no formal education, he worked as a construction worker until a serious injury forced him to stop. He currently volunteers at a wonderful art organization known as the Franklin Furnace Archive Inc. in Brooklyn, NY, a place that encourages the creation and preservation of avant-garde art of all forms and is committed to promoting that which is under-represented by mainstream arts institutions due to things like ephemeral nature or politically unpopular content. His volunteer work at the Franklin Furnace is a source of pride, meaningful purpose and joy.

All images © 2015 Sebastian Klimek