Q&A: The Culture Trip
You’re prepping for a trip of a lifetime and you want to make the most of it. Who do you turn to help you find art events at your destination? Say “Hello” to The Culture Trip, a new site that helps you find art shows and exhibits you won’t want to miss while traveling abroad. In honor of the “art world,” we’ve invited Ellen von Wiegand from The Culture Trip to pick out her favorite piece of UGallery Travel Art and share her thoughts on art, culture and travel.
If you could go anywhere to see a show featured on The Culture Trip where would you go? Why?
First of all I feel really lucky to live in London where there are seemingly infinite quality exhibitions to be seen at any given time. However I think if I could go anywhere I would choose to go to India. I spent several months working with and studying South Asian art last spring and learned that India had such a rich artistic output during the 20th century. Contemporary Indian artists continue to maintain a strong cultural position while also engaging with western developments in art. Bharti Kher: “Bind the dream state to your waking life” running from 18 January until 16 February at Gallery Nature Morte in New Delhi is a good example.
Why did you pick this UGallery art as your favorite piece of travel art from our collection?
I had a hard time choosing between two photographs. I like the fact that in Rainy Window by Niko Kallianiotis the viewer is not only positioned behind the lens of the camera but also behind the dripping window, thus obscuring the street scene on the other side of it. In a sense, this allows me to forget that I am looking through a camera lens and instead feel that I am peering directly out the window. If seen this way the photo is no longer an image, but a view. Rain puts me in a reflective mood and this sense of sitting in a quiet dry space and looking out at a wet city effectively transports me into this mindset.
In Mike Lawrence’s Woven Blankets the layering of patterns from the artisan rugs gives the semblance of an abstract painting. It is almost as though the woman selling the rugs has been placed amidst them to break up a purely abstract composition and to remind us that this is a photo. This sense of illusion in both Rainy Window and Woven BlanketsI think is what attracted me to them.
New Artist Spotlight: Donna Brumbergs, Benna Holden, and Diego Rodriguez
Happy New Artists Day! Every Thursday, UGallery welcomes a batch of new artists and artwork to UGallery. The “New Artist Spotlight” series highlights them.
Send a nice, little “Hello” to Donna Brumbergs, Benna Holden, and Diego Rodriguez. Below is a little bit about their work. If you like what you see, let them know by leaving a comment on their profile pages and welcoming them to UGallery! I’m sure they’d love to hear from you.
Donna Brumbergs. Avon, Connecticut
Donna Brumbergs mixes realism and impressionism on her palette. She paints with a perfect blend of color to set a mood that is at once nostalgic and romantic. She says, “I hope my work will invoke the reminiscence of a comfortable moment from the past that [viewers] will want to revisit time after time.”
Benna Holden. New York, New York
Like the impasto master Nicolas de Stael, Benna Holden lays paint on thick. She uses a variety of mediums to turn her abstracts into paintings full of complex texture. As an art teacher, she is in constant pursuit of the “happiness, confidence and excitement” that art can bring.
Diego Rodriguez. Bogota, DC, Colombia
First prize in animal photography goes to Diego Rodriguez. His Pure Breed Portraiture collection honors the art of breeding by using canines as his models. Each portrait is the result of pure craftsmanship and a high degree of precision.
Artist in Focus: Frank Malafronte
