Cool Hunting

Pop Subversion
This Friday, 8 February 2008, Ad Hoc Art Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, will play host to a large group of both established and emerging artists from the realms of street art, pop surrealism, lowbrow, illustration, print making, and tattoo. Through this group exhibition, promising young artists will have the chance to exhibit side by side with some of the more established artists in...

David Reed
It's either the eye-pop effect of his palette or the graffiti tag sensibility of the brushstrokes that endear David Reed's new paintings to me. They just seem familiar. In what can feel like an austere and exclusive world of high culture and Chelsea art openings, his solo show opened with a mix of 20-something hipsters and beret-topped collectors. So it seemed like Reed achieved...

Liz McKay
Sydney-based Liz McKay is a young figurative artist whose vibrant works draw their essence from "smoky bars, sultry jazz singers, romantic couples and European cafes." Her work is about love, seduction, music and Casablanca-style cool. "Painting is my eternal search to find something of beauty, an expression, a face, a smile. The figures in my works convey intriguing expressions and the interaction between the...

Altered States of Paint
A new exhibition opened this month at one of Scotland's most avant-garde galleries, Dundee Contemporary Arts. Altered States of Paint takes its name from the Ken Russell film "Altered States," in which the lead character goes through sensory experiments in an attempt to find the meaning of life. The curator of the show, Graham Domke, was also inspired by Aldous Huxley's "The Doors of...

Nina Pandolfo: Aos Nossos Olhos
Little girls with glassy eyes as round as fishbowls playing in nature are the subjects of São Paulo artist Nina Pandolfo's "Aos Nossos Olhos" (To Our Eyes) show at super cutting-edge Galeria Leme. The name Pandolfo might ring a bell. Nina is married to one of the legendary Os Gemeos graffiti twins but has been making strides on her own as a street artist...

David Ryan
I first fell for David Ryan's work after seeing a couple of small pieces in Mark Moore's booth at Scope New York last year. Now Ryan is back with a solo show in his signature style at Mark Moore Gallery in Santa Monica. (Click images for detail.) Ryan creates his very sculptural paintings by intricately stacking together brightly-painted pieces of MDF (medium-density fibreboard). I...