Truly Felicia

Here There: Lou Mora and Alexander McQueen

Bursts of color caught my eye today. Lou Mora, a photographer I really like, and Sarah Burton for the Alexander McQueen Fall Winter 2012 colletion.

Perfect!

- image to the left (cropped) Lou Mora, image to the right (cropped) Vogue

I'm Loving Right Now

Things I'm loving right now are...

NARS Crazy Heart Set, I have a tendency to buy A LOT of lip glosses and never finish them. This set solves my problem, smaller tubes, more colors. Perfect!

PINK! I'm thinking about taking the plunge and finally buying an iPad (I know I'm so behind). This pink Yves Saint Laurent iPad sleeve would not only protect it but this muted baby pink is my current color obsession. Must be the wedding planning.

These days I'm barely writing a single word by hand, which makes me sad. I miss pencils. These with texts like Midnight Bonfires, Afternoon Naps and Road Trips make me smile and are ordered and on the way. I can't wait to start jotting again.

Kirstin Baker, such a talented artist. The movement in her art is incredible.

Marilyn Monroe, what an inspiration. I'm reading Fragments and am constantly surprised by her wit and sense.

- collage by me, bottom right picture from Pintrest

Beautiful Bergh

Sunday we went wandering meaning to see the Carl Fredrik Hill exhibition that has been getting rave reviews. I'm not sure why but I was absolutely sure it was being shown at Thielska Galleriet and that is where we went. Since it is not, it is at Waldermarsudde some way away and since we hadn't been for some time, we stayed.

Thielska Galleriet is a beautiful white house from the beginning of the 20th century, designed by Ferdinand Boberg it sits on a hill surrounded by a garden with views of the sea. Boberg designed it as a family home for Ernest Thiel, who was an avid collector of turn of the century Nordic art and knew many of the great Nordic artists of the time.

Thielska Galleriet is one of the museums I remember clearly from my childhood. My parents would take me and my sisters there and our father would tell us stories about the paintings making them come to life. And then of course there was always THE Bergh. Riddaren och jungfrun (Knight and the Virgin) was painted by Richard Bergh in 1897 and depicts every little girl's dream. A strong and handsome knight stands sheltering a beautiful girl in a white dress holding a fading dandelion, the setting sun giving them both an ethereal glow.

Being all grown up I can't help but still be captured by the fairytale.

- image from Thielska Galleriet

Meeting at the Kobe Biennale

Japanese artists and also architects amaze me. Globalisation aside, Japan still seems to stay different from the West in terms of culture and beliefs. The country is of course an island and maybe the fact that this part of the world is still in a sense isolated is what makes Japanese art and architecture so different in a time when many things look alike.

"'Meeting' was conceived by Japanese architect Yo Shimada of Tato Architects and designed by Ichiro Hashimoto of S3 Associates for the Kobe Biennale. The work is comprised of a curtain, formed from optically processed film of 35mm hung from an oval ring; a white-painted rectangular perimeter enclosing the curtain; and mirrors angled at 45° for each of the four corners towards the oval curtain. The viewer enters the space through an opening in the piece, continuing around the oval corridor. Their movement sways the curtain and the viewer's reflection flickers across the film and mirrors in their quest through the seemingly endless passageway."

I haven't been but I am longing to go to Japan and Tokyo and Kyoto especially. Maybe we should go the next time the Kobe Biennale is on because this look amazing.

- images from designboom

First Take: Melanie Authier

I discovered the very talented Canadian artist Melanie Authier on New Stijl and was instantly intrigued.

I was not disappointed. Authier manages to combine the organic and ethereal with the sharp and graphic into truly beautiful imagery while consistently alluding to some inherent darkness. In the same canvas she merges seemingly three-dimensional space with completely flat geometric shards of color, exploring space and confinement, giving me a feeling of both chance and control. Her large-scale abstractions convey many worlds and layers of meaning were nothing is what it seems, leaving the interpretation and deciphering up to the viewer.

From top to bottom Altar, The Trickery of Proximity, Monster Anthem, Exit Strategy, Augury and Anchor from 2010.

- all images from Melanie Authier

Beautiful Destruction

Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre's images of the ruins of Detroit have been wildly distributed online and also exhibited a number of times and rightly so, they are truly amazing. I re-encountered one of their pictures today by chance while searching for something completely different and felt I had to post them.

I am amazed that destruction can be this beautiful but at the same time so very sad.

- photographs by Yves Marchand and Robert Meffre