Raw Sugar

Art, Theater, and my personal storytelling blog.

[exhibition-ism]

cut paper installations by Mia Pearlman

[fatty0matty]

#27 Overstuffed ambitions slip from focus faster than gallons leaving an untied water ballon.

[hyperallergic]

Megumi Igarashi’s illustration of one of her trials (photo via @6d745/Instagram) 

Over the past two years, Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi has faced charges for distributing data that could be used to make 3D models of her vagina and for creating a yellow, yonic kayak, as well as small vagina-shaped plaster figurines, that she displayed in a Tokyo sex shop. According to the AP, a court ruled yesterday that Igarashi, who goes by “Rokudenashiko” (“good-for-nothing girl”), is guilty of obscenity for sharing the data but not for exhibiting her physical objects since they qualify as art under Japanese law.

(via Court Rules Artist May Print Models of Her Own Vagina but Can’t Share Data)

[fatty0matty]

#26 Oh shit man, did you like, see that coming?

[hifructosemag]

Chilean painter and visual artist Bruna Truffa combines imagery gathered from art history, popular culture and everyday life to present critiques on modern society and the institution of art itself. Flavored with kitsch, her works have previously explored notions of national identity, propaganda, consumerism and the contemporary feminine experience. In her latest series of oil-on-canvas paintings, the artist addresses ideas behind “Wonderland”, described as a “fantasy wonderland and illusion, the dream of happiness, and the unfulfilled promise of the neoliberal realization.” More on HiFructose.com.

[fatty0matty]

#25 This idea that it will all turn out naturally on its own is preposterous. Nothing ever turns out naturally on its own except disasters usually. So take your given false promises and hold them in reserve. Actually use the tools given to you to intervene and make something happen instead of letting it happen to you.

[tomorrowandbeyond]

[fatty0matty]

#26 Yeah, the really disgusting shit is right there on the surface sometimes and you know it when you see it. It's like watching a baby drowned or something... Okay maybe not that bad. But it's out there, and it is not pretty, and if you look at it long enough, other people can tell you're looking at it and it is pretty much game over. You've made an enemy, at least for some length of time.

[beeple]

MY PEEPOE!!

[fatty0matty]

#24 That gnarly thing you do with your teeth, the chewing when you have a really chewy hunk of steak just looks so canine I don't recognize you anymore. You're just all teeth and teeth now that I remember used to scare me a lot when I was really little but then it kind of went away and now I have no problem watching people work with their mouths anymore but just in this moment in particular it's all coming back to me, the grizzly nature of the act and what it all signifies. I don't know what that is, don't get me wrong. But it indicates something other than the normal face you wear, that is for sure. Juicy, grinding, lips moving out of the way just for the occasion. It's probably something we all have, that animalistic side. No doubt. It was just really intense for me witnessing you do that, that's all. I just, I really don't want to think about losing myself like that right now, you know?

[hifructosemag]

For almost a decade, Beeple has sat down every day and made something. The digital artist uses a variety of software and apps for his Everydays Project, an ongoing series of works uploaded to the artist’s site each day. More on HiFructose.com.

[fatty0matty]

#23 Is it any wonder that majesty can arise, and in this case has, from everyday toil? With the pressure of our finitity bearing down on us, if we allow ourselves to accept that action through commitment is the only way to true freedom, no matter the path we choose, then we may actually accomplish something in our short time here that can affect our future for the better.

[irenealfaro]

Just another oil sketch. #oilpainting #irenealfaro #sketch

[fatty0matty]

#22 In so far as the trajectory of the narrative goes, it can only be steered by an easy-going hand that is secretly, intensely resistant to the shut-down master and ruler of all things negative: fear. This is truest during live performance and at least partially true for all other forms of art. Yes there can be doubt, but it should benefit the narrative event, for example, by initiating a form of self aimed criticism.

[exhibition-ism]

Born in Brooklyn, Bill Richards investigates the natural world through graphite alone. 

[fatty0matty]

#21 Everyone should find a creative niche that seduces them with mystery and awe and commit themselves to it. We are afraid to do this probably because so many of our days are spent at jobs that are almost completely comprised of grindy and niche tasks that never feel like they are a part of a greater whole. When we perform small/micro creative tasks- like one-after-another brush strokes or typing individual words for a novel/poem/short story, micro tasks necessary to creating a work of art- that feel empty and 'dead end' in nature, we lose all hope and check Facebook and try to feel connected and found. This is a lie of course, but it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when the tunnel is filled with a haze of adventurous but ill advised creative choices.

[darksilenceinsuburbia]

Louis Reith

[fatty0matty]

#20 Oh yes, the compositions can lie, but they do it less often than you.

[hifructosemag]

England-born, Toronto-based painter Mark Liam Smith’s figurative scenes are overlayed with abstract shapes and rich colors. His mastery of the latter is even more fascinating when you consider that the artist is colorblind.  More on HiFructose.com.

[fatty0matty]

#19 A rose blooms red over green, outlined in light like sunrise. A gift to those awake enough to receive. A good hand was dealt that day.

[hifructosemag]

The surreal sculptures, installations, and photographs of Dutch artist Guda Koster subvert fashion and create entirely new worlds with its elements. More on HiFructose.com.

[fatty0matty]

#18 Welcome to my house. There's no place to sit down, but you can always enjoy yourself here if you'd like. Yes, come in. I like you. We are going to find a lot of joy here, and no I'm not expecting every moment to be blissful. You can leave too. You can have your alone time. There are a lot of rooms to escape to, to wall yourself in, to huddle your bones in the dark. But there will always be others experiencing out here, and you are always welcome. Don't feel guilty for taking time for yourself. You can always come back. There is no shame here. Here is a place for you and me and her and Jack and the others. You can say this whole thing is stupid. You can call us dumb. But you are always welcome and we are glad to hear you. We don't turn away. That's your choice.

[hifructosemag]

Fred Tomaselli’s psychedelic painting/collage hybrids have mind-altering tendencies in more ways than one. Over his career, the artist has earned a reputation for blending psychotropic substances with cut-out photos of animals and human parts to create his surreal works of art. Newer pieces shift the focus to more conventional photo collage and acrylic, yet are no less mesmerizing. Colorful and imaginative, Tomaselli’s works are like portals to an alternate universe, where his “inquiry into utopia/dystopia – framed by artifice but motivated by the desire for the real – has turned out to be the primary subject”. View more of his work on HiFructose.com.

[fatty0matty]

#17 We all have stories to tell and it is easy to see that we play a multitude of characters in the stories of innumerable others. But, in the seldom moments of surprising lucidity, we catch a glimpse of the mythically colored and darkly heavy narrative of which we are the central character. We are pulled out of ourselves in these colored moments and need the power of ritual words to keep us grounded. 'Everything will be fine.' 'I just need more time.' Words that defy the great and knowingly accurate narrative our imagination stretches before us. Sometimes, it is good to chose the narrative, to see it, let it take you, to recognize the presence of the beast before you - it is the last thing many of us can do to stay human. For me, it is an admittance that time does slip by, in great rivers of hours and days all around me while I remain. I cannot remain. I cannot disappear as I am disappearing. This is what pursues me; crowds my idle rest. This is what I see.

[hifructosemag]

Joseph Loughborough is a British artist currently based in Berlin. His haunting figurative works, made with charcoal and gold leaf on paper, draw inspiration from philosophers Albert Camus and Søren Kierkegaard to explore notions of struggle, isolation, and absurdist belief as they relate to the human condition.  View more of his work on HiFructose.com.

[fatty0matty]

16# It is not surprising to an awake and slightly experienced person that the future around the corner did not turn out to be much like the expectation before it. We should learn to not lower our expectations, because we will always guess at the trajectory of the present (it is what humans do), but to see our expectations as coming from an unreliable source much more often than not. In this way we distance ourselves from our expectations, allowing them to exist but not using them as a crutch for comfort or some fucked up form of confirmation bias. From our distance, we can see our expectations more clearly and see how the compare to the becoming reality of the present. We allow for learning and have more of a hand in shaping who we our instead letting our visions of the future reiterate them selves and fail to give us any agency in shaping our world.

[exhibition-ism]

haunting paintings by Hungarian artist Szűcs Attila

[fatty0matty]

#15 Occurring (or 'Being Present') is not so much difficult to do for a moment or two for that happens whenever a joke lands or a truth is revealed between people. What is excruciatingly difficult (and more in line with the definition of the thing) is the maintained practice of Occurring. The moment is temporary and to actually be present in the moment (/present), one has to constantly keep coming back to that temporary space again indefinitely;forever; until death. It's like running on a treadmill. One has to run steady and not give into fatigue to stay in the same place (a place defined by an unbroken chain of achievement).

[hifructosemag]

San Diego-based painter Jasmine Worth blends gloomy surrealism and religious iconography in her oil paintings. In her newest show at La Luz De Jesus in Los Angeles, the artist evolves this mix, with works that move between meditations on symbology and females of the cloth.  More on HiFructose.com.

[fatty0matty]

#14 We can only spend so much time caring before our reserves of blind optimism run dry. Eventually, we just have to have faith in what we are doing and carry on through the daily grind in all its pain and misery and hollowness without the burden-easing balms of joy and motivation. To do that which is already easy is one thing. To carry on and to succeed with 20,000 swimming leagues of darkness bearing down all around us and threatening to squeeze away through our sagging eyes and aching back our identity and ability to get up in the morning, to succeed through that is a triumph like no other.

[exhibition-ism]

“Magic Mountain” by Zack Sumner 

[fatty0matty]

#12 Way out in the country, there is always a room in a moonlit house with a thickly padded twin bed bathed in that gentle, orange incandescent glow of an old nightstand lamp straight out of the 70's department store and there is always somewhere along those stretches of empty country highway a muddy dirt road that leads to an abandoned camping site the sits 140 yards from a river you can hear at night if you are very quiet. A bird will sing outside the window of that house at 5 in the morning and the raccoons will scurry away from the dumpster down the street as the waste management people make their early rounds in that area like the do every Tuesday am.

[exhibition-ism]

Portland-based painter Eric Wert creates larger-than-life hyper-realistic paintings of food and flora. 

[fatty0matty]

#11   I gazed down at the heavy, white dinner plate like a terrified child first peering cautiously out over the edge of a spine tingling and awe striking view, one of many they will experience in their lifetime. The remaining chipotle sauce was spread thin and glimmered brightly in the sunlight of the patio deck. I tapped the closest tip of my fork down onto the plate and scraped through a red specked line of sauce no bigger than the edge of a thick sheet of paper and I listened to the metal tip screech against the porcelain and looked at the line of sauce now slashed in half and watched the goo attempt to reestablish connection with itself. The lines, previously smeared in the shape of a crescent moon across the face of the plate, smeared with an almost completely eaten burger bun, the curved lines looked like a topographical map of the Appalachian Mountains slightly bending their way through the middle of Pennsylvania. A train somewhere in the distance blew that forlorn terrifying foghorn sound, the one that sounds like it is coming from everywhere, and I was hit with a sense of dread I had not felt in a long time. The ease with which our will can break under a new and forced perspective is remarkable, while also admittedly deeply troubling and potentially terrifying, and understandable it is easy to see how under such circumstances we can absolutely forget about the people across the table at this summer brunch of a beautiful and blaringly sunny day. How easy it is to estrange our lifelong friends by appearing lost and bewildered in the most casual situations right in front of them. Needless to say, when we recognize the incomprehensible abstraction of the Big and Small and realize our space is this edge on the ledge of a precipice between the disappearingly tiny and the crushing immensity of the sky above and around our heads, we begin to quiver with a slightly pathetic but absolutely humanizing fear or melt into a face contorting bliss of joy and awe and either way a good sign that this is a moment worth having is that there is actually something happening to you so take it and run with it why don’t you?