Mia Makila

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I first came across Mia's work via that contemporary art book I reviewed called The Upset. It seems after some cursory research that she is often labelled as a horror or gothic/lowbrow artist, however the first thing I immediately thought of when staring at the painterly abomination called Grimreaper (last image) was 'bad' painting. Mia definately deserves to have the humorous and perversely child-like aspect of her work analysed, its not all about angst and madness you know.

Like Armen Eloyan or George Condo, Mia gives a strangely nostalgic reminder of a time when cartoons could get away with being violent, its an alien sensation to most people of the 00's to have something other than media equivelant of baby food visually and audibly spoon fed to them. Theres also a hard sexual element to her work (particularly her paintings) thats about as subtle as that Funnelgirl meme. The ejaculatory splatters of white and pink paint are a harsh jibe at the myth of the heroic masculine painter, but they also give the works an unpretentious appearance as they ruin their own status as fine art objects. They invite abandonment and waste.

Some of her most unpleasant works are her altered antique photos. Presumably brought from flea markets and such, Mia violates the tenderness of these anonymous people by scrawling fanged visages over the individuals faces and surrounding them with phallic and blasphemous symbols. They remind me somewhat of Anna Barriball's ink and graphite altered photographs, only instead of cool and calm appropiation we have instead demented vandalism. We know Mia is an lovely, decent and law abiding person but theres very little in these alteration works to seperate them from the genuinely defiled artefacts of some lost vagrant soul. I admire an artist that can transcend taboos and ingrained expressive transgression in order to create something laudable.

http://www.miamakila.com/

An Introduction to Fallen Over

Darren Bader

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Not to be confused with Daren Bader, Darren Bader is a criminally overlooked artist on my part who just so happens to be in Phaidon's Younger Than Jesus publication. Seeing as i've browsed that book obsessively i'm not sure how I missed him, but miss him I did. In this article I hope to rectify that. The images above are taken from two of his exhibitions, the first pair of his installation Cat (2004) and the second pair from as = poaching the poachers (2007) shown at the Rivington Arms.

Its hard to quantify what it is I like about these accumulations of objects. Perhaps its because he uses some surprisingly under-used materials such as DVD packaging (see third image) or kitchen utensils unimbued with iconographic art history or context. Perhaps its his seeminglu totally unrestrained love of appropiation and his method of arranging it to suggest a totally open narrative. Theres no way you can look at his installations in full. To do so only gives a vague sensation of conmnectivity, or perhaps a place, outside the conventions of public or private use. Speaking of the private/public these arrangements don't seem to be aiming to provoke or push their viewers. It melds familiarity with the illogical and gently invites dialogue. The rooms exhibiting his work seem to have potential beyond their function of storing art. They look as though they could of been decorated and adapted by an individual half conciously without needing to consider the aesthetic qualities. This unknown inhabitant might lack furniture or refinement but he or she puts it to good use. Surrealist interior design perhaps? :p

An Introduction to Fallen Over

Anonymous image from mini greenshines

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Fred Muram

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Every project photographer Fred Muram presents us with the startling results of his mechanically simple projects is singular and surprising. Although all of his work operates on the principle of abstracting ordinary locations, people and objects or by conjuring surrealist scenarios without bending the rules of physics and biology - Fred has yet to become predictable and his various strategies for finding the extroadinary in the ordinary. My favorite works are to be found in his Rug series which all feature the human form obscured by rolled up rugs. I like how its unclear wether or not one individual played the role in all photographs or if many contributed their bodies for the project. Regardless of that it results in images that cleverly and gently veer between cosy humour and unfamiliar anxiety. They are by no means fearful looking creatures but there is also something almost inhuman/extrahuman about them.

http://fredmuram.com/

An Introduction to Fallen Over