Solitude

Just a few weeks ago i went to east coast park to take a walk, have a bowl of beancurd and watch the world go by. The view was stunning and perfect for a moment of solitude and peace. This is a great way to relieve stress and allows yourself to appreciate our free time much more, especially when you are lying on a bunch of rocks with food

Silence

Walking back from supper just now and decided to sit down for a moment of peace and silence. Silence, such a strange thing it is. The absence of noise, which directly translates to nothing. Some fear silence as it represents the unknow but to me it means peace and complete serenity. All our lives we have been exposed to noise and clutter every second and even what we percieve as silence is not pure silence. Take a moment to listen to the noise of silence and you might just find comfort in it.

3D Art in advertising

3d Street Art, often known as 3d chalk art is 2-dimensional artwork drawn on the street itself that gives you a 3-dimensional optical illusion from a certain perspective. It can be very breathtaking, realistic and at the same time captivating once you get the angle correct. And creating one is certainly through and challenging as you are creating a realistic 3d view out of a 2d painting.

3d street art are gaining much popularity these days. Notable brands are already taking advantage of public’s curiosity on 3D street paintings to create awareness for their products. This is a clever trick as advertising is all a game of seduction, leaving with the viewer a strong imprint of the image of the product, tempting the viewer to buy it. Marrying the two ideas of advertising and 3d art is pure genius.

Henri Rousseau

A french painter which is most famous among all Naive artists, Rousseau came from a poor background and went through a succession of menial jobs before turning to art late in life.While working as a latter, he painted as a hobby and in 1893 he took an early retirement to pursue his artistic ambitions. Completely self taught, he copied many of the individual elements in his pictures from book illustrations using a pantograph. But it is his dreamlike combination of images and intuitive sense of colour which gave his work its unique appeal.

He began exhibiting his paintings in the mid 1880. Though he never really achieved great success, his guileless personality won him many friends in the art industry such as Picasso, Apollinaire and Delaunay. His works would be of important influence to the surrealists in time to come.

Soviet Constructivism Propaganda

Constructivism was an artistic  and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919.The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes, which had a great impact on modern art movements in the coming 20th century.

Serving in the revolution, Constructivists worked on public festivals and street designs for the post October revolution Bolshevik government, which painted propaganda plaques and posters, with one of the best known "beat the whites with the red wedge" Inspired by Vladimir Mayakovsky's declaration 'the streets our brushes, the squares our palettes', artists and designers participated in public life during the Civil War. During the second world war, constructivism also appeared in the many propaganda posters produced by the Soviet Union to boost the morale of the Russian people.

Minimalism in Architecture

Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design,this can be found in visual arts, object design and architecture.  The term minimalism is used to describe a trend in design and architecture wherein the subject is reduced to only its necessary and required elements. Minimalistic design has been highly influenced by Japanese traditions, design and architecture. This is to achieve a sense of beauty in simplicity and empty spaces so to stress on its main element making it the centerpiece of the work.

In terms of architecture and housing, minimalistic architecture focuses on empty spaces and the idea of one common living space merged together. The concept of minimalist architecture is to strip everything down to its essential quality and achieve simplicity. This can be seen in some architecture where they consider the spiritual and invisible qualities of the building that corresponds to nature, creating a union of the structure and its surroundings.

Minimalist architecture simplifies living space to reveal the essential quality of buildings and conveys simplicity in attitudes toward life, which is highly inspired from the Japanese traditional design and the concept of the zen philosophy

Absinthe

Absinthe. Originated from Switzerland, the notorious psychoactive spirit is made from botanicals, with the essential ingredient of the flowers and leaves of the Artemisia Absinthium or more commonly called wormwood, together with anise and sweet fennel. Highly alcoholic, with its alcohol percentage ranging from 47% to 74%, it is dilluted over an absinthe fountain and sweetened with a sugar cube before being consumed.The sugar cube and water added not only improved its flavour, but also causes a colour change, turning the drink to a shade of foggy pale green. Popular belief has it that this drink caused hallucinations and illegitly caused artists and writers to succumb to madness. New European laws only permit newly produced absinthe and the old bottles remain illegal.

Drank mostly by writers and artists, absinthe became extremely popular and found its place in the Bohemian culture. At on point of time it became so popular that the time after lunch where most parisians drank aperitif became know as the "green hour". Today Absinthe is made into a variety of drinks and cocktails.

Pittura Metafisica (Metaphysical Art)

Pittura Metafisica, or Metaphysical Art, lasted only 9 years between 1911 and 1920, with only two artists, Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carra exercising the movement. Their works portrays dreamlike landscapes with sharp contrasts of light and shadow. This highly expresses the bedrock of the soul metaphysical art, which the feeling of melancholy and the fear of the unknown.

Paintings by Giorgio de Chirico such as "The mystery and melancholy of a street" are good examples of such an ideology, which hints the limits of human reason and the irreducible unknown that lay beyond it. With the unknown, it is then up to art to try to explore and define this realm.Man fear the unknown and the unseen, which is being played around in the works of Giorgio de Chirico. Giving his works physical reality and thought, it offers a scary, uplifting glimpse into infinite space.

Oh look, its a cat.

I don't know about you, but i get jumpy everytime I see a cat. I mean, its fluffy, and cute just sitting there watching the world go by with its big eyes. Sometimes they are just so cute to look at that I also start to feel cute myself.. Being a cat lover I am lucky to live in a neighbourhood full of them. They are like everywhere! under the void deck, on the grass, on the chairs, in the carpark, under the cars.. ect. ect.. Not only are there alot of them they are sociable cats as well. I am always being followed by this group of fat cats living under the flat beside my primary school. Always. They would meow at you again and again, stroking their bodies around your leg as they follow you around, as though they want food from you. Maybe that is why they are all obese. Obese cats that are fed by people on a daily basis. It is said that adult cats only meow to communicate with humans and purr to their comrades. On average, cats spend 2/3 of every day sleeping. That means a nine-year-old cat has been awake for only three years of its life. It is also said a cat’s brain is biologically more similar to a human brain than it is to a dog’s. Both humans and cats have identical regions in their brains that are responsible for emotions. But despite my love for cats i am not able to keep one as i like in a small apartment. Cats are interesting and cute creatures. be sure to spot them around your neighbourhood.

Marcel Duchamp

I was first introduced to this artist two years ago in my art class while learning about Dadaism. Marcel Duchamp was a French-American painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose works are associated with Dadaism. Having a great impact on twentieth century art he rejected works of art like those of Henri Matisse , criticizing that it was retinal art that only pleased the eye. He wanted to create art that invoked thought and not to please the eye. His earlier works show styles like post impressionism ,cubism and fauvism. 

His legacy includes the insight that art can be about ideas instead of worldly things, which was a revolutionary ideology that would resonate with generations of artists to come.Much of his works have the element of Dadaism in it. Dada is basically the rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition. One of his famous Dada work is the L.H.O.O.Q,, which is the Mona Lisa with a moustache. The letters spelled out and read phonetically in French is Elle a chaud au cul, which translates to “she’s got a hot arse”.

 

Wojciech Grzanka (Dark Surrealist artist)

Wojciech Grzanka, is a photographer and web designer from a small town called Jelcz-Laskowice, Poland. considered to be an outsider artist, his works portrays a sense of self harm inflicted, fustration and anger. Notice that his works mostly portray a single being in the picture, suggesting a sense of self inflicted harm. Frustration, it is all found inside of us and it is us doing the torturing. Our biggest enemy is ourselves, and only with the triumph of our own will can we truly free ourselves. Dark surrealism is a perfect art form to express our innermost, darkest thoughts about the world within us, and it takes a brilliant artist to convey that message to the viewers. We must learn to free ourselves from ourselves within so to achieve true freedom and expression. The one who ties the knot shall be the only one that can untie it

Dark Surrealism

Started in Europe during the early 1920's, Surrealism has risen to new heights since the dawn of the digital age. A new generation of artists have emerged who explore the subconscious mind, who freely meander between what's real and unreal. Using tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator, they bring to life our nightmares and dreams, creating beautiful, dark, and often times bizarre art that leaves us speechless. Dark surrealism brings out the essence of darkness in life, which ties the strings of the conscious and the subconscious together. It gives us the sublime understanding of human pain, suffering and questions left unanswered so that we can find beauty in these strange and wonderful art forms. Even in the darkest depths of life we plunge into, the past is gone but tomorrow will, or one should think, be better, and if nothing else, we should try to push ourselves to greater heights.

High grade japanese kitchen knives

The way these razor sharp kitchen knives are made are no very different from how a katana is made. These knives comes in all shapes and sizes to suit the role it has to take in the kitchen, from slicing sashimi to butchering a whole tuna. Traditionally there are two methods in forging the knife,which are the honyaki and kasumi method. made with only one material Honyaki knives uses high carbon steel, which are differentially hardened, the same way they forge katanas. These knives are hard to maintain and sharpen, which require a highly trained chef to properly use it. Kasumi knives on the other hand are forged from high carbon steel and soft iron. this blade is easier to sharpen and maintain, but is less flexible compared to Honyaki knives. The pride of japanese chefs japanese kitchen knives maintain its reputation of the highest quality in the materials used and the traditional method when forging the knives.