bedřich fritta

i randomly bought a book, a dialogless comic book, by sergio aragonés at a book sale last week. somehow upon reading it i couldn't help thinking back to an exhibition i happened to visit when i was in berlin. it was a drawings exhibition of bedřich fritta, a czech-jewish artist, in theresienstadt ghetto. it was the first time i heard about theresienstadt, a concentration camp north of prague where the jews were interned before being deported to death camps. the international public was supposed to believe that this was just a normal small town. the artists detained here had to produce propaganda material to reinforce that illusion. but in secret drawings they captured the hardship of actual life in the ghetto.
 
i still remember to this day how his drawings struck me emotionally. in addition to the whole architecture and the things that were thought provoking in the jewish museum, it is incredible how powerful art could be as a medium for people to grasp an idea of what was once happened in human history.

a village

A beautiful and thoughtful time lapse of Jakarta.
And some other stuff by the artist.

ps. it should be watched with the speaker on.

a sensible spirit

"He is a painter of atmosphere, not one who consistently copies reality. By uniting the European and Far East style, mimesis and abstraction, sensuality and intuition, fond of before all life, he introduces calmness and feeling for space into his works."

I was searching for some paintings for conceptual reference for a job-related presentation when I came across to the work of Dusan Djukaric, a Serbian watercolor painter. I was instantly mesmerized, specially to his urban scenes paintings, which are mostly of Belgrade and Venice. The way he painted the lights is just amazing.

Honestly speaking, as a form of "art", photography has become more and more boring to me these days. You have to start presenting something more than just "that".

I used to paint a lot with watercolor when I was a kid. I could grab a Reader's Digest magazine, since my parents had lots of it, and I would paint the photo on the back covers, usually of forest or such, with the light and streams.

Last time I got in touch with watercolor was seven years ago when I was assigned to design a dwelling for my family on my architectural design studio. I tried to illustrate my concept with abstract colors trying to remember the big hall on the back of my childhood house where my father ran his printing business.

Sometimes I do miss the old days.

two marks

marc johns

and mark weaver

the incredible jukebox

A must try! At first I was interested at the graphic which is so cool, only to found out later that it is actually an interactive human beat-box you can play with! Super awesome. Kudos to the the three creators. Again, this is awesome.

(via web&patterns)

getting inked

Even by just watching the process this is already so cool. This guy is good. So, what should I get for mine now? ps. His falling fire concept is pretty cool, no?

rosie and the nightmares

I was at Goethe Haus one Thursday evening for the Serambi Jazz events when the Contemporary Picture-book illustration in Germany is being exhibited. I remember I've been to the same exhibition about last year at the Singapore's National Library. But it's still exciting since I don't recon much of the illustration.

And my favourite would be Philip Waechter for the book Rosi in der Geisterbahn (Rosie and the Nightmares)

The coloring is actually stunning if you see the original drawings. That's what a live exhibition is for in this era of digital ones, I guess.