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| Blame Nandos, but South African TV has a new hero. Call him the “yapping, benign, and slightly ridiculous dictator,” or Idi Incarnate. And like his namesake, he’s everywhere. "We've been Having It?” Boy have we ever! So much so that if a buffoon break-dancing to “Brrrrrrrrrr,” leaves you cold in the light of the Zimbabwe crisis and the xenophobic attacks, you’re pretty much alone. Vodacom received only a paltry handful of complaints about their Idi piss-take. “The vast majority,” claims the Cellphone Giant, “love it”. Nothing wrong with that, right? After all we celebrate Zapiro’s wry, satirical send-ups of politically buffoonery. |  | |
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| With one small step from Mr. Neil Armstrong we reached a world that had seemed to reside outside of the reach of human experience. Yet, almost half a century later, the romantic longing for large-scale space travel, residence and communication with some yet unknown extraterrestrial force remains. This desire, a continual and unfocused looking outwards, is linked both to the nostalgia born of our millennial uncertainty, and a looking forward to The Future, a vision simultaneously of apocalyptic dystopia and magical technological efficiencies and entertainments. For, like the idea of outer space, the notion of The Future is in itself filled with nostalgic yearnings and anxieties. |  | |
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| Speckled textures of different paints grace the canvases of Zhang’s works. All carrying a heaviness in their surface and texture, these paintings place a strong emphasis on the materiality of the medium. Ornamented with swift, clean strokes as well as their thick leftovers, Zhang’s paintings’ have a varied application, arbitrary in nature, giving his pieces an element of surprise and unexpectedness. |  | |
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| Illustrating what he calls the “cultural contrast,” Hu Zhi-Ying brings together traditional Chinese art with the eclectic styles of the West. He combines traditional Chinese symbolism and landscape with the elements of the various styles of Western art all coming together to create something more than art—something equal to the real world. Using Chinese varnish, silver, and gold powder with traditional ink oils and acrylics, Hu is able to create a unique style that pierces into the soul. In his paintings Astronomy I and Astronomy III Hu is able to create landscapes that draw in your eyes, losing you in the colors and depth of the paintings. |  | |
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| Appearing almost as engravings or etchings, depicted through scratches and harsh inconsistent strokes, Al Khayer’s works render expressive portraits through her rough, gestural mark. Working on a black background, the artist creates deep recesses and shadows that add a heightened sense of drama to the otherwise neutral portraits of young women. Al Khayer’s color palette, as well, contributes to a very theatrical effect and excited and ecstatic feel in these pieces. |  | |
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| Rosch’s collages are a vibrant mix of exuberant colors. Lively oranges and reds bring an intense energy and dramatic flare to the artist’s collages. Blooming flowers spreading their blossoming petals throughout the composition, blown up rather large at times, some flowers possess a notable stage presence in these pieces. While in other moments they downsize to a mere detail, serving less as a figure in the forefront, but rather a decorative element to blend into and describe the whole. |  | |
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| Lukoschek’s photographs compose quiet, simple, and minimal scenes of barren landscapes. In many pieces there are only a few elements that compose the entire composition. The color palettes, as well, are simplistic, involving only a few colors, and sometimes even remain monochromatic. Many times Lukoschek’s landscapes are found covered in snow, blending the land with sky, blurring what is traditionally expected in a landscape, a bisected composition. |  | |
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| In striking resemblance to the paintings of Salvador Dali, Rhyner’s work is a collection of wavering, hazy, amorphous skies and landscapes that serve as a slightly confused and distorted foundation for the paintings surreal contortions that are the painter’s subjects and figures. Often dissected and discontinued in unnatural places and frequently found with inhuman, robotic appendages the painting’s figures have a purposely fictitious and delusive quality to them. |  | |
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| Revital’s paintings of lazy lounging in domestic settings have a quiet, slow, lethargic, almost melancholic feel to them. Standing within a close range, the artist’s brushstroke becomes fully evident, playing with a sense of motion, emphasizing the creation of each plane made. Active, lively marks describe each and every part of the composition, yet the figures all have this grave and withdrawn nature to them. And although the artist’s color palette is quite bright, quite playful, and light-hearted, there is still something found within the figures that remains solemn. |  | |
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| Beaming with a theatrical, enchanted light, Ruzickova’s photographs look towards the skies, concentrating on the powerful presence of the sun. The beautiful, picturesque quality of the setting and rising suns sets a fairy tale-like air to all of her pieces. The overlay and transparency of some of the imagery over the rest gives these photographs a hazy, dreamy feel that begs a pardon to their nature as photographs and creates something seemingly more unreal than documentation.Depicting perfectly believable scenes, but refusing them a stable and consistent ground to rest on, the artist produces a scenario that could parallel the experience of memory. |  | |
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| Gao Yi Lei’s vibrant palettes bring marine creatures back to life in his oil-on-canvas series The Times of Ke Long. |  | |
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| Exuberantly colored in bright blues, oranges, pinks, light purples, Colina’s work gives the immediate feeling of a children’s book. Through the setting’s abstract forms she composes a fantasy-like playground for the characters in her narratives. |  | |
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| Though differing vastly in mark, Domingue’s pieces all have a characteristic feeling of a slow growth and gradual manipulation. In his piece, Symbol of Inner Strength, the gracefulness of the steady easing of the bright orange into the black background tames the difference between the two opposites. |  | |
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| Artist Carla Elena transforms horses in her vision onto canvas with diligent yet carefree brush strokes. |  | |
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| Kristina Asvarn’s serene paintings create an innovative world within a world. Each of these “worlds” have led to the artist to develop a reputation for poetic epic works that display both delicacy and fragility, revealing a deep respect for something fundamental, some primal, indigenous sense of shape and color. |  | |
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| In the world of mysticism and sacred culture, woman is the center of the universe. |  | |
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 | A painter passionately committed to exploring the inherent properties, color, and luminosity of form, Anneli Kivinen creates work that moves seamlessly between two approaches... | |
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The Australian bush is known for things like dingoes, walk-abouts and a rich native history
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Vivien Kabar’s work highlights elemental images, using dramatic ploys such as contrasts in scale, shifts in focus, mirrored reflections
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Nihat Kemankasli's visual interpretations are deceptively child-like, humorous and captivating works, which he creates through detailed ink, acrylic and oil paint, and also in his use of bold, vibrant, colors.
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Known for her technical brilliant and startling use of light and color, Jenik Cook incorporates a plethora of references
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The sumptuous paintings of Barbara Palka-Winek represent a crossroads of East and West. Drawing upon sources as varied as Orientalism, Byzantine art, and Mycenaean metalwork, the artist also exhibits more contemporary references including Art Nouveau symbolism, and modernist Abstraction.
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Oslo based artist and teacher, Aase-Hilde Brekke breaths a deep spirituality into the art world. Working toward being an “impulse to change, creative energy, inspiration, and the flow good ideas” she brings her knowledge of Tibetan yoga into her photos and performance pieces.
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>Carry van Delft works emphasize the aesthetic of a spiritual journey that is at once historically embedded and intensely intimate and personal.
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