J Class Yacht Art Transforms Penthouse

A client with a new built Penthouse overlooking the cliffs of the English south coast had a passion. He loved the J class yacht class and wanted to really make an impact to the main room. Yourwhitespace art designed, produced and installed a stunning 27 piece multi panel of the J Class that stretched across 3 metres and became the feature piece in the property. The client could not be more thrilled with it.

At Yourwhitespace we can take any theme and transform your home of office with stunning panels that can cover almost any size.  See the latest addition at J Class Yacht or call David for advice on 01202 251126

New Multi Panels are loved by Clients

Since launching the unique multi panel contemporary art work, it seems clients with Penthouses are falling in love with them. A number of Penthouses of the rich and famous have been completed, all with different themes and sizes. Most popular are the images of modern seascapes and of yachts that are up to 3 metres in size to really enhance the room and give it a “wow” factor as you enter.

These are panels of composite that the image is printed directly onto. These modern panels are then carefully mounted onto 4 feet, so they eventually stand about 1cm off the wall and just look stunning when complete. They are so robust, they can even be placed outdoors to create a really unique garden art piece.

You would think, the multi panels would be expensive, but they are far less expensive than you might think. And really give your room something your neighbours definitely do not have!

Have a look at MultiPanels

Call David on 01202 251126 or at david@yourwhitespace.com

The art invasion

 

In the UK, our love of the arts continues to grow. There are now more theatres, museums and art galleries than ever before, but the biggest change has been in the number of people buying art for personal display in their homes. This has largely been fuelled by an increase in the number and variety of art fairs across the British Isles.

 

For example, there’s the London Art Fair, the largest Modern British and contemporary art showcase in the UK; Olympia International Art and Antiques Fair displaying modern and classic art and the Affordable Art Fair in Bristol and London selling pieces ranging in price from £50 to £3000.

 

Not too long ago, the thought of owning a piece of art, as opposed to home photographs or an Ikea print was uncommon amongst the general populace. But these exhibitions as well as TV programmes and successful marketing of exhibitions at well established art galleries such as Tate Modern and the National Gallery mean that art appeals to more and more people.

 

However, if you are thinking of getting yourself a piece of artwork, there are a few things you should bear in mind. Of course price is the first one. Only pay what you can afford. Do not be intimidated by auctions, they are actually your best bet. The auctioneers submit a guide price so you know roughly whether you can afford the piece or not, then the rest is down to you. You can pull out whenever the bidding gets too high.

 

Once you have purchased your treasure, make sure you retain all the relevant information such as the bill of sale, letter of authenticity and the artist’s details and store them safely. You will need these for insurance and resale purposes.

 

Speaking of insurance, most home contents insurance policies cover artwork, however you may need to detail the piece if it’s worth over a certain value.  

 

Finally remember to get your artwork appraised regularly, not just when you are thinking of selling. This way if the artist becomes the next Warhol your insurance will cover the increase in value.

Insuring your art

 

Insurance is one of those things that makes people think: ‘you’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t.’ This basically means if you have insurance you will probably never use it and it’s just another bill you have to pay each month. However, on the other side of the coin, if you don’t have insurance you could end up like one of the victims of the summer 2007 floods. They thought a flood would never affect them, particularly in the summer… how wrong were they? If you don’t have insurance and something does go wrong, the costs to replace valuables and repair damage will far out way the cost of your annual premiums.

 

Getting the right insurance is crucial. None of us want to throw money down the drain so we need to find a balance between a premium that is affordable yet covers as much as possible. We also want to keep the excess to a reasonable level but not so high there is never any point claiming.

 

If you walk through your home, you will be surprised just how many things you would be sad to lose and more importantly you will soon start to realise the value of the contents of your home.

 

Contents insurance is just as important as buildings insurance. It is the contents that turn a house into a home. So buying combined buildings and contents insurance is probably the best and cheapest bet for most of us. However, you may be wondering what exactly is covered on your home insurance.

 

Maybe you have a rather expensive piece of artwork that you’re worried won’t be covered by your insurance policy. Well Kwik Fit Insurance for example covers items of value on its contents insurance*. However, if your art is worth over £1,500 you will need to name it specifically on your policy along with proof or purchase.

 

When you can cover the bricks and mortar that make up your home as well as its valuable artwork and other treasured items in one easy monthly payment you’d be foolish not to. If you forgo insuring that piece or art now you’ll shoot yourself in the foot if it is damaged five years later just as the artist’s work goes on show at Tate Modern.

Contemporary art (3rd Dec 08)

Contemporary art is the art of the late 20th cent. and early 21st cent., both an outgrowth and a rejection of modern art As the force and vigor of abstract expressionism diminished, new artistic movements and styles grew during the 1960s and 70s to challenge and displace modernism in painting, sculpture, and other media. Improvisational styles employed in the early 1960s had widespread influence. The most significant of the often loosely defined movements of early contemporary art included pop art , characterized by commonplace imagery placed in new aesthetic contexts, as in the work of such figures as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein ; the optical shimmerings of the international op art movement in the paintings of Bridget Riley , Richard Anusziewicz, and others; the cool abstract images of color-field painting in the work of artists such as Ellsworth Kelly and Frank Stella (with his shaped-canvas innovations); the lofty intellectual intentions and stark abstraction of conceptual art by Sol Le Witt others; the hard-edged hyperreality of photorealism in works by Richard Estes and others; the spontaneity and multimedia components of happenings ; and the monumentality and environmental consciousness of land art by artists such as Robert Smithson . One of the most long-lived of these movements was the abstract development known as minimalism. , which emphasized the discernible variation of technique in painting, sculpture, and other media.

Taken together, these many approaches to art represented a wholesale rejection of the tenets of modernism—e.g., its optical formalism, high seriousness, utopianism, social detachment, invocation of the subconscious, and elitism—and marked the beginning of a new era in art. In their many manifestations, these movements and those styles that followed have come to be grouped under the umbrella term of postmodernism . For the most part, this art is one of pluralism and eclecticism. In fact, the very lack of a uniform organizing principle or ideology is one of the most important hallmarks of postmodern art. Nonetheless, within the enormous diversity certain tendencies, trends, and movements can be discerned.

One of the products of the almost universal dismissal of modernism by contemporary artists has been the development of a new historicism, ironic and detached, which has spawned a number of artistic "neoisms." These include the neo-expressionism of such German artists as Georg Baselitz Anselm Kiefer, of Italians including Francisco Clemente and Sandro Chia, and of the American Julian Schnabel .
 
 
Arising from the multimedia experiments of the 1970s, the widespread use of a variety of technology-based media has persisted into the art of the new century. Often included are elements of film, video, sound, performance (see performance art ), and architecture (principally in installation art). Another trend that has widened the definition and scope of contemporary art has been the conceptually driven use of both photography and language as the substance of numerous works of art—in Kiefer's photographic collages, in Kruger's words and photographic images, in Bruce Nauman's neon phrases, in Lawrence Weiner's painted words, in Holzer's billboarded, carved, electronically reproduced, or otherwise created linguistic neotruisms, and in many other artists' works. Another contemporary art movement, digital art , was pioneered in the 1970s but did not become prevalent until the beginning of the 21st cent. Digital artists make use of sophisticated computers, software, and video equipment to create an extremely varied body of works.

Postmodern art has also blurred the distinctions between painting and sculpture (and sometimes architecture), with artists often including in their works a host of wildly nontraditional materials. Since the 1960s shaped paintings and painted sculpture have become commonplace, while the materials of art have ranged from Rauschenberg's stuffed goat to Joseph Beuys globs of fat to the smeared body fluids of various contemporary artists. Moreover, a wide variety of spaces and places, both private and public, have become arenas for the frequently ephemeral work of many contemporary artists.

Later 20th-cent. and early 21st-cent. sculpture has assumed a central position in contemporary art and has followed the patterns of the various postmodern art movements, for example, the three-dimensional pop icons of Claes Oldenburg , Koons's purposely banal, often erotic figures, and the minimalist constructions of such artists as Carl Andre , Donald Judd , and Robert Morris . Other important trends in contemporary sculpture include an increasing use of mixed media and the creation of works that draw their meaning and impact from their architectural context and also emphasize the role of the spectator. This is as significant in the room-centered examples of installation art as it is in such large public works as Maya Lin 's Vietnam Veterans Memorial .

Yourwhitespace.com, the dynamic new player in the on-line contemporary art market that are really impressing the top designers, this month launched their new range of canvases from the best-selling artist, Mike Dethick. This new series of original canvas art encompasses a conglomeration of vivid colours in an abstract form and during its pre-launch party created quite some excitement amongst journalists and contemporary art critics alike.

Mike, who spends his time between a sleepy village in north Dorset, and the contemporary & metropolitan landscape of Shang Hai, has taken a range of influences from his travels to produce this new range of art. Mike says he has created the new range using a mixed media. Its vibrancy is compelling and can stand alone on any wall, be it a top line art gallery in Chelsea, a home or in an office space designed to impress!

He also designed the exclusive perspex range that has had such good critical acclaim from some of the top interior designers in the country. His work is exclusive to www.yourwhitespace.com

Contemporary Painting is prevalent! (22 June 08)

 
Contemporary paintings are now a popular style of paintings and contemporary art paintings are often considered the true representatives of the modern art as well as contemporary artists creating the contemporary oil paintings of high quality. A great number of contemporary oil paintings are now available in contemporary art galleries, boosting its great artistic importance. Critics believe contemporary abstract paintings make the most of contemporary art although still life contemporary paintings are also very much appreciated.

There are an increasing number of good painters in modern life that have created the modern abstract art on modern themes. Modern artists paint colours in an artistic way and the contemporary oil paintings are pure form of fine arts. History of modern art is full of great contemporary paintings from famous modern artists. 19th century paintings and 20th century paintings are worth viewing but the modern art movements have made such great progress in recent times.

Good modern art is also available for sale on line. Modern and contemporary art can be purchased from the modern on line art galleries in canvas or perspex forms. These contemporary art galleries can offer original modern paintings of great quality at a very affordable price. The reproductions of the famous contemporary paintings can also be purchased from these modern art galleries. These galleries also offer cheap price modern oil paintings.

This is good news for lovers of modern art as you can get Contemporary and Modern Oil Paintings of your own choice just by selecting it on line and will get it delivered next day in most cases. Another feature is to send a photo which can be painted by highly skilled modern artists to reproduce the contemporary paintings as per your given photo.

The major reason of success of contemporary art is that it is easily understood and appreciated by most. The accessibility has become easy for people as it is released in numerous copies and forms like disks and books etc. Such mass production of art has made art more popular, while preserving its unique values. Original paintings which were a distant dream for common people at one time are now accessible through on-line galleries and it has further increased the number of admirers for the art.

However there is an argument raised by the contemporary art critics about reservation of some art form for certain group of people. Their argument is that the true appreciation of some art form can come only from some people who can understand them. In other words an artist can only understand the value of an art. This might be true in some cases but not generally, as a creator would like to get appreciated from as many people as possible. Modern art works today are created by many people, and are made for many people. Thus, it can be easily concluded that contemporary art forms will continue to express publicly understood ideas so as to be appreciated by as many as possible.

There are various ways of acquiring modern art today . Online auctions are one of the best ways where by abstract arts-based painting, and impression arts can be purchased. Before buying any art form it is necessary to do some homework on what art you would like to collect and what appreciation you are looking for in that art.

Abstract Art origins in Contemporary Art (5th June 08)

The modern art & contemporary art development of abstract art originated in the early 20th century. Abstract art as a modern art development that is different to other modern art and contemporary art developments as it crosses the boundaries of many modern art and contemporary art movements.

An example of abstract art weaving around modern art/contemporary art movements, for instance, is when the modern art movements of Cubism or Futurism first became established. Critics referred to these modern art movements as abstract art.These modern art influences were being termed as, 'Abstract Art' due to their qualities of taking the non visual aspects of an object and portraying that quality within the visual element of the painting. The definition of Abstract art nowadays is more suited to that of Abstract Expressionism whereby an artist will express their creativity through a subconscious process, resulting in a painting that is neither objective or representational. This leads to the definition of Abstract art. Abstract art is purely non-objective and non-representational. i.e. it is not based on any visual aspect of an object. An object isn't even considered at any point during the creation process of a piece of Abstract art.

Artists that art deemed as Abstract art artists are the likes of Wassily Kandinsky (who's art is also deemed as Expressionism). Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman and Franz Kline (Who's art is deemed as ). Piet Mondrian (Who's art is deemed as De Stijl). Bridget Riley (Who's art is deemed as Op Art).

An aide to buying art as a gift (1st June 08)

Think about their personal taste.

When buying art for someone else, probably the most important factor is to have a think about their personal taste. There can be plenty of clues, including how they dress, the style and colours they wear. Ask yourself if they prefer bold colours or more classic styles? Abstract art is often a safe bet, and if they are more conservative in their tastes, then perhaps choose an abstract that has only a few colours. Also, would they prefer a canvas or perhaps the new perspex forms and would it be framed, or frameless?

And what about their home?

If you have visited their home, try to think about its décor in terms of colours and styles. The art should fit in with the interior design in the home. If they live with a partner, the interior design maybe the partner’s preference rather than their own so why not have a chat with the partner or perhaps common friends and discuss the options.

 What space is available for the art?

Once you know the style they prefer, it’s worth making sure the friend has enough wall space to take the art. Large canvas pieces have impact, but do need a little more space to make that impact.

And your budget?

You don’t need to spend a fortune on a piece of art to get a really worthwhile piece. However, it’s worth spending £200-£400 if you can and try to avoid the £40 very low budget art as you can often regret it. Read the testimonials to others opinions. Alternatively £600 could allow you to commission a piece of art for them. One option maybe to speak to the art house about setting up the commission as a gift, then allowing the recipient to decide the design.

Perhaps it does not need to be a surprise.

To be absolutely sure, you can always ask the recipient. As a last resort, a good on-line art company will allow you to return the goods if it’s not right.

A return to Abstract Art (23 May 08)

It is clear we are seeing a return to popular abstract creations. But why now? The revival is likely to be in response to contemporary life, and to the globalisation fashion and taste, as well as the desire for a universal language. Furthermore, a driver is the technological revolution of new materials like perspex and to the endless pursuit of something novel. Abstract pictures may convey a more comprehensible range of associations than personal, narrative pictures can. What art critics are seeing in new abstract painters is an “interest in going back to the roots of modernism and the fundamental issues of modernism and to Mondrian and Kandinsky.”

Minimalism has been fully embraced lately. It has become an accepted vocabulary, especially among collectors. The information is all there. People are still alive; it’s far enough from the immediacy of that moment so you can have a historical perspective.

The perceived problem with abstraction is always its closeness to the decorative, to something that feels escapist and closed-eyed rather than probing. The abstract revival brings back into view the intensively inscribed, nonobjective, but strangely thoughtful drawings of veteran Conceptualist William Anastasi, the nervous gestural painting of Cora Cohen, and the architectural abstractions of Joan Waltemath. It also introduces young emerging artists like Torben Giehler, who unites nature, technology, and psychology in works that combine digital and conventional media and play with spatial reconfigurations.

But none of these issues is new. Since the time of the early modernists, painting has had to answer to such criticism. The truth is that there have always been abstract paintings that deal with big and small issues, both spiritual and formal.
 

Contemporary art has new perspex twist (21 May 08)

In the modern art community there is a brand new format that’s exciting the connoisseurs of quality contemporary art in the last few weeks. Along with the array of new forms and constructions of wall art that are being created, is a derivative of the well received framed perspex (or acrylic) art that was launched last year.

This new version is actually frameless perspex that hangs on the wall in a simple manner. It is in fact a sandwich of high grade perspex around a quality print. Its quality and creative approach is genuinely stunning. The rear of the piece has its centre built up to allow easy hanging and allow the art to hang away from the wall. The rear is then finished with felt to leave a lovely piece that really does transform any wall or space. This gives a totally new way of viewing an image and gives incredible depth to the piece, impossible with canvas.

There is a limited number of standard range on line but there seems an increasing demand for commissions in this form. Particularly popular is for clients to place commissions of local scenes, asking the art house to create a contemporary image of that local icon before placing in this new form to produce the ultimate modern art work.

The art house that has developed this new form say each piece is signed by the artist making it very collectable as is available from www.yourwhitespace.com,

Art lovers increasingly buy from the Internet!

There's no hiding the phenomenal growth of sales on the web. And it's not just the big boys such as Amazon, e-bay etc. There is now a huge array of companies providing really good quality products at a fraction of the cost of the high street. But can this revolution translate to purchasing art. Initially there seemed a reluctance for Joe Public to buy artwork from their home PC, perhaps understandably as its difficult to get a "feel" of a piece. However, over the last year there has been an emergence of some excellent contemporary art sites that have really raised the bar when it comes to the supply of good, original and well finished pieces. These new sites offer excellent contemporary art from around the world using a range of new materials and forms such as Perspex, as well as the traditional canvas oils and giclée. Although it is still fair to say, it remains difficult to tell how good the quality is until you see it "in the flesh" so to speak, once you have found one of the new generations of suppliers, the rewards are great.

The art is creative, the materials and finishing second to none and often delivered to your door the next day. What is more, it's really allowing the art lover accessibility to better work due to their affordability. Some sites promote art you can to pay only £250 that you cannot get at over £1000 on the high street.

So, how can you tell what site you should consider? Here's a quick guide:

1. Ensure the site is easy to navigate with good quality images of the pieces. You should be able to blow the image up at a touch of a button.
2. Are there clear details about the company, where they are based and who is behind them? Are they easily contactable over the phone? Good ones will allow you to ring them 7 days a week.
3. Do they allow refunds of the purchase price if you change your mind?
4. Do they say who the artists are?
5. Can you read testimonials from previous customers?
6. Are they based in the UK?
7. Do they offer a secure server when paying with a credit card for safety and peace of mind?

The internet revolution is coming to the art world, so if you like contemporary or abstract art and they can tick all the above, then it must be worth a try!

Unshackling the Creative Arts!

Until recently, genuinely new and fresh contemporary art in Europe has been inhibited by the limitation of expensive materials and processes that create unique art forms. Clients have had to have a six figure salary, with kids in private education, or in possession of a very flexible credit card to afford the best.

However, in the last year, artists and designers, unhappy with the prohibitive costs in Europe have started to migrate to China, and not only in search for cultural influences and inspiration. China has developed some really excellent and unique processes like. The best and most desirable materials, for example Perspex, are available at a fraction of the cost of the UK. This has unshackled the artist's imaginations, allowing more creative and abstract thought and deed.

New awe inspiring contemporary art is allowing the artist to strive, and achieve, exciting and fresh ideas and enabling good original art at affordable prices to fulfil the dream of widening their works accessibility. This means that work that could cost several £1000's in a gallery is now accessible for a few hundred pounds.

Critics have tried to point out the distance involved may mean slower delivery, but the artists with an entrepreneurial flair are shipping their work and holding in the UK, allowing clients to order off the net and get the piece they desire next day to their home. Even commissions are now popped in the post in Shanghai on a Wednesday, and delivered to the client's door for the weekend!

Incredible, this new trend is giving more freedom to artist imagination as well as bringing good contemporary art within the grasp of affordability, allowing an increasing number of art lovers to experiment with the originality in the home.

The world is certainly shrinking fast and the opportunity it throws up continues to amaze!

The Art of Opinion

The question was recently posed whether people should feel guilty for calling a piece of artwork “bad”, as if the notion of passing judgement on such an intangible and subjective item was not only impossible but wrong.

Abstract art, Contemporary art and most other forms or art is now an open field. Common opinions of bad and good often are directed by the fashions of the times and art is now clearly a subjective thing.

However within the world of art, there is a troubling trend. Many people have become scared to say, “I think that is good or that is bad.” Viewers go into galleries and say, “I don’t know what I like. Please tell me what is good. But how it is possible for people to abdicate their own opinions. The truth is many people are intimidated by the over-intellectualization that has gone on among critics, to the point where the real art is in the written prose of the reviewers’ essays instead of the particular piece they are reviewing. Even worse are the viewers who are influenced by the pseudo-politically-correct “open-mindedness” attitude that scares them from passing judgement or are uncomfortable with the uncertainty in art.

The truth is that good merely means “I like” and bad means “I dislike”. The abstract art, contemporary art and other art worlds require the concepts of subjective good and bad, because that is what drives the desire for improvement and the hard work that goes with it. Without judgements, we would be surrounded by mediocrity.

We need to be comfortable with the terms good and bad, and also understand their meanings and limitations. We need to be accepting of others’ opinions, and be willing to listen and possibly change their own. Opinions, shared ideas, and discourse drive progress and keep great art flowing forth.

Robert Henri in The Art Spirit, 1923

“The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready to appreciate good art. He needs no one to give him an art education; he is already qualified. He needs but to see pictures with his active mind, look into them for the things that belong to him, and he will find soon enough in himself an art connoisseur and an art lover of the first order.”

Art and Originality

Human nature wages a battle between individuality and originality on one hand, and community and “fitting in” on the other. And where does it get us? Often - trouble. Creating, pursuing originality, is often a destructive process. Every scientist, contemporary artist, entrepreneur - anyone chasing their bold dream - is inherently making obsolete what came before. And as we all know, it sure adds difficulty to our lives. You can always spot a trail blazer - he is the one with arrows in his back!

The debate of whether original thoughts still exist has gone on for centuries and one can but wonder if we are just rehashing what we’ve collectively forgotten. It’s a fear that resonates among many artists, especially painters these days because we’ve run the full range from purely representational to purely abstract art.

But we cannot for one moment assume that we have done everything that there is to do. It’s a much safer bet that we are continually going to be tossed on our backs by something new.

Originality and individuality cannot exist without its opposite.

Keith Haring, the late pop artist, wrote “No artists are part of a movement unless they are followers. And then they are unnecessary and doing unnecessary art. If they are exploring in an ‘individual way’ with ‘different ideas’ the idea of another individual, they are making a worthy contribution, but as soon as they call themselves followers or accept the truths they have not explored as truths, they are defeating the purpose of abstract art, contemporary art or any style of art as an individual expression - Art as art.”

You can say something old in a new voice, and you can say something new in an old voice. Originality still exists in art and painting, although it is getting tougher. Originality exists in something as simple as your signature. Too often we close off our creativity by over-thinking and seeking approval. Yes, we are social creatures, we need approval, we need community. But to those of us who are hard-wired to seek our own path, you have to remember to put aside the comments of fashion and the criticism of the establishment.

The Art of Truth

Painting is no longer about representation, it is about inspiration. However, painting today is too focused on the creation of the “new” rather than the creation of the “true”. The 20th century was infatuated with new painting styles and materials, which has led to a focus on the mode and medium of expression rather than the message being expressed. After one-and-a-half centuries of innovation, with so many art taboos shattered, with so much of the field colonized and long-inhabited, the search for the new is becoming increasingly shallow and repetitive. Creating the new, purely for newness’ sake, can bring academic significance but offers little long-term weight. Truth and beauty, on the other hand, have longevity — they affect the viewer and the resonance of that experience lingers for a long time. All three need to be combined to create contemporary art, abstract art or any other forms of art that has impact as well as freshness.

What is truth? Like everything in contemporary art, abstract art and other forms of art, the concept of truth is completely subjective and people will define their own truth. Truth is not simply honesty, but also an emotion or expression that has a deeper, more powerful effect on the viewer.

So many works today are trying hard to be innovative but are inescapably derivative. They are “neat” and “funky” rather than emotional and hard-hitting.

Is it not true to say that we now live in an era of disposable art to match our reality TV? More difficult is the struggle to create something greater than ourselves, something that can outlast ourselves. The imperative of being better, making better, expressing better drives you on. And just as we hope for brilliance in ourselves, we like to touch it as well, whether in a conversation, reading a novel or staring at a canvas.

There are still more Cezannes, more Dostoevskys, to come. We will spot them more by their truth and their beauty than by their passing trend.