Remember one of the earlier posts when I mentioned there would be more on artists from Australia? Well this is that post. Two lovely Aussie ladies, Cat Rabbit, a crafty feltress, and Isobel Knowles, a paper animation artist, teamed up for their submission to The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me. Their piece is not only unique because of the collaboration behind it, but it's also our only installation piece. Again, we won't show you the entire piece until the day of the event, but what I can tell you is that the concept required more than just ink and paper - a ukelele, a recorder and a lot of rehearsing was involved. Got a clue yet? Maybe these process shots will help:







If you haven't figured by now the installation is a short video inspired by the work of Jim Henson. Luckily I had the chance to Skype with sweet Isobel in the CatRabbit studio and learned a lot about them and the thought that went into their piece. Isobel shyly takes credit for the songwriting and music composition while both her and Cat constructed the puppets. Their drive to make the video was their admiration for puppeteers, "our video is a tribute to the puppeteers and the culture Jim Henson provided to these people." They especially had a newfound respect for pupeteers afterward, "directing from underneath a puppet was challenging. We learnt a lot about creating working puppets!" Wrapping up our brief Skype meeting, Isobel expressed that it was a fun project to take up in their whirlwind of a schedule. Besides excitedly waiting for the opening of The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me, Cat and Isobel are focused working on a children's book.

Share This

0 Comments   

Today's featured artist is Graham Annable, a Canadian cartoonist based in Oregon and another frequent artist with us. For The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me, Graham presents three signtature watercolor pieces illustrating our beloved Muppets comically encountering their stark origins.





Clearly Kermit and Ms. Piggy don't know what to make of their beginnings, but what we can decipher from this is Graham's bold wit for introducing us to an unlikely scenario we never expected the Muppets would run into. See Graham's additional "muppet origin" of Gonzo at our opening!

Don't forget to mark your calendars for our opening reception already next Saturday! If you haven't peeped The Muppets movie, see it now while it's still in theatres!

Share This

0 Comments   

French artist Sebastian Mesnard has joined us for a number of exhibitions now and has even curated one himself. Already very involved with us at Gallery Nucleus, he continues his active presence with three pieces for The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me.





The iconic muppets express a solemn tone, but an appropriate tone indeed. The normally colorful friends of Jim Henson are reduced to black and white and reflect a synonymous expression - one that tells us they miss their dear friend Jim, the man responsible for giving them their lovable character and life. Thanks Seb for these lovely, sentimental pieces! The third piece you'll have to sit tight to see at our opening reception!

---
In other news, our official flyer is complete. Check it out and feel free to reblog it, tweet it, Facebook it and share it any other way you know how!

Share This

0 Comments   

Hope everyone enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday!

Our Jim Henson Tribute - The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me is in just 15 fast-approaching days and there's still plenty to share! The next featured artist goes by "Felt Mistress," and consists of master stitcher Louise Evans and illustrator Jonathan Edwards. The UK-based collaborators and good friends of Mike and Katie from TADO will make their first showcase at Gallery Nucleus for our Jim Henson show, which couldn't be a more perfect introduction. Together they schemed the idea of combining sculptural work with puppetry, "We've made sculptural work in the past and also puppets but this is the first time that we've combined both." They gathered inspiration from their favorite muppet Floyd and took off from there, "Floyd has always been a favourite character of ours so we jumped at the chance to make our own version. We wanted to riff on Floyd's built in Beatles influence and also reference Yellow Submarine animator Heinz Edelmann and the 60s poster art of Milton Glaser." The end result is recognizably Jim Henson influenced touched with the Felt Mistress aesthetic.

We won't reveal the piece in its entirety because a picture just won't do it justice and because it's so awesome you'll have to see it in person. Take a look:


If that wasn't enough, the piece titled "Pepperdelica" comes with a framed print of the original concept art and everything about it is handmade - no glue, just felt, and all amazing! And did we mention it's a functioning puppet?

Is the suspense killing you yet?!

To get a glimpse of their recent work, check out their contribution to Ben Newman's Totem Exhibition and browse their Flickr.

Share This

0 Comments   

A regular at Gallery Nucleus, Scott C. returns for The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me with another piece from his pop culture collection featuring Kermit and Henson admiring the delightful banjo flower. Scott C. recounts the thought he put into his piece, "I love how Jim Henson looks and I love his outfits. He looks like a muppet himself and Kermit is my favorite muppet to draw ever, so together they would have a pleasant time. This is how the banjo was created." With his delicate strokes and gentle washes, Scott manages to create a piece that is both charming and nostalgic.



From everyone at Gallery Nucleus, have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

Share This

0 Comments   

Alberto Cerriteno is a Mexican illustrator whose style reflects his cultural heritage as well as his interest in vinyl toys, cartoons, and pop surrealism. His latest piece for the Henson show is a two-dimensional pop-out piece, Cerriteno's first foray into working with clay, featuring the benevolent hunchback creature, urRu, from "Dark Crystal." Like his other works, this piece is brimming with complex patterns and linework.













Stay tuned for more artist news and be sure to swing by Nucleus on December 10th from 7 to 11 PM for the Jim Henson Tribute Art Show.

Share This

0 Comments   

Lorena Alvarez made her debut to Gallery Nucleus at our Edward Scissor Hands Show and returns for The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me to lend more of her signature, whimsical, dream-like illustration. This piece in particular, "My First Bike," has a more personal touch than her usual approach to themed exhibits. She fondly remembers her childhood, "doodling Miss Piggy and Kermit in my notebooks and how amazed I was by the magic of "The Labyrinth" and "The Dark Crystal." Her connection to Jim Henson as a child heavily influenced this piece, which for her "was a way to link those memories to my present experiences."

Still more to come!

Share This

0 Comments   

Mike and Katie, who together form TADO, are a UK-based artist duo eager to try new mediums. Last year, TADO participated in our Sweet Streets II show and contributed the most darling trio of Japanese plush girls. This year they surprise us again with our first Fraggle Rock submission of four carefully sculpted "Doozers," made from paper mache and clay. The experimental TADO were "inspired by Sunday mornings spent watching Fraggle Rock! We both love minature things and also construction, machines and hard work, so the Doozers were an obvious choice for us."



Thank you Mike and Katie for joining us again and gracing The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me with the fun and colorful Doozer bunch!

Share This

0 Comments   

Lorelay Bove, visual development artist at Disney Animation Studios and frequent exhibitor with us, shares her piece for The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me - Jim Henson Tribute. She stays true to her artistic style in her Muppet Show poster replica. We see Lorelay's familiar soft brush strokes and simple character interpretation of Kermit peeking from the stage curtains. Lorelay draws inspiration from old hollywood films, which works perfectly for her piece that re-imagines a traditional theatre stage with the original Muppet style lettering and the iconic Mr. Kermit welcoming an audience. 



See Lorelay's "Muppet Show" in person at our opening reception and browse her past pieces with us in our "Past Events" 

Happy Friday!

Share This

0 Comments   

 

Today's spotlight focuses on artist, Helen Musselwhite.  Trained in llustration and graphic design, Helen has been a part of the creative world, having explored home decorations and jewelery.  Only recently have her creative endeavors centered around the medium of paper.

Her submission for the Jim Henson Tribute Art Show, certainly showcases this interest. Influenced by sepia-toned portraits from the 19th century, Helen has recreated Bert and Ernie, not as their usual colorful selves, but how they would appear some hundred years ago as the great ancestors to the Muppets. Stay tuned for more artist news and be sure to visit Gallery Nucleus on December 10th to check out the Jim Henson Tribute Show!

Share This

1 Comment   

Japanese artist, Naoshi, first joined us for our Sweet Streets II exhibition last year and we're so pleased that she joins us again for The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me - Jim Henson Tribute Exhibition. Her pieces were a favorite in the last Sweet Streets and are bound to stir equal attention for our Jim Henson Tribute. As her medium, Naoshi chooses finely colored sand crystals she describes as "sunae." She strategically combines vivid colors with happy messages and the end result is always fun and and inviting. In a chance meeting with the lovely artist, she chuckled at her work saying that adding a little humor is something she always tries to incorporate, an approach we know Jim Henson could relate to!

For the Jim Henson Tribute she contributes a Sesame Street piece with all the right ingredients - color, imagination, and playfulness. She recalls, creating the piece "put a smile on my face," as we're sure should have the same effect on everyone else!

Share This

2 Comments   

Today's Jim Henson Tribute Art Show Spotlight features Olivier Tossan, a French artist and illustrator known for his character designs, concept art, and visual development.  His show submission,"How It All Began," is a playful and imaginative piece, illustrating Kermit and Miss Piggy's first encounter. Tossan, however, has completely subverted our conceptions of the Muppet universe, his interpretation depicting Miss Piggy as a mermaid and Kermit as an actual frog, leaving us to wonder, how really, did this all begin?





Stay tuned for more updates as the Jim-Henson Tribute Show draws nearer!

Share This

0 Comments   

The next featured artists from our Jim Henson Tribute series are MaricorMaricar, a "twin sister creative tag team" from Sydney, Australia. The pair make up just half of the talent we've invited from Australia - the rest, you'll have to sit tight to hear about in another post! But back to MaricorMaricar - they are a duo that adds to the number of dynamic artists skilled in a range of creative mediums. Their specialty is hand embroidery, and their subject is the familiar and fond Sesame Street.

MaricorMaricar share that they were "inspired by the fun and playfulness of Jim Henson's Sesame St." and it surely shows in their interpretation of Bert and Ernie. The sisters playfully transform the lovable Bert and Ernie into "Sweater Letters," cleverly using Bert and Ernie's recognizable sweater patterns to personify their initials. MaricorMaricar kindly let us in on some visual details of their creative process:







And if that wasn't enough cute to wow you, MaricorMaricar handstitched another piece of the beloved Cookie Monster titled, "The Letter C"



There you have yet another look into the hard work and thought put forth for the brilliant Jim Henson, but the effort doesn't stop there for MaricorMaricar, check out their other neat, detailed pieces of stitchery at their blog and site.

Still more fun to come!

Share This

0 Comments   

It's almost that time! Yesterday marked an exact month from the opening of our Jim Henson Tribute exhibition - The Lovers, The Dreamers and Me. Opening on December 10th in the main gallery space, over thirty unbelievable artists will be exhibiting their interpretations of Jim Henson favorites. Here at Gallery Nucleus we've been working diligently for close to a year now to put this show together and it couldn't have been timed better - to coincide with the upcoming release of The Muppets movie. Our admiration for the brilliant, artistic Jim Henson is finally materializing with the the shared enthusiasm of every artist involved. Follow our blog as we introduce you to new and returning talent and as we document the journey leading up to the very opening of the show.

A handful of our artists have been so generous to give us a more detailed peek into their creative processes, so to kick off the first of many artist introductions, let us introduce you to Mark Facey, better known by some as Mister Fungi. The friendly UK artist tells us he loves "creature design, world building, working in game design and other interesting projects with friends too." If you browse on over to his Tumblr where he chronicles every piece he makes, you'll see it's no joke that he's a true craftsman of magical, mystical, and some strange creatures. And so it was absolutely fitting that he submitted a piece inspired by Henson's fantasy film, Dark Crystal.

"The Dark Crystal has always been a huge inspiration to me, the rich world which they built has stuck with me over the years and has continued to effect most aspects of my work. With this piece I wanted to try and capture that feeling of a world bursting with life and colour with the crystal itself dominating the image, much like it dominates the fate of the world of Thra."

Mark, err.. Mister Fungi, confesses his work is mostly digital, but took the opportunity to master the traditional medium for the sake of the subject matter. And boy did he deliver! See for yourself:









Mark admits this was his first traditional piece, and that it was both a feat he conquered and an adventure that has inspired him to do many more! Thanks Mark and we can't wait to see what you come up with!

To get acquainted with more of the participating artists stay tuned for updates with more process shots and words from our artists!

Share This

0 Comments   

Here’s your first preview of what awaits in The JP Show! This one’s part of the series “His Jurassic Past” by photographer Robyn Von Swank, which she made with the help of a model (I’m pretty sure this makes this the only Goldblum-endorsed humans-only Jurassic Park art show). 

And this (hopefully) represents only the mid-range of amazing. Artists such as Lisa Hanawalt, Dyna Moe, Kirk Demarais, Jeff Ramirez, and Nathan Stapley are all hard at work populating the park. See you December 3rd at Nucleus!

Share This

0 Comments