Chen Yongle (Chinese painter, 1954)

Chen Yongle was born in the Yunan Province of China. He is currently the President of the Yunnan Research Institute of Fine Art, and is a member of various art organisations and committees including the Chinese Artists Association, the Chinese Graphic Artists Association, and the Association of the Artists of Chinese Craft and Art.

He is among the few contemporary Chinese printmakers who can claim a series of international exhibitions.

William Whitaker (1943-2018) | Figurative painter

William Whitaker was one of the most respected living classical-realist figure artists in the Western United States.

Whitaker describes his training as being "Most influenced by the academicians of the last century for their craftsmanship, by the impressionists for their color and life, and by the abstract expressionists for their boldness".

He earned a BA from the University of Utah where Alvin Gittins was his mentor and later studied at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles.

Stanislav Aristov / Станислав Аристов, 1982 | Flame art

Russian🎨 photographer Stanislav Aristov / Станислав Аристов, better known by his moniker Pol Tergejst is an artist from Ekaterinburk, in Russia, who decided "to play with fire", literally. He uses flame shapes to create some kind of flame-shape paintings, he composes different images of them. All this involves a lot of photographing.

Aristo made a splendid series of images with matches between 2010 and 2013. It's after taking part in a themed "line of life" photo contest from Formula foto that the idea of using lighted matches came to him.

The "stroke of genius" or as Stanislav said himself: "it's not the first idea with one things that shows another things :)" reminds us all the poetry that has fire in the collective unconscious. Thanks to Stanislav for giving us some of his time answering our questions and for sharing with us his work.

Niccolò Paganini by Johann Peter Lyser

Paganini | Cartoon Drawing by Johann Peter Lyser

Johann Peter Lyser

(German engraver, journalist, critic, miscellaneous writer; caricaturist,1804-1870)

about Paganini from the magazine "Originalien", 1830

"Paganini is an Italian artist, and an Italian artist will be never sad or misanthrope. If he become that, it is the end of the art. In the character of Paganini there is nothing exalted.

His heart bits with a strong joy of living, it is attached to this land and to all it has to offer. However great the passion for his art is, he does despise nothing, not even things of little importance if they offer enjoyment […].

Paganini is one of the strangest, indeed baroque and certainly greatest phenomena, that cross land for over a century, but there is nothing mysterious about him. He his not like the stormy sea, but he is like the quiet lake.

The Art of Photo manipulation

Photo manipulation dates back to some of the earliest photographs captured on glass and tin plates during the 19th century.

The practice began not long after the creation of the first photograph (1825) by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce who developed heliography and made the first photographic print from a photoengraved printing plate.

Charles Dickens (Victorian era Novelist, 1812-1870) | Quotes / Aforismi

Margaret Gillies | The Lost portrait of Charles Dickens found in South Africa (detail)

▻ "Lega un albero di fico nel modo in cui dovrebbe crescere, e quando sarai vecchio potrai sederti alla sua ombra".

▻ "Evitate di rimanere a bocca chiusa con coloro ai quali avete aperto il vostro cuore".

▻ "L'allegria e la contentezza abbelliscono in gran misura, e sono dei famosi conservanti dello sguardo giovanile".

▻ "There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor".

▻ "Non c’è niente al mondo così irresistibilmente contagioso come il riso e il buonumore".

▻ "Tutti gli imbroglioni della terra messi insieme sono nulla in confronto a coloro che ingannano se stessi".

▻ "All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers".

Patrick Le Hech (French, 1965)

Illusionist photographer Patrick Le Hec'h began his training at the École d'Art Graphique Corvisart de Paris. On his release he worked briefly as an illustrator and graphic designer before accepting the artistic direction of a communications agency.

Inspired by the romantic and surreal, is detected in its early creations of the atmosphere that are visionary painters: Giorgio De Chirico 1888-1978, Tanguy, Bocklin, Delvaux and René François Ghislain Magritte, 1898-1967.

Invited to present his paintings at galleries renowned Parisian Avenue Matignon, rue du fg St Honore, at the Grand Palais, as well as Monte Carlo, Cannes, Palm Beach, Chicago or New York, his work now recognized as contained in number of private collections, earned him awards on the occasion of major arts events.