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by Dorothy Circus Gallery
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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
MILLOBorn in Pescara Italy in 1979 Francesco Camillo Giorgino, aka Millo, is an Italian street artist whose mural works appear all over the world’s cityscapes. Millo’s large-scale murals depict friendly giant inhabitants in the act of exploring their urban setting. The Artist suspended universes are characterized by black and white landscapes saturated with details and hidden life. Illusionism and introspection are some of Millo’s art's main components. The spectator feels completely absorbed by the extension of fictional cities and gets lost in their streets leading to a nowhere based metaverse like reality representative of ancestral memories. The unknown chaos generated by the Artist’s visionary mind leads us toward a central point in the canvas where a familiar scene appears reassuring and comforting. Painted with an elaborate illustrative technique on large size canvases, Millo’s artworks are like open doors to the human mind. Reflecting our most intimate sensations such as Love, Hope, Strength, Loneliness, and Fear hence the protagonists of Millo’s narratives are often a couple sharing a moment of tenderness calling our attention to stop the frenetic stream of time and carry us back to the simplicity of human feelings. In a meticulously calculated balance between maximalism and minimalism, Millo generates a visionary code which stands as completely unique both in the street art movement and the neo-surrealist scene. -
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
JOE SORRENJoe Sorren was born in 1970 in Chicago and he grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona. He began painting in 1989 and, in 1993, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Northern Arizona University and worked as creative director for Transworld Snowboarding Magazine.After a long-term residency in New York City, Sorren spent a few years in Florence and in Barcelona, where he had the chance to absorb both Italian and Spanish art vibes.The artist’s poetic imagery, his fading landscapes, peculiar brushstrokes and unique codes, make him one of the leading figures on the scene of the American cultural avant-garde of Pop Surrealism of which he is a prime mover.Contemporary master of “emotion lighting”, Sorren paints with muted, but luminous, palette and golden-like oil colours that make the viewer feel transported into the realm of the canvas, a warm wool of soft textures. Sorren’s brushstrokes are like sunbeams that penetrate the foggy atmosphere of an ever-spring realm. His style is hyper-contemporary and hyper-impressionistic at the same time, a feature that characterises his signature touch of colour and makes his art widely recognisable worldwide.Sorren creates layer upon layer of texture with oil paint upon his canvas until creatures and sceneries somehow captured by extreme emotion emerge with impressionistic brushstrokes, as if from the deepest meanderings of the Artist’s imagination. Sorren’s inspiration for his paintings comes from human behaviours, classic moments that he turns into romantic, everlasting fractions of time. “Since painting is a physical record of movement in time”, Sorren affirms, “brushstrokes are not unlike the grooves on a vinyl record-capturing not just the colour and shape of a stroke, but the timbre; the energy and emotion experienced at the time it was painted”.Sorren allows his artworks to evolve sensitivity naturally and subconsciously. The process of study and realisation may take even years and each new layer of paint, reflects the subject’s spiritual metamorphosis into new beings. A figure may develop into a hill or in a landscape; or perhaps a tree may morph into a human being. Mysterious creatures enclosed in their inaccessible ocean and absorbed into their simultaneously melancholic and joyful state, populate Joe Sorren’s large size paintings, which examine the wonders of nature and of the human spirit.Always playing with new forms and palette, Sorren highlights the tender faces and gestures of his inimitable figures and generates his unique, living fairytales. By recording feelings of joy, he creates something like a sweet symphony coming out of our ordinary moments, which ultimately realises an idealistic freeze-frame belonging to modern life. Sorren’s emotional subjects are remarkably moving and able to step us back into the memorable and timeless serenity of childhood.His artworks have appeared in various publications, including The New Yorker, Time and Rolling Stone and he has worked with media companies such as Warner Bros, Fox, and NBC. During the last 15 years, he has shown his artworks in solo exhibitions in galleries and museums both in the United States and abroad. In 2010, Sorren was featured in the exhibitions “Art from the New World” at the Bristol City Museum, and “Pop Surrealism,” held at the Museum of Visual Arts Palazzo Collicola in Spoleto, Italy curated by Dorothy Circus Gallery during the “Festival dei Due Mondi”. -
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
ALEX FACEAlex Face is born in 1981 in Chachoengsao, Thailand. He lives and works in BangkokAlex Face (Patcharapon Tangruen) is a Thai graffiti artist who expresses himself across street art, painting and enormous sculptures of bronze. His Street Art established itself in Thailand, subsequently achieving success in overseas cities thanks to the recognisable iconography with which the artist provokes the city's inhabitants through interventions in public spaces to reflect on contemporary social issues. His significant fame came in 2009 when he became a father, concerned about the becoming world in which his daughter lived when Alex introduced the main character of his works: a three-eyed child dressed in a ragged rabbit suit, inspired by his daughter, Mardi, who has sometimes her eyes closed and gives passerby a sense of weary vulnerability and wry look.
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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
Hop On the Train of Wonder with Kazuki TakamatsuKazuki Takamatsu was born in Sendai, Japan in 1978. He attended the Department of Oil Painting at Tohoku University of Art & Design, where graduated in 2001.
Takamatsu’s depth-mapping technique and his intimate language are inspired by Japanese Manga girls. His works are as unique as painstakingly intricate, fusing classic drawing, airbrush and gouache painting with computer graphics. His Lolita's emerge from the dark abyss, and take shape in a series of coloured layers to review a mystic light and the traditional symbology through the highly detailed decorations of Japanese traditional symbols. Through his paintings you can catch a glimpse of the conversation between the realistic human feelings and emotions, and the unrealistic expectations that us human beings have of each other.
You can find a reflection of yourself in the current state of the world, Takamatsu combines classical approaches such as drawing, airbrush and gouache with computer graphics. In his paintings he artistically documents the feelings and emotions of the human being, thereby reflecting the state of our culture. Within his most popular black and white series , the artist through the dissolution of light and shadow, refers to the battle between good and evil, the renunciation of colors means to amplify the opposites and enhance the lightness of the soul standing out against the absence of light. In the artist most recent and exclusive series we find two colors Red and Blu, both these colored series are born after a profound and careful choice that aims to share the deepest symbolism of the color as elements and message to unravel in his pictorial narratives. The red is in fact associated to birth, fire and energy of creation.
The Blue takes inspiration from both the discovery and wide use of this color pigment back in mid 19th century by the impressionist artists. The Blue resonates with the Spirituality, the introspection, the ocean and the power of nature.
Takamatsu exhibits his work internationally and with Dorothy Circus Gallery since 2013. -
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
A Message of Serenity and Peace - Interview with Japanese Artist YokoteenBorn in Sakaide City, Kagawa Prefecture, in Japan, Yokoteen is a self-taught oil painter with impressive technical skill. His Artworks became renowned worldwide with the Series of works called Friends in Paradise. This Series reflects the Artist’s core aim to send messages of serenity, peace and happiness which are all sentiments to be found in the simplicity of human life and through pure values like friendship and solidarity.Yokoteen's signature character is often depicted surfing, surrounded by Hawaiian landscapes filled with aquamarine shades of fresh transparent water. With these joyful images the Artist invites us to unwind, enjoy life and the beauty within.The Artist uses the Water element to unite us all, making its ancient presence known via its psychological power that comes with it. The connection between water, life, birth and rebirth all contribute to a spiritual symbology. -
Samson Bakare (b.1993) is a Nigerian artist of multiple disciplines that graduated from the school of Art, Yaba College of Technology.
Bakare’s art is deeply inspired by his father, an architect in the city of Lagos who was responsible of encouraging his son since a young age to pursue his creative journey. -
CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
Insight into Grace Eunshin Kim: In Search of HappinessGrace Eunshin Kim's art is a dynamic and playful exploration of contemporary society through a masterful interplay of references to the great works of art history.Born in Seoul and based in Canada, Grace Eunshin Kim transports us into a static yet historical dimension.Her paintings, illuminated by a vibrant palette, exude an exuberant plastic force and convey a sense of tension towards equilibrium, in constant reference to the mysterious code of the Italian Renaissance. Through an innovative combination of hues, the artist’s playful scenarios are pervaded by deep sense of surreality. -
CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
THEME OF THE DOUBLE: PAST AND PRESENTIn a link between art and psychoanalysis, the double is presented as the theme of a cultured painting, with references to the mysterious code of the Italian Renaissance. The works of Wang and Eunshin Kim make us feel poised as we walk through a passage that opens onto the abyss of the mind, where reason and imagination come together in a dance of opposite twins. -
CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
Mark Ryden Signed Barbie: An Insight Into His New Collaboration with Mattel CreationMark Ryden is undoubtedly an unprecedented artist who, from the beginning of his career, has made us dream and has seduced us with his works characterized by bright palettes and stunning technique. -
CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
Juli About: The porcelain speaks of what we are made of: Presence -
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
Kathie Olivas -
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
Clémentine de Chabaneix -
MEET & GREET
Meet the Artist: Jana Brike Dorothy Circus Gallery RomeOn the occasion of the beginning of the 15th year from its foundation Dorothy Circus Gallery Rome is extremely proud to present for the first time in its own space a solo exhibition by the contemporary painter Jana Brike titled Forever and A Day.
As a women founded and run industry Dorothy Circus has always spread social values and stood for the bold, the impact and the change.
Jana Brike’s Art is dearly rooted in the gallery core concept which has always directed its efforts towards curating exhibitions that focused on the return of the female narratives in Art, with particular attention to women artists bringing the public attention to the female voice as the narrator and the connector of humanity. Sensitive topics of feminism, gender equality and women's rights have been emphasised through the gallery’s curatorial programme, which also recently dedicated particular attention to maternal relations and female iconography in the art world with the major collective exhibition ‘Mother and Child’ held both in Rome and London also featuring Jana Brike’s painting “the Peaceful Warrior”.
The event is strictly RSVP and limited capacity, so reserve your ticket now. Don’t miss it!
About the artist
Born in Soviet-occupied Latvia in 1980, Jana Brike is a figurative painter creating extraordinary whimsical scenarios through which we glimpse into an intimate world of what she describes as a ‘poetic visual autobiography’. Common to all of her works is the wondrous and regenerative presence of nature, especially the archetype of water that together with other elements composes an intuitive and personal symbolism through which the artist engages with themes of exploration, growth, innocence, curiosity, transcendence and love.
Her detailed dreamscapes show human figures, often adolescent females, in playful and unselfconscious discovery of the world around them. There is often a juxtaposition of harshness with softness in her paintings, with figures showing bloody scratches, incisions or redness on their skin and surrounded by butterflies or flowers. Vulnerability and intimacy is also an important characteristic of Brike’s work. Nakedness and nature often go together in her paintings, and Brike has described the human body as ‘vulnerability in its nakedness’.
The frequently portrayed adolescent girls, sometimes depicted in scenes of erotic exploration are metaphors for the continual discovery of ourselves and represent the growth we all do throughout our lives no matter what our biological age or gender.
Her works in this way act as a paean to free-spirited femininity, a celebration of Earth and nature, and freedom from oppression.
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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
The Art of Jana BrikeThe main focus of Jana Brike's art is the internal space and state of a human soul - dreams, longing, love, pain, the vast range of emotions that human condition offers and the transcendence of them all, the growing up and self-discovery...
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CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
Art-wear: The Renaissance Times of Textile ArtThese are renaissance times in thread-based art, as every day more textiles go to another level and are affirming in the vocabulary of modern art, by developing methods of making artistic, creative and beautiful pieces.
With the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s, textiles took its own revolution rising as Fibre art simultaneously with Feminist art and finally shook off the label of “craft” imposed by snobbery of the art lobbies Textile art was becoming at the same time both a conceptual and a political communication tool initiating a new life beyond the kitchen walls.
One of the most important and influential example of Master in the Textile is contemporary Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, whose works explore the human existence across different dimensions by creating large scale thread installations.
Now Berlin-based, Chiharu Shiota is known worldwide for her elaborate entangled labyrinths installations that conveys textiles into a surreal wave of performance arts embedding into blood-red, black or white threads, objects of personal significance such as clothes, keys, boats, suitcases, and even herself appearing almost like humans could weave webs.
‘The single line of thread is like a line in a painting. With the thread, I am drawing in the air, in an unlimited space. With the material, I can create new spaces. They might be deconstructed after the exhibition, but they will live in the memory of the visitors forever.’ (Chiharu Shiota for Wall Paper Magazine)
For the sense of touch, our Six Senses Concept Store, recently presented the gorgeous artworks by Flavia Itibere and are now proud to announce the new collaboration with the hand-made kimonos by Ikkimo.
Flávia Itiberê born in Curitiba, Brazil is a textile artist, wife of the painter Rafael Silveira. As wife of the painter Rafael Silveira, Flavia's early fashion life coexisted intensely with the art world, specially the creative process involved in create artworks and exhibitions. Year after year increasingly affected by her thoughts about the disposable aspect of the fashion industry she become inspired to move on the opposite direction, from the perishable to the permanent and started to create pieces of art in collaboration with Silveira.
From small intricate hand made embroideryes to large textile installations, Flavia Itibere artworks took place at major institutions in Brazil like the Oscar Niemeyer Museum and are part of important art collections in America, Europe and Asia. With four hands, they transform embroidery into paintings and installations that place the female figure as the center of their narratives. Each work has its own story and meaning. Flavia Itibere art converses with the spectator in the oneiric field, in the intimacy of thoughts, in the deepest origin of mental choices that precede external attitudes.
From Contemporary Art to Fashion Textile is blooming with creativity and thanks to the thoughtful research on sustainability carried on by independent brands it has become a status/statement that represents and tells who we are and what we stand for.
iKKimO’s brand was born out of the admiration of the ‘know-how’ of artisans across the world. We live today in an extraordinary consumer society where everything looks alike, accumulates, is thrown away, becoming too quickly “has been”. We no longer know where and how, what we eat, drink and wear is produced.
iKKim’O is timeless, authentic, conscious, different. It is a small production brand that goes back to the roots of “Less is more” and “Buy quality, not quantity”. Everything is made locally, the production chain is short, but the process remains long and slow, hence the use of the term “slow fashion”, literally and figuratively. iKKim’O collaborates with several artisans predominately based in Indonesia and South-East Asia with whom it develops an effective work-flow and exchange.
Each piece produced is unique and traditionally hand woven with natural new and recycled fabrics from cotton to cashmere. The patterns and materials differ in accordance with their provenance, reflecting the origin or the culture of the people, of the artisan who wove them. Most importantly, this craft preserves the know-how of the ethnic minorities from which they come from. Ever fewer, they dedicate their lives to it. They spend days, weeks, sometimes months making just one piece of clothing.
The one of a kind Art to Wear magistrally executed by IKKIM’O group of Indonesian artists is a trend which echos align with many other contemporary Artist’s research in textile art. Recently the spanish street artist OKUDA San Miguel experimented to create a giant tapestry with the help of his mother and sister and the celebrated master of Pop Surrealism Gary Baseman has been commissioned by Coach’s creative director Stuart Vevers and head of Ready to Wear Keith Warren to use one of his most representative character to become a sweater.
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CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
THE PROPAGANDA MUSEUM - Curated by Myroslava Hartmond for Dorothy Circus Gallery - in support of Ukrainian Emergency -
AGENDA: The Year of Freedom
Discover Dorothy Circus Gallery upcoming events in Rome and London“In numerology, number 23 represents a companionable essence expressing a personal sense of freedom. It has many similarities to number 5’s as an adventuresome and witty existence and in addition brings with it companionship, diplomacy and creativity energies.”In reference to this number’s link to freedom symbology we dedicate to our 2023 the program in which the freedom of expression triumphs, the topic which forces us, curators, to carry forward our research more than ever and to be once again pioneers of avant-gard, of the art of change and truth. -
SIX SENSES EVENT
Are you ready to indulge in the Six Senses Experience? -
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
Levalet : "Ulysses comes to London" -
CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
How Velázquez inspired contemporary artist Afarin SajediPrincesse by Afarin Sajedi -
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
Levalet's collaboration with the sportswear brand UmbroLevalet for Umbro -
CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
THE COLOUR OF SOUNDOne of the most overlooked but powerful senses is hearing, as it is the only one of the five senses that cannot be perceived directly. Although they are often overlooked, hearing and sound are essential elements of the visual arts. Sounds can create moods that evoke or lend meaning to visual images. They can change the way we see things.
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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
OKUDA SAN MIGUELOkuda San Miguel is a contemporary Spanish painter and sculpture whose distinctive colourful and geometrical style has gained him international recognition.
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CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
FEELINGS THROUGH TIME: CONTEMPORARY ARTWORKS THAT REVISIT CLASSIC MOTIFSThroughout the centuries, Art has provided us with the most comprehensive and intricate vision of our human psyche and history. We look at ourselves either with open eyes or closed eyes, aiming to tell our story, evolving between past and future, remaining true to ourselves and bringing to the light a circular story as a timeless travel.
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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
Andrew HemAndrew Hem was born during his parents’ getaway from Cambodia in the wake of the Khmer Rouge genocide, the brutal regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, claiming the lives of millions of people.
Raised in Los Angeles, Hem developed his artistic imagery between the culture of the rural animistic society of his Khmer ancestors and the dynamic urban art of the tough LA neighbourhood where his family settled.
Fascinated by the Graffiti art movement from a young age, he honed his graphic, figurative and compositional skills on the walls of LA, before the walls of the city before following a passion for figure drawing to a degree in illustration from the Art Center College of Design, where he received a BFA in 2006.