Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Enrichment of the French cultural inheritance (January 31st)

Will Barnet the 100 year old US artist renowned for his dream like figurative human and animal paintings and watercolors depicting daily life, has been honored by being named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by French authorities. Barnet’s body of works including drawings and prints are recognized worldwide for his original style. Barnet is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has been the recipient of numerous awards including being the first Artist’s Lifetime Achievement Award Medal given by the National Academy of Design. The French government’s guidelines for being named a Chevalier state the recipient must respect French civil law, and must have ’significantly contributed to the enrichment of the French cultural inheritance’, although foreign persons can be admitted into the Order. Barnet had been honored earlier by the French National Academy Museum with an exhibition of his works.

Inspired by Judith H. Dobrzynski http://ow.ly/8Jk9x image source Amy Zimmer http://ow.ly/8Jk67

That doesn't stand up (November 29th)

Pierre Le Guennec a 71 year old retired French electrician reveals a 60 million euros collection of 271 previously unknown Pablo Picasso paintings and various works in an attempt to have them authenticated. Le Guennec apparently worked for Picasso during the last years before the artist died in 1973 installing alarm systems into Picasso’s many residences. Picasso’s son Claude the administrator of the late artist’s estate alleges the paintings are stolen goods and has filed a complaint to retrieve the works. Le Guennec claims he was given the works as presents from both the artist and his late wife, but Claude Picasso refutes this claim as completely out of character.  The works including note books have been seized by French authorities.

Political Arts | Ian Bunn Visual Artist

My digital art work is essentially politics and art. It’s about iconic people, places and events of our day.  Recorded visually through daily compilations of manipulated digital images, posted online and disseminated via online media and social networks. The works are diaristic in nature that metaphorically record a spectator’s experience of the contemporary digital age.  The resulting work intentionally has a painterly aesthetic acknowledging my historical painting practice.

Adapting Pop Art’s notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work is essentially popular culture arts, diverging from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.

This digital photo manipulation art work is premised on the basis that Pop art in its beginnings, freeze-framed what consumers of popular culture experienced into iconic visual abstractions. With the advent of the techno age, visual information circulates in such quantities, so rapidly and exponentially, that to comprehend a fraction of it all becomes a kind of production process in itself.  Hence this work considers fragmented elements of Popular Culture through an artistic and conceptual exploration of specific people and events of the day.

www.ianbunn.com