B&W film converted to digital.

Our wonderful boxer, audrey, as she melts, pixel by pixel.

At midnight, a blazing full moon rises above the ancient cliffs, once again, to light the night sky.

A dreamlike vision of night, the sky filled with black stars, and ancient cliffs are now blue.

Steve McQueen brought Ali McGraw, and a handful of his antique motorcycles, to visalia’s show this year. it was 1972, ‘73, or maybe ‘74, I can’t really remember which! I treasure the photographs, having kept my original slides all these years. It was in year 2003, I scanned this slide, and created an abstract, dreamlike vision of my original photograph to match the now distant memory.

The Clouds Series:
This series has been three years in the making. I’ve developed a process by which I take one photo and make multiple copies. These copies are placed on separate layers. Each layer has its own unique setting of opacity and color attributes. When I’m satisfied with the results all layers are then flattened to create the final image.

The inspiration for the Cloud series came from my childhood. In the summer time, I used to sit on my front lawn in Los Angeles and look up at the cloud formations. This was at a time, before freeways and smog, when there were blue skies and white clouds. The delicate transitions of tones that morphed into various shapes, brought me great joy and tranquility. As an artist today, I get a chance to recreate that experience and add my own colors to the sky.

Claire, Nidia and Andra are standing in front of Bob Schulers’ house, each of them are holding CPR masks. The images was shot with a pinhole camera on 8—10 B&W film and colorized by pulling curves in Photoshop

Sydney, Australia – The search for the world’s Next Star Artist heated up on Sunday night (June when the ten finalists of the Next Star Artist competition for visual artists were announced. Artists from all over the world took part in the competition which aims to identify a visual artist who has the potential for success but needs guidance and direction to succeed.

The winning entry will be chosen from the ten finalists by an esteemed panel of judges all of whom have the knowledge and experience to determine which of the finalists has the greatest potential for art market success. The winner will be announced on the 27^th of June and will receive three months of mentoring by art critic, art market analyst and art consultant Nicholas Forrest as well as an extensive online publicity and promotion package.

More than 250 visual artists from all over the world submitted their work to the controversial competition that was started by Sydney, Australia based art market analyst and art critic Nicholas Forrest. Frustrated with the large number of talented visual artists that go unrecognized, Mr. Forrest took on the challenge of finding and mentoring an artist who had the potential for future stardom and a hunger for success which resulted in the creation of the Next Star Artist competition.

In announcing the finalists Mr. Forrest said “Although I am unable to assist anywhere near as many of the talented but unrecognized visual artists as I would like, the Next Star Artist competition will at least provide one more source of encouragement for the world’s visual artists.”

The ten Next Star Artist competition finalists are:

• Eunice Lieveld
• Zoe Crosse
• Elizabeth Wallace
• Simon Wright
• Hou Chien Cheng
• Seamus Nolan
• Herb Williams
• Volkan Diyaroglu
• Heidi Taillefer
• Monika Bielskyte

For more information visit the Next Star Artist website.

Nicholas Forrest
Artmarketblog.com
+61 2 94777130 phone
+61 0422699730 mobile
artmarketblog@gmail.com

With the world famous art fair Art Basel opening tomorrow, June 4 2008, there is plenty of speculation about who will be buying what and for how much but I would like to avert your attention for a moment to another major art event that you may not be aware of. I am particularly excited about this event because it is being held in my home town of Sydney, Australia and also because I am one of the official reporters which means that I will be keeping all the visitors up to date with everything that is happening and informing those that won’t be attending what they are missing out on. The 2008 Sydney Biennale may not be as high profile as many of the other major art events but it is considered to be one of the most important contemporary art events today and promises to be a landmark event. First held at the exhibition hall of the Sydney Opera House in 1973, the Sydney Biennale is one of the longest running biennales eclipsed only by the Venice Biennale (1895), São Paulo Art Biennial (1951) and the Biennale de Paris (1959).

From the 18th of June to the 7th of September the work of than 180 artists from all over the world will be exhibited in what promises to be one of the most exciting art exhibitions of the year which will include a diverse range of works, 50 of which will be newly created for the Biennale. The artistic director of the 2008 Sydney Biennale is Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev who is currently the Chief Curator at the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art in Italy and has previously organised exhibitions throughout Europe as well as at MOMA’s P.S.1 Contemporary Art Centre in New York. The theme for the Biennale is “Revolutions – Forms That Turn” which according to Christov-Bakargiev “articulates the agency embedded in forms that express our desire for change”.

Having seen some of the featured artworks and the plans for some of the events I can honestly say that the 2008 Sydney Biennale is going to be an extraordinary celebration of art that will be sure to excite and entertain any art lover. I know that Sydney, Australia is rather a long way for many people to travel but if are able to attend I urge you to make the trip because if you don’t, I can guarantee you will be sorry. If the Biennale isn’t one of the prime events on your calendar then you are missing out on what will be an amazing opportunity to reflect on past artistic talent and marvel at the work of some of the world’s best contemporary artists. I am so excited about this years Sydney Biennale that I could go on all day but instead I will leave it to you to found out more information.

For more information check out the 2008 Sydney Biennale website here:
http://www.bos2008.com/app/biennale

and the online venue here:
http://www.bos2008.com/revolutionsonline/

About the Author
Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of www.artmarketblog.com, writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications.

Photo + watercolor.
Original size: 120 x 80 cm.