Alice's pick
"I was immediately drawn to Ellen’s beautifully stylised linocuts of the female form, which combine elegant line, bold design and a limited palette to dramatic effect. Acting as the model within all her works, Ellen’s highly personal works are all about the search for self-assurance and being comfortable in your own skin, which I love. Her work encourages the viewer male or female to see something of themselves reflected back from the work."
Juliana and Debra's pick
"Klaus' collection caught our eye as he has a unique and distinctive vision. His sculptures are non-functional, naïve, colourful and abstract. Several pieces displayed together on a shelf would make a great collection, as they relate to one another beautifully in form, colour and size."
Alex's pick
"Fintan’s large, dynamic abstract paintings have a mesmerising liquid quality with a real affinity for the colour blue - a fixation shared with many artists from Picasso to Klein. He also produces smaller scale prints of equal quality for those tight on space or cash."
Aindrea's pick
"Flowers are painted soft as silk and bouquets explode with a ballet-like grace. These works offer a sense of tranquility and add new meaning to the phrase, "wake up and smell the roses". The work of Alexandra has a beautiful philosophy - take the time out from life's commitments and responsibilities and pause to appreciate the intrinsic beauty of things."
Dr. Matthew Eve's pick
"Sara's screenprints and multi-media images brilliantly depict figures observing and interacting with art in galleries and museums. Using a deceptively simple, expressive line and, sometimes, richly-patterned forms and backgrounds, Hurley's images are compelling, beguiling and full of their own fascinating narratives where the observer becomes the art itself. What is more, Hurley's work is very reasonably priced, so certainly worth investigating."
Dario's pick
"Buongiorno a tutti, Dario here. Ezra is the artist I have chosen this month - a digital artist nonetheless! I've always liked the phrase, "Don’t make political art, make your art political", and this is exactly what Ezra does. With an illustrative, easygoing, friendly and accessible approach, you quickly become drawn into Ezra’s personal and perhaps private loves and concerns. And that’s the thing - it is art that reveals itself over time. So let's talk digital... many people still look at the digital process of making art as perhaps lesser. I would argue that good contemporary art should not only encapsulate us in the here and now - politically, emotionally, socially and philosophically - but the very process should also be in tune and reflect this. If some of us still look upon digital art suspiciously, then perhaps it is we and not the artist that's not in the moment. Hans Richter, Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp made some very important Dadaist films in the late 1920s, using new and accessible technology of the time for the purposes of art. Artists are now exploring 3D technology, algorithms and virtual reality in an attempt to describe our surroundings."
Richard's pick
"In a somewhat significant departure from previous ‘Artist of the Month’ choices, this time I am highlighting the work of Italian street photographer, Salvatore Matarazzo. Bold, colourful, humorous and as ‘in your face’ as you could literally take a photograph, Salvatore’s images are wonderful vignettes of human life. Part of a long tradition of social documentary photography, street photography captures unplanned and unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places. Also known as 'candid photography', the focus is usually on people and their behaviour in public, so can act as an ‘unofficial’ people’s history - similar to social documentary photographers or photojournalists, but not with the aim of capturing newsworthy events. This style of photography dates back to the very earliest days of photography in the 19th century, as depictions of everyday public life became a staple of the medium. Its high point was reached in the late 40s and early 50s with Henri Cartier-Bresson’s poetic and slightly romanticised ‘decisive moments’ of life on the streets of Paris. Then in the US with the harder-hitting social documentary photography of Helen Levitt, Walker Evans and Robert Frank. Salvatore’s expressionistic images with their odd framing, close cropping and snapshot timing owe more to recent practitioners of street photography such as Martin Parr and Dougie Wallace, but Salvatore's photography retains a warmth and affection for his subjects not always evident in the work of other artists."
Julia's pick
"Nadia’s atmospheric works are drawn together from photographs with a range of mixed media approaches. These works take you on a journey through cacti, palms, mountains and beach scenes but also colour and tone. The scenes become dreamlike; a memory layered in beauty. They are the perfect size as stand-alone pieces, or you could play with the colours and themes to curate your own selection and story."
Shop all artists of the month
Cover image via Ellen Von Wiegand
