Artist of the Month: Jasper Goodall

"It's so tacky to exhibit one's ultimate art over and over." says Deidara as he is captured by Kankuro's team *chuckle chuckle* Do I need to remind you that the only person who probably saw your art was Sasu, and it's not like he's gonna tell anyone. And now you are inside a wooden casket so again, who's gonna see your art DeiDei? xD I just love to tease him, though the way DeiDei turned his body into a bomb, looked pretty cool  O_o Yeah I'm watching Naruto Shippuuden again since the plot is actually moving on for a change (I had to wait for those 3 bloody filler episodes to blow over --__--)

It's also summer =) I love summer! well okay it's not even close to +30'C, but we are getting there. Sun is shining and couple days ago we had +23'C. 
And if all goes well, I'll be moving to London or to Paris come autumn. I have decided that I want to become a make up artist and (central) Europe would be the best place to acquire education in make up and cosmetics. I have 2 pretty prestigious schools in Paris and Milan to consider and one pretty promising school in London (well there are like 3 of them, but this one sounds really promising career wise). I'd be interested to move to Paris, however, there is a pretty massive language barrier between me and Paris. Even if they teach the classes in english, chances are I won't get hired easily since I do not speak or understand French. It would be such an amazing opportunity and experience though. Paris or London?

Yeah just incase my pals were feeling a bit curious about what I'm going to do the rest of the year. It's Year of the Dragon so good choices + career eyes on us dragons.

 This month's artist is the naughty British artist who likes his (imaginary) women latex-ed and his art digital/graphic, Jasper Goodall. The picture in the beginning, I have no idea what the title is and I'm a bit skeptich whether it's actually Goodall's work. I found it via Google, but it wasn't listed on his webpage. It could be a very very good imitation. However for arguments sake, lets hope it is authentic Goodall.  If you read my Luis Royo entry you'll know that I'm really into this kind of art. I find people's fancy for fetish, eroticism, fantasy and smexy outfits really interesting because it makes me wonder what kind of people they are. So my first thought on Goodall's work is "jaw dropping".  It's still a little hard to graps that such a famous artist is so openly making such sexy work about sex. Well I guess that is subjective. Some people would say G's work is an insight to personal preferance and conversation about eroticism's place in fantasy and contemporary culture. And some just see the latex ladies. I think the setting in the first image is simply delicious. Four ladies dressed in black latex, 3 of them are wearing masks that cover their faces. And the last girl is on her knees expressing her infatuation for the girl in front. That or she's just doing what her mistress has told her to do. I have always been interested in how artists who work eroticism and sex into their work describe/picture it. There comes always the question about wheter the piece is art or porn. It's usually the art studying/knowing people who say that there is a very fine line between artistic eroticism and pornography. From my research I could argue that this type of art would become pornograph if G would keep the digital polishing to a minimum and was using real models/people. Then his work would be dangerously close to porn and adult imaginery. It would seem like just another naughty fetish series or a new line of fetish garments. What sets G's work apart from other artist working the same medium is his authentic look. I have seen a few artist who like to do the explicit sex-art thing, but those pieces are more about sex-meets-art than art-reinventing-sex (like how G does it). I think Royo's work applies here a little. His work is most importantly a sexy fantasy tale, whilst G's work is shamelessly playing the sexy factor ;) I could be wrong though. There could be a much deeper meaning than what G's pieces suggest. After all G likes to use a lot of symbols and cartoonish characters to explain and express things. It's those characters and his vector art/graphics that are moving his work away from pornographic. Suppose when it comes to making 'sexy-art' simplicity counts. Personally I think 'mistress and the apprentices' (yeah I gave the piece above a nickname xP) is really gorgeous. Who could have thought black vector art looked this good. Having that print on your wall would be one way to start a conversation or to impress (or shock) someone ;) Someday when I have my own place and enough cash, I'll decorate the place with a few Jasper G prints *heart*

Jasper Goodall was born in Birmingham (UK). He graduated from the University of Brighton in 1995 and spend the rest of the 90's rejuvenating the illustration genre and bring it to the state it is today. I'm guessing illustration was more about literally illustrating books and recepies and such before G and various other artists started to reinvent it in the late 90's. Now vector art and illustrations similar to G's style are used in ads, book/story illustrations, magazines and so on.
In february 2009 G had his first solo Gallery show in London titled ‘Poster Girls’. This marked a new direction in his work. He still keeps treating us with new prints that express his talent on mixing photography and illustration. In 2010 G participated in a show for Christian Dior called "Dior Illustrated: René Gruau and the Line of Beauty" creating a 3-D fabric/acrylic silhouette of a woman leaning. His CV includes rock band, magazine, swimwear and liquor bottle designs, public art. In 2010 he ventured to Australia for a lecture tour, visiting Sydney and Melbourne. Recently he has returned back to his previous style (mid 2000), well returned is not the right word, more like developed his previous style. His most recent work 'Silhouettes' is a mixture of that graphic look from before, yet now it's more stylized. One could say it's a combination of vector and graphic which he then styles further.  G continues to work as a freelance illustrator, but he is represented by creative consultancy Big Active. On top of this G teaches the illustration degree course at the University of Brighton.

photo: Heini Mika. Electric Blue Gallery London. 2009.

I had the pleasure to visit Electric Blue in April 2009 when G's additional Poster Girls prints were on display. By additional I mean that the actual show had ended, but I guess the gallery continued the show, but with smaller prints. It was a relatively small gallery, but they used the space wisely. The prints were hang up like that, like laundry on clothes line and on the opposite wall was a big wall print. I especially loved that pink lady who has sticky stuff between her fingers xD it looks really gorgeous (I love pink!) and kinda avant-garde. There's actually two slightly different versions of these prints (black bambi, tiger and pink girl), it's kinda print-meet-live-model. For ex. the pink girl print is actually held up by a model sitting on a chair and we can see that she is wearing pink latex stockings and heels, similar to the print's pink. This express G idea of mashing up fantasy and reality and I think it worked superbly well. Those model pictures look as gorgeous as the prints we see above. The idea is pretty simple and besides models holding up pictures, there isn't really much else going on in these prints. Hence perhaps it's G's composing talent that makes simple scenes interesting. He manipulates shapes and colours and voilá he shows us these results.

Olympias

Personally again I think it's so cool when an artis comes forth with controversial pieces. To me G's work touches something forbidden and nasty. Something that I know some people are part of this scene yet to me it's still a piece of fantasy and mystery. It requires guts to work this topic.
Which of course some people can't digest. Which is why I think it's important to talk a little bit about art as a tool of objectifying women. My tutor (female) in Uni was very particular about bringing this subject up when ever there was a piece that showed a lot of skin and girls in suggestive poses (but I think she was very peculiar about fine art master pieces that, in their own time, were viewed as objectifying too). Naturally G's work has brought out the question whether his work objectifies women. I think when ever an artist shows a lot of skin and suggestive poses in their work, it is identified as 'objectifying'. Even though G's work comes from a man's point of view, I don't think his intention is to literally objectify women and express that women are only delicious eye candy who do a lot of sexy and nasty/naughty stuff. Like in Luis Royo's (see my entry on Royo) work G shows us a fantasy. It's up to the viewer to decide how seriously they are going to take it. And so what if there is a little bit (or a lot of) truth behind G's fantasy. I personally happen to know a few ladies who are into some nasty/naughty stuff so it's not like women are unwillingly lured into this kind of fetish scenario G presents in his work. Some people are just really into that kind of stuff. I like the idea and it would make me smirk and chuckle so much if some of the senarios were..well real. I'm personally not offended by G's images. I think they are sexy and witty and beautifully done. I can understand why people would be offended by them especially since it's a male artist who is showing us women in this light. It is offensive to think that women like to wear sexy clothing to attract male's attention and the reason they engage in these sexual acts is to fulfil some sort of male sexual fantasy. But that's what I think is G's plan all along, it is just a fantasy. I when I was a teenager I was offended by Coke Zero and Axe (I think this is called Lynx in the Uk) commercials because they showed boys that using these products could get them hot models. As I grew up I realized that if boys really thought that spraying Axe would make hot women come running for them, they are going to be so dissapointed. You can't help, but laugh at that. Nowadays I laugh every time I see those commercials. That's what I think G's work is about. It's portal to a fantasy world that have little to do with our society or culture. Naturally there are people who enjoy the same fetish-sexy treatments as the characters in G's work and we shouldn't be offended by it. People are different and if this is the stuff G is really into I must raise my hat to him for being so brave and bold to show us his inner most desires (and it's not like he became famous and then started doing his sexy art. He became famous by doing sexy art).   

JG4B swimwear line

 Naturally it's really important to know your audience when you make art like this. It's mostly magazines, ads and young adults who are interested in vector/graphic art-illustration. After all this medium is still relatively new and doesn't quite reach the artistic values and appreciation that Fine Art enjoyes. On the other hand G has proven that there is so much artistic and commercial potential to graphic art. See that gorgeous one piece? That is so gorgeous! G teamed with Louise Middleton in 2003 and together created a gorgeous swimwear line. If you look hard, you can still find some of the bikinis sold online. See this link for more information and history about their collaboration http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/staff/jasper-goodall/portfolio-of-major-works/jg4b-swimwear


It's clear that Jasper Goodall is quite a genius with his own medium. During one interview he expressed how he isn't a fan of people who come up with a style or an art method and stick with for years and years to come. I couldn't agree more. It is such a yawn to see an artist do the same thing over and over again. Deidara may think that his explosive sculptures are state of the art (well that one sculpture's, once destroyed, special feature was to invade one's cells and destroy the body from within was pretty genious), but you have been blowing up your art for years and years. You'd think that Goodall was the same, that he has worked graphic art since the late 90's and hasn't changed his style or course a bit. But as we can see in the final image below, he most certainly is out to look for different methods and styles to develop his work. Yet even in the new pieces we can still recognize his genius and style.


Hope you enjoyed this entry. See you in July!


See ya!
AP

Leopard Dunes