We caught up with Jared Konopitski, a local Sacramento artist, to ask about the inspiration for his art and career. Konopitski’s recent artwork has been inspired by multiple things, including: vibrant colors, strange tales, and things that live under rocks. He tends to work with a wide variety of medias like watercolor and ink, but his favorites are Play Doh … Continue reading
Category Archives: artist
Listen: New Songs of The Wooden Sky
The Wooden Sky has announced the release of their fourth album, Let’s Be Ready, due June 16th from Nevado Music. This album marks an era of new beginnings for the Canadian band, as Let’s Be Ready was conceived amidst many changes for them, including parting ways with one of their founding members. To give each song a unique perspective and to encapsulate their raw … Continue reading
Five to Watch: Painted Lives
John Wentz Wentz is a painter who navigates the waters between “rigid technicality and honest expression” according to his website. He works with a limited palate of blue-greens and reds, exploring the emotive power of such colors while experimenting with compositional concepts. While working mostly within the confines of the human form, he gives his … Continue reading
Listen: Mother Mother’s Very Good Bad Thing
This month, Canadian rockers Mother Mother released their new album Very Good Bad Thing. Much like the band members themselves, each song has a distinct personality. The lead single “Monkey Tree” is a brightly feral song, urging listeners leave the rat race and run away to the jungle.“Modern Love” offers a chorus shimmering with anticipation. The simple but pervasive touches of “Reaper Man” … Continue reading
A Man Under Construction: The Work and Community Outreach of Jim Shepherd
There comes a time for all artists, no matter the medium, when they find themselves struggling with what they are trying to convey or express. Sacramento artist Jim Shepherd was no exception. The struggle is not a failure for Shepherd, but a challenge to overcome in order to keep doing what he loves: painting. His … Continue reading
Americana Nostalgia.
All over the world there is a deep and rich historical folk music legacy. American singer-songwriters such as Woodie Guthrie, Leadbelly, and Jean Ritchie would inspire later artists like Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and Billy Bragg; who in turn lit a fire under artists like Frank Turner, Drag The River, and Ingrid Michaelson. These artists … Continue reading
Bright and Bold: A Word About Rinat Shingareev
Rinat Shingareev is out to capture the essence our era through the power of pop art. An artist who paints oil portraits of the most famous faces of today, he works in the bold and bright colors reminiscent of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. Shingareev went to art school in Russia, where he was raised. He explored many … Continue reading
“Take the DIY Approach and Learn Along the Way”: Filmmaker Scott Crawford Discusses Salad Days
Bad Brains. Teen Idles. Void. Minor Threat. Youth Brigade. Iron Cross. S.O.A. Government Issue. What do these bands have in common? They are all from Washington, D.C., and part of one of the first Do It Yourself movements in American music. The nation’s capital produced some of the most influential hardcore punk bands in the … Continue reading
The Common Threads of Alejandro Naranjo, Mark Fox, and Joseph Mele
The Common Threads series, run by the Red Dot Gallery, showcases three artists whose work shares threads of similar themes. The series starts its third installment next month with a trio of artists with “the unique ability to project a critical view of humanity’s social fabric”, according to the Gallery. The artists featured in this installment are Colombia-based … Continue reading
Five to Watch: Life Through a Lens
Amy Leibrand Leibrand is an environmental researcher from Ohio who uses her iPhone to create surrealist self-portraits. A highlight of her work are some of her photo collages, which inspire the title “traveling legs”, and seem to show an independent woman who strides around the Earth with ease and confidence. Her yellow heels and blue suitcase make … Continue reading
Coming Full Circle: Meet Laura Matranga.
After nearly a decade working in the corporate world, Sacramento designer Laura Matranga is returning to her independent roots. Matranga has run her graphic design and printmaking business, Asbestos Press, since 2005. She wanted to be a graphic designer before she even knew what term meant. As a teenager growing up a small Bay Area … Continue reading
What Are We Really Looking At?: The Work of Denise Stewart-Sanabria
Denise Stewart-Sanabria is a hyperrealist artist out of Knoxville, Tennessee who specializes in re-creating the world around her through painting and woodwork. Her intricate life-size plywood drawings are so realistic they force one to look twice before realizing they are part of an installation. Through her paintings she has been able to create decadent and … Continue reading
Into the Minds of Artists
This April the public will have the opportunity to step into the inner sanctum of 30 Davis artists. The Davis Art Studio Tour gives everyone a chance to visit the studios of both new and established working artists and interact both with their work and the artists themselves. Artwork will be on sale in each studio … Continue reading
Five to Watch: Art in the Streets
Top 5 Instagram artists we think you should to follow. 1st Instinct The 1st Instinct, also known as photographer Brian Alcazar is a video game designer and photographer based out of New York City. He takes beautifully stark and atmospheric photos of the streets of the Big Apple, highlighting the little beauties of the mundane. Explore … Continue reading
An Artistic Collaboration with the Dead: Breathing New Life into Vintage Portraits
For the months of February and March, the quaint cottage-like coffee shop, Insight, features Logan Fessler’s “No Past, No Future” solo exhibit. Antique portraits collaged with vibrant paint and mounted on found wood compliment the white cobblestone walls of this downtown coffee shop. While the 24 pieces on display range in complex composition and size, … Continue reading
A Calm Before the Storm.
When The Devil Makes Three comes to town it is a boot-stomping good time, and last week in Oakland CA was no exception. The three-piece folk rock band out of Santa Cruz headlined at the Fox Oakland Theatre Saturday, welcomed by an enthusiastic crowd. But the attendees who only arrived for the headliner may have … Continue reading
Shrill Colors and Mixed Layers: A Word With Paola Gracey
Paola Gracey is a pharmaceutical chemist by day, and artist by night in South Florida’s emerging art scene. She blends her talents by incorporating the chemistry elements into her paintings and by experimenting in both studio and lab. Gracey has been painting for fifteen years. She first started taking it seriously in high school when she … Continue reading
Hear: Iron & Wine’s Archive Series Volume No. 1
Iron & Wine’s Archive Series Volume No. 1 is the first in a series of releases of previously put aside and unreleased tracks. Sam Beam has been creating music for more than a decade under the name Iron & Wine, and with this new release, he put together unreleased home recordings, covers, and live sets from to be released on … Continue reading
Hear: Slaptop’s New Video “Distraction”
San Francisco based producer Slaptop has recently released the music video for his new single “Distraction”. Directors Gabriel Gomez and Julien Melendez work together to distill the essence a night of spontaneity in the city that never sleeps, and follow-up Slaptop’s previous single, “Sunrise”, which is well on its way to reaching 600,000 views. “Distraction” was chronologically filmed during one night in a New York … Continue reading
The Five To Watch: Artists
In this new monthly series we will expose you to five new and exciting artists whose work is on the forefront of today’s art world. Elias Kuhlmann– Kuhlmann, 21, is a Sacramento born and raised artist who specializes in the dark and interesting. Kuhlmann’s style is an intense breed of beautiful pointillism and carefully thought … Continue reading