inner friend

     

Elevation V: Santa Maria Del Fiore, Firenze 2010 limestone, 60 X 13 X 37cm

                  

Chapter House 2007 limestone, 10 X 10 X 12cm

 Tivoli 2007 statuary marble, 40 X 35 X 46cm

Matthew Simmonds has done his graduation in art and architecture of the medieval period. He is trained as an architectural stone carver and has participated in the restoration of several important historic monuments in England like Westminster Abbey and Ely Cathedral.

The sculptures though mini is scale communicate the exact sense of space one experiences in these buildings. The light is beautifully captured to enhance the architectural features. Essentially stone, the material used does full justice in conveying the exact feel of the building. One truly feels like they are looking inside the building in terms of experience. 

Credits:

http://www.mattsimmonds.com/

determination

What can be a more important purpose than propagation of the species? Ensuring you do your best to make it happen is the epitome of determination. The Bower birds amazing architects from nature with their sheer intuitive creativity and individuality create outstanding homes for their future mates. Their very existence is dependent on this building process. So once again what can be a better purpose and how can one display determination more effectively than our nature builder the "BOWER BIRD.”

Credits:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPbWJPsBPdA
http://www.arkive.org/

women !

Sing London has commissioned several writers and actors to work on a project involving 35 public statues across London and Manchester. These people have lent their voices to breathe life into the statues.

The project is a brain child of American-born Colette Hiller, who came up with the idea. She realised that statues tended to be part of a city’s unnoticed furniture. People encountered them everyday yet choose to mostly ignore them. This gave rise to a project titled “Talking Statues by an Art Organization called Sing London.

The process is simple but is supported by complex technology. Anyone with a Smartphone can hold the phone over a bar code or swipe it across a chip that sets off a call to the phone. The person swiping the phone receives a call where an audio file delivers the monologue. The statue seems to start talking in your phone. Like for example Queen Victoria is one of 29 statues in London and Manchester that has recently been given voices in “Talking Statues” project.Once you swipe your phone you start hearing, ““Hello, Victoria here. Queen of England for 63 years, seven months and two days — but who’s counting?” Actress Prunella Scaleshas given her voice and she further recounts the Queens achievements .A single mother, presiding over “the industrial revolution, economic progress and the invention of the telephone” it also has humour woven where she denies ever having said, “We are not amused.”

Talking Statues really takes talking to many lives after the person has gone and statues have found new lease of life and are more involved in their surroundings.

credits:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/arts/design/in-talking-statues-sing-london-gives-artwork-a-voice.html?_r=0

http://www.talkingstatues.co.uk/index.html#press

divine design

Lisa Nilsson’s anatomical cross sections have a realistic look that makes us cringe slightly as we look inside a duck, a human brain, or human lungs. Then as we start paying attention to reality, we are stunned by these creations. The cross sections are created from carefully spiralled, folded, and rolled strips of tissue, specifically Japanese mulberry paper, and reclaimed gilded edges from books. Lisa Nilsson’s patience and steady hands are evident in every piece created using the ancient of quilling. The results are stunning their realism.

credits: http://indulgd.com/anatomical-paper-sculptures-by-lisa-nilsson/

numbers

'The Alchemist', Jaume Plensa's sculpture on the MIT campus, represents a thinking man, comprised of numbers and maths functions.

Originally a loan for the duration of MIT's 150th anniversary celebrations, the sculpture is now permanently stationed between the student's center and Massachussets avenue.

Jaume Plensa is a contemporary Spanish artist, who has exhibited his work in many parts of the world. A large part of his work includes large scale sculptures in 'public' places, that have become landmarks due to their very poetic use of various forms and materials to represent the human form.

source:

http://jaumeplensa.com/index.php/works-and-projects/projects-in-public-space/item/257-alchemist-2010

http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N37/alchemist.html

http://brianhua.blogspot.in/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaume_Plensa

http://hubreview.blogspot.in/2011/10/great-news-jaume-plensa-is-staying-at.html

paradise

The Paradise Garden, that originated in Persia, was everything that one could wish for, after one was through with the sufferings and hardships of the life on earth. Safety, shade, sustenance, pleasure, eternal life ... paradise promised a wonderful afterlife to the faithful, who in turn recreated it on earth, for his enjoyment, here and now.

Based on the 'Char bagh' or the four gardens concept, the paradise garden offered an enclosed place, safe from the vagaries of nature and human beings. It had lush green trees that provided shade and fruit, and also water playing in reflective pools, channels and fountains. Originally meaning a walled - in enclosure ( 'pairi (around) and daeza or diz (wall, brick, or shape) , the Persian word pairidaeza came to be translated to the Greek 'Paradeisos' and later, the gardens came to be known as paradise garden.

The concept also finds resonance in the biblical 'Gardens of Eden" with its four rivers emanating from the central fount and flowing towards four directions.

The gardens of Persia and later the Mughal gardens based on the same concept show a geometrically composed four part layout with a pool at the centre, and four channels of water dividing the garden into four parts filled with greenery and shade. This layout repeated in a fractral pattern if the garden was larger, and split into terraces, if the garden happened to be sited on a slope. The same is reflected in the Persian Carpet design where all the elements are symbolically woven in to the pattern.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_garden

http://www.electrummagazine.com/2011/07/paradise-gardens-of-persia-eden-and-beyond-as-chahar-bagh/

http://www.walkthroughindia.com/walkthroughs/the-most-famous-mughal-gardens-of-india/