Daily Art: Someday My Prince Will Come

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View more work by the artist Fiona Phillips here.

Pop Art Furniture by Silvia Zacchello

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Silvia Zacchello describes her work as recycling and restoring furniture and vintage objects with a pop art theme, but it is so much more than that. Like a true artist, she takes a common object, brushes it with her unique sensibility and turns it into something special. In Silvia’s case this special ability is her great sense of humour and the ability to have fun with her craft.

She grew up in Mestre, at a time of economic austerity, feminist demonstrations and blight, absorbing these environmental and equalitarian messages as her biggest inspirations. Complimentary to this is the joie de vivre in her work, which springs from her childhood in the 70’s and 80’s. Growing up with disco music, Superman and Wonder Woman as her heroes and travelling on family vacations in an Orange Fiat 128 3P, she formed an image of her ideal world - “absolutely colourful, conceivably inhabited by super-heroes”. 

Her journey as an artist started when one day she found an old chair in her house and decided to paint it in the images from her dream world - superheroes and comic books. Her idea was to rescue these objects from their gloomy existence and give them back a new, adventurous and colourful life. An idea that is clearly visible in her pieces even today, specially her chairs, which are painted with themes inspired by pop art, comic books and vintage graphics. These chairs with their bright pops of colour can instantly enliven a room and turn it into a happy space. 

Silvia Zacchello still lives and paints in the chaotic city of Mestre, in an apartment that she loves to continuously make more colourful.

All images courtesy Silvia Zacchello

Daily Art : The Snow Goose

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Today’s Daily art features “The snow goose”, painted in 1946 by Sir Peter Scott, is a portrait of his first wife - the beautiful novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard. The painting depicts Howard as Fritha in the iconic book Snow Goose by Paul Gallico, which Scott illustrated in 1946.

The painting has a strange moodiness. Partly because of the awkward way in which Fritha is holding the wounded goose and the drawn, wary look in her big expressive eyes. The palette of dull washed out colours add to the sense of sadness. 

In her autobiography, Howard recalls how, on a passage to New York on board the Aquitania with four hundred GI brides, Scott had searched the ship for a suitable model for Fritha, but “with the general prostration and the fact that the brides were unexpectedly a series of ‘no oil paintings’, he had to fall back on me. I stood for hours holding a pillow, which he turned into the wounded snow goose.”

Earth Day with Anthropologie

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My Earth Day resolution for this year is “saving water”, by giving up leisurely (read wasteful) baths and taking quick 5-minute showers instead. 

If you are wondering where my inspiration comes from, just look at how Anthropologie are marking Earth day this year – by putting on stunning underwater theme windows at their stores across the US. These windows are public art with a very relevant message, which will no doubt inspire thousands of people to make small changes to their lifestyles. So what change are you making to your lifestyle this Earth Day? No matter what steps you’re taking - big or small – every little change will help make the world a greener place.

Rockefeller Centre, New York, NY

Rockefeller Centre, New York, NY

Columbus, OH

Dunwoody, GA

Edgewater, NJ

Nashville, TN

New Orleans, LA

Burlingame, CA

Allen, TX

Boston, MA

Paramus, NJ

Indianapolis, IN

Corte Madera, CA

Next month, one of us could own these oceanic creations. In May, select stores will be auctioning off their displays to benefit the marine habitat activists –the WylandFoundation - who raise awareness for the importance of healthy oceans and waterways through public art programs.

All images courtesy Anthropologie.

Daily Art : Brown Explosion

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"Brun eksplosion" (Brown explosion) is a pen and ink drawing by Jens Paldam who specialises in abstract expressionism. Jens was born in Aarhus, Denmark, and currently lives in the buzzing neighbourhood of Nørrebro in the northern part of Copenhagen. He has traveled the world and has lived in Santiago de Chile and Washington DC. In his own word "Traveling has left me with a small, but wholesome mountain within. It is from this geology that my art springs from...".
View more of his works here.

Martin Creed's makeover for Sketch

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Sketch the Gallery restaurant opened in 2002 as a “lieu” or destination place, for food, art and music, spread over two expansive floors of a converted 18th century building in Conduit Street, Mayfair, London. Over the last ten years, it has garnered much media attention for its imaginative and bold food, drink and entertainment styles.

Recently the restaurant re-opened after its much-awaited refurbishment by British artist Martin Creed. Creed has treated the restaurant like a giant canvas, in which every piece of furniture and cutlery is like a different brush stroke. First of a long-term programme of artist-conceived restaurants, it creates an environment that is simultaneously an exhibition, an artwork and a restaurant. The floor, walls and furniture take the form of new artworks that blur the boundaries of art and functionality.



Turner Award winning artist Martin Creed posing at Sketch 



Titled 'Work No. 1343', it brings together mass produced pieces with the handcrafted and juxtaposes antiques with contemporary design.



The flooring is a separate work of art labeled 'Work No. 1347', For this the former Turner Prize winner has brought together 96 different types of marble in a geometric formation on the floor, this pattern is picked up in the wall paintings.



The flooring under construction



All images courtesy Sketch

Daily Art : The Beginning of Memory

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This painting is very close to Romanian artist Melinda Matyas' heart as it reminds her of her childhood. She believes in abandoning the model after a while and letting her mind move without any external guide. This is when the moment of creation starts for her.

A week at Madingley Hall

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Madingley Hall is a Jacobean and Elizabethan mansion located about four miles from the centre of Cambridge. I have often cycled past it and marvelled at the beautiful house. So when I found out I was going to stay there for one whole week - I was naturally jumping with joy!

The house dates back to 1543 and passed through several hands until sold to Colonel T. Walter Harding in 1905. Colonel Harding was an industrialist who had succeeded his father in the textile industry in Leeds and became the first Lord Mayor of Leeds (1898-1899). He found the hall in a poor condition but decided to renovate it - in 1906 work started on a large-scale restoration and reconstruction to designs by the architect John Alfred Gotch. Later ownership passed to Colonel Harding’s heirs who sold the Hall and its 300 acres of surrounding park and farmland to the University of Cambridge in 1948.

Colonel Harding

The University runs its Institute for Continuing Education at Madingley Hall and I took a short course there, which is how I ended up spending a week at the grade I listed house. Although the course was quite intensive, the house provided a very relaxed setting and there were many opportunities to wander off, soak up the Sun and photograph the house and gardens.

The impressive entrance 




View from my room

Walking up the avenue in the formal gardens 



Peeping out from the classroom windows



The Grade I listed gardens designed by 'Capability' Brown



Daily Art : "Ryder and Amies" in Cambridge

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“Ryder & Amies” by Paul Margiotta is one of a series of paintings of shop fronts on Kings Parade – the famous street opposite Kings College in Cambridge. Margiotta is based in Cambridge and has worked as magazine and book illustrator, medical and scientific illustrator, art director, graphic artist and cartoonist in the past.

Louis Vuitton at Wimpole Hall!

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My tour of English Stately homes continues, with the latest being Wimpole Hall near Cambridge. It is a stunning mansion dating back to 1640 and as usual had a succession of beautiful rooms, but what I found fascinating was the basement. The below stairs offered a glimpse of the labor required to run such great houses. I could imagine the hustle and bustle downstairs with staff scurrying around the corridors, with the senior staff directing from their offices - the Housekeeper’s room and the Butler’s pantry. Most fascinating of all was the Steward’s Room, where I found a stack of gorgeous Louis Vuitton trunks! These were brought down and looked after by the steward who then loaded these onto waiting carriages.

The trunks look like they have travelled the world. Notice all the different Cunard first class stickers, specially the one at bottom left for the Blue Star Line ship “Avila the Star”. Imagine the stories these trunks would tell if they could only speak. My imagination is running riot at the thought of it!