Denise Burge is a quilter who uses her craft to create art that can be described as textile collages. A vast range of fabrics and stitching is incorporated into scenes or stories that are folkloric in flavour. Sometimes cartoonlike, Burge’s work can be taken as social or political commentary, not necessarily something your grandma would have done down at the church at her bee. Log Cabin and Double Wedding Ring these quilts are not.

Artist: Denise Burge
+ myoriginaldirt.com

Andrew Schoultz has used the relationship between man and nature as a recurring theme in his works and indeed the use of elephants in an almost anthropomorphic role in his recent paintings shows us some of his concerns. Schoultz’s worries about how globalism and capitalism affect us all comes out in his work and this artist also takes his talents to large scale murals in order that his public art may inform a diverse audience.

Artist: Andrew Schoultz
+ jonathanlevinegallery.com

Omar Chacon’s paintings are deceptive and can be considered sculptural in that he builds them up using pieces of paint as the compositional elements. What appear to be organized brushstrokes of stripes of paint are carefully applied decals of dried paint from previously conceived brushstrokes or drips. While most often Chacon’s works are expressions of sheer colourful and textural exuberance, some of them depict the artist’s interpretations of various flags or countries.

Artist: Omar Chacon
+ lincart.com

Shoes, handbag, suitcase - what more does anyone need to embark on a life of jet-setting? Unfortunately, Steve Miller’s X-Ray Fashion pigment prints reveal that the bags are empty and someone is going to need a crash course on proper packing. Although Miller uses hospital-issue x-ray machines, airport security is less likely to allow those thorns as carry-on. In any case, long-stemmed roses do not travel well.

Artist: Steve Miller
+ laumont.com

Abelardo Morell by Richard B. Woodward is a great general overview of the photographer’s collections. When his son was born in 1986, Morell focused on the child’s point of view, so turned towards a variety of perspectives. This handsome book has some great highlights from Morell’s camera obscura series, such as the Empire State Building upon a coverlet in a bedroom, the Baptistery in Florence in a hotel room and the Umbrian landscape in an empty room. Also noteworthy are images from Morell’s book studies, like simple, yet detailed shots of the dictionary or a book damaged by water. A fun touch is the alphabet drawn with drops of water.

Hardcover, 140 pages. Phaidon 2005, $31.47 at Amazon.

+ Abelardo Morell at Amazon

Michal Baratz has some beautiful video storyboards that he did as a project to promote the idea of creating videos for a classical music television channel. Great idea! Why is this not on my tv?

Is the art world too focused on price? Federico Gutierrez Schott certainly thinks so. The Price, his rebuttal, is 96” x 32” of polycarbonate plastic framed in aluminum with fluorescent lighting. Asking price: a cool million. What you see is you get (or pay for).

Jim Torok takes us into the artist’s world by employing a simple comic book style. Torok’s ink drawings tell of the trials and tribulations faced in the life of an artist. Torok’s alter-ego will often present an positive point of view in one piece which he will then negate in the subsequent one, so that we get to see the highs and lows. Of course the pessimistic, or perhaps more realistic, view is the funnier one.

Artist: Jim Torok
+ pierogi2000.com

The work of Scottish landscape artist Barbara Rae is clearly the result of great confidence in colour and composition. Rae’s paintings, etchings and screen prints are bold renditions of the artist’s vision of season and surrounding, based on locations such as Santa Fe, Southern Spain and County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland. But these are no ordinary landscapes, there is nary a solitary pine to be seen. Instead Rae treats us to a vibrant and exciting interpretation of the world that she sees.

Artist: Barbara Rae
+ adamgallery.com

Inspired by the soul-robbing nature of mass media today, Donna Cleary’s massive Deconstructed Portraits are seemingly without identity, insofar as needing a face to define identity goes. The viewer must instead focus on the body language and gestures of the cropped torsos in Cleary’s paintings, as these are visual clues that predate verbal and written communication. It is interesting to note that the titles of these canvases reveal as much as the images.

Artist: Donna Cleary
+ donnacleary.net

Julie Blackmon’s collection of colour photographs entitled Domestic Vacations is a delightful series of scenes inspired by works of the Dutch and Flemish painters of the 17th century. Blackmon uses the term “a Jan Steen household” which refers to a home in disarray, or a typical household full of children and babies and real life. The babysitter tunes out with her Ipod, young mothers take a break by dyeing their hair, children play and have tantrums, all set against some beautifully staged formal backgrounds.

Artist: Julie Blackmon
+ julieblackmon.com

The XVI International Aids Conference has just wrapped up in Toronto and a visual highlight for delegates were ten of Adriana Bertini’s condom dresses. The Brazilian artist started creating fashions out of condoms to highlight the need to look at the prophylactics as basics, so that we would don them as easily as a pair of jeans. Some of her dresses use thousands of condoms; one wedding dress took almost 80,000 (and to think, some people hesitate over using just one!). The condoms that Bertini uses are either defective or past their best by date.

Artist: Adriana Bertini
+ adrianabertini.com.br