Introduction:

"This blog is not necessarily for lovers of art, it includes a variety of topics and whatever. I'm a painter who likes to know what's really going on in the world today. So you might find anything from Shamrocks to Salmiakki mentioned here on my blog. There will of course be some boring, factual and informational posts, but I'll keep them to a minimum, I promise!

And I might get a bit nostalgic now and then.

So you have been warned!"


- Alan Hogan



Showing posts with label events. Show all posts
Showing posts with label events. Show all posts

Monday, May 21, 2012

The Soft Parade


Sorry, I had planned to write this blogpost earlier, but a few incidents such as entertaining Irish visitors in Finland, an anti-virus meltdown on my computer and a few important barbeques amongst other things got in the way. But anyway, here it is now!

artist Emmi Vartiainen and dj Ville Kotka at Jade Gallery in Helsinki
I didn't want to forget about writing this post for a wonderful art exhibition I attended earlier this month, especially as there's still plenty of time to visit it. The opening of Emmi Vartiainen's exhibition entitled 'Soft' took place at Jade Gallery in Helsinki on Friday 4th May. The exhibition continues until the end of May 2012. 

I had seen some of the artist's work previously through online social media, but I wanted to see more of her creations and view them in person. I will admit that I was a little apprehensive about seeing this exhibition as I detected a major influence of Manga art, an eastern art form which I find a little uninteresting and used as a 'street-cool' art for far too long now. But having seen Emmi Vartiainen's artwork I could only feel a slight influence of the manga. On the contrary, I felt there was more influence from the art nouveau style from the late 19th-century. Names such as Klimt and Czech art nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha come to mind.
  
When viewing Vartiainen's work one can't help but feel relaxed. This may be because of mellow colours and a softness to the atmosphere they create. However, there is a touch of the grotesque and macabre in her paintings. It is introduced in a soft manner though, and only adds to each painting's individual appeal. I enjoyed the mix of old school nouveau, street cool modern imagery and subtle decadence.  

Emmi Vartiainen -  inhale



Having looked at all of the art on view at the exhibition I got chatting with dj Ville Kotka who accompanied Emmi's art with a musical mix of tasteful background beats and tunes. I had a pleasant talk with both the artist and the dj about a lot of things including their hometown Lahti, music, history and of course Emmi's art. 
I managed to buy a small print while I was there, which the artist happily signed for me. It was a copy of the main image used for the art exhibition. Here it is below, it's called 'Little Star'.

Emmi Vartiainen - little star

I highly recommend this exhibition if you happen to be visiting Helsinki. If you are on Facebook, you might like to visit the event page here. Or you can find details at the Jade Gallery website here. 


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-Alan 











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Monday, May 23, 2011

Soul Inspired!




When most people think of Irish music festivals they think of fiddles, tin whistles, lively dancing and the odd refreshment. But times have changed and nowadays Ireland has many other musical festivals to offer, and for many different tastes. Festivals such as the Cork Jazz Festival, the Electric Picnic, and the Castlebar Blues Festival for example. And this month another festival which has only been around for 5 years comes back to Ireland's capital. Set up by a group of young dedicated Dubliners in 2007 the annual 'Dublin City Soul Festival' is an event about creating positive feeling through soul music. It's a way for musicians and like-minded people to come together and show their passion for what's best about Ireland. One of the big attractions of this year's festival I reckon will be the amazing and charismatic Mirenda Rosenberg, a singer from the U.S. now living in Ireland since 2005. Tickets are only €15 to see her, an absolute bargain! Check her out here in this video, fantastic!



There has been a wholesome connection between the roots of soul music and various musicians in Ireland over the years, and a great bond of musical respect has been established because of this. Well-known Irish artists such as U2, Van Morrison, Sinead O'Connor, The Chieftains, Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan come to mind.



And I suppose we shouldn't forget that little movie by director Alan Parker called 'The Committments'. This is the band that came to my mind first when I heard about this new festival in Dublin. It's a film I really enjoyed for the energy, the acting and of course that sweet soul music! Although I don't recall anyone singing soul music on the buses when I was growing up in Dublin. Weddings perhaps, but never on public transport!



It's not a bad redition of the old classic soul tunes. But let's be honest here and say that the originals are the ones to savour and add to your cd collection. The Committments were at their best an excellent covers band, not unlike a lot of the cover bands doing the pub circuits around Ireland at the moment. It is however nice to see that the old gang are back together again these days, and they have a 20th Anniversary Reunion Concert planned for next November in Dublin's Olympia Theatre. In fact they play two nights on November 9th and 10th, 2011. If you're lucky enough to be in Ireland around those dates you might like to enter this competition here to win some tickets. They recently had a comback concert last March with all of the original line-up. Here's a little video from Irish television with a few of them singing the classic 'Chain of Fools', and yes, that is the gorgeous Imelda Quirke singing!!...sorry I mean Angeline Ball!







  
The Dublin City Soul Festival's big banner-call this year is 'Cead Mile Failte', which is an Irish welcome as described in this short poem here.

An Irish Welcome
Here's Céad Míle Fáilte to friend and to rover
That's a greeting that's Irish as Irish can be
It means you are welcome
A thousand times over
Wherever you come from, Whosoever you be.

I recently received an email from one of the Soul Festival's event people asking me if I'd like to take part in this year's event. The organisers have a project called Eye Candy where they ask artists to donate a piece of their work in aid of the festival's charity. The charity in question is called the 'Musical Youth Foundation'. It is the aim of this charity to provide more access for every Irish child to music through free lessons and musical instruments. I did of course donate a painting. I didn't have a lot of notice about the event, but I hope this little piece which I sent over can help somehow. I call it 'Soul Inspired' with a slight pun towards Dublin city's most controversial landmark called 'The Spire' on O'Connell Street (see photo below). The 'Dublin City Soul Festival 2011' is on from May 26th to May 29th 2011.








Finally, speaking of charity events, for anybody living in Ireland there's a great little table quiz being held in Dublin on June 1st, 2011 in aid of the Irish Cancer Society. It's called 'The Hogan Quiz' and it's organised by a wonderful bunch of people with plenty of heart and soul. And they also happen to be cousins of mine so you will definately have a great night. For more information check out their event page on Facebook here!



Thanks for reading my blog and please share it with all your friends.

-Alan

You are welcome to visit my art page on Facebook by clicking the 'Like' button here.



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Sunday, May 22, 2011

Are you ready for your close-up?....Not quite!



Hello and thanks once again for visiting my blog here. You're very welcome and I hope it's a nice day wherever you are!
Two weeks ago I decided to take part in my first ever photo event. Now I don't have much experience of photography, but I am quite aware of the elements involved and skill-level required for creating good images. I also have a little understanding of dark-room procedure having worked in a printhouse dark-room a long time, not that it's relevant in today's digital age. As a traditional artist I like to capture nice images which I can use to create my paintings. I do however find myself taking more and more photographs, especially with the ease of a digital camera. However only a few of them are ever used in creating a painting. This got me thinking that I should perhaps spend my time taking fewer pictures but with more attention to quality and technique. I felt the need to find out what kind of quality and standard I should be aiming at. So I took myself down to my local photographic gallery.


I had read in the newspaper about this event called FotoZAFARI, a 2-day annual event run by the owners of GalleriZEBRA, in which you sign up, pay a small fee and spend the day taking photographs around the town of Karis here in southern Finland. On this occasion several sub-themes were issued each hour to everybody taking part, but the main theme maintained throughout was 'CLOSE-UP'. The second day of the event involved the choosing of best images and the prize-giving.

For my first step into my new world of photography I brought along a simple low-budget camera. Well, in the eyes of the avid photographer it certainly would be. But for me this little Sony of mine in the photo here would have to do. I'm not ashamed of it as it takes a great photo in my opinion, and after all it does have 14.1 megapixels, nothing to be shushed at!  I found myself surrounded by big bazooka-like cameras and serious hobbyists. I felt it was all a bit out of my league.

All of the day's spoken instructions were in Finnish, a little unfortunate for me as I only understand Swedish, the other official language in Finland. Luckily for me a kind Finnish gentleman by the name of Kai Jauhiainen was nearby and happy to translate the proceedings into English for me.
As I mentioned before, the main theme of the project was 'Close-up'. It is important to stick to a given theme, a lesson I learnt torwards the end of the day. I realise now that it will take me a long time to grasp the rules and true artistry of photography. I succumbed to the simple idea of looking for interesting subjects and simply snapping away. The sunny weather also helped me to relax, perhaps a bit too much. When one of the sub-themes I was given had the title 'Liquid' I made a quick dash to a nice restaurant for a delicious cold milkshake. Well the sun was beating down quite strong and it was the first thing that came to my mind. I suppose I was quietly enjoying myself too much at this stage to get the slightest bit serious about the event in any competitive way. I was also enjoying talking to some of the other participants about the day.

Yep, here I am standing in the red shirt with the FotoZAFARI gang outside galleriZEBRA in Karis. 


Having said all of the above it will come as no surprise to anyone that I was not included in the awards and prize-giving. In fact I was a little embarrassed by some of my final entries in the competition. And I hope to throw them straight in the bin as soon as possible. I was however happy with one or two of my final photos, even though they weren't exactly true to the 'Close-up' theme. All of the images taken by participants (including mine!) during this special event are currently on show at GalleriZEBRA in Karis until May 28th. But for now I can only show you a couple of my better efforts below. I hope to return next year with better results and hopefully a bigger and better Bazooka!







Thanks for reading my blog and please share it with all your friends.

-Alan

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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Thank you Helsinki. Kiitos!!



It's been quite a while since my last post here. So I won't delay with this one.
I just wanted to thank all the good citizens of Helsinki and those who came from elsewhere to visit my small art exhibition last weekend at the Cable Factory (Kaapelitehdas) in Helsinki.

Having acquired the standard space for the event I could only display a small sample of my work. I was however very happy with the positive feedback and comments I received from visitors. As this exhibition was part of Helsinki Design Week 2010 I opted to choose some of my more design and graphic-based pieces on this occasion.
One painting I had recently completed was my 'Helsinki Cathedral' which I decided not to include here as I thought it would look out of place at a design fair.
So here's a first webview of this painting.







I did however take two new artworks to the Cable Factory last weekend.

The first painting is titled 'Snowblind' (right) and the second is a tetraptych titled ' Fourteen Angry Trees' which can be seen in the video of the event below.













And finally, here's a few snapshots of the day.
Kiitos!
Tack!
Thank you!!



Thanks for reading my blog and feel free to share with all your friends.

-Alan

You are welcome to visit my art page on Facebook by clicking the 'Like' button here.





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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

August Art Round-up 2010!!




























I just found out that 'The Finnish Cat' will be on public view at this year's Konstrundan Art event in Finland.




Konstrundan is a special annual event where artists open their studio doors to the public. This large group of artists, craftsmen and designers live mainly in the Swedish speaking areas in Finland (Svenskfinland).


For this event I intend to have my 'Finnish Cat'-'Finsk Katt'-'Suomalainen Kissa' on display along with several new paintings which I hope to have ready for this event later this summer.
It all happens on 30 July-1 August 2010.


And I now have my own profile on the Konstrundan site here.
A big thank you to the people at Konstrundan!!

There's a full list of all this year's participants here.


The list represents five areas, Västra Nyland/Helsinki, Turku area, Österbotnia, Åland and Östra Nyland (areas shown in yellow on map)



This event promises to be an excellent presentation of the wide variety of artists and craftspeople in Svenskfinland and I'm very proud to be taking part!



Thanks for reading my blog.

Alan

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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

There's no art like snow art!







The date was the 14th of February, St.Valentine's Day.
This is a holiday I have normally associated with love, romance, cards, flowers and chocolate. A day every Irish teenager eagerly awaits at their halldoor for the postman to arrive with a Valentine card from that someone special who supposedly loves them so much, whether they like it or not. Oh yes indeed, the memories of Valentine's Day!


This holiday in Finland is slightly different however. The holiday of St.Valentine is relatively new here. In fact it first appeared in diaries here in 1987 as 'Friend's Day' or "Ystävänpäivä" in Finnish.
And to this day it is still called "Ystävänpäivä".



However, nowadays you can see cards and other items advertising 'St.Valentine's Day' in shops and on television everywhere in Finland. But it's just another word for Friendship to most Finns. And while the elements of romance which are associated with St.Valentine's Day slowly begin to creep in to Finnish culture, you are still more likely to see close friends and even relatives giving each other cards and gifts of friendship on February 14th.



As it turned out, 'Friendship' was the theme at a very 'cool' event I attended last month. The local municipality of Raseborg in Southern Finland were I live had organised a day out for the public which included some ice-swimming, bbq sausages and most importantly a Snow sculpting contest. This contest was held over a period of 3 hours on a beach in the town of Ekenäs. The sea here was frozen at the time, so I got a chance to walk on ice. This was a first for me!



A selection
of snow sculptures.




And here's the sculpture
that came first in the contest.

















Well, that's what happened down my way last month on Valentine's Day. Definately something different for me and also a novelty day-out. I reckon a Friendship Valentine is always a good thing!

Here's a little clip I made of the Snow Art and more.
Thanks for reading my blog and enjoy the video!

Alan








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The Art Garage, Finland

The Art Garage, Finland
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