Studio Visit: Angel Otero

Instinctual layered paintings driven by process

As soon as you enter Puerto Rican artist Angel Otero‘s Brooklyn work loft, the intense smell of paint nearly stops you at the door. Shelves housing copious tubes of oil paint and rows of Montana spray cans lining the back walls allude to the strong odor, but it’s the stacks of work drying on wooden pallets surrounding the space that are really the culprit. But …

Charles Dickens

The complete, interactive history of a literary legend

Charles Dickens is like the Madonna of the literary world. Two centuries later, the progressive British novelist remains as relevant and legendary today as he was at the height of his career. Marking the bicentennial of his birth this year is a series of events around London, dubbed Dickens 2012, and a new book by Dickens’ great-great-great-granddaughter Lucinda Dickens Hawksley. “Charles Dickens” is an interactive …

Ian Sklarsky

Abstract portraits from a blind contour artist

When Brooklyn-based artist Ian Sklarsky isn’t directing music videos like Luciana’s Betty White-inspired dance track “I’m Still Hot”, he can be found staring peacefully at the subjects of his abstract blind contour drawings. Originally from Chicago, Sklarsky became interested in the traditional method during a high school art class. Blind contours require the artist to trace his subject’s silhouette without looking down at the paper, …