Sean Brown is a fellow culture curator and fashion, style aficionado. A visualist over multiple mediums, I discovered the talents of Mr. Brown before I shot Drake’s “Replacement Girl” and have been exposed to the depths of his insight ever since. Please take a moment to view the sublime visuals captured by the talented people at NeonGorilla.
Beautiful work. Simply beautiful.
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Keith Haring is seen as an innovator with regard to how art is made, distributed and discussed. Initially viewed simply as a graffiti artist who used vacant advertising boards in the New York subway as his canvas in the early 1980s, Keith Haring provoked debate on the street and within the exclusive art establishment with his radiant comic figures and increasingly political messages.
Throughout his career, Haring devoted much of his time to public works, which often carried social messages. He produced more than 50 public artworks between 1982 and 1989, in dozens of cities around the world, many of which were created for charities, hospitals, children’s day care centers and orphanages. The now famous Crack is Wack mural of 1986 has become a landmark along New York’s FDR Drive. It was just seen as another act of graffiti in East Harlem and it said so on Keith Haring’s $25 summons. But when then-Parks Commissioner Henry Stern heard about Haring’s strong anti-drug message - “Crack Is Wack” - he asked the artist to finish the mural, setting the stage for what is now a cultural landmark in New York City. The work arose out of Haring’s sadness for a friend in the throes of crack addiction. The Parks Department maintains the mural with the help of funding from the Haring Foundation.
I’m a huge fan of Haring’s work and honored his memory in a tribute piece featured in the clip I directed for Foundation entitled “Turn It Up”. He took street art to the galleries and acted as a true cultural conduit. His influence is evident to this day as lay the groundwork for such current popular art icons as KAWS and Shepard Fairey.
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Every day we search for penetrating visuals to inspire and motivate our work. Photographer and Director Jonathan Mannion, a native of Cleveland, OH, is a visual artist, that has time after time created images that have been burned into my mind forever.
“He began capturing images of up-and-coming urban music superstars after working for a year with world-renowned photographer Richard Avedon. In 1996, Mannion began his professional career by shooting the photographs for the classic hip-hop album “Reasonable Doubt” by Jay-Z. In the years since then, Jonathan’s photography has grown alongside the culture he so loves, helping to visually define an era of urban music. As DJ Quik once pointed out to him, the world sees hip-hop through his eyes. Mannion views the opportunity to contribute to the genre as a blessing.
“I’m just a messenger, and I’ve been given a talent to document an extremely important era of music history. I have a love for hip-hop that goes back to when I was a teenager, and I feel blessed to have had the chance to shoot the artists I’ve worked with. I’ve had the opportunity to grow with them and the photos I’ve shot over the years have become visual bullet points of their creative evolution and mine.”
Mannion’s images attempt to push the boundaries of his art, by constantly re-examining and redefining the celebrity portrait. The influence of his work extends beyond the world of urban music. The broad range of subjects revealed by his lens include NBA superstars Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Shaquille O’Neal, Magic Johnson and 7 time Tour De France winner Lance Armstrong.
“My work is very intimate. I want people to feel like they’re being let in to these superstars’ lives through my pictures.”
Soulful, pensive, often confrontational, and always beautiful, Jonathan’s portraits attempt to blend the heroic with the intensely personal. Jonathan Mannion has already made a lasting mark on the collective American psyche, with no sign of slowing down. His celebrity portraits are often the first images that come to mind when thinking of the top talent in the music industry and the stars of the sports world. Jonathan Mannion’s vision has indeed become our vision, and his creations have become an essential medium for the message of an entire generation”.
Make sure to tag a long for a follow of Johnathan on twitter here
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