Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Artist Andrea Dezsö

To continue the Hungarian theme: last week I went to a show at the Hungarian Cultural Center here in New York City, to see the work of Romanian/Hungarian artist, Andrea Dezsö.

In two very Hungarian words I will describe her work: TOTALLY AWESOME.


This is a show of tiny sewn embroideries, illustrating the superstitious belief system of the artist's Mother. They are a brilliant combination of funny, dark, clever, and beautiful. The work is intimate in subject matter and scale. I suspect that anyone with a superstitious mother, of any nationality, will feel a connection
to this work.

Andrea is an accomplished artist in many media, and an educator. You can her other work, and more examples of these embroideries on Andrea Dezsö's site.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Welcome to Nina Frenkel's Art Blog


Greetings and welcome to my site, and to this blog, where I will be writing about
and sharing the visuals of that which I find inspiring to me, as an Illustrator and Animator.

There are many artists past and present who have influenced my work, and I
will tip my hat to them in this blog, as well share my new discoveries.

To start things off, I'm going to answer a question about my work, which sometimes arises when people see pieces like this:

"Why the Hungarian theme?"

I grew up in a house full of Hungarian folk art and the graphic design work and books of my Hungarian-born Mother's family, the Kners. Embroidered pillows, ceramic pitchers, beautifully bound books printed from the Kner Press, the original book cover illustrations done by my grandfather, Albert Kner (more on these in a future blog), all populated the house. The shapes and colors of the folk art have influenced my work on a formal level: but my experience in this family, the family stories, and the atmosphere surrounding these many pieces around which I grew up, are all important parts of the engine which drives my work.