Matthew Small isn’t so much a flâneur as a magpie: ‘that oven door, that shelving unit, that piece of trash to someone…’ He crafts persons’ portraits from these ‘found’ scrap-pieces. Often, they’re overlaid with riotous layers of colourful paint. How to respond? ‘We’re always more than the sum of our parts,’ might say the humanists. ‘For there is always something special about the person, who, qua person/individual, transcends their environment and therefore the junk on which their portrait is painted.’ Alternatively, the strict determinists might say that ‘we’re but products of the (urban) environment,’ and the junk-canvas conveys something of late-twentieth century life in the modern metropolis…

Rise Art offers the public the opportunity to vote for the winner of the Rise Art People's Choice Award, 2018. They’ve just announced the finalists. We’ve picked out our favourite five—or rather, six—artists from the shortlist. The finalists have been chosen by a team of ‘insiders’ from all over the art world. They include curators such as Rachael Thomas of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and Sarah Martin of the Turner Contemporary in Margate; journalists and editors such as Emily Tobin of House and Garden and Beatrice Hodgkin of The Financial Times’ How to Spend It supplement; academics like Jean Wainwright of the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) and, of course, artists such as Anthony Micallef and Bruce Mclean.

Sandra Chevrier burst onto the art scene in 2013. She’s now exhibited—and importantly, sold—as far and wide as Copenhagen, Tokyo, New York, and London. In part, her burgeoning popularity rests upon our contemporary fascination with super-heroes and the renaissance in comic-culture. And yet, there’s more to her work than first meets the eye.

Ben Aronson’s Wall Street Series (2010) steps back from the politics of Wall Street to offer us a real painter’s view of New York’s famous financial district.

But, why Wall Street? It’s one of the great shibboleths of contemporary politics, economics, and ideology. The famous—or is that, infamous—street that metonymically stands for finance, money, and perhaps, greed. ‘For a painter,’ says Aronson, it’s an ‘incredibly exciting scenario, visually, for paintings in which to present such an emotionally charged inquiry.’ He waxes lyrical of the New York Stock Exchange’s (NYSE) ‘kaleidoscopic lights and screens,’ which made for ‘an amazingly cinematic visual feast.

We’re celebrating the sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi for a world-record $450,312,500 (including fees, etc.) at Christie’s (NYC) on 15 November, 2017, with this two-part series examining the contemporary art world through its ten most expensive paintings. In this first part, AAMag explores the concept of ‘provenance’ through the gaps in that of da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi—or is that Bernardino Luini’s or Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio’s? We’ve used de Kooning’s Interchange as an introduction or primer to some of the major players in the contemporary market—you’ve got to know your Geffens from your Griffiths and not just your Boltraffios from your Leonardos! We’ll also examine the major ‘market maker’ that is Qatar’s Al Thani family through their purchase of Cézanne’s The Card Players in 2011; while Gauguin’s Nafea faa ipoipo? allows us to touch upon the early history of Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips (de Pury); and we’ll finally turn to the surprising relations that link Abstract Expressionism with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Republican Party through the ideologies of freedom/autonomy and money

Lee Jungwoong’s artworks are formidably executed and eminently collectable. His Brush (Plate 5) (2014) is a magnificent example of trompe l’oeil in its deception of the viewer’s eye—we’re entitled to ask: Is this really a painting and not a photograph? Furthermore, Jungwoong’s paintings of paint brushes are, really, appealingly intellectual.

It’s an opportune moment to explore the bicycle in art history. Chris Froome’s fourth Tour de France puts him within touching distance (some 23 days and 2,200 miles) of the all-time greats of Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Indurain. Since the Champs-Élysées, Prudential’s ‘Ride London’ was as popular as ever among amateurs and spectators alike—albeit, the local cabbies were less than impressed. So, this small article traces some of the connections between the bicycle and art. In particular, with reference to the print-works of Thomas Yang.

Overlap was recently published on the ‘art aesthetics’ Instagram. It’s clear that many of us recognised ourselves in the painting. We’ve all been there, surely? ‘[F]olded with problems,’ opined one of our commenters. It’s a fair interpretation, and one with which many of us can probably identify. It’s as if there’s something especially vulnerable about us in the early morning.

Helen Masacz is a well-established artist working in Britain. She has studied at the prestigious London Atelier School, exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery and won The Arts Club Award in 2011. ‘Self’ is a particularly thought-provoking painting. Ostensibly, it’s about the Anthropocene. It critiques the impact of the ‘human’ on our planet. It’s also, however, about the ‘human’ as such. Masacz’s ‘Self’ is carefully composed and offers the viewer an intelligent picture of contemporary issues regarding the ‘self’, ‘subject’, and ‘human’ of our contemporary moment.

From Sara Zaher’s Baudrillardian ‘new media’ prints to the ‘present past-ness’ of Carl Grauer’s still lifes; Art Aesthetics chooses their five favourite artists at The Other Art Fair NYC. Cesar Finamori’s fictional portraits are explored in relation to Henry Darger and Wilhelm Worringer. Ekaterina Popova’s canvases are battlefields in the wars between the artist’s brush and her paints. D.S. Graham also recounts interviewing Anne Vandycke on the topic of ‘duality’ and climate change.

Carl Grauer’s still lifes suggest an imaginary museum commemorating our everyday objects: old jars; perfume bottles; salt and pepper shakers; pliers; clips; even laptop chargers. In fact, the laptop charger is my favourite. Computers. It’s difficult to think of a more perfect example of the present becoming the past so quickly. There’s something especially collectible about these paintings. Perhaps, because the objects already seem to have been collected, curated, and arranged by the artist himself.