Menu

Subscriptions

Shop

Submit

Promote

The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Some of our past articles may not have images. Click here to see those that do.

Mario Maplé’s Pen Drawings Explore Beauty, Discomfort

In Mario Maplé’s ballpoint pen drawings, the artist moves between conventional beauty and the grotesque. The works are deceptively complex in their elegance, the soft lines of the subject the result of tedious work in ink pen. The artist will also occasionally mix in watercolors to emphasize his distortions.

In Mario Maplé’s ballpoint pen drawings, the artist moves between conventional beauty and the grotesque. The works are deceptively complex in their elegance, the soft lines of the subject the result of tedious work in ink pen. The artist will also occasionally mix in watercolors to emphasize his distortions.

TOBA Gallery, which has exhibited the artist’s work, describes his practice as exploring “the possibilities of the human figure, deforming it and achieving unique disfigurements as a two-dimensional sculptural exercise.” The Mexico City gallery was founded by the artist Smithe, whose work has been featured on the Hi-Fructose blog.

See more work from the artist below.

Meta
Topics
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles

Pedro Varela Paints a Dreamlike, Tropical Universe

The tropical worlds of Pedro Varela (b. 1981 in Niterói, Brazil) look like they belong in a psychedelic dream or the pages of a storybook. And while the artist's style builds on fairytale imagery and fantasy, his works also engage with history -- namely, the 17th to 19th century "artist-scientists" who rendered an exotic vision of Tropical Paradise and the "New World" in their travels to Brazil. Blending Baroque still life, colonial iconography, and modern styles such as Neo-concretism, Varela engages with the past to create his own version of "paradise" that is at once alluring and cautionary.

Joel Daniel Phillips Debuts New Life-size Portraits of Local Outsiders

In Joel Daniel Phillips' art, featured here, the characters living in his neighborhood are brought to the center stage and become the hero of their own story. The San Francisco based artist's graphite and charcoal drawings feature people on the streets who generally go unnoticed by the public, or are virtually ignored, only to become celebrated in his monumental works. "A true portrait is far more than a rendering of physical form," he says, focusing instead on portraying the vulnerable nature that makes us human.

Inyoung Seoung Translates Her Drawings to Murals Using Electrical Tape

Inyoung Seoung's work draws parallels between humankind and nature. She considers people to be in a perpetual state of growth, reaching up and moving forward like trees to light. The Korea-born, Southern California-based artist one day found herself admiring her own backyard, where she was impressed by the fact that no two trees were alike, and that they contain an infinite supply of design that she emulates in her drawings and installations.

Yeom Jihee Expresses Hysteria in Surrealistic Mixed Media Drawings

If you asked Korean artist Yeom Jihee to describe her art in one word, it would be "hysteria". Her monochromatic mixed media drawings feature a disorderly assemblage of figures and impossible objects, set in environments where the physical plane extends into a blank space of nothingness. Jihee uses these explorations of infinity, reflection, symmetry, and perspective to express her feelings of emotional conflict, or in her words, "a loss of self-control due to overwhelming fear."
Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List
Follow us on our social networks

Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Tumblr

Shop

Subscribe

Subscription Details

Articles, About, FAQs, Submit, Promote, Distribute

© 2025 Hi-Fructose Magazine

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List