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Seeing Las Meninas in Madrid, 1994

Sara Schaff

Las Meninas (detail) by Diego Vasquez

I keep a postcard of Velázquez's Las Meninas above my desk at work, and I can't look at it without thinking of the summer I spent in Spain with R, the last summer we were friends. That summer I was … [Read more...]

Minimizing Monetization Earth: Agnes Denes’ Art

John K Grande

Agnes Denes Tree Mountain - A Living Time Capsule (detail)- 11,000 Trees, 11,000 People, 400 Years (Triptych) 1992-1996, 1992/2013 Type-C print 36 x 36 inches Copyright Agnes Denes, courtesy Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York

Is there truly any art that can surpass the beauty and majestic power of nature itself? Wasn’t it Neil Young who said “Nature is a monument to be preserved,” or words to that effect? The earth is … [Read more...]

To Ride a Horse: The Art of Nastja Säde Rönkkö and Perceptions of Nature in an Age of Decline

Andrew J. Corsa

Nastja Säde Rönkkö, Take Me Anywhere, 2016 2 channel HD video, duration 10 min, video/edit Luke Turner

Think of seeing a horse. How often do we see a horse as something we can ride, and can we learn to look at horses without ever thinking about how humans can use them? When we see mountains, how often … [Read more...]

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Brooke Knisley

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, oil on oak panels, 205.5 cm × 384.9 cm (81 in × 152 in), Museo del Prado, Madrid

I. In early 2015, I was invited to a popup art show in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood. My good friend Megan, an actor in the event, described it as a living replication of Hieronymus Bosch’s … [Read more...]

Seven Abstract Comics by Dev Murphy

Dev Murphy

more trusting - Dev Murphy

… [Read more...]

A Carving Process: Ripple by Dan Havel and Dean Ruck

Matt Diage

Ripple by Havel-Ruck Projects

I first saw Ripple on its opening night. Formally a residence in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston, Ripple is a sculpture created on site by Dan Havel and Dean Ruck who carved designs into the … [Read more...]

Cy Twombly’s Lepanto Green

Wm. Anthony Connolly

Lepanto by Cy Twombly (panel 2)

Someone has razed the house and hung its walls vandalized by a tormented resident. Standing back affronted, but scrutinizing the display nevertheless, twelve panels come into view as if roof, … [Read more...]

toriot: text art by paul hawkins

Paul Hawkins

toriot 14 (detail - paul hawkins

"Sometimes people say: 'What the fuck do you think you're doing? That's not art.' I say: 'Fuck off, assholes!'" -- Martin Creed … [Read more...]

Mary’s: Photographs

Dana Stirling

Mary's - Ice Cream by Dana Stirling

For a while now I’ve been collecting found footage, discarded images that once belonged to family archives, and repurpose them giving them a new meaning and a place in my own work. I received an … [Read more...]

A Third Scroll of Malachite: A Painting by Joost de Jonge and Poem by Norman Dubie

Joost de Jonge and Norman Dubie

A Third Scroll of Malachite —circa 800 AD The magus as a small boy in Egypt in his faded linens thought that the torchlight reflected in the harbor was a simple exchange of sleeping gulls over … [Read more...]

Standing room only: Inside the workshop of E.C. Brown Anomalies

Ephraim C. Brown

EC Brown Anomalies Shop Detail 6

For many artists, the studio itself as seen as the catalyst for things to magically occur. I don't generally look at it in that way, mainly because it is rare that I'm fully and completely relaxed in … [Read more...]

Thirteen mixed-media artworks by Hildy Maze

Hildy Maze

Visible Thoughts, Mistaken Appearances (detail) - Hildy Maze

Artist's statement: My work is driven by a curiosity into the investigation of mind thru art. None of us can avoid thoughts, but through awareness of our pitfalls, beauty, strengths and weaknesses we … [Read more...]

DADA Centennial: Day of the Dead at the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction Archives

Empty Mirror News

Show runs through January 2017 (by appointment) Reception Friday Nov. 4, 2016 from 4-7 PM DADA Centennial: Day of the Dead at the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction … [Read more...]

Burning Factories: Art by Sander Steins

Sander Steins

Burning Factory 1 - Sander Steins

It was the summer of 1980 when I was seven years old that I sat in the back seat of my father’s blue Opel Kadett coupé and saw the first smoking chimneys of the German Ruhrgebiet. Those were the … [Read more...]

‘weather reports’: visual poetry by hiromi suzuki

hiromi suzuki

Artist's statement: Weather reports rarely come true. Sometimes people changes their mind like sudden rain. They are falling and laughing like the sun-shower of letters. … [Read more...]

Collages by Ben Stainton

Ben Stainton

city by the sea - Ben Stainton

… [Read more...]

Four Landscapes (Through a Window) by Magie Dominic

Magie Dominic

Landscape 1 - Magie Dominic

Artist's statement: These four collages can be viewed separately. They can also be shown as one 4-part piece as seen through a four pane glass window, with the two blue and white pieces on the top - … [Read more...]

A Gallery of Collages by Nicholas Lockyer

Nicholas Lockyer

deathpunch - Nicholas Lockyer

Artist's statement:Visual artist Nicholas Lockyer’s collage work explores the relationship between the saturation point of digitalization in today’s society, Trash Cinema and lowbrow ephemera culture … [Read more...]

Eight paintings by Tom Melsen

Tom Melsen

Self Portrait )detail) - Tom Melsen

Artist's statement: What is important to me, is what I like to call "the art of destroying." I destroy a lot of my works. Most paintings I make feel like crap to me and only a few of the many … [Read more...]

Collages by Oscar Varona

Oscar Varona

You were made for me(detail) - Oscar Varona

… [Read more...]

Present: Collages by Ivica Capan

Ivica Capan

Allegory (detail) - Ivica Capan

… [Read more...]

The South as a Home as an Animal

Marshall Blevins

Marshall Blevins

Artist's statement: Southern artist and photographer, making it up as I go along. Struggled through art school but survived, not sure which direction to go in, but certain and rooted in bayou country. … [Read more...]

Too Dee: Drawings by Nathan Pietrykowski

Nathan Pietrykowski

Folly and Fortune (detail) - Nathan Pietrykowski

Drawing is my magical power. It allows me to reexamine the past, foretell the future or travel to places unseen. In my current body of work, I have invented an imaginary universe to explore creation. … [Read more...]

Happy New Year from Elize & Rik Lina!

Rik Lina

2015 Rik & Elize Lina

… [Read more...]

Architecture, Money, Graffiti and Birds

Richard Risemberg

Twick ICP San Francisco Graffiti Art / Photo credit: anarchosyn https://www.flickr.com/photos/24293932@N00/3360220967/

Where you would not have your own [child] live, and develop, and gather to itself knowledge of life and the things of life, is not a fit place for the [children] of other men to live, and develop, and … [Read more...]

re-blues 11 series

bruno neiva

-blue 11 no. 2 (detail) by bruno neiva

… [Read more...]

PARCELS, a text art exhibition by bruno neiva

Empty Mirror News

Parcels - bruno neiva

You are kindly invited to attend to PARCELS, a text art exhibition held by bruno neiva at Casa Museo Casares Quiroga, 12, Panaderas St., in A Coruña, Spain, from 2nd to 28th September 2014. PARCELS … [Read more...]

Six collages by Adrian Jugaru

Adrian Jugaru

Hush Now Little Baby (detail) - Adrian Jugaru

… [Read more...]

elegy by bruno neiva

bruno neiva

Alain Delon as Jef Costello

elegy (in memory of victor esteban celeiro) noir coffee spilled over the newspaper we talked for hours, jobless hours about borders, coups and the icelandic landscape jef costello was … [Read more...]

Saint Celluloid: self-portraits by Kalliope Amorphous

Kalliope Amorphous

Silver (detail) - Kalliope Amorphous

Artist's Statement: Saint Celluloid is a series of self-portraits exploring both the vulnerability and immortality of the film star as well as the potentially oppressive and regressive culture of … [Read more...]

Collages by Carlyle Baker

Carlyle Baker

Kathmandu (detail) by Carlyle Baker

Artist's Statement: we are here to go we had to do what we did or we couldn't do it. … [Read more...]

Diorama: Photographs by Ido Abramsohn

Ido Abramsohn

Artist's Statement Models of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian insurgents and civilians were photographed and enlarged to human size. The new scale of the models casts the original meaning of the … [Read more...]

Book Review – Dreams before Extinction by Naeemeh Naeemaei

Richard Marcus

Dreams before Extinction by Naeemeh Naeemaei

It's hard for us in the West not to have misconceptions of what life is like in countries where our perceptions are shaped entirely by what we read in the media. This is especially true of those … [Read more...]

I’m For an Art

Alec Clayton

bar via http://www.sxc.hu/profile/xramnet

1982 SoHo Painting can be an evil mistress. She can love you tender and she can love you raunchy, and she can rip your guts apart. When you put that last stroke on your canvas and you know … [Read more...]

7 Abstract Paintings by Alec Clayton

Alec Clayton

Dervish (detail) by Alec Clayton

Artist's Statement: These are abstract paintings through which I have attempted to capture the feel, but not necessarily the look, of movement of animals and people in nature, combining the gestures … [Read more...]

Shadows: Art by Anthony Flynn

Anthony Flynn

Shadowplay II by Anthony Flynn (detail)

Artist's statement: Every action leaves an imprint. In the modern world of technology, these shadows can be permanent. … [Read more...]

David Handley interviews Paul Rogers about his work & the On the Road illustrations

David Handley

On the Road illustartion copyright Paul Rogers

Chances are that if I said the names Sal Paradise, Dean Moriarty or Carlo Marx that you would already know a couple of things about them. You’d know that I was talking about the generation defining … [Read more...]

Taxidermy

Dana Stirling

Dana Stirling - Taxidermy 2 (detail)

Artist's statement: We regularly use taxidermy of insects in order to define, categorize and understand them. With all this great variety of insects, people are still able to decide whether they're … [Read more...]

Rik Lina Art Exhbition: Hurracan

Empty Mirror News

Rik Lina - Hurracan - Exhibtion

RIK LINA Art Exhibition: HURRACAN location KUNSTKERK Prinseneiland 89 - 1013 LM Amsterdam opening Friday, November 29, 5pm - 8pm. The exhibition will be opened by Peter van de Heijden. at … [Read more...]

Seven Artworks by Gloria Avner

Gloria Avner

Collage by Gloria Avner

For years Gloria Avner has explored and taught ancient batik painting techniques using ink, wax, and watercolor on delicate Ginwashi ricepaper. Her collages enter a different realm, often focusing on … [Read more...]

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R.I.P. Michael McClure 1932-2020

Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

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Recent features

  • My Father’s Map
  • On Waiting
  • Seeing Las Meninas in Madrid, 1994
  • Visual poems from 23 Bodhisattvas by Chris Stephenson
  • Historical Punctum: Reading Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia and Native Guard Through the Lens of Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida
  • Panic In The Rear-View Mirror: Exploring The Work of Richard Siken and Ann Gale
  • “Art has side effects,” I said.

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