Artist James Hopkins created skulls out of different household items he arranged on several bookshelves. His series entitled ‘Vanitas’ is quite a clever, modern take on this still life genre. ‘Vanitas’ can be defined as a type of symbolic art, often including symbols like skulls, rotten fruit, hourglasses, and other items related to the brevity of life and the certainty of death.
Jessica Barensfeld and Simon Howell
New York, Brooklyn-WilliamsburgStrolling down Bedford Avenue in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn can often give you a similar anxiety to dressing up for your first day at a new school. Yet just less than a block away from the too-cool-for-school hustle and bustle of the Sunday shoppers and brunching couples, Simon Howell and Jessica Barensfeld have created a nest in which time passes restfully. Here, the sun seems to always shine into a jungle of curiosities and clouds of freshly brewed lemon and apple mint tea.
Simon, the English-man and trained photographer along with his girlfriend Jessica, a native New Yorker and jewelry designer, enjoy a partnership that goes beyond each of their own personal creative endeavors. While enjoying baked goods and the company of their two cats and a borrowed dog, we discuss the ways of living in a postmodern metropolis, the beauty of timelessness and the tides and ebbs of growing up.
1950s room. Pen and gouache.
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