The general tendency to look quickly at art, to move along from piece to piece in a museum or gallery, deprives us of the opportunity to fully engage with what we are seeing, to process feelings effectively, and to better understand the essential relationship we as viewers have to art.

Torrie Groening’s studio is an extraordinary place with a storied history. Located in a converted church at the edge of Vancouver’s Chinatown, the studio occupies the top floor of the building, with her family’s residence on the main floor below.

The genesis of Enraciné was more an existential epiphany than an artistic concept for Vancouver-based photographic artist Desirée Patterson. The series of photographs began after she had a powerful inspiration to create personal, rather than commercial work.  Desirée revealed that her discovery of an overwhelming “sense of the profound miraculousness of the universe” spurred a newfound pursuit of an authentic voice, and a desire to advocate for environmental sustainability and to “create work that spoke to my concerns”.

The Birth of Venus, After Botticelli (Pictures of Junk) (2008) by Brazilian lens-based artist Vik Muniz (b. 1961) is a digital photographic C-print in three parts, with a monumental size of 92.2” x 53.3”. The ‘Pictures of Junk’ series is the product of Muniz’ long-term collaboration with resident garbage pickers of Jardim Gramacho,  Rio de Janiero’s largest waste landfill.

Banking on the growing success of three years in Shanghai, Photofairs launched its inaugural North American edition in San Francisco January 27-29th, arriving at the former historic U.S. Army San Francisco Port of Embarkation, now the picturesque waterfront Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture Festival Pavilion.

The eye-popping exhibition, A New Republic, showcased Feb 11th to May 8th, 2016 at the Seattle Art Museum, assembled an extensive series of life-size, oil on canvas portraits of young African-Americans, by rising American painter Kehinde Wiley (b.1977).

The venerable ParisPhoto international art fair held annually in November, migrated west to Los Angeles three years ago, adding this new spring event to the art world calendar and attracting a new crop of exhibiting galleries with greater proximity to the west coast.

Faig Ahmed, one of Azerbaijan’s most internationally recognised visual artists, is garnering attention around the world for his modern interpretations of traditional carpet weaving, string art and embroidery.

Bands of Senegalese boys wander Florence selling fakes. From random perches around the city, they hawk all kinds of coveted trinkets -- sunglasses with luxury brand logos up on the Piazzale Michelangelo, Mont Blanc pens near the Bargello, Tiffany bracelets along the Arno’s bridges. 

What faithfully happens, as summer turns to autumn in Tuscany, is that people come down with a pernicious fever - let’s call it ‘acute funghiosis’ - which causes a delirious devotion to truffles.