Professional photographer Itaru Hirama ran a workshop using Kolo Newbury photo albums in conjunction with “The Album Expo” in Osaka, Japan recently. The workshop titled “Photo Album is Love” was an exclusive two-day event for 10 couples interested in learning about photography and album making. The first day, Itaru took the couples downtown to take photos, while the second day was spent creating their individual Kolo albums.

Itaru Hirama plays a large role in creating and advertising famous Japanese musician’s CD jackets.

Everyone was able to participate and submit his/her unique album. The 10 best albums received the “Thanks! Album” award with an 11x14 Kolo Newport photo album as a prize.

"The Album Expo” is source of inspiration and a reminder of the importance of photo albums in a digital age. Many Japanese artists, including famous actress and model Hanae, athlete Yuji Nakazawa, musician Cossami and artist and actress Haneyuri, had their albums on display from November 11th till December 6th in Osaka.

-Kate

Artist Suzy Van Zehlendorf, born in 1980 in the working district of Berlin-Wedding, chose a Kolo Newport photo album to create this work. Suzy faced some difficult challenges growing up, but Suzy always knew she was an artist. It took time for others to notice her artistic talent. Today, she has been named one of Germany’s most influential mentally challenged artists.

Suzy on her work displayed in the “Berlin Through My Lens” Exhibition:

For Kolo, I looked at Berlin from a historic perspective; the planes that flew food into Berlin during the 1948 airlift, Marx and Engels, and Nefertiti, whose bust recently was relocated to the New Museum in Berlin. The poultry, of course, are the people, the masses of people living in Berlin. It's like one big chicken coop. That is my perspective of Berlin.

To see more photos of this project, go here.

For more on Suzy Van Zehlendorf, go here.

For other Berlin-themed Kolo books, go here and here.

-Kate

Titian's Venus of Urbino
"...love is a great beautifier." Louisa May Alcott

Los Angeles artist and photographer Ophelia Chong created this beautiful collage on acid-free, archival Kolo paper. The quote mentioned above from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women served as inspiration for this work, titled “Her Love.”

Recently, Opehlia’s work has been shown at the Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn. Other works can be seen in a previous Koloist post, here.

Also, her art has been highlighted in two books now available:

The Sourcebook of Contemporary Illustration
Letterpress and Collage work. July 09. Published by MaoMao Press and Harper Collins International

The Crafter's Devotional: 365 Tips, Tricks, and Techniques for Unlocking Your Creative Spirit by Barbara R. Call
Collage work. July 09. Published by Quarry Books

To see more from Ophelia Chong, visit her flickr page or site.

-Kate

Congratulations to Lie Fhung on the success of her art exhibition at SIGIarts Gallery in Jakarta, ending Dec. 12th.

About the exhibition, the Jakarta Post wrote:

Indonesian Hong Kong based artist Lie Fhung (b. 1969) explores the tangible realities of a woman’s body in her solo exhibition titled “Corporeal Dream,” at the SIGIarts gallery in Jakarta. Profound, delicate, and with a fine sense of what the body is about, the works, which speak of a thorough research linked with personal experience, reveal a unique artistry. For the entire review, go here.

Over the last several months, Fhung has shared with us several of her “Dream Archives portals,” all created with altered Kolo Havana Boxes (as can be seen in these photos). To see these and many more of the fascinating artworks included this exhibition, go here.

- Ugo

Joy Bianchi Brown’s “Vegas Baby” myKOLO Photo Book just arrived today at her home in California. She was so excited that she snapped a few photos and sent them over to us. She created her 11x14 and 8.5x11 platinum Kolo Newport Photo Books on Tuesday and let us get a sneak peek inside the site.

Joy on her “Vegas Baby” myKOLO Photo Book:

Our marriage was completely different after 11 years together—we had learned to accept each other and work together. Plus, we had more fun together and were more relaxed together. For this reason, we wanted a fun and funky wedding that reflected this!

The album to commemorate the event was a no-brainer. In the eleven years since our first wedding, our album had become outdated and reflected something that was no longer who we are. I wanted a fresh album, something different and modern, and it was fun to design something with our new images! It was also neat to have a book that was just about us. Now that we have kids, usually everything we do involves photographs or albums about them. This album is a great reminder of a wonderful weekend.

Doing it online was fast, simple and within an hour I was done!

The photographs used to create Joy’s myKOLO Photo Book were taken by photographer and Koloist contributor, Jules Bianchi.

More photos of Joy Bianchi Brown’s project, here.

To visit the myKOLO Photo Book site, here.

-Kate