‘Celebrated and self-trained, Tampa Bay-based taxidermy artist Juan Cabana has been delighting and disturbing audiences with his strange, lifeless life-forms since 2001. Mermaids are his special fascination, but he presents many variations on this theme. Among the other sinister sea monsters conceived in his workshop: a Cyclops known as ‘Omi’; a massive mammalian-jawed monstrosity, ’Stranded’; a skull-faced manfish called ‘Nereus’; and a winged sea faerie, ‘Oceanic Pixy’.’ Continue reading…

Animal wine stoppers designed by Dutch artist Charlotte van der Horst to fit snuggly into wine bottle necks to keep wine fresh. These are available exclusively on the Designboom shop.

Frank Breuer (German, born 1963) studied photography at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne and at the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts, where he received the graduation certificate and the distinction of master student under Bernd Becher.

Martin Wittfooth was born in Toronto in 1981, and spent of his childhood in Finland, moving back to Canada in 1993. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, where he earned his MFA at the School of Visual Arts in 2008. His art draws much inspiration from the works of classical masters, the observation of both natural and manmade environments and landscapes, and contemporary issues. His oil paintings are essentially explorations of the meeting of these very sources.

This deliciously fragranced air fresheners will help counter the unpleasant odors often left in your car. Pet Rock air fresheners are both adorable and hilarious. Get them here.

” I am an international graphic designer that recently started incorporating unconventional painting styles and illustration to a combined digital and analogue body of work. With a background lying in Fine Art, many of my new series are a process of rediscovering an array of religious and cultural esoterica, traditional techniques and classical imagery that is then deconstructed and often destroyed. I currently work in Sydney, and attend the College of Fine Arts studying a BFA in Art Education. A strong interest in curating led to the creation of Dust & Dessert (d/d) magazine which, originally a White Walls Studio publication, I am now the sole editor of.” – Jennifer Mehigan

“Contemporary culture, human folly and an obsessive curiosity for the macabre provide the fuel for my subject matter. My work is inspired by the natural sciences as well as by the classical drawing techniques of the old masters, including anatomical studies by artists such as Andreas Vesalius and Bernhard Siegfried Albinus. My recent paintings incorporate anatomical imagery to explore the human psychological condition, such as cutaway skulls portraying our basic human drives and the thin veneer of humanity overlaying our animal nature.”- Sandra Yagi

This is architecture that originates from the system of Cidori, an old Japanese toy. Cidori is an assembly of wood sticks with joints having unique shape, which can be extended merely by twisting the sticks, without any nails or metal fittings. The tradition of this toy has been passed on in Hida Takayama, a small town in a mountain, where many skilled craftsmen still exist. Cidori has a wood 12 mm square as its element, which for this building was transformed into different sizes. Parts are 60mm×60mm×200cm or 60mm×60mm×400cm, and form a grid of 50cm square. This cubic grid also becomes the grid on its own for the showcase in the museum. Jun Sato, structural engineer for the project, conducted a compressive and flexure test to check the strength of this system, and verified that even the device of a toy could be adapted to ‘big’ buildings. This architecture shows the possibility of creating a universe by combining small units like toys with your own hands. We worked on the project in the hope that the era of machine-made architectures would be over, and human beings would build them again by themselves. Link here.

‘Created in the first years of the AIDS epidemic, this work was conceived in concerto form (three movements). All of the images were circular or oval, and each movement had nine paintings, going through the spectrum from white to black (W-Y-O-R-V-B-G-B-B). The project explored the potential of overly sentimentalized imagery (clowns, tattoos, greeting cards) to express the artist’s feelings of anger, loss, and “otherness.” The prevailing social and aesthetic climate seemed incapable of recognizing or commenting upon those who were dying of this mysterious and stigmatizing virus, and this project was an attempt by Woodruff to communicate his reactions. This work includes: Crying Clowns: portraits of the artist turning in space from left to right. Cardiomegaly: a medical term for the swelling of the heart, these images were derived from classic tattoo “flash” designs. As the hearts swelled, the daisy petals carved into the mahogany frames became fewer and fewer. Cyncere Cympathy: By combining flowers that were the wrong color with cute animals in peril, Woodruff attempted to create sympathy cards for the uncomfortable and jarring events that were occurring all around him.’ Link here.