Is beauty only skin deep? Huang Zheng takes an interest in the common intentions behind applying paint onto the surface of a canvas and applying cosmetics onto the face of a person. Although both are modes of creating illusions and diversions, the character of the person underneath nevertheless leaks through. Things are constantly hiding and uncovering themselves at the same time. The titles of Huang’s work interprets this process: to uncover, is to “shed the skin”, which brings about “a new beginning” and “congealing” a true identity. All these require “a strength to go forward.” HUANG Zheng (b.1981) was born in Nanning where he graduated from the Guangxi Arts Institute in 2005. He currently lives and works in Beijing. He works in the medium of painting and photography.

Morangis Retirement Home located in Paris, France by Vous Êtes Ici Architectes. The building is constructed on 4 levels and is based on a Y shaped plan. This bright and lively color, stimulating without being aggressive, is also the one used for the window and door frames of the facades found under the awnings and in the bedrooms. As one approaches the building and passes below the awnings towards the yellow coating, as he is welcomed, will feel and understand the building’s harmony. One will easily understand how the building works and how it is connected to its natural and urban surroundings.

” I began making large-scale graphite drawings in 2005 when I was pregnant with my second child. Looking down at my temporarily deformed mid-section, I decided that I would try to draw myself. I hung a sheet of paper on the wall, large enough for a life-size figure, and began to draw in pencil from what I could see by looking down at my own body. Right up until the very end of the pregnancy, I produced several larger-than-life drawings that attempt to convey the massive, sculptural presence of the pregnant body, and to reveal how pregnancy feels without sentimental overtones. Since the birth of my son, I have continued to draw the figure, expanding my repertoire to include portraits of my children and husband as well as self portraits. I now allow myself to work from photographs when necessary, but my focus is still upon reinventing how I see the body through the drawing process. By using pencil and paper almost exclusively, I feel as though I’ve stripped my practice down to the essential in order to convey a maximum of meaning. I use the pencil somewhat like a scalpel, probing the body through line, light and shadow. The drawings may at first appear highly realistic, but a closer look will reveal that the proportions are distorted and that the anatomical details are invented. To a certain extent, working large allows me to “lose control” of the drawing ; not being able to see the whole composition while I’m working on it frees up both the mind and the hand, resulting in distortions that reveal unconscious emotional readings concerning femininity, masculinity, sexuality and aging. In the drawings of my adolescent daughter, either alone or with her friends, I explore awakening sexuality and the transformation of the body. As a mother drawing her daughter, I certainly recognized myself in her and felt re-immersed in my own adolescence. Whether drawing nude couples or clothed teenagers, it’s important that I draw people who are close to me so that emotion can go into and emerge from the work.” – Diana Quinby

eBoy (“Godfathers of Pixel”) is a pixel art group founded in 1997 by Kai Vermehr, Steffen Sauerteig and Svend Smital. Their complex illustrations have been made into posters, shirts, souvenirs, and even displayed in gallery exhibitions. They were founded on May 2, 1997, expressing their modular and collaborative approach as something that defines eBoy as much as the use of pixels. We started working with pixels because we loved the idea of making pictures only for the screen. It’s the best way to get really sharp and clean looking results. Also, handling pixels is fun and you are forced to simplify and abstract things, which is a big advantage of this technique. eBoy is currently based in Berlin/Germany and Vancouver/Canada. (via wiki)

Rodney Glick is an artist who for over two and half decades has been creating ambitious, diverse, and wry projects of a monumental scale. Glick’s practice spans sculpture to photography, video, installation and architecture – using intelligence and a wicked sense of humour to comment on both the real and spiritual realms. Glick has exhibited internationally and was the subject of a major retrospective at the MCA Ambitious? Who, Me? Newish work by Rodney Glick in 2004. In 2010 Glick was included in the 17th Biennale of Sydney on Cockatoo Island.

” I know that I am existing. I discover that I am a limited being in my thoughts and actions. From that I can conclude that there is something unlimited that I can never comprehend completely in my narrowness. Apart from me there are other things and beings that surround me and with which I am concerned in my life. From this there are the following questions: — Who am I, why am I, and why am I the way I am? Where do I come from and where will I go to? In which relation am I to the things and beings that surround me? — What is the sense in my life?? This questions are central point of my artwork.” – Sonja Tines

Check out this giant banana-shaped billiard table by Cleon Daniel. Link here.

” My name is Lily Mae Martin I am a Melbourne born visual artist and writer. I’ve been drawing and writing stories as far back as I can remember. My earlier influences include Beatrix Potter, Elyne Mitchell and William Hogarth. I was fascinated with anatomy of the horse and death as a young girl. After my misspent youth of moving all around Victoria, I studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing at the Victorian College of the Arts. During this time I participated in master classes for drawing as well as worked next door at the National Gallery of Victoria for four years. Through my studies I came to realise how much I enjoyed the anatomy of the human form as well as more the technical aspects of drawing and painting. I was looking at works by Laurie Lipton, John Currin, Bill Henson and Jenny Saville. My work currently looks at the relationship between art and motherhood, feminism, the domestic, identity and, of course, anatomy of the body. My current influences include The Dutch Masters, Sally Mann and Lucian Freud.” – Lily Mae Martin

‘Never have there been a knife sharpener this cute before if your idea of cute is a killer whale! You get both fun and function with this Shark Jaw knife sharpener. The bottom is designed with anti-slip material to keep it stabilized while you use it.’ Link here.

Cuban born American artists Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz are the collabortive duo Guerra de la Paz . Originally sourcing their materials from the waste bins of second-hand goods shipping companies in Miami’s Little Haiti, Guerra De La Paz make their sculptures from the discarded items of daily life. Viewing their practice as a kind of ‘archaeology’, their work engages with the history inherent in common debris and its possibility for recycled usage. In Nine, a giant mound of clothing heaps with strata of prom dresses, Christmas jumpers, and embarrassing yesteryear fads, bearing down with the weight of a civilisation and its disowned memories. Beneath the fringes of the hulking mass can be seen the feet of nine people supporting the load, a testimony to the strength and value of community.