” My goal as a painter is to create space, whether the table top space in a still life work or the more shallow space of a trompe l’oeil composition. Illusionism, especially the heightened mimesis found in trompe l’oeil, invites the viewer to enter the space of the piece and then persuades them to linger and explore the meaning of the work. A final aim is first to delight the eye, and then intrigue the mind.” – Sharon Moody.
What a nice surprise to discover the work of Italian illustrator Carmine Bellucci. I am enamoured of it’s jewel-like beauty and it’s deeper meanings. Check out his website now, for it’s a treasure trove of goodness.
Every one of these things has been hand carved from a single piece of wood by New York sculptor Randall Rosenthal. You can say WOW now.
‘Raymond Saá uses tropical plants, fruit and foliage as a metaphor to explore the resilience of Caribbean culture that is transplanted to a new life in the United States. Saá was raised in Miami by his exiled mother and grandparents and his work draws on his family’s experience of displacement and struggle to maintain their Cuban heritage here. He is interested in the way that food, fruits and flowers from the market or the imagination can conjure associations with the old world. At Wave Hill, he has created a new mural for Glyndor Gallery in the transitional space of the entrance foyer. He covers the 19th-century European-style wall surfaces with Caribbean-style tropical plants to demonstrate his ideas about transplanting culture. He renders the plants in stark black and white to hint at the dislocation first generation immigrants experience in a new and competitive culture.’ (via Art State)
” When I paint – I think about people whose only experience will be what I have experienced in the past. And I think when I paint that I can sensitize it for people and help other people – people that I don’t know. That’s why I often work with children and why I often work with these large pictures. One is more present than what one does.” – Carlos Perez
If you can stomach eating food with an extremely detailed xenomorph, these chopsticks are for you. The level of detail on these is amazing and will make Aliens fans squee every time you pull them out for a meal. (It may make your dining companions grossed out, but that just means more sushi for you, right?) These unique chopsticks are 9″ long and feature high quality sculpts and color as well as the guarantee that you will not be infected with a chestburster by using them. Buy here.
“My mixed media installations and drawings recontextualize simplified shapes, signs and symbols from disparate historical and contemporary imagery to create abstract fictions. Existing forms from a multitude of sources are co-opted, altered, and spliced to adopt hybrid identities. Through the process of appropriation and subsequent recombination, shapes lose their real-world connotations and take on fictitious roles. Forged relationships between benign and malignant forms confuse the original implications of each while revealing the precariousness of perception and how easily it can be tampered with. Recent projects pit Baroque and Gothic pattern and ornament against forms derived from armor and weaponry. Seemingly oppositional pairings create duplicitous environments where conflicting messages are conveyed. The use of felt, foam, and other tactile materials further complicates questions of source, masking the identity of forms while allowing them to inhabit both sculptural and two-dimensional space.” -Liz Miller
Fresh, brightly-coloured drawings from cartoonist and illustrator Sam Taylor. The archive of posted illustrations on his website is completely worth the visit.
