Yinka Shonibare MBE (b.1962) lives and works in London, UK. He received the prestigious Fourth Plinth Commission in Trafalgar Square from the mayor of London in 2009, and his midcareer survey exhibition originated in 2008 at the MCA Sydney, Australia and traveled to the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian through 2009. Upcoming in 2012 are two important public art commissions in London to be announced shortly. Shonibare was awarded the title of Member of the British Empire in 2005. His work was included in the African pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 and he was a Turner Prize finalist in 2004.

Carmen Ortiz is a self-taught illustrator from Spain who specializes in portrait art. Do you recognize some of the people in her work?

These paper sculptures are created by Jeremy Kool, 3D artist and graphic designer who lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. Link here.

Born in Montreal, Quebec, Heidi Taillefer began drawing at the age of 3, having been brought up in a family rich in creative talent. Always attracted to the bizarre and unusual, she was fascinated by strange animal specimens and haunting turn of the century side show oddities. Originally depicting subjects as machines placed in natural settings, her work acted as a nostalgic embrace of the past, as seen through the lens of a culture racing forward at high speed, fitted with massive technological advancement. Her paintings attempt to both denounce and celebrate technology and the changes it could promise or threaten, as a projection of what we are becoming, with both the appeal of the familiar and the jolt of where we are headed. (via beinArt)

Designer Bomi Kim brings us a cool design to the common instrument used to indicate, keep, and co-ordinate time with his Meaning Of Time creation. Also Kim designed the Tactile MP3. The 5 basic controls necessary to master your music are raised bumps, something like braille. The idea is you can control your music all by the sense of touch. (via Yanko Design)

Fabienne Verdier is a painter of contemporary French, born 3 March 1962 in Paris. ‘She paints on large floor-standing chassis with new tools she has crafted herself and that enable a new approach of line and shape. It seeks to explore the relationship between movement, matter and the fundamental force of gravitation. She regularly exhibits her work in Europe. It came in many collections, including the Centre Pompidou , the Musée Cernuschi in Paris or the foundation H.Looser in Zurich.’

I was checking some old bookmarks the other day and got redirected to Alberto Seveso‘s (previously-blogged here) website. This is treasure.

” I enjoy the dialogue between a work of art and the viewer and how unexpected conclusions can be drawn based on our unique experiences. These unpredictable associations may not be consciously made by the viewer, but rather felt deeply, like a sensation of nostalgia for something they never personally experienced. Even before I could read, the experiences I had with viewing images shaped how I would later create my work. As a child, I remember watching Mickey’s Christmas Carol and feeling deeply wounded as a heartbroken Mickey Mouse placed an abandoned crutch next to Tiny Tim’s grave. The pathos depicted in that moment left a lasting impression and inspired me to create my own narratives.” – Clifton Harvey

The fadeout chair’s legs seem to gently disappear, as though the chair stands in a pool of mist or fog. The chair’s back and seat are wooden, and the clear acrylic legs are specially painted by craftsmen so that the wood grain appears to gradually fade away. Usually, our perception of furniture is strongly affected by the space around it. The fade-out chair turns this relationship on its head: we can change the look and feel of a space simply by placing the chair in it. This was our attempt to design space itself through furniture. Click here for the link.

Some real cool illustrations from Niklas Coskan, an up-and-coming young illustrator out of Berlin, Germany. Go check out more of his work over on his site, because he is awesome.