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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Inyoung Seoung's work draws parallels between humankind and nature. She considers people to be in a perpetual state of growth, reaching up and moving forward like trees to light. The Korea-born, Southern California-based artist one day found herself admiring her own backyard, where she was impressed by the fact that no two trees were alike, and that they contain an infinite supply of design that she emulates in her drawings and installations.
The haunting smoke photographs of French photographer Gilles Soudry transport us into his black and fluffy universe, where the streams of smoke take on strangely human and animal-like formations. First featured here on our blog last year, Soudry has since completed the third installment of his "Volutes" series, an ongoing study of smoke's mystifying effects as it is captured in a single moment in time.
After getting his start by mural painting in and around Brisbane, artist Fintan Magee has since grown on an international scale, and his figurative murals and fine art can now be found around the world. Featured here on our blog, his art draws influences from his childhood, where he links his personal experiences and nostalgia to broader social issues like climate change or class struggle. "In some works, I feel like I am telling stories that I don’t fully understand, there is definitely an element of chaos or the subliminal in my work as well," Magee says.
In drawing the world around him, New York based artist Mike Lee conveys a simple and playful essence of his subjects, whether they be people, buildings, or objects. Featured here on our blog, the artist's intriguing drawings of miniaturized scenes have often been compared to a child's Playmobil or Lego playsets. In these new versions of his subjects, Lee further simplifies the human form, isolating them from their toy-like environments and focusing instead on finding expression through minimalism.
New York based painter and illustrator Mike Perry is an artist working in a variety of mediums, once describing his collection of works as having an "antsy" energy. He doodles around the clock, whether creating new typefaces for his graphic design work or new burst of colorful characters that amass in his paintings. At his website, he writes that his creative goal is "to conjure that feeling of soul-soaring wonder you have when you stare into distant galaxies on a dark night, when you go on long journeys into the imagination, when you ponder what it is that this life is all about."
"Void Season" is a different kind of fashion project that makes us excited to see how the future of fashion is going to look. What first appears as an eccentric, simulated dance and a color-coordinated Tumblr exploration turns out to be a study of algorithmic textiles and procedural surfaces. This digital magic was created by the Berlin, Germany based design studio known as Zeitguised. Their mesmerizing visuals are crafted as a unique blend of tantalizing design, handmade algorithms and bespoke generative processes.
Since moving from New York city to the countryside in Hudson, artist Jason Middlebrook has found himself in a constant contact with nature. His striking "plank series" is informed by his surroundings; vividly painted abstract designs on natural pieces of cut wood like maple and birch, sourced from a local mill. Though his use of straight lines and angles, drawn with a geometric precision, may not be naturally occurring, they are inspired by the subtle nuances found in his materials.
In using animal remains to create something new, Jason Borders' intricate work reminds us of the cyclical nature of life. First featured here on our blog, Borders has always been inspired by nature and always collected bones, but it wasn't until recently that he began to use them as an art medium. He once said that he likes to think of these sculptural pieces as characters, ornately carved bones, antlers and skulls which are designed on the spur of the moment in his Portland, Oregon based studio.
Mike Davis has become well known for his brand of modern Surrealism with one foot in the past. Featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 36 and here on our blog, Davis' works echo the style of the Northern Renaissance combined with his own personal symbolism; a blend of fantastical imagery, detailed landscapes, and illustrations of religious concepts and fairytale narratives. He uses obscure images of demons, half-human animals, Humpty Dumpty, and machines that evoke feelings of bliss, fear and even confusion.
When we say goodbye to the things we once loved, we face feelings of loneliness and nostalgia. Artist Caitlin McCormack experienced these feelings when her grandparents passed away, and she found comfort in crochet, a family tradition: "My grandmother was a very talented crocheter, and my grandfather was an exceptionally-skilled bird carver. Something about the receptive process of crocheting seemed to help me to cope with their absence." McCormack's delicate crocheted designs of animal skeletons come from death, but she uses them to reconstruct memories from life.
Matthias Gephart is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Berlin, Germany, who is revisiting his roots in graffiti in a project that incorporates his creative interests. "Stylewise, my personal background is the underground and alternative music scene, graffiti writing and Dadaist collage," Gephart shares. Since 2010, he has been transforming neglected spaces with his graffiti that combines graphic design and collage visuals, taking the idea of mural painting to the expanse of an entire room. He calls this project "The Magic Moment."
To Brooklyn, New York based artist Dan Witz, the mosh pit is a place of savage beauty. Featured here on our blog, the longtime street artist, who was in his own punk band, combines his passion for art and the energy of the hardcore music scene in his "Mosh Pit" series. He slows down the chaos of the nightclub from the musician's perspective into paintings that are strangely primal, focused on both the private and collective experience.
There is an infinite number of ways that Lego toys can be arranged. Artists have taken the popular Danish toy to surprising places, pushing it beyond the boundary of what “toys” are, as we’ve seen here on our blog. But one artist Jan Vormann based in Berlin, Germany has taken Lego to the streets. Some have called it “Lego bombing”, but Vormann prefers to describe his work as “patchwork”, a project that he is bringing around the world.
Prune Nourry is a French, New York based multi-disciplinary artist who draws her inspiration from bioethics. Through her performances, artworks, and exhibition design, Nourry brings attention to issues that arise from our fast growing scientific discoveries. Her latest work, titled "Anima", is an immersive installation that explores the concept of soul and "the divide between Man and Animal", a collaboration between art, magic, and anthropology.
During the last seven years, Ontario based artist Kit King has struggled with agoraphobia which is clinical anxiety in response to open spaces. As she explains, she lives her life "behind the same walls day in and day out" and worries she may never see her art outside the studio. Her emotions and relationship to spaces inform her works, featured here on our blog, and while highly technical, they represent the artist's study of identity in the context of space.
Masaya Hashimoto's images of pure white plants might not look like anything remarkable until you realize what they are made out of: the self taught artist crafts them out of the fine bone and antlers from deer near his home in Japan. In some ways, his sculptures are a byproduct of where he lived for nearly a decade, a mountain Buddhist temple where he was given the chance to closely observe the life cycle of plants and flowers like irises and chrysanthemums.
Taiwanese artist Hui Chi Lee presents a peculiar image of the human figure. She crowds her drawings with masses of bodies lumped together and entangled in threads and strands of human hair. Full of energy, her images explore themes relating to materialism, human behaviors, and relationships in today's society, made all the more dynamic when implemented in a larger than life scale. Working mainly in pen, graphite and colored pencil on paper, her choice to use non-traditional painting materials ties with her goal as an artist: simply to create imagery that will inspire a curiosity about the implications of her work.
Afarin Sajedi's portraits of women are rarely pretty in the conventional sense or pleasant to look at. One might even call them deformed or strange, appearing almost alien-esque with their large heads and round eyes. Previously featured on our blog, the Iranian artist once described her work as "a little bit science fiction, a little bit realism", mainly working from her imagination to create her emotive characters.
"I love bodies," says artist Sally Hewett. "It is not the conventionally beautiful bodies that take my eye, it is bodies which show their history, that have been altered by their experience." The UK based sculptor centers her works on the ugliness and imperfections of our bodies, and uses the prettiness of embroidery to offset how we view them. Describing her sculptures as a divide between craft and art, Hewett's sculptures play around with our perceptions of ourselves and what needs to be "fixed".
Kinetic art is art from any medium that contains movement perceivable by the viewer or depends on motion for its effect. For the 11 international artists in the upcoming exhibit "Perpetual Motion" at Heron Arts in San Francisco, movement is fundamental to storytelling. Their collective kinetic works offer a modern interpretation of this age old art form that redefined sculpture into more than three-dimensional- it transformed our perceptions of line, color and life itself into an extension of the human imagination.
Southern California based artist Dave Lebow walks a line between classical painting and fantasy art. Perhaps best known as the real-life painter behind Showtime series Dexter character "Travis", Lebow admits that he has always liked strange subject matter. His oil paintings have the sensitivity and attention to detail of realism, yet they are also mystical, racy and even titillating. They depict a realm inhabited by beautiful, sexy women, both warriors and damsels in distress, and absurd creatures of the night.
In depicting the human condition, Jean-Paul Mallozzi uses paint to express emotional narratives. His oil paintings make use of thickly painted areas, moving from more accurate detail to abstract elements and exaggerated colors to imply his subject's feelings. Color is fundamental to Malozzi's paintings. "Each one emits a color that echoes complex emotional states that all of us can relate to," he explains.
"When I was a kid, I wanted to become an inventor," says artist Adam Pizurny. "I fulfilled my dream but in a slightly different way." Now living and working in Prague, Czech republic, Pizury has built an eclectic career out of his experimentation in digital illustration and graphic design. But in 2012, he discovered an exciting new technique when blind artist George Redhawk aka "DarkAngelØne", featured here, transformed one of his portraits into a GIF.
They've been described as looking like strange alien organisms and beautiful, gelatinous blobs - whatever you want to call her works, Dan Lam's bizarre "dripping sculptures" have an undeniable fantasy about them. Brightly colored with pointy, tentacle-like attachments, her work captures that special grotesque beauty that only mother nature could dream up. However, the Manila born, Texas-based artist explains: "My work looks organic because the process of creating it is organic."
When asked about his venture from comic illustration to his more abstract and surreal illustration, artist Graham Yarrington offers a candid observation: "I've always found that painting is the best therapy. I think that sadness and struggle will always play an important role in my growth as an artist." Growing up Rochester, New York, his work is informed by his childhood surroundings- "lots of open space and trees"- manifested in highly imaginative ink and gouache landscapes. Though his work is at times bright and fantastical, the stuff of daydreams and Grimm's fairy tales, there is also a darkness that the artist can't shake.
You may already know Heather Gabel, the Detroit based artist behind hundreds of t-shirts and logos for bands like Alkaline Trio, Green Day, and Garbage. Experienced in many mediums, Gabel is also an accomplished collage artist, combining xerox copies with painting, watercolor paper, and photography into her work with a feminine edge. Finding a magic in things past, Gabel aims to capture a timelessness in her work, where femininity, she says, is a result of her personal reverence for the strength that she correlates with women.
A Milan, Italy based street artist known only as Biancoshock has been garnering some attention in the past few days for his curious new series of miniature rooms set within his local city streets. Underneath manhole covers and openings in the pavement, he has built elaborate and even luxurious interiors titled "Borderlife", a series while surreal and evoking images of Alice's tumbling rabbit-hole, takes its inspiration from a very real and serious issue.
English photographer Eadweard Muybridge became a pioneer of capturing movement when he took position on a popularly-debated question of the day: his photographic sequences proved that all four feet of a horse were inexplicably off the ground at the same time while trotting. Late Dutch artist Peter Jansen took on a similar study when he began his series of dynamic sculptures titled "Human Motions". The project observes the dynamism of the human figure in motion and the visual magic that occurs when we slow things down, frame by frame.
If our emotions were a color, what would they be? Color is an essential part of how we experience the world, and has long been used by artists to convey powerful emotions. French director Thomas Blanchard uses the film medium to explore the meaning and psychological effects of colors in a surprising and unconventional way. His moving visual compositions have been created out of paint, oil, honey and cinnamon, which he mixes together and then films.
Casey Weldon’s paintings have always combined beauty with a dark sense of humor to convey a distorted version of reality. Featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 32 and on our blog over the years, the Seattle based artist's palette has gradually developed a neon-colored luminosity, where his subjects appear to be glowing and bio-luminescent. Moments of darkness and reflecting colors of electric lights are used to convey emotion and spark intrigue in the viewer.