Author: Jane Kenoyer

Argentinian artist Camila Valdez is also a designer who likes to create large scale character sculptures that blend sexy legs with colorful and decadent deserts such as cupcakes and ice cream. This Buenos Aires artist gives new meaning to the phrase eye candy. The artist re-contextualizes the female figure as an inanimate edible dessert. The pairing of these two subjects in this way objectifies women and suggests that they are a treat to be enjoyed. Valdez makes both large size and table-ware size surreal fantasy sculptures, some of which are reminiscent of works by the very famous Pop artist Mel Ramos, who is especially know for his depiction and sexualization of women as candy bars. See more after the jump!

Canada artist Ben Duncan has recently created some very interesting sculptures. His horned bronze sculpture, entitled Golems Pelt, looks to be a part of a public works installation. This horned beast has bear like paws, intimidating tall horns, and an unusual alien like face. This otherworldly statue would be an imposing figure to any passerby. Duncan also makes other work including complex sculptures that are highly detailed and paintings that have an Asian inspired twist. Please look at more of Duncan’s work after the jump!

Illustrator Redmer Hoekstra creates imaginative drawings that delineate bizarre artwork. His detailed illustrations are filled with irony and very strange characters. These drawings, such as a pinecone made out of fish heads or a baby inside a cellphone compartment, are both amusing and disturbing. See more strangeness after the jump!

Artist Terada Mokei has a passion for modeling and more specifically architectural model accessories. With the creation of his dreamy cityscapes, people in all walks of life, animals, trees, and even the NYC subway, the artist explores the potential of the narrative. He encourages the viewer to witness each scene only after the required assembly is completed. Mokei has depicted an endless range of themes and these include works such as No.6 New York, No.25 Open-air Café, and his No.14 through No.16 even cover Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic (Ice age) eras. These simple models, which are created with the help of his office staff, are intentionally made without fine details. Mokei has just released a book entitled The Book of TERADA MOKEI How to enjoy paper model of 1/100 scale. See many examples after the jump!

Most of Yoram Wolberger's work featured here is made from casting wax and pigment with the exception of the large scale public art piece entitled Millennium Tower that’s made out of reinforced fiberglass, steel, and urethane paint. He depicts childhood toys and domestic objects with an exaggerated scale. This scale distorts both the meaning of these common objects and highlights the significance of stereotypes that these everyday items may hold. Many of the manufacturing flaws commonly found in cast plastic toys made in China or other countries abroad are brought to light by the artist’s unique consideration and depiction. Wolberger was born in Tel Aviv, Israel and lives and works there and in San Francisco, California. See more after the jump!

The dramatic nylon sculptures by Dutch artist Rosa Verloop are eerie and distorted representations of human heads and bodies. These three-dimensional bodies are held together by a series of pins and threads. The flesh tones of the nylons add a disturbing level of realism to these dysmorphic objects. Verloop is an artist based out of the Netherlands where she continues to create works that are both intriguing and at the same time grotesque. See more after the jump!

London based artist Zadok Ben-David creates oversized hand cut aluminum sculptures by using skillful techniques, minimal information, and carefully placed lines. His works depicting insect and flower are painted black and often placed together to create whimsical installations. The series of flowers that he did between 2010 and 2012 are entitled Blackflowers and were inspired by nature and the traditions of botanical illustration. Although these works are simplistic and reminiscent of botanical illustrations the artist's use of scale and design are noteworthy interpretations of nature's flora and fauna. See more after the jump!

Inspired by personal experiences, a mix of cultures, rituals, and traveling the world, artist Jim Skull creates elaborate woven skull sculptures. He likes to be referred to as Jim Skull as a reflection of his interest in skulls; a symbol that he has been working with since the 1980s. He is currently living in France where he creates beautifully crafted sculptures out of rope, Papier-mâché, and other natural materials. He was born in New Caledonia and there's no doubt that the influences of the tribal arts from Oceania, Africa, and North America are evident within his technique. See more of how Jim Skull has brought a contemporary twist to the timeless subject of mortality after the jump!

Philadelphia artist Hilary White works with hand cut wood and various paint mediums to make art with unusual layers and combinations. Imaginatively depicted waterfalls and animals take on a three dimensional quality and pop out from the wall. Without hesitation she incorporates materials such as wood, acrylic sheets, oil and acrylic paints, aerosol paints, and glitter. White's large-scale sculptural paintings are bursting with attention getting new wave day-glo psychedelic colors reminiscent of the classic retro pop culture of the 80s. See more after the jump!

French-Canadian photographer Benoit Paillé created a series of constructed images entitled DollarStore. These dollar store dinosaur toys and other objects have been transformed from the mundane to the extraordinary. Through manipulation, repetition, and documentation with the use of stunning photography techniques over brightly colored backgrounds; these simple dollar store sculptures take on new glamorous aesthetic qualities. With this unique interpretation of the object the artist questions the social implications of cheap labor in China and abroad. Paillé is a self-taught photographer whose images are both experimental and yet resonate a high level of sophistication. See more after the jump!

Russia artist Masha Krasnova-Shabaeva created a series of drawings in 2012 that are playful and bold. She is currently based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands where she has been creating paintings, drawings, posters, t-shirts, and comic strips. The gouache on paper illustrations are imaginative and very bizarre. Krasnova-Shabaeva's works are filled with challengingly obscure narratives. It's hard to immediately contextualize what is occurring in the work and as a result there's a lot of room for the viewers' imagination to be captivated. See more after the jump!

French sculptor Pierre Matter creates large-scale sculptures that blend humans, pink babies, and animals with machines and other unusual components. The artist was born in Munster, France where from an early age he was introduced to machines through his father’s jobs. He works mostly with bronze, however he also uses recycled and scrap materials, to build his hybrid sculptures. His imaginative artwork is a continuation of an ongoing dialogue concerning human existence and changes brought about by advances in technology and the sciences. See more after the jump!

Ryan Bradley is an artist who creates tightly rendered pastel drawings of attractive women's faces that seem to be carved out of space. The compositions are large, with the longest part of the Arches paper averaging 52 inches. The hyperrealistic drawings were created using layers of intricate mark-making and cross-hatching techniques. By emphasizing the negative space that he cuts away with an x-acto knife, he adds a layer of abstraction to these intricately composed portraits. Through this deconstruction of the figure, Bradley explores the nature of hidden beauty. See more after the jump!

Our friends over at Laughing Squid spotted some unique paintings by Milan-based artist Fabio Giampietro. His dynamic high contrast black and white paintings are oil on canvas. Most of the works shown here are from his Vertigo series and true to the name these paintings have a dizzying effect on the viewer. These cities viewed from high above are a bit reminiscent of the artist M. C. Escher and his famously extreme perspectives. See more after the jump!

Tokyo based artist Takahiro Komuro creates highly imaginative sculptures that reflect current problems of society with reoccurring science fiction themes. The artists’ titles such as ATOMIC BOWELS COSMOS, WORM HEAD, and ELECT. RAT are filled with humor. Komuro not only reflects contemporary society but also draws the viewer in to examine deeper questions about human rights, community, modern culture, and human behaviors that will continue to impact future generations. See more after the jump!

Artist and computer programer Tom Beddard was born in 1976 in London and for the past eleven years he has been in Scotland. He has a PhD in laser physics that he received at the University of St Andrews, Scotland and now lives just outside Edinburgh. His amazing fractal sculptures are full of tiny details and aesthetic complexity. He writes his own software and scripts that work in tandem with simple mathematical and algorithmic processes to create his work. See more of his amazing fractal sculptures after the jump!

Nahoko Kojima is a professional paper cut artist who is currently living in London where she is working on her most ambitious piece yet, entitled Byaku. This work is due to be unveiled at Jerwood Space, London, Summer 2013. Her beautiful paper cut artworks can take almost a half a year to complete. The and are often created out of a single sheet of paper. She is known for her very successful Cloud Leopard piece which was unveiled at Saatchi Collect earlier this May. Her new work Byaku is inspired by the forces of nature and when completed will reveal a life-size swimming polar bear. Kojima's process involves hand cutting a one single sheet of white Japanese Washi paper. See more after the jump!

Dorielle Caimi is an American fine artist practicing her craft in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is currently represented by Gusford Gallery in Los Angeles, California. Her oil paintings are deeply feminine. They depict not only the nude female form but also showcase the artists’ ability to capture extreme emotion and difficult subject matter. These paintings are largely an explore of characteristics associated with women. The feminization and universal angst found within the work is interlaced with rich symbolism. See more after the jump!

Street artist My Dog Sighs lives in Portsmouth, UK where he creates can art with a whimsical twist. The artist works with crushed metal cans that were once used for food storage. The painted bottoms become the heads of his playful characters. These humorous paintings feature masked heroes, Danse Macabre faces, and even big eyed babies. Cans are an unusual format for a canvas, however with the addition of expressive faces and dewy water drops, they are completely transformed into small works of art. See more after the jump!

Troy Moth is a photographer living in Victoria, Vancouver Island whose high profile clients range from Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, to Rolling Stone. He recently created an amazing body of ten works entitled Witness. Moth's soft photography depicts mysterious compositions in remote environments. At first glance these misty images look sleepy and enveloping however on closer inspection they reveal a wild side. The images are filled with a variety of natural components such as bird feathers and antlers mixed in with moss covered sticks, pine needles and bark. The combination of these elements seem to evoke the quiet ghosts of nature. See more after the jump!

Carol Brookes is a fine artist that has created a beautifully crafted body of work entitled Pulse Vector. These mixed media wall sculptures are made from an assemblage of sculpting epoxy, zippers, pearls, tacks, nails, washers, acrylic, wood, canvas, and much more. Her sculptural works such as Pearl Revealed have an industrial feel and yet they convey an inherent softness. The artist incorporates a large range of items, and by combining pearls with metals, the work becomes both masculine and feminine, industrial and organic. See more after the jump!

Illustrator Jonathan Wolstenholme is a fine artist living in London who depicts still lifes feature animated books with arms engaged in humorous scenarios. His paintings are created using watercolors on paper. These antiquarian books are busily smoking pipes and writing letters. The works are a deliberate celebration of vintage charm and are filled with many nostalgic details from the past. See more after the jump!

Fine artist Januz Miralles is also a digital artist, illustrator, and painter who merges multiple painting techniques with digital photo manipulation and photography. Miralles is based in Laguna located in the Philippines where much of his work is created on his small laptop computer. His added textures and brush strokes create eerie marks that seem to dissolve and negate the identity of these digitally altered female figures. See more after the jump!

Maria Garcia-Ibáñez is an artist who lives in both Mexico and Madrid. Garcia-Ibáñez creates work that addresses issues related to the analysis of identity and mobility. The ceramic spine shown above is entitled Motionless and was made out of glazed ceramic, polychrome, and gold. This poetic sculpture exudes the fragility and vulnerability of the human body while the decorative flowers and gold embellishments add a precious quality to the artists' ceramic bones. See more after the jump!

Artist Steven Quinn is known for his street photography and collage work. Quinn was born in Belfast and is currently living and working in London. The skull collages featured here, which were recently spotted at Laughing Squid, are comprised of old photographs and other magazine images. The many vintage images of stars add deep and dazzling perspectives to these kaleidoscopic collages. See more after the jump!

Beyond the Body is a work initially created in 2012 by Dutch product designer Imme van der Haak. This concept addresses the perceptions of appearance and identity and uniquely represents ideas about the human body. Beyond the Body Project is a publication of Imme van der Haak's work that was crafted into a small book in collaboration with Hanna Donker. Donker is a type and graphic designer who currently works as a font designer at Dalton Maag, London. By printing wearable photos of the human body van der Haak alters the perception of age, identity, gender, and physical form. In the dance performance, the dancer's movements manipulating the translucent silk, are key elements in further distorting the visual experience. The resulting ambiguity enables the viewer to be transported beyond the body. See the film and read more after the jump!

San Francisco based artist Travis Collinson creates noteworthy chalk portraits that echo the famously distorted perspectives and large eyed subjects seen in Lucian Freud’s paintings made around the 1950s. The way that the artist purposefully distorts the figures and warps their detailed yet muted surroundings makes the viewer feel an ineffable sense of unease. Collinson's use of black and white chalk on paper create a subtle tension within the each piece. He tends to work with personal family photos, reworking the familiar images multiple times, while using different mediums on different backgrounds. His otherworldly subjects seem to be portraying moments of extreme emotional impasse. See more after the jump!

David Slone uses oil on panel to create works that are painterly impressions of people with floating heads. The head shot images on drab backgrounds are reminiscent of creepy yearbook photos and similarly capture the awkwardness of the various phases of adolescence. These portraits are loose and interpretive but also contain areas such as the eyes and lips of the subjects that are rendered very realistically. This marriage of impressionism and realism makes for an interesting combination. See more after the jump!

Italian artist Dirittura d'Arrivo created an art installation depicting the disaster of a flight torn apart and frozen in midair. This intricately detailed scene complete with people, seats, and luggage, is entitled Integrity of Arrival. He used sinterized nylon to create this eerie installation. See closeup details of the exploding plane and more of his installations after the jump!

Argentinian artist Gerardo Feldstein depicts men in jet black suits with extremely exaggerated gestures. These bald characters with big outstretched hands embody humorous narratives as they point, climb, reach, and grab at the unknown. The strikingly long bodies defy gravity and seem to stretch before the eye as they balance tediously on white pedestals. His work is reminiscent of the bold works by Swiss sculpture Alberto Giacometti, who came to be regarded as one of the leading surrealist sculptors in the 1920s through the 1960s. Feldstein's detailed sculptures are a combination of resin, wire, and an array of other materials. See more of these bizarre sculptures after the jump!