Dominic McGill’s elaborate sketches remind me of what I WISH the doodling in my old school notebooks looked like.
Whoever says doodling is not “art” needs to see this work! One can get lost in it…
See more in his gallery.
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The ever-twisted and supremely talented Alex Pardee has come out with a new series of paintings: Letters from Digested Children.
I wish I could have attended the exhibit. I’m extremely entertained by Pardee’s intricate, colorful monsters.
If you’ve never seen Pardee’s work and you are suitably appreciative of good humored macabre art, I highly recommend perusing his galleries.
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I would love to see the constellation of lights the 91 LED endowed arms of this chandelier cast off.
It reminds me slightly of those flashlights with the clear strands coming out of the end that I used to play with as a child (anyone know what they were called?)…only far more beautiful. I truly adore novel lighting concepts, especially when they evoke natural phenomena.
Via Yanko Design.
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I am simultaneously entranced, impressed and saddened by Chris Jordan’s Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of Mass Consumption.
Crushed Cars:
I rarely post an entire artist statement, but he expresses himself so eloquently that I feel these poignant words should be shared:
Exploring around our country’s shipping ports and industrial yards, where the accumulated detritus of our consumption is exposed to view like eroded layers in the Grand Canyon, I find evidence of a slow-motion apocalypse in progress. I am appalled by these scenes, and yet also drawn into them with awe and fascination. The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical and ironic, and even darkly beautiful; for me its consistent feature is a staggering complexity.
Circuit Boards:
The pervasiveness of our consumerism holds a seductive kind of mob mentality. Collectively we are committing a vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences. I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits.
Cell Phones:
As an American consumer myself, I am in no position to finger wag; but I do know that when we reflect on a difficult question in the absence of an answer, our attention can turn inward, and in that space may exist the possibility of some evolution of thought or action. So my hope is that these photographs can serve as portals to a kind of cultural self-inquiry. It may not be the most comfortable terrain, but I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake.
There are surprising splashes of color in the midst of decay.
Sometimes the waste is so staggering that items become visually decontextualized and surreal. Cigarette butts, spent bullet casings and diodes in mass quantities morph into generic patterned backgrounds. The title draws you back into the grim reality of what you are actually looking at.
Jordan’s work showcases the most thought provoking ruins of human decadence, the interplay of mass production and environment, areas both saturated with and devoid of humanity.
I highly encourage you to explore the rest of this photo set AND the post-hurricane Katrina set on his website.
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Creature Effects specializes in prosthetics, makeup and props for television and film. Some of their creations rank up there with the grotesque images of modern pop surrealist painters.
They are masters of raw, sublimely ugly beings.
Yet they are also capable of evoking pathos.
See their lovely collection here.
And if you’re interested in other accomplishments of gore and movie magic, click here and here.
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I was pleased to come across these chairs on the wonderful I Love Bad Things.
Usually, I salivate over anatomical art or products like one of Pavlov’s dogs, but I can safely say that I do not wish to have these in my home. I enjoyed discovering that I am, indeed, discriminating with my anatomical furniture and housewares after all.
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Matt Duffin’s high contrast work explores the recesses of solitude, isolation and irony.
I’d give anything to sit in this chair with a never ending bookshelf in front of me. Yet Duffin makes the scene delightfully ominous. How small we humans can be…
And how blind…
Lonely moments, flickers of life, abandonment…I want to hear the words bellowing into the void…
…and know what lurks behind the doors.
See more on his website.
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Glenn D’Hondt, Sylvia Meert (aka Eugene and Louise) and Tinne Mermans combine character design with the world’s sweetest confections for a fictional bakery installation in Antwerp. The result: an adorable limited edition series of edible marzipan and chocolate sculptures.
The setup is stunning…
And one of the most detailed sculptures even has his own little fairy tale legend: The Tragic Story of Prince Arthur.
Perhaps the story will strike a chord with anyone who has weathered tragic love…even if he or she is not personally made of marzipan and chocolate.
The marzipan characters make me want to go sculpt something colorful and edible.
And just in case the cuteness borders on overwhelming, they add pieces like “George the Dead Clown:”
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I cannot believe I never thought to do this. I’ve been around so many X-rays, and envisioned countless hypothetical lighting designs. I’m shocked that I haven’t created one of these.
These particular lamps are the work of Sture Pallarp (the website contains nothing but contact info…and a fun image to dress up in various glasses with the click of a mouse).
From Design Zen.
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This pretty much sums up the past decade of my life. I might have to make one of these.
Adorn your desk with one of these, lest you forget that life is nothing but an uphill battle and a pointless exercise in futility. Or imagine that the little guy really CAN push that big rock with ease.
Via Modern Mechanix.
SheWalksSoftly 