Ready for a truly excellent vinyl bunny? Prepare for a supreme lagomorphic set of chompers.
It comes in different colors, and wall prints. This creature needs a caption. What is he thinking/saying?
It appears the website is down, but the Creature Freak Tumblr (which contains a few pictures) is operating.
Jon Rafman has compiled an incredible collection of Google street view screen captures. This impersonal lens manages to produce still frame slices of life that inadvertently tell stories, ranging from humorous to enchanting, to downright bizarre.
Yes, this is Google street view.
Some glitches produce magical, interdimensional scenery.
Or illusions of characters meeting themselves in strange places.
Sometimes we see wild animals with personality.
Or existential nexuses…
Many of the photos depict crime, prostitution, poverty and varied flavors of irreverence. But they are all worth a look. There’s something fascinating about an indifferent gadget producing art worthy of poignant editorial photo spreads. It just goes to show that art is everywhere. We must remember to keep our eyes open for it.
Thanks for this rabbit hole, Casey!
Another French artist today: DZO. His addition to the Gioconda Project (an international collection of artists’ personal imaginings of the Mona Lisa) was perhaps my favorite in the bunch.
I applaud his decision to make this classic work, the subject of much mystery and intrigue, reversible.
He uses the term “Biofusion” to describe some of his series’, which I think should be universally embraced to describe the magnificent contemporary art offerings that involve the mingling of flora, fauna and natural/manmade structures. Doesn’t it work nicely?
From the artist bio:
His art, speaks to the old etchings and engravings of religious and occult manuscripts, flirts with alchemy, witchcraft and blasphemy. It is at the same time disturbing, haunting and stimulating. His intricate drawings, full of enigmatic detail, mix sensuality, darkness and mythology. The message beyond the lines are sibylline, surrounding the world of DZO with mystery and fascination.
DZO. His addition to the Gioconda Project
KriSoft, aka Christophe Goussault, is a French illustrator and paper mache sculptor.
As a child, he dreamed of creating a store filled with toys and games, and it’s clear that hos work maintains a kind of childlike wonder and imagination.
But he also incorporates a great deal of nature and metamorphosis in his creations.
He says “The need to make people dream is an essential thing for me.” I feel he succeeds!
I rarely post so many excerpts from an article, but this is just too great.
Scientists in Mongolia are examining a 200-year mummified monk who some Buddhists believe is still alive because he is in a deep meditative trance.
Gankhüügiin Pürevbat, the founder of the Mongolian Institute of Buddhist Art at Ulan Bator Buddhist University, told the Siberian Times, a news website: “The lama is sitting in the lotus position vajra, the left hand is opened, and the right hand symbolises of the preaching Sutra.
“This is a sign that the lama is not dead, but is in a very deep meditation according to the ancient tradition of Buddhist lamas”. Some experts on Buddhism said the monk could be in “tukdam”, a kind of deep meditative state that crosses over between life and death.
Dr Barry Kerzin, a monk and a physician to the Dalai Lama, told the website: “If the person is able to remain in this state for more than three weeks – which rarely happens – his body gradually shrinks, and in the end all that remains from the person is his hair, nails, and clothes.”
Local media said a 45-old-man had been arrested because the monk’s body had been stolen from a cave with the intention of selling it off. It was unclear in what circumstances it was originally found.
The mummified monk is generally thought to have died in the 19th century. His identity is unknown.
Most of us are used to seeing Alice (apart from the original book illustrations) depicted in vibrant colors. Somefield has a slightly different interpretation.
Here we find spindly renditions of classic characters done in a (mostly) muted color palette.
As opposed to bold, retina-burning hues, the psychedelic feel of these drawings comes from the delicate wavy line work and placement of color.
What do you think?
I recently came across Audrey Benjaminsen’s work for the first time. This gogreous lady caught my eye…
Her bizarre and beautiful pieces are sometimes drawn, sometimes painted…
…And sometimes animated! I feel like this should be a meme on message boards to combat a conversation that’s gotten out of control. Far more fantastic than typical memes.
I’ve been back on an Alfred Hitchcock kick lately, and last night I re-watched one of my all time favorite episodes (perhaps of ANY TV show). If you haven’t seen The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: An Unlocked Window, the full episode is on YouTube for free and I highly recommend it.
A group of nurses, caring for an ailing patient, are trapped in an old manor on a stormy night with a notorious nurse killer on the loose outside of the house.
And someone left the basement window unlocked…
Leave it to Hitchcock to take a subject as potentially cliche as “killer on the loose during a storm” and, through masterful direction, lighting and dialogue, turn it into a story no viewer will soon forget. It’s perfectly crafted…and even more amazing the second time with the insight of retrospect illuminating how carefully these scenes were constructed.
This episode should be shown in every film writing class. Watch for yourself!
Gregory Thielker has an interesting series of photorealistic water-obscured window views entitled Under the Unminding Sky.
He states:
These paintings reflect my interest in the way that the road delineates and controls how we experience landscape.
From the roadway perspective, we not only travel from one place to another, we see landscape in a varied and complex manner. I use water on the windshield to create a shifting lens for the way we see the environment: it both highlights and obscures our viewing. Perspectives slip and compress, while shapes and colors merge into one another.
I also work with relationships between surface and depth, between flatness and illusion. These images are born out of real experience and have a close relationship with the medium of painting: its fluidity, transparency, and capacity for layering, mixing, and blending.
SheWalksSoftly 