I’ve posted about Megan Petasky before. This video of hers is guaranteed to be one of the creepiest cartoons you see today (assuming you watch a lot. You watch a lot, right?).
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Michael Halbert has a series of “inventors” that look like antique etchings. I love seeing revivals of this style.
And enjoy a bonus video of the scratchboard illustration for this great piece for Steamworks Beer:
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From afar, you might think you’re looking at panels and portraits by one of the old masters.
But stepping closer you will see that Julianna Menna’s subjects differ ever so slightly from those in classical portraiture…in that they are inhuman and have no flesh.
Adornments spring from imaginary period costumes, unique yet strangely congruent with something that we…or a vaguely anthropomorphic species…might have invented in another time and place.
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My friend Stacey linked me to this awesome collection of Japanese monster illustrations by Gojin Ishihara.
The books came out in the 70’s, designed for kids. I wish my childhood library contained them!
I think these are some of my favorite vintage Japanese monster illustrations out there
See more here.
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Grab a look at Hugh Kretchmer’s photography…
Some of these pieces are highly editorial, but all deliver a nice measure of surrealism and/or trompe l’oeil effects.
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The Topography of Tears is a fascinating visual study of tear crystalization under a standard light microscope, exploring the terrains of numerous emotions and forms of lacrimal activity. I want to paste some of the artist’s statement here, to give you her own lens on the work.
Elation:
The random compositions I find in magnified tears often evoke a sense of place, like aerial views of emotional terrain. Although the empirical nature of tears is a chemistry of water, proteins, minerals, hormones, antibodies and enzymes, the topography of tears is a momentary landscape, transient as the fingerprint of someone in a dream. This series ls like an ephemeral atlas.
Onions:
Roaming microscopic vistas, I marvel at the visual similarities between micro and macro realms, how the patterning of nature seems so consistent, regardless of scale. Patterns of erosion etched into earth over millions of years may look quite similar to the branched crystalline patterns of an evaporated tear that took less than a minute to occur.
Grief:
Tears are the medium of our most primal language in moments as unrelenting as death, as basic as hunger, and as complex as a rite of passage. They are the evidence of our inner life overflowing its boundaries, spilling over into consciousness. Wordless and spontaneous, they release us to the possibility of realignment, reunion, catharsis: shedding tears, shedding old skin. It’s as though each one of our tears carries a microcosm of the collective human experience, like one drop of an ocean.
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I often get emails from artists and businesses (who clearly haven’t read the blog) asking for promotion. But recently I was surprised by a heartfelt personal note from a lovely young woman, sharing her music with me.
I confess, I thought “Oh no…this girl is such a sweetheart…what am I going to say if the music is terrible?”
But guess what? Madison Chase belongs on SWS (and in anyone’s collection of dark cabaret for that matter)! If I were to have an automatic piece of music playing when my blog page opens, this would be quite appropriate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJLWltO2woU
Her songs are a soundtrack for eying shelves of broken dolls in a forgotten antique store, or for the greatest tea party…in hell. These are the lullabies discarded toys sweetly sing to each other through cracked lips.
Well, that’s my version. But here’s the official word:
Madison Chase is a North Carolina based musician. Her genre has been referred to as Creepy Pop, Circus Pop, and Chamber Pop and draws influence from classical, pop, industrial and jazz. Madison plays a variety of instruments and began studying piano at the age of six, and by twelve she had moved her focus to cello.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3EObi6Wj7M
When you listen, take note of the fact that most of these songs came out when Madison was only *14*. I only wish I had been this cool at 14. I was still (begrudgingly) wearing clothes my mom picked out, trying to convince my friends to see horror movies, and staying up late to watch 120 Minutes and Headbangers Ball on MTV (they still played music back then. Yes, I’m that old).
Go check out the rest of her music HERE.
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If you are into bold domestic expression, Beep Art might have something for you.
This was the image that brought me to their site (I am a sucker for mid century atomic design, though I’m NOT generally “bold” in a brightly colored wall sort of way):
These are some of the more eye catching, unique wall details out there, for sure.
They also make great retro inspired laptop/ipad/etc. skins.
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Liza Corbett’s pieces speak of modern fairy tales untold…
From the artist statement:
Liza Corbett’s work contemplates The Summer-Land, the spirit world that lays unseen alongside our own. Liza creates visual narratives populated with otherworldly women and animals, under heavy suns low in hazy, wan skies.
Her subject matter is tinged with the menace of pre-modern life and suffused with an air of melancholy. Influenced by nineteenth-century spiritualism, by Dark Romanticism, by myths, fables and old tales, Liza aims to create images that, like tarot or other methods of divination, suggest a strange and unknowable significance underlying our worldly existence.
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Heal Yourself Skeletor is an amazing tumblr. I cannot tell you how much joy I get from looking at this particular character paired with joyous, loving affirmations.
Skeletor makes a dynamite bodhisattva (and the screenshots are perfect, aren’t they?).
My favorite:
See the archive here.
SheWalksSoftly 