Painting a parallel universe

Glamourous, sunbathing couples, tropical foliage and derelict architecture are just some of the elements Chloe Early mixes together in her surreal, dreamy paintings. She’s got an exhibition from 6th-29th November at Stolenspace gallery in London.

Subversive sculpture

These amazing fractured sculptures are made by one Gehard Demetz from Germany. Reminds me a bit of The Midwich Cuckoos.

Eye candy from Clusta

Conceptual work by Clusta, who have also done some nice websites, such as this one.

Mesmerising motion graphics

Enchanting and inspiring. WOW is the studio that produced this.

Hackable Munny speakers

This has been around for a while, but it’s smart, and Instructables is a very cool site. I’m thinking of having a crack at this myself as soon as I can find some cheap toys.

Sofa with a twist

This looks like a chunky, heavy lump, which I like. The cool thing though, is it’s actually a soft, cushioned sofa with wood print on the fabric. Genius from Swedish group, Front.

Josh Keyes

The paintings of American artist Josh Keyes are like those cross-section diagrams in geography textbooks from school, but with a surreal, modern day twist which I love.

David Foldvari + Charlie Brooker = Dream team

One of my favourite illustrators, David Foldvari, has just finished a stint working for the Guardian and Observer newspapers. He produced images for none other than Charlie Brooker, one of my favourite writers. His latest work can be seen at Big Active.

Update – C215 solo exhibition in London

I went to the Signal Gallery in East London today to check out this show. I wasn’t disappointed. Although quite a small gallery the quality of the work was inspiring. C215 is a very talented and hard-working artist whose portraits and landscapes are very detailed and contain real character. His use of colours is also outstanding, especially where he has painted beyond the borders of each canvas. Definitely worth the trip, and I urge you to go and take a look for yourselves.

More pictures after the jump:

Sébastien Cannone – Awesome showreel

Sébastien Cannone has got some crazy skills. Easily one of the best showreels that I’ve seen.

Delta exhibiting in London

Dutch artist Delta creates these elaborate architectural pieces, but the overall form flows organically and retains that essential graffiti style. He’s got a joint show on with Dalek at the Elms Lesters Painting Rooms from 28 August – 26 September 2009.

C215 – solo show in London

I’ve mentioned him before, and many of you will probably have seen his stuff in various cities around the world. Well, now he’s got a solo show called Shoeshiners at the Signal Gallery in East London. 

“I have met many street shoe-shiners during my trips around the world. They represent the lower class of urban workers. Almost beggars, they construct their boxes from a light and cheap material, just one handmade box containing brushes and creams offering a job that less and less people need. When they get a customer, the working dynamic turns into a humiliating symbol – one bending before the other, polishing his shoes, while the superior one gets annoyed or bored, looking around. Shoe-shining, in French, gave birth to numerous ways of describing flattery: “polishing”, “shining”, “boots-licker”… The lost pride of real street shoe-shiners is easy to encompass with such words, but are we not all discretely licking arses everyday to promote ourselves?”

Painting with music

It’s been around for a while, but this is an amazing bit of interactive animation to promote the single Soy tu aire by Spanish band Labuat.

Conceived and art directed by Herraiz Soto & Co, animated by Jossie Malis, creative programming by Badabing!

Must-see exhibition in London

Talented San Franciscan artist Sylvia Ji is having a solo exhibition at StolenSpace gallery in East London this September. Should be amazing!

Return of the Jawa

Jawa is Nils Davey, an artist, designer and illustrator based in London and LA. I’ve been following him for a while on DeviantArt, but he’s also doing design and got some great illustration skills.

Film the Blanks

A really simple idea. Clues are added to the posters over time and points are awarded for guessing what film it is. How many film posters do you recognise? Link

Origami master

Inspiring and complicated paper folding from Román Díaz. You can see his best works in his flikr photostream.

New prints from WK Interact

WK Interact is one of the true pioneers of modern street art. His bold, fluid pieces can be seen all over the streets of Manhattan. Get some of the action with a new set of prints:

Paper art

Janna Syvanoja creates this beautiful handcrafted jewelry from recycled books. 

“The process of making my recycled paperjewellery pieces, involves a slow, “natural” technique. By curving each slice of paper around the steelwire, one by one, one after another, it is as if the piece grows into its shape by itself. This way the character of wood, paper’s original material, is preserved in the piece – as is also the association to the whole organic world, the way it builds itself, being in constant change, traveling in time.

Printed paper has also an additional reality, the information it contains. Now, one can only see separate words and letters, that have been transformed into graphical patterns on the surface of the piece. The previous content of the material referred to communication between people – message and expression. A piece of jewellery is worn for the same purpose.”

Conor Harrington in Italy

A nice series of photos showing the process of making Conor’s piece on a water tower in Italy.

C215 in Morocco

It’s hard to have an original and distinctive style in today’s crowded street art scene, but C215 is an artist whose work is both unique and recognisable. He’s also quite prolific with work on streets all over the world, including some great pieces in London. Here’s some new stuff he’s done in Morocco. Link.

Byroglyphic – Hot new talent

One of the new breed of graffiti-influenced artists coming through in the UK, Byroglyphic (A.K.A: Russ Mills) mixes spraypaint, splatters and hand-drawn illustration with awesome effect to create some quite stunning pieces. Unfortunately his exhibition in East London has just finished, but I’ll let you know when there’s some more news.

It’s good to be Bad

Cool posters for sale from Bad Lab:

She One – Nostalgia

She One has put some of his older works up on Flikr. Take a look here:

Powers of Ten – Charles and Ray Eames

Amazing short documentary from Charles and Ray Eames. Still fascinating even 30 years after it was made.

“From the macro to the micro, from the universe to quark! (This is an edited excerpt from the IMAX film Cosmic Voyage. The music is by Kitaro.”