All Blog Posts (15,951)

The second architectural folly of the 21st century is upon us. Sou Fujimoto Architects, along with Nicolas Laisné Associés, and OXO Architects have crafted an imaginative structure named White Tree that dazzles us with its unusual stair-step shape and how it fans into the open sky. For something to be referred to as a “folly,” a building must have an extravagant appearance, and transcend…

Budapest, Hungary-based photographer Sarolta Bán is best known for her stunningly surreal scenes that include sky high paintbrush trees and flying origami birds. To help…

On July 22, 2011, an island in Norway called Utøya made headlines when right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik opened fire at those at a youth camp there, killing 69 people in an unspeakable act of violence. Coupled with Breivik's first attack, a car bomb explosion in Oslo that killed eight people, a total of 77 lives were tragically lost in the deadliest attack in Norway since World War II.…

Japanese artist Hikaru Cho likes to play with perception in this series, entitled It's Not What It Seems. She playfully redefines how an object is perceived by painting the exterior to appear like something other than itself.

Using acrylic paints, Cho skillfully changes the outer layer of a banana into a cucumber, an egg into an eggplant, and a tomato into an orange. She…

California-based photographer Karen Abad recently went to Indiana to visit friends and, because it was so cold outside and everyone just wanted to hunker down in the warm indoors, they decided to get creative. Using her friend's baby, Olivia, as the inspiration for the playful little series, Abad and Olivia's mom, Cristina, developed crafty backgrounds to reflect many popular…

Combining nature and architecture, Vana is a dazzling forest of illuminated paper trees. This site-specific installation was designed by London architecture studio Orproject for the India Design Forum. It features four trunk-like structures dotted throughout the space and joined at their tops to form a continuous canopy that covers the ceiling. LED lights shine through gaps that divide the…

THIRST, a temporary public art project that was on display from September to December 2013 in Austin, was created to commemorate the loss of 300 million trees that died due to the droughts that recently plagued Texas. THIRST was a collaboration between Women and Their Work Gallery, Beili Liu (lead visual artist), Norma Yancey and Emily Little (architects), and Cassie Bergstrom…

In response to rising sea levels due to climate change, Italian designer Michele Puzzolante of MPD Designs has come up with a concept called the Solar Floating Island, a solar-powered island resort that floats completely off-shore. Made of photovoltaic skins and balsa-reinforced fiberglass, the structure is designed to absorb and reuse natural solar light as…

In Myriam Dion’s work For Small Fires, she burnt countless tiny holes to form intricate patterns on top of a photograph. The image, a relatively small picture of a storefront (just 250 centimeters long and 150 centimeters tall) features several art nouveau-inspired arrangements on the windows as well as its edges. It’s amazing to see the details of her work, because the amount of…

Street artists Curiot and Jason Botkin recently collaborated for the first time on a vibrant mural located on Holbox Island in Mexico. Their art covers a halved dome shell at the Concha Acústica. This engaging and lively image is outfitted in brilliant fuchsias, teals, corals, and lime greens that look wonderful set against the beach landscape. As the duo's artistic sensibilities…

Fine artist Lauren Charlton redefines everyday objects through interpretation and manipulation. During her 3rd year at the Manchester School of Art, the artist focused much of her attention on the theme of "connecting the human life to that of birds (homing pigeons)."

This stunning piece, entitled Flutter, was developed for her degree show project. The intricate design is composed…

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center recently posted a spectacular set of images on Flickr entitled 'Gravity' in reference to the award-winning, blockbuster film Gravity known for its beautiful cinematography and imagery of space. NASA Goddard's images, however, are even more extraordinary because…

Artists Andrew Hem and Mel Kadel both recently developed solo exhibitions that will be showing throughout March at Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles, California. Andrew Hem's work, Dream but Don't Sleep, is a collection of new pieces that feature bold colors…

From breathtaking arched icebergs in Greenland to cute waddling penguins in Antarctica, wildlife and travel photographer Paul Souders captures nature at its best. Across 20 years, Souders has documented his incredible adventures through his lens—many of which have been recognized as award-winning photographs. His intimate experiences with nature are a refreshing glimpse at the world beyond our…

Imagine walking down a busy, metropolitan street and suddenly looking up to see a huge, hyper-dimensional photograph of a person staring down at you. Street artist Raquel Brust has been introducing this kind of experience in São Paulo, Brazil since 2008 with Projeto Giganto, which she describes as "a hyper-dimensional photography intervention project that uses the urban scene and the city’s…

Chinese artist Jiang Pengyi mixes liquid wax and fluorescent powder onto objects to create surreal art you can't get out of your mind. He lets the fluorescence trace the objects’ forms and then watches how the mixture transforms the inanimate objects into haunting ones. Called Everything Illuminates, the series of glow-in-the-dark objects asks us to think about the…

Japanese artist Motoi Yamamoto is back with an amazing, new installation all made out of salt. Floating Garden resembles the ominous image of a tropical storm, similar to the satellite shot you'd see during a weather forecast. Using ordinary table salt, Yamamoto meticulously constructs his incredible works, this time spending more than 10 hours a day for over a week on…

Fine art photographer Tina Schultz's portrait work is a powerful exploration of emotions conveyed through expressive compositions. In each piece, nothing is exactly what it seems as she digitally blends elements from multiple photographs into compelling stories filled with mystery, enchantment,…

New Zealand-based artist Yukari Kaihori's exquisite landscape paintings showcase natural beauty. Using both vivid and subdued colors with fine details, she depicts uninhabited spaces that feature luscious greenery and dotted bright flowers. Playing with techniques like glazing, her style is both controlled and uninhibited. Kaihori layers textures using repetitive brushstrokes, but also lets her…

Self-taught, Albanian photographer Adrian Limani has created a playful series of photographs depicting a person playing with the full moon. Using his younger brother as a model, the photographer captures the young man leaping and posing in front of the moon, creating images that show a silhouetted figure holding the moon, leaning against it, and even playing basketball with the…