Alice's Blog – June 2012 Archive (72)

18-year-old Joeri Bosma just wrote to us to tell us about his 365 project. While we get a lot of submissions from young photographers, Bosma's stood out to us because they felt simple yet powerful. If you're aching to see strong self portraits that are more about interesting concepts than fancy photo manipulations, check this out. Some even feel like you've just pressed pause…

I'm a sucker for these simple but clever wall installations. They always manage to make me crack a smile. Austrian artist and visual poet Anatol Knotek created this one called Nothing Lasts Forever.

Anatol Knotek's…

As part of the George Town festival, a month-long celebration of art going on in Penang, Malaysia, Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic is beautifying the city streets with his imaginative street art. Dubbed a "new Banksy" by The Wall Street…

I came across this mind-blowing photo in Steve McCurry's latest blog entry, Simple Act of Waiting. Taken in 2001 during the Kumbh Mela Festival, it shows millions of people waiting their turn to bathe in the Ganges river.

The Kumbh Mela is a mass Hindu pilgrimage that's…

Last week, artist Dave White opened an exciting exhibition in London called Natural Selection. While we're used to seeing his dripping and splattering watercolor paintings, we hadn't yet explored his stronger, abstract oil painting side.

Natural…

Artist Agnes-Cecile just completed this moving painting using watercolor and oil on canvas. Called You are Not Wrong, she accompanied the beautifully dripping work with this ambiguous phrase: "circle - it isn't true, you are not wrong." The sad bear seems weary, resting his heavy head on the woman's arm.

Here's one interesting critique by ~NatalieNevermore:

"Your art…

Though I'm usually against putting up any messy bumper sticker or decal on cars, I would by lying to you if I told you I didn't think these Star Wars ones weren't absolutely adorable. Not only can you show off your family's love of the epic saga, each member gets to pick who they want to be. (Forget Princess Leia, I'd like to be Yoda.)

The set of 50 stickers with 19 distinct…

A peculiar new installation just debuted at the 18th Biennale of Sydney. Called Anything Can Break, it's made up of origami cubes and clouds shaped like breasts that are hung from the ceiling of a large new gallery space in the recently renovated Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Created by artist Pinaree Sanpitak, the clouds and cubes are illuminated by fiber optics and lined with motion sensors that trigger musical motifs in response to the audience's movement.…

There's something magical about Paul Octavious' series, Same Hill, Different Day, that I can't quite describe. Maybe it's that it reminds me of Kevin Day's beautiful series where he photographed one dead tree throughout all the different seasons. Or perhaps it's because…

Sydney, Australia-based photographer Tamara Dean is a member of the Oculi, a photographic collective committed to capturing contemporary culture in Australia, sharing stories not often seen in mainstream media. Dean's photos have a heaviness and darkness about them because she's willing to dive deep - her themes have been about ritual, intimacy and decay.…

Just when you think you've seen it all, you come across something like this. Rio, Brazil-based artist Felipe Barbosa scours local supermarkets to find his raw materials. In this case, he's taken "snaps" or firecrackers and created a collection of prickly-looking stuffed animals including a not so cuddly teddy bear.

"I don't change the nature of the object," he's said. "I…

Movie marketing doesn't get much better than this. First came that amazing Dark Knight Rises poster using negative space and now this! That huge, gaping hole in the middle of the billboard is the Batman symbol smashing through. It's surrounded by, what looks like, mangled…

After I first spotted the above image on DJ Stanton Warriors' Facebook page, I knew I had to learn more. (As a side note, one person cleverly called the sculpture "Speaker Henge.")

Artist Benoit Maubrey is director and founder of a Berlin-based art group called Die Audio Grippe. Mostly…

Starting June 28 and continuing to August 17, come to ClampArt gallery in New York to see a fantastic new show called Into the Woods. The group exhibition brings together artworks that range from the mysterious to the sublime. From Adam Ekberg's magical photo of a disco ball on a snowy mountain to David Nadel's stunning presentation of a burned forest, you'll…

Like a beautifully wrapped present, this stunning self-portrait by 21-year-old Olga Valeska got dropped into our inbox today. Where does the dress end and the water begin? The France-based, self-taught fine art photographer amazes us with her skills, not just for taking pictures but for creating them.

"Early on, as a child, I found shelter in my imagination," she writes. "I…

Just how wonderful would it be to come across one of these installations by Brazilian artist André Feliciano? The artist creates whimsical artworks that look like normal gardens from afar. Look a little closer, however, and you'll discover that you're not looking at regular flowers but "camera flowers" that are in full bloom!

You can see one of his…

Though artwork created in Photoshop or Illustrator can be nothing short of extraordinary, sometimes it's more impressive to see pieces created by more traditional means. Brooklyn-based artist Robert Longo made these incredible drawings of massive, thundering waves using just charcoal (on mounted paper). Called…

The last time we wrote about Kirsty Mitchell, she was giving us a rare, behind-the-scenes look at her ongoing series Wonderland. When asked what we could expect from her next she said, "Goodies, baddies, no color, lots of color, props that get bigger and…

If you were at this year's Luminale, an architecture and design festival held in Frankfurt, Germany, you may have witnessed, first-hand, some of the most beautiful lighting fixtures we've ever seen. Studio Drift's exhibition was the first time they showed three major lighting concepts together - Flylight, Shylight and Fragile Future. You'll have to watch the video, below, to really…

Artist Simon Monk just tipped us off to his fresh new paintings. Adding to his already popular series, Secret Identity, Monk paints the dynamic duo Batman and Robin (otherwise known as Bruce Wayne and Tim Drake) as trapped toys. Check out…