If you’re lucky enough to buy one of Sharon Moody‘s comic book paintings, make sure you keep it out of reach of your superhero-obsessed friends — considering that her trompe l’oeil works actually are realistic enough to fool the eye, they might well try to reach into the piece and grab the open Spider-Man or Batman serial out of it. But it isn’t just photo-quality accuracy Moody is seeking. She writes that the playful subjects she chooses “reflect the universal human desire for amusement, diversion, and stimulation. These seem a proper subject for trompe l’oeil paintings, which by their very nature are intended to divert and entrance us with their illusionism and by the questions they raise — in a playful way — about perception and reality.” Click through to see a selection of Moody’s comic book paintings, which we spotted via Beautiful/Decay, and visit her gallery if you’re interested in purchasing her work.
Artist and photographer Suzanne Jongmans has been working on a project inspired by classic, 16th and 17th century Flemish and Dutch Golden Age paintings. She meticulously poses her models to emulate the era, the tone, the traditions of the works, down to costumes. Now comes the creative part — the caps and collars are all made from packing materials. Soft foam, the cheap stuff. Making these archaic, ornate accessories from modern day throw-away materials, Johnmans creates a clash. See the clever series of anachronisms spotted by Beautiful Decay here.
Using a technique similar to pointillism, multimedia artist/YouTube sensation Phil Hansen transforms banana skins into his canvases, recreating some of art history’s most famous works with a push pin. As the fruit naturally browns, his designs magically appear. Crazy, right? Hansen has a book on the project due out next month, Tattoo a Banana: And Other Ways to Turn Anything and Everything Into Art, but in the meantime, click through to check out more of his work, as well as a fascinating time-lapse video of his artistic process.
Have you ever thought that history’s most notorious figures could be improved if they were a little more, well, fabulous? In Scott Sheidly’s Portraits: a series of “fabulous” depictions of tyrants, dictators and popes, which is on view through May 20th at the ArtPadSF fine art fair in San Francisco, presented by the Spoke Art Gallery, he tarts up Stalin, Kim Jong-il, Hitler, and the Pope with hot pink accessories, flashy purple leopard print, and of course, unicorn bling. Because there’s a flashy teenage girl in all of us, and especially in these guys. Click through to see what Hitler looks like in a pink cape, and then be sure to head over to Sheidly’s website to check out even more of his work.
New Yorkers don’t hear much news about progress on the MTA’s Second Avenue Subway (SAS), which has only been in the works for 75 years and was most recently resumed in 2007 — although we hear it’s no fun living east of Third Ave. on the Upper East Side these days. But there have been a few updates trickling out about the art we’ll eventually see in the stations. In last week’s New Yorkerprofile of Sarah Sze, Andrea K. Scott described the artist’s contribution to the line’s 96th Street station as “blueprint-like compositions — in a palette of violet, light blue, and dark blue — [that] depicted a floating world of hundreds of objects, from ladders and potted plants to office chairs.” Now, we’ve learned that Chuck Close has also been commissioned to create work for the SAS; the MTA’s Art for Transits program will pay him $1 million to make 12 pieces for the 86th Street station. According to the local news site DNAinfo, a total of $5 million has been allocated to adorning the new line’s first few stations. Artist Jean Shin — who might be best known for this awesome wave sculpture made of vinyl records — is also onboard, with plans for a site-specific piece at 63rd Street. The first phase of SAS construction is slated for completion in December 2016, so we won’t get too excited about Sze, Close, and Shin’s public art, because we’ll have to wait at least four and a half years to see it.
Welcome to the magical land of extreme Russian wedding photos. Prepare yourself for Photoshoppery of head-aching proportions. Witness the wing-sprouting brides and multiplied grooms in inexplicable psychedelic scenarios. Because if there’s anything better than a bride inside a rose, it’s seven brides inside a rose bush. It’s a non-ironic tradition of sorts! The origins of this particular series can be traced to the English Russia blog, but most likely is sourced from the Russian LiveJournal blogosphere, somewhere near neighborhood of those creepy, dangerous playground photos. Enjoy.
An artist introduced to us by HouHouHaHa who goes by the moniker Carré Offensif — which amusingly translates to “offensive square” — enjoys blurring the boundaries between mythical pop figures, retro video games, and bold graphic design. Offensif’s pixel art takes aim at some of the usual suspects, but transforms a few unexpected figures — like Serge Gainsbourg and Kirsten Dunst’s Marie Antoinette — into total squares. Spotting Mike Tyson’s portrait makes us want to break out the NES and play some Punch-Out!!. See more colorful, boxy creations past the break. Warning: you won’t be able to unsee a nightmarish pixel version of Mick Jagger. We hope he doesn’t kiss his mother — or anyone else — with that mouth.
In case you haven’t noticed, here at Flavorpill we have kind of a thing for innovative and interesting bookshelves, not to mention collage. James Hopkins, whose cool sculptures we spotted over at Laughing Squid, combines the two in these skull-ptures (sorry) crafted out of books, bookshelves, and other household items. We especially like the deconstructed look of his pieces Prosperity & Decay andConsumption & Consequence, which seem to make a comment on the way our materialistic lifestyles are destined to do us in. But also they’re cool to look at. Click through to check out Hopkins’ skull-shaped bookshelf sculpture series, and then be sure to head on over to his website to check out even more of his work.
Andy Warhol never learned to drive, but that didn’t stop him from having a lifelong fascination with cars. The “Pope of Pop” drew his first automotive vehicle — his brother’s produce delivery truck surrounded vivacious gals — when he was just 18 years old. His next attraction to automobiles came in the 1950s, while he was making his living as a high-rolling advertisement and editorial illustrator. Turning his commercial success into an artistic career, Warhol went on to incorporate such celebrities and public figures as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis Presley, and Jacqueline Kennedy in his paintings and prints; but he never lost his interest in cars — making giant canvases of cars crashes in the ’60s, prints of Volkswagens and trucks in the ’80s, and even hand-painting an actual BMW race car in 1979 for the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans. The traveling show Warhol and Cars: American Icons is currently on view at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Click through a selection of our favorite images that document the famed artist’s strange obsession.
We love the virtual world as much as the next guy, but we have to admit, the sights, sounds, and feel good tactile fun of good ol’ fashioned reality often have us questioning the ungodly amount of time we spend online. Just last week the Singapore-based global conversation agency, we are social, posted a fascinating infographic reporting that collectively the world spends 35 billion minutes per month online. If that staggering statistic has you racing to book an unplugged retreat in a yurt on California’s Central Coast, then consider this us flipping the doom and gloom of an extravagant virtual existence on it’s head with a playful look at some of the best things that the online world has that the offline world doesn’t.
If you’ve ever found yourself wanting to “Like” something you saw on the street or wishing that super helpful red Google map marker would just magically pop up over the hot new back alley speakeasy that you can’t find to save your life, then consider this our gift to your overactive, virtually-obsessed imagination. From real world error boxes to an offline file sharing treasure hunt to statement stickers that let you share your opinion about stuff you see on the streets ala your favorite Facebook action, click through to check out our roundup of the street art movement’s answer to your plugged in prayers.
