Johannes Vogl makes artistic invention take on a new meaning. The German artist comes up with often bizarre and mechanically elaborate ideas, then makes them, offering us a new perspective on the familiar. The online design-tech community has already been made fleetingly aware of his work. Now Environmental Graffiti talks to the man behind the flame-throwing mosquito killer about Internet amnesia, his work and aesthetic, and the grandfather of invention.
Continue reading...Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Where to place the work of artist Cristopher Cichocki? From noise art to serene sculptures, this is a guy who works in a range of media that would put most artists out of joint, and deals with often disorientating themes. Easy to pin down, Cichocki is not. We talked to the artist about environmental entropy, ecological nightmares, eyeballs-as-planets and hyper-paced reality among other mind-bending topics.
Continue reading...Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Rarely do the idea of beauty and the image of street pigeons go hand in hand, but Kate MccGwire questions the unlikelyhood of such a coupling in her sculptures – indeed questions the very nature of beauty itself. Working with the shed plumage of birds often nicknamed rats with wings, the British artist ensures her medium lends itself to liquid movement, and as the feathers flow so do our thoughts.
Continue reading...Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Ever wondered what to do with all those cassette tapes gathering dust on the shelf or lying unused in old shoeboxes? Send them Brian Dettmer. Not for the first time, the Atlanta-based artist has broken the mould with a collection of 3D artworks made by breathing new life into discarded cultural detritus. Cassette tape shells make up the bones of life-sized human skeletons and animal skulls – to create some incredible new forms.
Continue reading...Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Playing with dead insects is something we’d normally deem excusable in children but slightly weird in adults. Not necessarily so when you consider the work of Swedish photographer Magnus Muhr, who takes the carcasses of dead flies, lays them on paper and imbues them with new life through a few strokes of his pencil. Never has the gap between man and arthropod been smaller, as flies swap six limbs for four, and engage in all manner of human activities...
Continue reading...Friday, June 26, 2009
Anyone who has lost a piece of work they have slaved over will know the word traumatic sometimes doesn't put too fine a point on it. Yet what if the labour of love you had invested so much of yourself into was smaller than the head of a pin – yet more intricate than many artworks thousands of times its size? Enter the world of micro-miniaturist Willard Wigan, where sculptures stand a fraction of a millimetre tall, all but invisible to the naked eye.
Continue reading...Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Artist Amy Ross works in the bizarre hinterland where art confronts science, and in magical realms where the boundaries between living organisms blur. Birds become mushrooms, and mushrooms birds. Magnolias bloom into cardinals and sheep, while birch trees morph into human and animal forms.
Continue reading...Monday, March 23, 2009
Gaze at this image and what do you see? Can you distinguish anything between the lines? What is it supposed to mean? Looking at the paintings and installations of artist Esther Stocker, it soon becomes apparent that grids figure heavily in her work, as white white, grey and black interconnect before our eyes. Quite what this tells us, however, is another matter.
Continue reading...Monday, February 2, 2009
Haven’t we all been there, lost somewhere and then faced with a map that adds to the confusion rather than helping out? Street artist and photographer Slinkachu magnifies our big city experiences by shrinking the actors. He recreates city scenes for one-inch tall plastic figures – his “little people” – photographs them, and then leaves them to either be found by surprised passers-by or swept away by the elements.
Continue reading...Tuesday, January 20, 2009
This picture might look like it's been under the Photoshop knife, but it's actually the clinical but no less creative handiwork of Nathan Sawaya, the artist who makes sculptures out of Lego pieces. These photos represent some of his most arty pieces, as shown in his ‘The Art of the Brick’ exhibition, which has toured all over North America – and proven to be a smash hit with kids of all ages.
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Tuesday, January 26, 2010
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