Smithe

Mexican artist Smithe creates hard-edged graphic images for posters, books and street art much like illustrations for contemporary graphic novels.

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Sergey Kolesov

Here's some samples of the work of concept artist/illustrator Sergey Kolesov, a.k.a. Peleng from the Czech Republic...

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Wonil Suh

Wonil Suh is a graphic designer and illustrator who lives and works in New York City.  He has created an interesting series of drawings shown below...

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Kate MacDowell

We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough.  We want something else which can hardly be put into words--to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. – C.S. Lewis.

In my work this romantic ideal of union with the natural world conflicts with our contemporary impact on the environment.  These pieces are in part responses to environmental stressors including climate change, toxic pollution, and gm crops.  They also borrow from myth, art history, figures of speech and other cultural touchstones.  In some pieces aspects of the human figure stand-in for ourselves and act out sometimes harrowing, sometimes humorous transformations which illustrate our current relationship with the natural world.  In others, animals take on anthropomorphic qualities when they are given safety equipment to attempt to protect them from man-made environmental threats.  In each case the union between man and nature is shown to be one of friction and discomfort with the disturbing implication that we too are vulnerable to being victimized by our destructive practices.

I hand sculpt each piece out of porcelain, often building a solid form and then hollowing it out.  Smaller forms are built petal by petal, branch by branch and allow me the chance to get immersed in close study of the structure of a blossom or a bee.  I chose porcelain for its luminous and ghostly qualities as well as its strength and ability to show fine texture.  It highlights both the impermanence and fragility of natural forms in a dying ecosystem, while paradoxically, being a material that can last for thousands of years and is historically associated with high status and value.  I see each piece as a captured and preserved specimen, a painstaking record of endangered natural forms and a commentary on our own culpability.

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Samuel Salcedo

Samuel Salcedo has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona and has exhibited at varius venus througout Spain. Speaking about his process the artist says, 'I invent during the process, so I don’t know what will happen at the end of the sculpture. I don’t always remember what I have done. Every time I stop, it’s something new.'

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INTERVIEW

Oldrich Kulhanek

Oldrich Kulhanek, a Czech painter, graphic designer, illustrator, stage designer and pedagogue passed away this January. In 1917 he was arrested by the Secret Police and imprisoned for 'defamation of the allied socialist states.' His distorted portrait of Stalin and other graphics were considered 'ideologically dangerous.' Kulhánek created the design for the current Czech banknotes and postage stamps.

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