Draw The Road

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Still bit by the summer travel bug I couldn't resist sharing these moleskine drawings and watercolors by artist Chandler O'Leary. In her series "Drawn The Road Again" she re-creates scenes on her roadtrip across the United States in her journal. From army re-assignments my family criss-crossed the country a couple of times in a car as we drove from one home to a new one, so a number of these sites look familiar to me. Even if they don't spark memories for the viewer they work effectively as hand drawn postcards from the road. It's really the most delightful travel journal and makes me wish I was better at sketches.

Blendscapes

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These stunning images which resemble double exposure photographs are actually created through watercolor, pastels, colored pencils, and graphite. Artist Oriol Angrill Jorda's "blendscapes" combine portraiture with landscapes into final works that resemble computer manipulation. It's really interesting to see the intersection of the digital age in art--resembling computer manipulated images or double exposed film through an older medium (painting) makes the whole system seem almost full circle. The modern look, but an ancient technique...

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by Stephanie Fields

Truisms

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In 1993 Jenny Holzer installed her artwork on empty movie marquees. Instead of the coming attraction passerbys were treated to "truisms"or statements by Holzer that sounded like daily proverbs, but were actually questioning common practices. Wildly different than the typical movie titles listed in these spaces, Holzer's phrases were designed to make people not just question what they were reading but what they were thinking--how they think. Like the phrase, "it is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender." It's not counter-cultural in the way of punk rock or mohawks, but actually very counter to culture that rewards those who claw their way to the top and idolizes fictional characters who specialize in violence. She used a common vehicle of popular culture to send a powerful message. It is this re-claiming of public space and popular culture that is perhaps most effective and most necessary in today's world.

Floral Alchemy

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I'm quite enamored with these digital collages by Sixto-Juan Zavala for Highlife Shop Magazine. It's a brilliant blend of artistry and accuracy--the images depict the notes in each perfume. It's really a brilliant way to highlight the myriad of delicate scents that go into a signature perfume or cologne. I wish perfume bottles could somehow manage to re-create this look...

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by the skinny artist

Like Butterflies Who Flutter For A Day

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by mercurial magpieby lissy ellevia my instagramvia smithsonian librariesby valerie chiangby cassiaby louis icart by oh my cavalierby laura uby francesco balsamoby karin soderquist

Like Fat Kid Love Cake

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Artist Beccy McCray combines two of her favorite things into a series of baketivism posters featuring hip hop lyrics in beautifully scripted icing. As the artist puts it, "Imagine if your nan, who was heavily influenced by 80s and 90s hip hop, tried to make you a really nice cake… Progressive political activists have carried a torch for hip-hop since its earliest days in the 1970s. The voiceless had pushed their way onto the world's stage, rapping about their experiences...Today, all over the world, traditional craft-forms such as cake-making are being radicalised in a similar way and revived in response to the near collapse of accelerated consumer capitalism witnessed in 2008. As a result of being broke and disillusioned we have become more political, more resourceful, and more creative."

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by chi bird

Un, due, tre, fuoco

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Russian artist Ekaterina Panikanova uses old books and other documents to create her large-scale paintings and installations. These works are from her recent solo show titled "un, due, tre, fuoco." Despite being a bibliophile, I quite enjoy the use of books in art even if that means the destruction of said books and an inability to read them anymore. After all, there are a number of cheap novels I could pick up from my local thrift store that hardly merit the term literature...

My Body, My Temple

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Project 104 recently released their limited edition swimwear line with the theme "my body is my temple, but my temple likes getting trashed." The swimsuits are cleverly photographed against color-themed collections that look like teenage shrines to summer, candy, and kitsch. It's all stories within stories and pictures within pictures, as each suit features a print of a miniature shrine--a classic Coca-Cola bottle is framed with heart-shaped doilies and photographed against red like some Valentine's Day card to caffeine. As the name of the brand might allude: 104 is the maximum number that any print will be produced. I feel as if these lookbook images could sell as prints themselves and I'm excited to see what Project 104 will release next.

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internet queen by natali koromoto