Donna Stevens: We love the work of New York based, Australian photographer and artist Donna Stevens, who through her ‘Idiot Box’ series, photographs children while they’re watching television, capturing the mesmerised faces, passive and slightly zombified, and exploring the relationship we all share with technology and the media. Fantastic stuff! 🙂
Nicolas Monterrat: We love these amazing historical animated GIFs by French photographer Nicolas Monterrat, who “enhances” old historical photographs and turns them into strange, twisted, and outstanding pieces of contemporary art. Awesome work! 🙂
Can Pekdemir: We are so intrigued by this unique series of strange and surreal portraits from designer Can Pekdemir, who manipulates and distorts the bones of his models to create slighty scary and uncomfortable organic imagery. Can Pekdemir notes ‘My studies are focused on reconstructing and deforming the bodies by either altering the physical conditions in which the entity exists, and/or treating them as test subjects for virtual experiments while reshaping the systems we now have and thus documenting the evolvement in time.’ Such beautiful and interesting pieces!
Garbage Pail Kids: If you were a kid growing up in the 1980s, the Garbage Pail Kids collector cards probably ruled your life. Between trashy humour and bad taste, art director Jake Houvenagle and photographer Brandon Voges decided to pay tribute to the famous Garbage Pail Kids, with ‘Where Are They Now?’ photographically recreating the illustrations of these twisted yet beloved cards. Love these so much!!
Hot Dogs: This strange yet interesting ‘IDK about these Hotdogs’ series, created by an anonymous photographer from New York, captures simple hot dogs in the most unusual situations and places, leaving the door open to the most absurd and funny interpretations. Mmmm delicious – Happy Friday! 🙂
LEGO: We love the ‘Legographie’ series created by French photographer Sofiane Samlal, who has fun staging his LEGO minifigs into beautiful photographs, which are both cute and funny. Fantastic work!
Alejandro Durán: We love the amazing ‘Washed Up’ series by Mexican artist Alejandro Durán who organises the discarded waste he finds in nature into beautiful and yet somewhat terrifying art installations. Alejandro Durán does not remove or add anything, but simply rearranges the garbage he finds on site. Alejandro Durán was born in Mexico City in 1974 and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He is a multimedia artist working in photography, installation, and video. His work examines the fraught intersections of man and nature, particularly the tension between the natural world and an increasingly overdeveloped one. About his current work, Durán comments “In my current project, Washed Up, I address the issue of plastic pollution making its way across the ocean and onto the shores of Sian Ka’an, Mexico’s largest federally-protected reserve. With more than twenty pre-Columbian archaeological sites, this UNESCO World Heritage site is also home to a vast array of flora and fauna and the world’s second largest coastal barrier reef. Unfortunately, Sian Ka’an is also a repository for the world’s trash, which is carried there by ocean currents from many parts of the globe. Over the course of this project, I have identified plastic waste from fifty nations on six continents that have washed ashore along the coast of Sian Ka’an. I have used this international debris to create color-based, site-specific sculptures. Conflating the hand of man and nature, at times I distribute the objects the way the waves would; at other times, the plastic takes on the shape of algae, roots, rivers, or fruit, reflecting the infiltration of plastics into the natural environment.” To view more of Alejandro Durán’s work, we recommend a visit to his website.
Kitchen Ghosts: ‘Kitchen Ghosts’ is a very beautiful and delicious series of culinary cinemagraphs created by Dasha & Olya – Russian photographer Daria Khoroshavina (Dasha) and prop and food styler Olga Kolesnikova (Olya) – who are based in Moscow. An amazing series of animated GIFs about all things food and cooking, so far ‘Kitchen Ghosts’ includes stunning and delicious animations of them preparing French toast, breakfast, a pear and walnut strudel, and a pasta dish with chicken and honey orange sauce. Dasha & Olya’s mission is to make food photography beautiful, appetising and exciting. ‘Kitchen Ghosts’ will simply mesmerise you and make your mouth water. Enjoy!
Alexia Sinclair: We love the outstanding creations of photographer and artist Alexia Sinclair, including her latest series ‘Rococo’, which depicts a dreamlike world bathed by the influences of the 18th century and the court of Marie Antoinette. Alexia Sinclair notes that “Rococo is a series of theatrical artworks inspired by the lives, fashions, gardens and motifs of 18th century high society. Following the design aesthetic of this period, the series is sensual, playful and flamboyant. During this period, powerful women of the French court became fashion icons and their tastes swept across Europe. Their excessive, luxurious and exotic creations have inspired many aspects of the costuming within this series; from Madame de Pompadour’s porcelain flowers, to Madame du Barry diamond necklace, Marie Antoinette’s muslin chemise and the Duchess of Devonshire’s towering plumes. The floral backdrops within the series pay homage to the dreamlike landscapes of the Rococo period. Known as the pleasure playgrounds, their hidden gardens, mazes and wild flower meadows formed the backdrop of decadent garden parties and mischievous encounters.” Alexia Sinclair is an award winning Australian Artist and Photographer whose distinct style is easily recognisable and highly original. Using a visual narrative, Alexia Sinclair’s art is both dark and seductive, baroque and symbolic yet her multilayered photographs present contemporary notions of fashion and beauty through innovative digital media, whilst restoring antique notions of classicism, elegance and luxury. Sinclair is an artist who skilfully balances the worlds of Fine Art and Commercial Art. Whilst her evocative Fine Art imagery adorns the walls of museums and is held in important art collections, she often translates these skills and signature style into highly polished campaigns in the commercial arena for clients such as Harpers Bazaar and Canon Australia. Completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons I) and Master of Fine Arts, Alexia Sinclair is the recipient of a travelling arts scholarship, and two postgraduate scholarships. She has worked in New York as a digital artist and exhibited in numerous exhibitions including at the Australian Centre for Photography and the Art Gallery of NSW with her latest series ‘Rococo’ most recently on display at the Black Eye Gallery in Darlinghurst, Sydney Australia. Below is a selection of Alexia Sinclair’s amazing work but for a more detailed look, we suggest a visit to her website.
Catstacam: From our ‘WTF, is this really happening?’ file, comes the newest thing in feline chic – ‘Catstacam’. ‘Catstacam’ is a new kind of wearable camera for cats, which can automatically upload photographs from the secret life of your cat to a dedicated Instagram account. This interesting gadget designed by Whiskas in Australia will take pictures and happily post them on Instagram as soon as it is within range of your wi-fi network. Whiskas explained the ‘Catstacam’ on their Facebook page “Have you ever wondered what your cat was trying to tell you with some of their actions? WHISKAS® CATSTACAM™ is our brand new program designed to help cat lovers better understand cats by giving a glimpse into their world. The custom WHISKAS CATSTACAM devices let selected cats take photos and post them directly to their own Instagram accounts. At the moment we only have a limited number of devices available (that’s why they’re not available for purchase) so to share our cat insights we have chosen key cat lovers that will help us spread the word – and show-off their furry friends’ intriguing behaviour. To follow them, and see what adventures they get up to, simply search #Catstacam on Instagram. But we don’t just want to show you what cats get up to, we want to provide a deeper understanding of common cat behaviour. So if you see anything you’re curious about, or the behaviour shown is similar to your cat’s, just ask a question and hashtag #AskWhiskas and our cat behavioural expert will respond, telling you what it means. WHISKAS CATSTACAM is the social way to help you better understand cats.” Hmmm look, while we’re not really cat people, more power to those who really want to know what their cat does when left to their own devices and we applaud Whiskas for coming up with such a unique marketing idea. Clearly, it’s catching on or we wouldn’t be talking about it. Enjoy feline lovers…meow!
