INSA Tea Cup and Saucer set

The INSA had a limited edition tea cup and saucer art contest to see which of the top names in art can create the most interesting composition on the cups and saucer. Names like Sylvia Ji, Ron English, and Mode 2 have entered the contest and i would say the bars couldnt be set much higher. The subject matter of each cup is completely differnent and it would appear there were little to no constraints on what or how you could decorate the cup. It says you can buy the cups and saucer for 39 pounds so like 80 bucks? im thinking that must just be a print.. damn expensive cup.. But soo radical, ridiculous to see what some people can do with a brush. I have come to find that Artist research has furthered my doubts in my ability to become a fine artist, the way some of these people can draw is just absolutely amazing. I WANT SKILLS THAT PAY BILLS like these guys. If you take notice to ron englishs set its an Obamination, an Obraham, Obama / Abraham Lincoln, pretty funny although i may disagree with the linkage between lincoln and obama, there goes rons pop art once again. Here are the entries i can find...The show was recently touring the UK at the Modern Tate and several spots in the US but are only available for purchase in the UK!  BUMMER 4 america. On with some examples of cups!

 ron english

INSA

mode 2

Kozyndan




ALSO check out these friggin pillows, forget drinking tea, rest your noggin on some killer colors
http://www.thisisalimitededition.com/

MTO street art extraordinaire

MTO is a graffiti artist from Berlin whos main focus is pop culture, more specifically movie stars with clever twists on characters they have played. One thing that Ive noticed about graffiti artists is their bio is very hard to find, after all im sure they are responsible for thousands of dollars worth of damage so providing his information might as well be providing his bank account number as well to pay for his destruction. His work is exactly what im talking abut earlier postings, he takes a brick wall and adds flare, character, FLAVOR. His subject matter is also very popular readily known characters allowing the everyday passer by to take notice to your piece and its message or there lack of. Painting people from Brad Pitt from fight club to Jack Nicholas in the shining MTO has done it all in truly realistic fashion. I think its ingenious to hide your message behind readily known faces and celebrities, its almost like an advertising tool, a tool that never runs out of ink because culture is always changing and there will always be a new big dog on top. I love these super famous characters and then thier signs that say MTO on it, its a clever way to incorporate your tag with out separating it from your art work.  Below are some of his street paintings, many of which are cleverly placed around door ways and other negative spaces that are utilized into the strength of the overall design, "Gotta love pop culture references"  in the words of Ron English!


 Ron would be proud MTO.... Can you tell what movie these characters are from?

 

OH you DEVIL blog, Goodbye

The day has come for me to set you free back to the infamous abyss known as the world wide web...Hopefully i will still find time to post the mishaps of my life on you. So group project aren't usually my thing but i got a pretty sick group for the mock museum exhibit, our theme being childrens myth. DECENT topic, i still wanted to explore what it means to be a ethnically challenged cracker but i guess my travels will have to challenge that instead. My two myths are dont eat watermelon seeds or a water melon will grow in your belly and dont run with scissors or they will poke your eye out! Time to put the good ole pottery skills to work and see if i have completely lost it with the gouged eye ball. I will admit im a little worried about the down to the wireness of this project but that seems to be the story with anyone in any sort of art department, gotta love dead week! Im really hoping i can also find some better back lighting for my printed x rays, please co operate time and money!   Well my blog, im sorry if i didnt do you justice, dont hate me.

Alexander Korzer-Robinson

Alexander Korzer-Robinson is an artist from Berlin now residing in Bristol, Germany, with a back ground in psychology his art focuses on the humans "inner landscape". The medium he readily uses is mostly book and exacto knife with a clear coat to seal the book after its done.  His work is really cool and reminds me kind of of those fat tire commercials with all the cut outs if you have seen em. Either way, really cool and just sort of trippy stuff that could never happen in real life, its reminiscent of Salvidor Dali almost really, a semi realistic dream like state of chaos and time. "I make objects as an invitation to the viewer to engage her/his own inner life in order to assign meaning to the artwork." His book art has been made by working through the books, page by page, cutting around and cutting out every single page.. sounds tedious. as a final step he seals the book so its just a window into the soul of the book almost. Super sick, the books just look phenomenal and really questions the boundaries of book altercation.

Robert The

Robert The never planned on being an artist, he was first double majored as a philosophy and math major and was interested in language and logic, things he felt were the "foundations of truth and meaning". He describes his start in art as "I kinda blew a fuse in my senior year—something very strange happened—and I lost my ability to read of a period for a month or two. This sharpened my interest regarding what was actually going on with the symbols that convey meaning on a concrete level. It also unsettled my nerves and undermined my passion to continue with my studies in that particular direction." Interested in unconventional mediums he firstly showed an emmerging interest in letter formation which lead him to working with enamel. After deciding enamel not being physical enough in presence he decided to cut "this" out of a book, which to his surprise sold. Thus his book cutting and altering career started and has blossomed into some interesting results. His art is fairly conventional and simple but its interesting and unique with strong messages behind the piece.

"Books are guns, a dictionary is a noose, and bugs crawl out of covers."
- Robert The

Graffiti mark up

GML = Graffiti Markup Language from Evan Roth on Vimeo.
 I dont know about you, but personally when i see some dipshit tagging a wall to claim his click or krew i get a little upset. Its one thing to say that wall is concrete, plain, and ugly, i will change that, take something ugly and make it better, shit paint it brown for all i care. I dont want to see your 3rd grade hand writing littering the streets, its people like this that give graffiti a bad name, who said that art doesnt belong in the streets? in every day life? Slowly but surely people / Boise are getting it and there are more and more public art pieces around just because, gotta love it. The more art work i notice the more crap tags i notice that have zero time put into them but were simply written to say I was here, ima lil hellion, now clean up after me.  With that said on the other end of the spectrum, i enjoy causing a little ruckus, making people clean up after me, not every one is perfect and who doesnt like the red headed step child of adventure, trouble. This video shows some alternative methods of graffiti and its place within modern technology including a light sensitive photo wall that can be used like a regular wall and displays what your painting, pretty cool :) Sorry to rant, keep taggin, keep destroying,and please take away spray cans from bums and your friends who write like they have a hook.

Shawn Barber

Shawn Barber is a tattoo artist, painter, and portraitist based out of LA, California. Earning his BFA from Ringling he has traveled the world for his shows an exhibits as far from LA as Australia and Asia. His passion has always been tattoos and tattooing so naturally one of his favorite subject matter is portraits of people and the ink they have on their body. they way he can flawlessly create tattooed skin tones is amazing and the texture of the work is flawless. You can tell he truly understands the medium he is using the the medium he is trying to convey which is really saying something about his painting. Barbers paintings of tattoos have been said to be intimate renditions of tattooed individuals balance both meticulous brush strokes and loose energy. Aside from his tattoo portraits he also has a series of dolls that i will show several slides of after the ink portraits that are really creepy and ironic because you would shit your self if your children were playing with these. His plastic like style of painting these dolls is ridiculous in some and often it doesn't even look real.