What’s your sign?

I don’t know about you, but early January always has me heading straight for the astrology sites to read page after breathless page about the Year Ahead. I try to be a skeptic the rest of the time, but the new year is a good time to be credulous no? And they’re saying some utterly fantastic things about Sagittarius in 2012, so I’m all for anything that says good things will happen.

In that vein, I was utterly delighted to come across Ekaterina Koroleva’s Zodiac Signs  paintings on Behance. I like the things being done with watercolours these days, and here we have another fine example.

Sagittarius is my personal favourite, because it’s badass and backs are sexy. Then again, I’m biased. See the rest of the signs here.

Stuff of Nightmares

So, this is apparently the week when I steal inspiration from my friends.  I got an email this morning pointing me towards Juxtapoz Magazine’s blog post about Takato Yamamoto’s amazing artwork, and ever since I’ve been obsessed, doing nothing but look through page after page of his paintings. This was rendered slightly sketchy, due to the fact that I was at work and a great deal of his pieces are inspired by Japanese rope bondage and S&M. I kept accidentally clicking on the bad ones just as my supervisor was walking by. Sigh.

Disregard of being thought the office perv aside, what attracts me so much to Yamamoto’s paintings is the dreamlike combination of elements to be found in them. As I said, a lot of them draw inspiration from S&M (not many of the ones I’ve put up here, as I didn’t have time to study those as much to see if I liked them.) The influence of that and other erotica is definitely felt, but I’m much more interested in the images from folklore and horror conventions. The drawing style also reads to me as quintessentially Japanese, the tight lines and small details simultaneously evoking things as wide-ranging as horror manga, tattoo art and Hokusai. I love the use of anatomy, the organic details, the mysterious looming presence of the moon. I also love the intensity and simplicity of his palette (which I just wrote as palate– though with drawings like these one might wonder if he can stomach things, or if he is plagued by the monsters he creates.)

I’ve put up a lot of pictures, but it was very hard to edit it down to even this. I strongly urge you to go look at his works elsewhere and see what other things he has to offer. Everything is basically along these lines, but the variations can be rather glorious.

 

Horror take on Little Red Riding Hood. I love it, queasily. Look at the blood spatters on the post and her leg. I’m so curious, but I’m not even sure I want to know what happened there.

He makes it weirdly beautiful, right?

The blog post also features a pretty interesting interview with him, so I urge you to check it out.

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Yeti v. Sasquatch

Nate Wragg is a pretty darn amazing artist. He works as an animator for Pixar, and also spends his time making these wonderful retro-tinged paintings of fun topics. My favourites are the Sex and Science series, and the Yeti vs. Sasquatch series.

(As a side note, the picture above is called “Talk Science to Me”, which is a sentiment I can always get down with. I totally have a thing for sciencey types, which probably started with reading about sexy, square-jawed, brilliant scientists/renaissance men in the trashy scifi books of my youth. My fella is a PhD student in electrical engineering at MIT who is saddened by the fact that he never became a mathematician, and I’m just like, mmm. Numbers. Chips. Things I know nothing about. Tell me more. (Plus he’s a hottie who does capoeira, kitesurfs and plays classical guitar. Yup. He’s a catch and a half.) )

Ok, daydreams about lab coats aside, check out these pictures. The Sex and Science ones are delightfully cheesecakey, and the Yeti vs. Sasquatch are just plain awesome. Yetis! A Sasquatch! Battling! Amazing!

Love the thought of horn-doggery in space.

And finally, Yetis in love! Cutest thing ever!

I kind of am tempted to try to track this one down as a card to use for Christmas this year. But I never get around to sending out cards, so I’ll just stick to looking at it. But look! He’s carving out the tree for her! How cute!

Zhang Haiying

Zhang Haiying drew inspiration from pictures of prostitutes posted on Chinese Anti-Vice Campaign websites to make these pieces. I love the style of his paintings,  so realistic but with just enough left blurred to evoke the motion and seedy lighting that I imagine going hand-in-hand with these scenes. I also really applaud the fact that these paintings recall their photographic inspiration by simply serving as records of events, rather than taking a side on the issue. The girls seem vulnerable, with their frail limbs and covered faces, but thankfully it misses the mark of creepiness. The pictures are a little sordid, but the situation is sordid. Also completely love the contrast between the stern uniforms and the girls’ flimsy little dresses. Details jump out, like the mirroring of the colours of the men’s arm bands and the girls dresses. These are beautiful and fascinating takes on a reality of life in China, and I love the story that emerges from the pictures.

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Molly Crabapple

Anyone who has been poking around here long enough should know that I like things a little bit racy, a little bit punk-tinged. If Victoriana or steampunk influences are thrown in there, I’m in heaven.

For that reason, Molly Crabapple‘s art instantly enchanted me. Her influences are all over the place, and the result is a mishmash world of burlesque, robots, and fantasy creatures that I just want to dive right into. Tremendously fun and sexy, and also tremendously inspiring.

Molly has just come out with a marvellous comic book, Scarlett Takes Manhattan. She is also the founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, a clever mix of burlesque, drinking and drawing. I’m thinking of joining!

Off to buy stripey stockings….

Ramon Casas i Carbo

Barcelona has been popping up everywhere of late. That’s right, the entire city. The marvellous book I’m reading right now is set there. The last three little red Netflix envelopes that appeared in my mailbox were also all situated in the city, and all featured lingering shots of sun-kissed Gaudi architecture. An old friend from there just got back in touch, a more recent friend is currently there having the time of her life (probably having to do with some character named Jorge who keeps popping up in emails.) For the moment, I can only dream of being there, but I’d thought I’d take this opportunity to celebrate one of my favourite artists, Ramon Casas i Carbo’.

(Can’t figure out how to do accents on this keyboard. Purists, I dearly apologise. I am lazy and slatternly, and I laugh in the face of Romance languages, apparently. No other excuse.)

If you mosey on over to the Wikipedia article I’ve linked to, you’ll get a fuller story, but the short version is that Casas was a Catalan artist, who lived from 1866 to 1932, who played a major part in the Catalan modernisme movement. He lived between Barcelona and Paris, and painted all aspects of their societies. I find his portraits most appealing, but he also made some beautiful depictions of things such as bullfights, and also did some great commercial work.

Just a note: I’m not sure of all the names of his paintings, and in some cases there is so much conflict between the Catalan, Castillian, and French names that I am just leaving some blank. Don’t fret about this too much.

[above: Autoretrat Vestit de Flamenc, a self-portrait dressed as a Flamenco dancer.]

Interior a l’aire lliure

La Sargentain— this is a portrait of Julia Peraire, his favourite model and eventual wife. She was 22 years his junior.

Madeleine

Ramon Casas i Pere Romeu en Tandem

Entre Dues Llums

Sensualitat

This painting above was probably destined to become an advert of some variety.

Portrait of Pablo Picasso

Strange Little Girls

Those of you who have been playing along for a while might have learned that my taste runs a little to the bizarre and macabre side of things. Not to any crazy extent– I’m not possessed of a cabinet full of deformed things in jars, for instance, but I do enjoy things that are just a bit twisted.

Ray Caesar‘s art suits me perfectly. The world of his work is a world of nightmares, peopled with creepy little girl-women equipped with coy glances and tentacles. His aesthetic simultaneously repulses and compells me, with the tension it holds between the prim costuming and the subjects’ sexuality and creepiness. It’s a depraved little world, toeing the line between fantasy and realism, but I find it fascinating. I’m desperate to know more about all these characters, and what is going on in each scene. Might have to make up the stories all by myself.

More pictures below:

Dali Atomicus

One of my favourite pictures of Salvador Dali, by Philippe Halsman. I think it works pretty effectively as a portrait of both Dali himself and his ideas on art.

Here‘s a 2002 essay by Brandon Luhring about the photo, saying effectively that but in a more erudite manner and going into greater detail. It also gives a good history of the photograph itself and of the photographer. Highly recommended, if you’re feeling scholarly today.

Kyohei Inuaki

Another gem from the Juley Collection. Actually the first photo in the series I found, but it somehow didn’t fit with the abundance of women in the previous post. Segregating the sexes, that’s how I roll.

Anyway, I simply find this picture beautiful beyond words. The mirrored poses with the similar, yet contrasting aspects really underscores and plays with the notion of artist and creation. I also am captivated with the background, and seeing how the drapery behind him works with and against the neutral background in the painting. I’ll stop blathering, but need to reiterate my love for this photograph.

Mornin’

I’m at work at an ungodly hour, waiting to schlep boxes downtown to a place located three blocks from my apartment, so I thought we could use some silliness to start us off today. Bubblegum!

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By the way, it’s surprisingly hard to find good bubblegum pictures on the net. Or maybe I’m just persnickety in the hours before coffee. Hmm.

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Note: I wrote all the above and prepped everything and then was called away to be a good little worker bee. I’m too lazy to rewrite everything to reflect the actual time, so let’s just pretend it’s 8 am. Or that we’re on Hawaii time. That work for you?