James Rieck has made a name for himself over the past years by drawing us in to explore his hyper-real portraits – images that at once seem like snapshots of real people and simultaneously make us questions our presumptions with their too perfect colors and tones. It’s like those moments after a convincing dream when you have to think: “did that really happen?” Now Rieck has released new works based on a recent uprooting from his long-time residence and studio in Baltimore, Maryland and his subsequent move to expansive and seemingly infinite Los Angeles, California. As he puts it, his new paintings are themed around “self-imposed dislocation.” [Read more...]
Stunningly Realistic Portraits Woven From Wire
Korean artist Seung Mo Park uses an unusual medium to create his fantastically detailed portraits: wire. The process is one of painstaking addition and subtraction, cutting wires away from his layered mats to reveal a figure or face. To create the works, Park superimposes pieces of square wire mesh or layers of individual wires, later cutting and bending them to release the image he sees hidden inside. It’s a process much like stippling in reverse, and translated to a highly unusual format. [Read more...]
Zoo Animals Get Fashionable
Dog and cat owners already know this, but dressing your pet up in fashionable clothes is perhaps the best entertainment you’ll have. Yago Partal takes a cue from these pet owners and transfers it to something a little more exotic, the zoo. His recent series Zoo Portraits, sees creatures from giraffes to wolves getting spiffed up in trendy clothes; from suits to Hawaiian shirts. It’s one ridiculously fashionable menagerie. [Read more...]
Finnish Seniors Model Organic Materials in the Country
In the wet and cold countryside of the far north reside hardy people with stories to tell. Ambling across the verdant pastures, clad in the plants of the region, senior citizens model in the wilderness of south and eastern Finland. In our modern, often youth-centered world, the photographs are a beautiful and arresting look at unique and interesting characters in strange circumstances. [Read more...]
Famous Buildings Floating on Rocky Planets
“To be a surrealist means barring from your mind all remembrance of what you have seen, and being always on the lookout for what has never been” said the famous surrealist Renè Magritte. That lofty aim is the ideal of contemporary Italian aritst Giuseppe Lo Schiavo and the root of his new series called Levitation. The collection of photo manipulations sees a Little Prince-esque world of historical landmarks – honorable mentions on many a ’7 Wonders’ list – which Lo Schiavo has photographed and placed atop floating rocky worlds which rise above mysterious empty seascapes. [Read more...]
A Lifetime of Sculptures Play with Light and Shadow
What only look like sculptural piles of rubbish become fascinating studies in light and shadow when illuminated from just the right angle. The work of dutch artist Diet Wiegman, each sculpture is built with a precision at odds with the rough materials from which it is constructed. He uses paper, photos, glass, mirror, cardboard, clay, wood and a host of other ingredients to build just the right forms – forms which subsequently cast shadows of masterworks like Michelangelo’s David or the dancing figure of Michael Jackson. [Read more...]
Felice Varini: Anamorphic Paintings Cover the World
At first they appear to simply be gigantic swooping shapes painted across buildings around the world… but find the correct focal point and they pop into astounding geometric forms. Swiss artist Felice Varini has been creating these massive pieces since 1979; starting small with room based installations, but later growing to pieces that cover entire villages and require a hike up a mountain to properly appreciate. His anamorphic paintings have impressed a generation of creatives, and continue to be emulated to this day. [Read more...]
Polaroid Collages: Intimate Celebrity Portraits
Maurizio Galimberti is a long time photographer, picking up black and white techniques as a young boy. Since 1983, however, he’s used exclusively Polaroid. With his trusty camera, its square format and unique hues so loved by the Instagram crowd, Galimberti has made a name for himself creating seriously well done mosaic portraits of celebrities. [Read more...]
Cesar Santos’ Legendary Artist Remix
What if Picasso and Rembrandt had met to have cocktails in 1953? You can imagine the talks they would have had: electric, inspired, and maybe even heated. The work that could have spawned from such a conversation might have looked a bit like that of Cesar Santos. His paintings seemingly bring the works of masters – from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century to Modernism – together, juxtaposing their styles one on top of the other. It’s a patchwork of inspired painting. [Read more...]
Photographing 4 Years Hopping the Rails of America
Hopping trains across the country is one of those ideas which harkens back to Great Depression era days of meager means and distant travels in search of something better. Forgetting the hardships of those now distant times, we often look at the hobo life as one of complete freedom – a romantic era now gone. But, it’s not gone for all: there are still people hopping trains across the U.S., seeking adventure and finding it on the backs of freight trains as they roll down the long steel rails. [Read more...]














