Beautiful, yet tragic, imagery. You’ve got to check out the photographic series Infra by Richard Mosse. it’s a radically different manner to depict a conflict, in this case the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The entire series is shot on a discontinued infrared film original developed for military reconnaissance and captures an invisible spectrum of infrared light which renders landscapes in vivid hues of crimson and hot pink.

You can buy INFRA at Amazon.

Evolution of the “Vectorfunk”! It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of MWM Graphics / Matt W. Moore, and I’m always blown away by the evolution of his mural work. However, this new development is something else; I can’t even tell you how much I’d love to own one of these new pieces.

Check out more from MWM Graphics / Matt W. Moore.

More work by Ivan Bravo. I’ve mentioned Ivan Bravo on this blog before, but I liked this wall mural he created for the meeting room of a communications agency specialising in health, so I thought I’d mention it.

Visit the website of Ivan Bravo.

“That’s nice wallpaper… is that a… ?!!… oh!” British artist Jonathan Yeo has released a range of wallpaper through Lazarides Gallery. If you’re familiar with Yeo’s work (many of you have probably seen his iconic portrait of former President George W Bush made up from cuttings from pornographic magazines) you’ll know that on closer inspection of his work, and indeed his wallpaper, you’ll be surprised at what you find. The perfect wallpaper for provocateurs!

Find the wallpaper at Lazarides

Art-Star Spangled Banner. In January 2010, Polo Jeans Co. Ralph Lauren commissioned over 51 of Europe’s most exciting young contemporary artists to customise large 3D stars made from the finest American denim.

With the iconic Stars and Stripes flag for inspiration, each young artist was tasked with creating something totally unique: beyond the shapes and sizes of the Art Stars, the only limit was their imaginations. When are the stars are auctioned later this year all the money raised will go to Teenange Cancer Trust.

See the works at Art Stars.

“Creative Life, Documented & Archived.” I’ve just been alerted to a great new website called The Creative Lives which provides video insights into the lives of today’s contemporary artists.

The Creative Lives is a documentary project aimed at inspiring people to create their own work by giving them a view into the world of today’s contemporary artists. Each documentary not only shows how these artists create their work, but also attempts to find out why they do what they do and who has helped or inspired them to get to where they are.

Visit The Creative Lives.

Art that money can’t buy! The problem with being an art-lover that isn’t a millionaire, is that you end up being eternally frustrated that you can’t afford the work of the artists you love. However, a new event might be able to change that.

The Art Barter event revolves around the idea that artwork will be acquired by individuals through alternative means to money. In the past, artists such as Picasso exchanged sketches for his meals, and now, in the present, you have the opportunity to exchange your special talent, skill or offering for the work of one of 50 established and emerging London based artists, including Tracey Emin, Gavin Turk, Tim Noble & Sue Webster. Perhaps you can offer to clean up Tracy Emin’s unmade bed (see what I did there?) in exchange for an artwork?

So if you fancy bartering for some art, head down to The Rag Factory (16—18 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ) this weekend with your items to exchange.

Visit Art Barter London for more information.

Want to catch the debut show of a young, up-and-coming artist? Online gallery Hang Up Pictures, in collaboration with advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy London, is launching the debut solo show of Alex Daw, a multi-talented contemporary artist, at the agency’s new space ‘The Cole’ situated in The Old Truman Brewery in London’s Brick Lane area. The exhibition, sponsored by Havana Club, will run until Sunday 29th November.

The artist, Alex Daw, brings his warped view of the world of fashion, status and advertising via his ongoing series of compelling contemporary mementos of modern life. He utilises anything at his disposal – he cuts and paints on a number of surfaces. Culling fragments of pop culture, fashion and art history, Daws’ obsessive nature to critique and de-construct objects, results in cut up magazines, and paintings on canvas and glass pieces.

If the art doesn’t grab you then there’ll also be lot’s to drink and eat. Havana Club are sponsoring the show – there will be enough rum on-site to create 400 cocktails and caterer extraordinaire Matt Phelps aka Fun Thyme will be catering live on site.

To find out more about the exhibition, or to reserve a place at the private view, click here.

They say he plays the banjo & drinks whisky. The illustrator Stevie Gee has a solo show entitled ‘Vengence is Coming’ over at Jaguarshoes 32-34 Kingsland Road, Shoreditch, London E2 8DA. It’s up for six weeks, so if you’re in the neighborhood, you can pop in and see the custom bike paint jobs by Death Spray Custom, prints, tomahawks, screen prints, T’s, etc.

See more images from the show here.

I’m a couple of years late on this but… once upon a time there was an exhibition of lasered skateboard art. The exhibition allowed a select group of global artists to explore the idea of lasering away at seven layers of ply, in order to make their mark on skateboard decks. Only 50 will be produced per artist. Those 50 are available through the Refill 7 Shop.

For old school value, my personal fave is Mark Drew’s design, although at 500 australian dollars a pop it seems a bit pricey for me (although, in all honesty I have no idea of the value of the australian dollar. That might be cheap. I’m just too lazy to find out.)

See more images on Flickr.

Parra this, Parra that! Parra, yada, yada! First off in Parra related news – Arkitip are presenting Parra’s first ever Exhibition and Pop Up Shop in Germany. Find out more here

Secondly, and more importantly, LOOK AT MY PARRA SHOES!!! (gotta click ‘more…’ to see ‘em though!)

No need for facts. All I know about the artist Genta Kosumi is that he was born in 1974 in Osaka, Japan and his artwork is colorful, bizarre and, above all, amazing. Check out his work at Cosmo Head Anno.

It’s not an obsession with hammers… Ba5h wants to make you think about what money is; why you use it; who made it; who controls it; why it has a value; how this value can change; who affects the value; is it the route of all evil; and why has it been going down the drain?

Find out more at Ba5h.com.

I’ve never wanted sculpture more. Frank Plant is a Barcelona based American sculptor who creates “drawings in steel. These are simple and direct studies of the forms and compositions of everyday objects.” I’m loving his recent Kalashnikov rifle piece, but my heart belongs to his heart. He’s one of the artists that I really, really, really want some work from, but know it’ll cost more than I can ever afford. Just like José Parlá, he’s now on my “Things I’d Buy If I Won the Lottery” list.

See more work by Frank Plant.

Beautiful photography in horrible circumstances. I’ve been admiring the work of photographer Fazal Sheikh. Most often his work has been with displaced people driven out of their homelands by civil wars, drought and famine, struggling to survive for years in refugee camps where the traditional balance of their lives has been entirely destroyed. He has worked in camps in Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania, where people fleeing conflicts in Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Mozambique and Rwanda were gathered.

It’s easy to become desensitized to the images of refugee camps that you’re presented with via the news media, but the images in Fazal Sheikh’s photographic series’ such as A Camel for The Son are hauntingly beautiful considering their tragic subject matter.

See more work by Fazal Sheikh.

‘Obsessions Make My Life Worse & My Work Better.’ In 2001 Sagmeister embarked on an ongoing project based on sentences from his diaries. For the typography he used a great variety of materials and sites, writing three-dimensionally on objects and surfaces. His latest piece is ‘Obsessions make my Life Worse and my Work Better’, an elaborate design that consists of 300.000 Euro cent coins on a large square.

See the latest piece via this Flickr set, then find out more at http://sagmeister.com/urbanplay/

Graffiti: A Whodunnit Story. Last summer, whilst wandering around Italy, I took this photo. Some people take holiday snaps of the tourist attractions; I take photos of the cities’ graffiti.

I often wonder about the anonymous artists behind the work I photograph, so it was quite amusing to see the photo accompanying an article on Wooster Collective about the jerm IX tattoo project, which led me to this Flickr photo, which in turn led me to the artist, Microbo.

There’s no real point to this post. I was just amused by how the internet can help you make connections that you might never make without it. Ain’t the internet grand?

Art of the New Depression. I’ve always loved Todd Hido’s sublime and atmospheric photography (especially his ‘Homes at Night’ series), and he doesn’t disappoint with his timely ‘Foreclosed Homes’ series. The images of the creepily silent and empty interiors of recently foreclosed homes, give off a disturbingly sinister vibe. The ‘Forclosed Homes’ series can be found under ‘Interiors’ on his website.

See more work by Todd Hido.

Paris Vs. Paris! You’ve got to love Paris — Physical by Tim Schwartz. The piece is attached via a network cable to the internet where it monitors news and search results for “paris hilton” and “paris france” and displays an average result in real-time.

See more work by Tim Schwartz.

Hot, new artist (to me, at least.) I’ve only just learned of the Rallito X, but I’m an instant fan even though he does seems to have an unhealthy obsession with drawing penises as an extra facial feature.

Check out the Rallito X’s work on the website, or onFlickr.

Learn the secrets of Russian criminal tattoos. Between 1948 to 2005, 3,000 drawings were compiled by prison warden and ethnographer Danzing Baldaev of the tattoos of Russian prison inmates. Supported by the KGB, who recognised the usefulness of such a document, these drawings were supplemented by photographs by Sergei Vasiliev, a fellow warden. The tattoos depicted are a language in themselves, comprising of a rich array of symbols and illustrations that denoted a prisoner’s crimes and political allegiances, as well as his or her rank in the prison hierarchy.

The Michael Hoppen Gallery is currently holding an exhibition of Sergei Vasiliev’s photographs from this fascinating archive. The exhibition ends in a few days (7th March 2009), so if you’ld like to see the works, you’d better get your skates on.

See exhibition information for the Sergei Vasiliev-Russian Criminal Tattoos exhibition.

Loving this work I really like the “Paint on Print” series by Phil Yamada (scroll half-way down the page to see this work). It’s an alphabetical series of letters painted in various typographical styles. Great stuff.

See more work by Phil Yamada.

An insight into new work by Alain Gilles. The designer Alain Gilles has been kind enough to let us see the renderings and photos of the prototype for his “Big Foot” table design for Bonaldo. The final developed version of the table will be featured during the Milan Furniture Fair.

See the images accompanied explanations in the designer’s own words after the jump…

Alain Gilles explains his new “Big Foot Table” design as…

A strong personality, always in movement, always trying to put one foot in front of the other. As if it were walking, each foot stretches to reach further away. Whatever the angles, it always looks strikingly different from one point of view to another, as if you could never really grab it.

It has been sculpted in 3D by the hand rather than by the pure logic of the computer. Even though it is a large functional table, and follows some strict rules, all the legs have their own characteristics and have been positioned and oriented manually in order to give the whole structure a warmer and more human feeling.

A mix of rather traditional materials, steel and wood, give a rather unexpected and fresh product. The legs are made of steel plates that have been laser cut and folded. All the legs have a different width, and have been cut and bend in order to reveal different tonalities of their own color, in order to play with shadows. As for the angled cuts in the legs, they increase this ever changing perception of a product, that looks drastically different from one side to the other; they also add detail to the piece and give it a much lighter feel.

The metal legs can then become of field of experimentation for all sorts of color combinations, thus giving birth to a more experimental or a more traditional table.

Dimensions: 250 x 100 x 74cm and 300 x 100 x 74cm

First original renders – The feeling of movement and tensions

First original renders – working on the concept of “simplexity”…. Simple, yet complex and unexpected

First original renders – an ever-changing personality

First original renders – simple material : metal and wood (and in the future the possibility of a glass top)

First original renders – as if the legs were moving…

First original renders – all black or all white possibility

Second work prototype in the factory – unexpected color combinations that can adapt to a lot of different atmosphere

Second work prototype in the factory – each leg has a different size and shape

Second work prototype in the factory – with a different personality from each angle

Third work prototypes – experimenting with different gradient color combinations – the importance of shadow in the variation of the tonality concept

Third work prototype – experimenting with different color combinations (will normally not be put in production in that specific blue color combination)

The very first raw prototype – true to the sculpting in 3D…

The very first raw prototype – testing for the adequate length of the top plate.

Unless you remember ‘The Search for Animal Chin’, look away now. Any skateboarders who grew up in the 80′s will instantly recognise the the ‘Ripper’ image that became so synonymous with Bones, The Bones Brigade, and the Powell-Peralta brand. So, on January 23rd, 2009, Powell-Peralta hosted the Rip the Ripper Art Show – Fifty eight artists displaying pieces to celebrate the iconic Ripper graphic. The artists included everyone from high-profile street artists such as Shepard Fairey, to legendary skateboarder Steve Caballero.

See the show’s artwork here.

There aren’t many people I would let draw indiscriminately on my walls… but Denise Fort is one of them. you’ve got check out her Behance portfolio. I’m seriously tempted to lock her in a room of my house, supplied only with a bucket of marker pens. That sounded creepy, didn’t it?

See more work by Denise Fort.

There are not enough chairs with faces, don’t you think? Although, they are out there. I came across 100lica which has a nice selection, but still doesn’t please me as much as the ones depicted in Doc18′s Flickr photos (here & here) of the chairs and tables at the Palais de Tokyo restaurant that have been given added flair by Monsieur Andre.

Anybody know of any other chairs with faces?

New paintings & installations by Numskull. Super Nothing Maybe Never! is a new exhibition of paintings and installations by the artist Numskull, which will be showing at MTV Gallery in Sydney (4 Yurong St East Sydney). Opening night is the 5th December 6—9pm. The show them run through to the 10th December (gallery hours 12—3pm).

Expect more of Numskull’s stylings with phrases, words, characters and childhood idols mingled into one drippy amalgamation of false advertising.

Find out more at Funskull.com.

Art lovers and denim connoisseurs now have a new joint objects of desire. The artist Damien Hirst has teamed up with Levi’s to produce Damien Hirst X Levi’s a limited edition capsule collection. The Levi’s brand and designer Adrian Nyman worked closely with Hirst to showcase his art in an exclusive, custom range of jeans and tops that is sure to be highly regarded by the most discerning denim collectors. The collection revolves around three key themes of Damien Hirst’s body of work – the skull, spots and tropical butterfly. Jeans and T-shirts are emblazoned with iconic Hirst imagery – tropical butterflies, dots and skulls.

Retail Prices start at £55 for tees, £150 for jeans and the collection will launch at Cinch, Newburgh Street, London, W1F 7RG, from October 14 2008.

Something for the weekend. The London based illustrator Rob Ryan has opened a shop. The space, which only opens at weekend, is filled with Rob’s work ranging from screenprints to ceramics. So if you’re in London’s East End on the weekend, check out Ryantown at 126 Columbia Road.

See more work by Rob Ryan.

New clothing available from Parra. I’ve mentioned Rockwell Clothing by illustrator/artist Parra before, but it now seems the clothing store is full of new products featuring Parra’s distinct graphic styles.

Buy some new threads at Rockwell Clothing.

Get in early. Buy artwork from the next big thing! As regular readers of Things of Random Coolness already know, I’m a big fan of contemporary street/urban/graffiti art (or whatever the kids are calling it these days.) So I was interested to find out about Edge Art, a brand new online store featuring new and original artworks by upcoming artists.

Rather than being all print based, as a lot of street style art seems to be sold these days, there are a lot of original one-off artworks available for sale. At reasonable prices too! Although there are a few second-rate Banksy imitation artists showcased (only my personal opinion though), there are some really interesting artists too. I’m not telling you which ones I like though, just in case I decide to buy some of it (oh alright then! The energetic and colourful drawing style of Michael Alan’s Babyhood and Outa really interests me.)

Check out what’s available at Edge Art.

Gaudi on LSD! Baroness Carrie von Reichardt (seriously, that’s her name!) emailed me to tell me about her project to transform her home into a living work of art. Aided by soulmate and artistic collaborator Mr Spunky, the ambitious, unique mission is to cover the entire outside walls of their home in bespoke mosaics and ceramic artefacts (or tesselation graffiti as they like to call it.)

I dread to think how the neighbors feel about the fact that the Baroness has spent the last 10 years covering the house with Rick Griffin-esque flying eyeballs, tiki totems and all-seeing-eyes in the style of an LSD inspired Antoni Gaudi. You’ve really got to check out the Treatment Rooms mosaics on Flickr. Get more background info on the project and the Baroness here.

New gallery for contemporary urban artists launching! Hang-Up is an ever changing virtual gallery selling highly collectable limited editions and originals from some of today’s most exciting contemporary urban artists, some already very established, some less so, but all with one thing in common: the quality of their work is exceptional. Dealing in rare works from a range of the hottest urban artists including Antony Micallef, Adam Neate, Banksy, Michael de Feo, Bast, JR, Dain, Faile, Blu, and SPQR; Hang-Up will also be releasing fresh new art from a selection of young and talented emerging artists whose works will be exclusive to Hang-Up. There are some exciting names already in the mix including uber talented Bristol artist and illustrator Tom Hine.

By definition urban art is an ephemeral art form, often vanishing from the streets as fast as it appears. In keeping with this culture Hang-Up will be organising guerrilla exhibitions popping up around London in a variety of spaces where selected works will be displayed for live viewing for limited periods. Signing up to Hang-Up alerts will keep you informed.

Hang–Up will be opening its virtual doors and going live on Tuesday 24th June 2008.

Cool tile work. You’ve got to love the creative use of mosaic tiles in the restrooms of Tranan Restaurant, designed by Karl Grandin. 300,000 mosaic tiles make up the artwork, featuring portraits of figures such as Tom Waits, Biggie, and Peter Tosh. Artists whose music Grandin associated with late nights at Tranan.

See more work by Karl Grandin.

You can’t handle the truth! The Polish artist Truth, creates strange and beautiful cubist/constructivist street installations using coloured polystyrene blocks. Some of the street art works with its surroundings, whilst others stand out strackly from their backdrop; either way, they’re great.

See more work by Truth.

I’ve never wanted a pet snail more! Just when I thought street art was starting to repeat itself, something truly bizarre and beautiful somes along. Inner City Snail – a “slow moving street art project” by Slinkachu has to be seen to be appreciated, nothing I can say can convey it’s coolness. In the future, I’ll be keen to keep an eye out for beautifully vandalised snails!

See more at Inner City Snail.

Don’t be S.A.D, be happy! Graphic designer Keith Hancox has created some clever t-shirts for a friend who suffers from Seasonal Affective Disorder. The first S.A.D T-Shirt is over printed with black heat sensitive ink which turns transparent at 32ºc. So when the sun comes out, and the heat rises, the black clouds on the t-shirt fade away and the sun shines! The second S.A.D T-Shirt is screen-printed with the statement, “The Sun is nature’s Prozac”, in uv sensitive ink which only appears under sunlight. Clever stuff!

See more work by Keith Hancox.

Incredible street art animation! You’ve got to watch ‘Muto’ an “ambiguous animation painted on public walls” by Blu. Then go and watch all his other video animations. If you like his style, you can always go and pick up some signed Blu prints at Pictures On Walls

See more work by Blu.

Do you remember 80′s pop legends, Thompson Twins? I’m not quite old enough to have a good memory of the 80′s music scene, but I do know that the Thompson Twins were a big part of it. So what has happened to the band members since then? Well, If you’re Alannah Currie, one third of the synth-heavy pop group, you become an “armchair destructivist”. Part artist, part upholsterer, Currie combines upholstery and taxidermy under the moniker Miss Pokeno to create surreal furniture artworks. Who would’ve thought that a red velvet armchair combined with two entwined foxes (Currie is a vegetarian and the animals in her work are either roadkill or died naturally) would produce such a beautiful but disturbing place to sit and read the newspaper?

See A Collection of Chairs to honor the Godless by Miss Pokeno from the 8 May 2008 – 8 June 2008 at The Ragged School, 47 Union Street London, SE1 1SG

Art is dirty. I’ve seen a few clever ideas that use the removal of dirt and grime to create something new, but I particularly like Simon Heijdens’ ‘Clean Carpets’ project. Through the use of a high-pressure sprayer and a template, grime is removed from the pavement in the shape of a carpet. The clean spot appears, a place where one would want to sit. The image is made by taking away instead of adding. The carpet slowly disappears over time as the streets gathers fresh grime.

See more work at simonheijdens.com

Chair Cushions! Designer Julie Wilkinson has come up with a creative way of advertising and inviting people to an exhibition she has been helping to organise in partnership with Joyanne Horscroft entitled LEGS; an event where 25 students have been asked to design a chair of some kind. Julie has created a set of miniature cushions which display the details of the event, which will then to be scattered around the city of Bath on benches, chairs and in bars. Legs: Creative Chair Design exhibition opens on 8pm Wednesday 30th January at Invention Studios Bath.

More details of the event, including photos, will be available at graphicdesignonallfours.co.uk following the exhibition on Wednesday

Conor Harrington Exhibition Dates: Fri 25th of January – Sat 23rd of February Opening on 25th January 2008 at Lazarides Gallery will be new works by Conor Harrington. The show will feature paintings made from oil and aerosol paint alongside a series of new charcoal drawings. Weekend Warriors explores the world of historical re-enactment, where men dress up at the weekends as warriors, generals and emperors to live out their escapist fantasies as heroes and supermen.

See more work by Conor Harrington.

A whole new world of mutated chairs. I missed the Martino Gamper exhibition of his 100 Chairs in 100 Days project which was shown in London last year, but there is now a book available titled 100 Chairs in 100 Days and its 100 Ways. It highlights the bastardised chair forms which have been created by Gamper using the odds and ends of other chairs, and other various objects.

See more work by Martino Gamper.

A modern graphic reworking of Klimt’s work. London based graphic designer, Angus Alexander, has created a beautiful screenprinted re-working of the Gustav Klimt sketch ‘The Blood of Fish’. Alexander’s re-working entitled ‘Flood of Nuda’ is a 2 colour screen print available in a limited edition of 250, and is available via his website.

See more work by Angus Alexander.

Cars, tax & Art. The Art Car Boot Fair have developed a range of car tax disc holders created by leading artists and designers. The Pretty Taxing tax disc holder and certificate is both a collectible and a usable artwork. With the limited edition pieces both the circular tax disc artwork and the certificate are hand numbered with the edition number.

Pretty Taxing will launch new editions of tax disc holders by leading artists and designers on a regular basis so customers can build their own in-car art collection, and promise to occasionally produce other special signed and editioned pieces.

Available from the Art Car Boot Fair Shop.

Santa’s Ghetto goes to Bethlehem. This event will probably get picked up by the press as simply another story about the artist Banksy painting on Israel’s controversial West Bank barrier again, but Santa’s Ghetto has been going for a few year now. I’ll let them explain it:

Santa’s Ghetto is probably the world’s most low-concept art event.

Every year we assemble a loose collection of the great unwashed to hawk their artistic wares on the high street amongst the mindless sham and drudgery of the christmas season. This year we’ve moved out of Oxford Street into a former chicken shop on Manger Square in Bethlehem opposite the Church of the Nativity (where Santa Claus was actually born).

This puts us one mile behind the security wall in a part of the world ravaged by conflict, poverty and dust. Just the place, you’d think, that’s desperate to check out the latest five-colour deckled edge screen prints coming out of East London.

You can watch the whole sorry thing unravel on-line but you’re particularly welcome to come out and visit in person (you’re probably far less likely to get randomly stabbed on the way home than you were last year).

Basically, the cream of the urban/street art genre such as Sam 3, Paul Insect and, of course, Banksy have moved the annual Santa’s Ghetto event to Bethlehem in order to draw attention to the issues going on over there with the Jewish/Arab conflict. And what better way to do it than a painting of a soldier feeding a donkey?

Find out more at Santa’s Ghetto.

If Banksy breaks the bank, read on. To any long term readers of the blog, they’ve probably picked up on the fact that I’m a big fan of street art, especially artists like Invader. But I’d thought I’d highlight one of my favorite lesser known artists among the slew of urban/street/graffiti artists that are starting to make big names from themselves in the art world. He’s possibly already known amongst the New Yorkers reading, or at least they’ve probably passed his work on the street at some point, but New York artist Bast doesn’t currently seem to get the same credit as some of his contemporaries working in a similar field.

With Banksy pieces being bought by the likes of Brad Bitt, and established mega-star artists like Damien Hirst buying up the entire show by Paul Insect before the show even opened, the urban/street art genre is now commanding high prices and establishing ground as a credible artistic movement. So I thought I’d tell you guys about Bast, as you can still pick up fantastic screenprints by the artist from Pictures On Walls for as little as £20. But, be quick about it – Bast, is an early pioneer of the movement, and in my opinion, it’s only a matter of time before he’s given the same respect he deserves, and his work gets out of your price-league.

See more work by Bast.

Roll up, roll up, for 48 hours only, free money and art! Last month, during the Frieze Art Fair, the British artists Jake & Dinos Chapman took money from visitors and “defaced and improved” the money before handing it back to them.

Visitors queued in large numbers for the opportunity to have their hard-earned money scribbled on by brothers Chapman, but if you missed out, don’t worry because Jake and Dinos Chapman would like to offer everyone who visits both the BBC’s Imagine website a free and exclusive piece of art in the form of imaginary banknotes created by the artists. The images will be available until 22.35pm on Thursday 22nd November 2007 – so if you want your free money and art, you better be quick!

Get your free money and art here.

Don’t take your caravan to the country, let the caravan bring the country to you. Caravan by Kevin Van Braak is customised caravan that opens out to provide a grassy area of calm to wherever it’s situated. With our environment becoming increasingly more concrete and green spaces disappearing rapidly, Caravan can bring a touch of country living to anywhere it’s needed.

See more work by Kevin Van Braak.

Designer housing for the modern bird. Rob from UglyBogus informed us about The Modern Bird Exhibition after the recent post on religious bird houses. ‘The Modern Bird’ is “an exhibition of designer birdhouses created by more than 20 of the top artists and design studios worldwide”, which “will show how far contemporary visionaries have taken the traditional wooden birdhouse.”

See more photos at Flickr.

Discarded furniture reborn. Karen Ryan takes discarded furniture items, and gives them a stylish new lease of life. Durings the recent Designersblock event in London, Karen Ryan was exhibiting some fantastic lampshades, each individually painted on the inner side of the shade. Unfortunately, I can’t find any photos online, so you’ll have to check out the one I took at Designersblock (here, here and here).

Despite having the slowest website in the world, you should check out her work, especially the chairs she creates from the remains of other salvaged chairs. You can also see some of her stuff at the Rabih Hage Gallery.

See more work by Karen Ryan.

Beautiful swirling graphics. The SHCH Graphics Group don’t provide any information in relation to their intricate swirly typographic designs, but they’re stunning, and sometimes that’s all you need to know.

Check it all out at SHCH Graphics Group.

There’s never a plug socket nearby when you need one. Seemingly having been running since 2002, Un-Plugged appears to be an art project involving the placing of plug sockets around various cities in the most unlikely of places. So keep an eye out for the sockets in your city.

Check it out at Un-Plugged.

Art + Design = Miller Studio. Having been a former assistant to Artist Jeff Koons, and also a former designer for Karim Rashid, you can kind of get a sense of why the work of Jason Miller of Miller Studio verges between art and design. The colourful geometric patterns that can be made of his shipping container tiles would look suitably at home in an art gallery, as they would in your bathroom.

Shipping container tiles are ceramic wall tiles inspired by the landscape of shipping containers in Newark, New Jersey, or any other seaport.

See more great work at Miller Studio.

Art & Underwear. Although we’re used to the use of homo-erotic photography being used to flog underwear to the greater public, Bulge are doing it with a twist. For €99 you can buy a package consisting of a signed, numbered & framed photographic print of a subject wearing an item of Bulge underwear, and also the item of bulgewear featured in your print for yourself in your size.

So if you’re into artwork of men in their pants, and you happen to be in the market for a new pair of y-fronts, you better get yourself over to Bulge.

Damn it, it’s not a bed! When I first saw the Plywood Chateau by James Westwater I thought it was a life-size bedroom concept. Unfortunately, it’s art or something. pffft!!!

I demand someone designs a bed cube thingymabob that has interchangable vinyl walls that make you feel like you’re sleeping in a variety of exotic, expensive and glamorous locations, when in reality you’re sleeping in a plywood box!

Darth Vader doesn’t seem as frightening anymore. You’ve got to love Jeremyvilles’s Vader Helmet for The Vader Project; a reimagining of the iconic Darth Vader helmet by some of today’s hottest pop and underground artists.

You can see more of the artist’s helmets on show via Flickr.

Great video work from London based creative team. The guys from TEAR let me know about the award winning video they created for the buzz generating artist Ebony Bones. TEAR is the alias representing designer George Tsioutsias and artist Theo Michael, and the video they’ve created for the charmingly titled single ‘Don’t Fart On My Heart’ is a strikingly visual collection of scribbles and random stuff (just what I like.)

You can see the video on YouTube, or get a better quality version on TEAR’s website.

See more work by TEAR.

Germans, Guns & Photography. I have no idea what the german text accompanying this project is all about, all I know is that I want a gun-shaped camera. Running around the streets photo-shooting people in the face seems like a fun day out to me!

If you read German, find out more here.

I like sausages as much as the next guy, but… Víctor Castillo seems to have an unhealthy obsession with featuring sausages in his artworks. If you’re a fan of pigs, sausages and Ren & Stimpy-esque stylings go and check out at the work of Víctor Castillo at the Iguapop Gallery website.

You can find more work at Víctor Castillo’s own website.

Visual film fingerprints. Brendan Dawes has a great poster available over at the Coudal Partners fantastic Swapmeat.

The limited edition poster is based around the film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. As Brendan explains it, “A specially written piece of software takes a tiny snapshot of the film every second. Each row contains sixty of these frames, representing one minute of film time. This process continues for the whole movie resulting in an image that becomes greater than the sum of its parts, in effect creating a unique visual fingerprint of the film.”

I love it when potentially geeky elements (software programming, cult films, etc) are used to create something undeniably cool.

Go and check out the poster, and more at Swapmeat.

No sleeping at a five star hotel. Sleepless is a collaboration between The Great Eastern Hotel and fourteen students from the Royal College of Art’s acclaimed Design Products department led by Professor Ron Arad. Running from 19th May – 3rd June, the reactive installations and objects invite guests and visitors to take part in an experience and step into a hidden dimension where a hotel is more than just a place for the night.

I really like Tiago Da Fonseca’s ‘Bedtime Stories’ project. Each added layer of linen on your bed contains a “page” making up a traditional bedtime story.

Find out more at Sleepless.

I hold my hands up and admit it! I’m a complete fan-boy for Martí Guixé. There’s so much good work that I could talk about, but his “Food Design” is so clever and humorous that it deserves to be highlighted.

Guixé as a Food Designer builds edible products that are ergonomic, functional, communicative, interactive, visionary but radically contemporary and timeless.

Cookies with decoration that indicates how to eat them, hands-free lollipops, pie-graph cakes that indicates the ingredients of the cake in percentages, it’s all genius. The man takes the term “designer” onto a whole other level.

Find out more about Martí Guixé and his “Food Design”.

Animals in clothes? From what I can gather, designer Hella Jongerius is showing work at the Zero Compromise exhibition at Galerie Kreo in Paris from April 21st until May 26th 2007.

I’m intrigued by the Rhinocéros wearing a shirt! I’ll try and get more info on the exhibition and work involved, but if anyone is in Paris and will be going to the exhibition, drop me a line and tell me about it.

Sometimes Art baffles me. I have no idea what some art is trying to say, but it still looks cool. A good example is the “We’re treating each other just like strangers” exhibition by Meredyth Sparks at Galerie Frank Elbaz.

Flick through the exhibition images and you’ll see what I mean.

Art with chairs; it’s like it was made for me! I’ve got a craving to mess around with the Black Whole Conference by Michel De Broin.

The installation consists of a large sphere composed of an assemblage of chairs. The legs are attached to one another, bringing the chairs together. In this spherical conference room there is no central position, all the chairs float in solidarity with each other. They operate as an immune system – protecting themselves by blocking and kicking out their surroundings. As a massive object in the gallery space, the sphere acts as a centre of gravity around which the rest orbits. The reorganization of matter derives from a ‘big bang’ where the ancient order of the conference room has blown out and reconfigured into a ‘utopic’ geometrical endosystem.

I can’t help but want to roll it around the gallery!

Check out more work from Michel De Broin.

Dan Baldwin Update! As mentioned in my post about the Dan Baldwin Exhibition (running 23rd March – 20th April 2007 at the Forster Gallery), Baldwin has designed a limited edition series of wallpaper (shown in image above) which is made to order and available exclusively through the Forster Gallery, Price on application.

Another reason to get yourself down to the Forster Gallery for the show. Although, if you can’t make it you can call them on 020 7539 1974 or email at info@forstergallery.com.

More great art stuff. There looks like a great exhibition coming up by the artist Dan Baldwin called ‘Apocalypse Now’ at the Forster Gallery on Fashion Street, London.

Running from 23rd March 2007 through to 20th April 2007, you’ve got a chance to check out the works on show. Although his paintings are great, I’m really into his Evil ‘n’ Sick Vase and Cup & Saucer.

Amanda, who let me know about the exhibition, also mentioned that there will be wallpaper too. So that might be worth a purchase for anyone who likes Dan Baldwin’s style.

Find out more at Forster Gallery.

Great Australian gallery. As a follow on from my post about the Without Reason Art-book, I couldn’t go without specifically highlighting the China Heights Gallery itslef.

From the look of things they have some great shows from a lot of artists who are new to me. I’m particularly impressed by the works of Ian Houston Shadwell they show on their website; the work seems like a nice blend of more high-brow abstract art with a touch of street style and graffiti. If anyone knows more about this guy, please let me know.

Visit China Heights Gallery.

Without Reason. Elliott emailed me to tell me about a great limited edition art book he’s self-published called Without Reason (in association with China Heights Gallery.) Featuring the work of some great artists, Without Reason is “a limited edition art book dedicated to the roots and lifestyle of street culture, capturing the works of graffiti artists, painters, designers, illustrators, photographers and tattoo artists from Australia, America, Canada and the UK.”

There are only 1000 copies available, so nip over to Without Reason to buy your copy online today.

Do you come from a land down under? Where women glow and men plunder? Australian illustrator Eamo does! Fantastic work, full of Aussie references including Aboriginies and the mighty Steve Irwin.

Apologies for the Men At Work ‘Down Under’ lyrics at the beginning. Embarrassingly, I think it’s one of the coolest songs ever written.

Go and check out Eamo’s work.

Bring on the Kinky stuff! Last year, I loved the Kinky Form tables, this year, it’s the Kinky Form Chair. It’s a beautiful solid black chair with golden illustrations by Nigel Dennis aka Electric Heat. Very nice indeed.

Find out more at Kinky Form.

It’s even better than paintings of dogs playing poker. Jason from The Wurst Gallery emailled me to tell me about an exhibition they currently have running called The Wurstminster Dog Show. The show consists of 142 international artists representing 142 different dog breeds in their own unique way.

Ranging from simple afghan hound abstractions by Eleanor Grosch to brussels griffon psychadelia by Arbito, there are styles to suit everybody’s tastes.

A lot of these modern works remind me of the cat paintings of Louis Wain. Louis Wain went mad in later life, and his cat paintings gradually became more and more abstracted as his schizophrenia advanced. If you’ve got 3 minutes, check out this YouTube Video on the subject.

I’m not suggesting that the artists involved in The Wurstminster Dog Show are all mental, by the way. But you never know!

Do you have the work of a famous artist on your wall? Most artist’s work which can be placed on walls come in the form of paintings, but now, providing you can afford to pay £1,000.00 a roll, you can cover your walls in Damien Hirst’s Wallpaper from Other Criteria.

Expensive, but cheaper than buying one of his artworks!

Bizarre and Beautiful. That’s the only way to explain installations like How did the walrus get to Madrid?, Falling Garden and Brain Forest by Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger.

I don’t know what it’s about, or why they do it, but it’s beautiful and cool.

Design Inspiration. Check out this great collection of sleazy retro Film Posters. It’s a great source of creative inspiration in terms of styling, colour, etc. In my opinion, loads of them would maked great framed artworks.

Wow! Seriously. Just Wow! I can’t believe Mark Dean Veca’s installations. They’re incredible! And as if that’s not cool enough, his flock wallpaper style drawings are so cool I can’t think of enough good things to say about them. Just go and check out everything about Mark Dean Veca and bow down before the altar of his heavenly skills.

I’m a big fan of urban street art. If you like that sort of thing too, you should add Art of The State to your bookmarks. The “10 Sugars Is Not A Crime” work made me laugh. I always think people are mental if they have more than 2 sugars in their cup of tea.

Check out Art of The State.

This is even more random than usual for me. I saved this link to a bunch of these strange wall doodles under the words “One Line Drawings”. I can’t remember where I found the link, and the websites is all in german, so I have no idea what it’s all about.

However, if you like random scribble-type drawings on walls too, I thought I’d share the link with you.

Amazing Spanish Murals. I’m afraid I don’t know much about Sam3 other than he’s creating some really fantastic murals on the walls of spanish cities. I really love his silhouette style.

Via Wooster Collective.

Art, Design & Medical Models. I was going to write a clever post about how art filters through to the mainstream, but I’m in bed with the flu, so I can’t be bothered. I’ll just say that I love this medical figure by Kawsone, and I’ll let you think up somekind of clever connection to Damien Hirst’s ‘Hymn’ yourself.

Find out more about Kawsone.

Visit the world of Jeremyville. Fantastic characters and illustration from Jeremyville. You can literally spend hours clicking around the website looking at all the great grafitti, illustrations and products.

See the work of Jeremyville.

Limited edition prints available from great illustrators. Product of God is an online gallery offering high quality and affordable limited editions prints by leading contemporary illustrators and graphic artists. Each Print edition features a distinctive embossed authentification stamp and is signed and numbered by the Artist, or is supplied with an authentification certificate signed and numbered by the Artist.

Some of the artists currently available through Product of God are some of my favorites like Parra & Genevieve Gauckler, so go and check it out.

Wonderful crap for Christmas. Go and check out the numerous quirky products by Kit Grover. I’ve seen most of these in the Tate Modern shop, so if you’re after gifts for someone creative in your life, get yourself over there to do a spot of Christmas shopping. I know I’d be happy with a foam crown!

I’ve always has an affection for this work. The retro-ish kitsch style of J H Lynch is a guilty pleasure of mine. I don’t care what anyone says, it’s cool.

Learn more about J H Lynch.

Beautiful artwork from an amazing artist. Although Tomokazu Matsuyama has been getting quite a lot of exposure from other blogs at the moment, I’m still going to post it anyway (I try and stay away from anything that’s already been posted by other similar blogs – whats the point in 10 sites all showcasing the same stuff?).

Being an ex-art degree person myself, I find it very hard to simply enjoy artwork for what it is. I always seem to have to trace the influences of other artists in anything I see. But with Tomokazu Matsuyama I can enjoy the work in itself, without having to catagorise it (even if the very distinct style of colourful birds & horse-like creatures has a very picasso-esque feel to it.)

Tomokazu Matsuyama is one artist who’s work I would love to own one day.

I love Serge Seidlitz. The illustrator Serge Seidlitz is amazing. Seriously. Just go and check out his website to see his fantastic work. I really love his Poster available from Play Lounge

He’s now definitely up there as one of my favorite illustrators.

More crazy road colouring ideas. A while back I posted about Florentijn Hofman’s Yellow Road Project. It seems he’s now decided to do the same thing again in White. The idea of colouring in various enviroments in solid blocks of colour is great, Hofman has even done various other things in Orange as well.

Florentijn Hofman’s website has been updated with a bunch of other new interesting projects. So go and check it out.

Furniture you could never afford in a million years. originiNdesign are discerning collectors inspired by a passion for rare, exciting and unusual in design. Offering unique pieces and artist proofs by designers such as Ron Arad and Tom Dixon, they provide an opportunity for serious collectors to source interesting early original works by designers, and also an intriguing insight into the development of products for the rest of us.

Anyone interested in product design should get themselves over to originiNdesign to see the current pieces available, and see some of the earlier design works of Tom Dixon.

I hate Couscous. But I love the illustrations by Couscous Kid aka. Mathew Star Thomas.

That is all. Go about your daily business.

More amazing video grafitti madness! Remember the One Week of Artworks post I made back at the start of this month? Turns out the guys behind that video are called Rinpa Eshidan.

“Rinpa” is a word created by the founders of the group meaning “to bring people together, while “Eshidan” essentially means “art crew.” The Rinpa Eshidan is a team of artists brought together by a common creative expression.

Rinpa Eshidan have also made a couple of other equally amazing videos of artworks in progress being continually reworked. Check them out on their website.

Read more about Rinpa Eshidan.

Is it a Sheep? Goat? Deer? Llama? I’m loving the work of Broken Crow aka. John Grider. Although, my girlfriend and I are having an argument over what the animal is in one of his latest large murals. I think it’s a baby goat, whereas my girlfriend thinks it’s a deer (crazy, right?)

Whatever it is, it’s cool. Go and check out his work at brokencrow.com.

Via Wooster Collective.

UK vs. Australia with paint. The Wooster Collective report on a recent Paint Jam in London between the United Kingdom and Australia. I love seeing full wall grafitti in internal structures. I dream of the day that I can find a styling artist to come round and paint my office walls. I’m so jealous of what SkinnyCorp did with their office.

Read the Wooster Collective Article for info and more photos.

Opportunities to abuse your credit card. If you’re anything like me, and you’re a bit of a whore for designer magazines, books, prints, etc. You should check out Fusshop. There’s loads of interesting product to abuse your credit card with.

Check out the products at Fusshop.

Air Traffic Visualisations. These air traffic visualisations are interesting, and beautiful too. According to the blurb…

The following flight pattern visualizations are the result of experiments leading to the project Celestial Mechanics by Scott Hessels and Gabriel Dunne. FAA data was parsed and plotted using the Processing programming environment.

See the visualisations.

A good opportunity for a double entendre. Fancy a post-modern bust to display in your home, then you’re in luck. There are loads of great ones by cool designers. The lastest, the Che Trooper by Urban Medium is very stylish, but if you’ve got the need for a glow-in-the-dark one (hey! who hasn’t?), check out Frank Kozik’s Bird is The Word Mao Bust available from Kid Robot.

Candy photographs by Craig Kanarick. You’ve got to love these photos made up of sweets seperated out in to different colour ranges. Someone should make a Willy Wonka style wallpaper range out of them, pronto!

See more of Craig Kanarick’s work at Rock Made.

Modern Surrealism. I don’t know anything about Pixel Nouveau other than the short bio on Archinect. What I do know is that he’s got a crazy modern surrealist style. I particularly love the Daliesque style pieces like this.

Definitely someone worth checking out. See more work at Pixel Nouveau

I have no idea what it is, but I want to sit on it. Pieke Bergmans is a young industrial designer from Holland. I have no idea what she’s trying to create with the bizarre vegetable form that is Big Mama Virus, but I really, really want to sit on it!

See more work by Pieke Bergmans.