Dessi Terzieva is a law student and artist living in “the great city of Detroit”. She was kind enough to send in some of her handmade collages.
For those who’ve been reading our little blog for a while – you know I’m a sucker for a collage. There’s something about the way different scales, textures and hues can all work together so incongruously yet so perfectly – if done well. Collages created by good old fashioned scissors and glue rather than Photoshop retain a certain naive aesthetic that I find really appealing. It also requires the construction process to be a labor of love, rather than a trawl through google images – perhaps that taps into my old fashioned glamorisation of the suffering artist…
In her own words:
“In the process of cutting pictures from old books/magazines, I get to know my characters and their story, ultimately to make them my own. By giving them a new reality, they give me a voice. Each collage is the equivalent of a diary entry - I am speaking to you and others, telling you how I feel, what I think, what I crave, and what I despise.”
I reckon they’re gonna sell a billion of these dudes. Probably to me.
While we have a billion other hi-tech ways to get our RSS and social feeds from friends as they drive along the information superhighway, I like Little Printer. He’s cute, and I think it’d be a great little 11am pickup to hear him print out a few gags to sparkle your day. I just hope he doesn’t scream like a dot-matrix.
David Spriggs, or ‘Spriggsy’ as I imagine his old school chums used to call him, paints on multiple layers of semi-transparent perspex – which once combined with a small distance between each plane creates wonderful dynamic, fluid images. Part sculpture, part painting, all boss.
Here is a rare snapshot of an undone ‘Holly Golightly’, modest and demure.
What a true lady Audrey Hepburn was. An elegant soul, always.
Side point: did you know that Marilyn Monroe was the favourite for the role of Holly Golightly? I can’t imagine the little wild flower by any other actress than Miss Hepburn.
On Friday night a few old friends and I went to a Friday the 13th gig featuring the likes of Melbourne regulars Rat VS Possum and Montero playing alongside the unique and painfully-hip emotive electronica of John Maus from the US-of-A.
I was expecting the usual from Mr Maus- A geeky guy standing behind a MacBook Pro, pretending to line up another loop on his midi pads and tweak the treble while placidly delivering moody vocals channeling a despondent Ian Curtis.
What we got was something incredible, frightening, psychotic, unique, and genius.
The entire croud, me included, started the set in disbelief. Here’s this dude just fuckin’ yellin’ and screamin’ and smashing his head on the mike and going totally mental. Is he genuinely crazy? Is he having a mental breakdown? A quizzical expression of “What the heck is going on” crossed everyones faces for most of the 25 minute show.
Turns out Mr Maus is not only a trained student of music but near to completion of a Phd in Political Philosophy. You can see his hyper intellectual deconstruction of music, commercialism, mainstream culture and the collective subconsious come out in his various interviews on YouTube, but to see it come out in a physical performance was indescribable. Perhaps he was drawing upon punk performance influences such as GG Allin and The Sex Pistols along with the performative excess of something like WWE wrestling? It was wild, but very, very controlled at the same time.
I don’t really know what he was aiming for but he’s definitely a lot smarter than I am and the craziness of his performance was incredibly calculated, disarming and electric.
My friend Haris Ashraff has a new camera and managed to take some excellent shots:
And now you should definitely play this track. It’s epic.
I like Harry Malt. He’s represented by the folks at debutart along with an old pal of ours, and you might like this blog regular Kerry Roper. In a whimsical naive fashion he communicates the universal truths of:
love and time
the inane boredom of our iPhone-pinging-distracted existence
an appreciation of LCD Soundsystem lyrics
infatuation with Rosie Huntington Whiteley
the comedic value of giant gorillas.
These five things basically constitute my psychographic profile, so Mr Malt, I salute you.
Here’s some pieces from the folio of British artist and designer, Dave White. To my untrained eye, he takes the pop art baton from heavyweights such as Lichenstien and Warhol but then reinvigorates the form it to make it his own creating a rough, multilayered and highly sensual reinterpretation.
I guess it’s his pop art sensibilities that allows White, to produce works for brands such as Nike without feeling like he’s corrupting his sense of artistic credibility. If Warhol can start his career as a shoe designer, then why the heck not.
While I do spend a lot of time finding inspiring gems to share with you across this here information superhighway. In the real working world I’m a Social Media Planner.
I’ve just moved from London to Melbourne and am looking for a new gig. I decided to refresh my CV in a pseudo-infographic style. What do you think?
Not able to give me a job? That’s cool, you can help out by sharing this post.
Think you’d like to work with me, or know someone who might? Get in touch.
If there was no design, all of us would be living in total chaos. Design helps to tame the chaos: sometimes with prosaic indifference and sometimes with flair and imagination. Designers are the visual police; some are brutal, some see and understand the whole picture. It never fails to amaze me how design works; from tiny corner-shop receipts, through magazines, newspapers, posters and catalogues to packaging, town planning etc. etc. etc. and then worldwide branding for a huge global conglomerate in different languages for different cultures.
These lovely photos are by SAMARA NETTLEFORD (she emailed me in caps), who is currently a graphic design student at De Montfort University, Leicester and launching herself into the world under the banner of Grey.Sea Designs.
Over the last few years I’ve really taken to the the high contrast, low saturation effects on photos that give them a raw sort of dusty nostalgic feel. That, and the pure minimalism of images with traces of human modernity devoid of actual human form. Samara’s stuff is subsequently bang on to my tastes, and hopefully yours too. I think it’s visually delicious!
