“Choosy developers choose GIF,” developer Steve Wilhite once said about the new file format when it was introduced in 1987. The catchy tagline was a riff on the then-popular JIF peanut butter commercial. Today, GIFs are ubiquitous. They are widely shared and even the news is delivered with little snippets of the compressed animation. But […]
Category: Abstract
Mind-Melting And Eye-Popping Artwork by James Jean
James Jean is a renowned Taiwanese-American artist who has produced work for big-name clients such as DC Comics, Prada, and ESPN. In 2008, he retired from illustration to focus on painting. His style is chaotic, flowing, psychedelic, and eclectic, bearing artistic influences from “Chinese scroll paintings, Japanese woodblock prints, and Renaissance portraiture.” Despite this range […]
A Modern Picasso: The Cubist Tattoos of Mike Boyd
Look twice. Cock your head. That’s the reaction Mike Boyd wants. Picasso-era paintings, new school flash and traditional street art all meld together in his cubist tattoos. “I love the strange juxtaposition of angles and colors, and yet it’s still recognizable,” he says. “I like the fact that it… doesn’t quite look right.” On the road […]
Abstract Joy: Colorful Digital Art by Rik Oostenbroek
Rik Oostenbroek is an artist, designer, and director based in the Netherlands. When he was still a teenager, he began his (literally) colorful career as a member of the digital art collective Depthcore. In the decade following, he has blossomed into a multifaceted and highly-sought-after freelance artist, creating designs for big-name brands such as Nike […]
Hideous, Terrible, Magical Body: An Interview with Olivier de Sagazan
In the middle of the movie “Samsara” (2011), a nicely dressed man appears behind a desk. He quickly begins plastering his face with clay and paint, building thick layers with feverish intensity. Within two minutes, his head is transformed into a grotesque death mask, which he impales and tears open, only to rebuild and destroy […]
Forest-Inspired Tattoos and Drawings by Katarzyna Krutak
Katarzyna Krutak is an illustrator and tattoo artist who says she’s “inspired by the smell of the forest.” Her images are a smattering of approaches, with one figure containing repeat patterns, energetic scribbles, and intricate dotwork. The flattened aesthetic has a folk art look and feel, as if these figures were plucked from a storybook. […]
Minimalist Tattoos That Say a Lot with Just a Few Lines
The art movement known as minimalism is ubiquitous today, but it only emerged to prominence about 60 years ago. Established in the United States, it initially referred to artworks comprising geometric shapes. This approach, which included painters like Frank Stella, Donald Judd, and Agnes Martin, implores the viewer to respond to “only to what is […]
Delicate Tattoos Mimic the Natural World by Marta Lipinski
Tattoo artist Marta Lipinski started her career in the sciences and was trained as a chemical and biology lab assistant. Never intending to be in that profession for long, she eventually learned to tattoo and became obsessed—it was a way she could share her artwork with others. “I never thought that I [would] find a […]
Typography Bursts Through Abstract Embroidery
Did you ever expect embroidery to encourage you to “Rise up!” or “Give Hell”? Valeria Molinari’s typographical hoop art fuses the power of language with bright and textural abstract designs. Colorful non-representational shapes—created with thread as well as beading—are carved away by empowering script. “Most of my work is inspired by my activism and the […]
Digimatism: A Future Visual Language by Stanislaw Wilczynski
Moscow-based tattoo artist Stanislaw Wilczynski produces shape-centric imagery that is born out of the Digimatism movement. Digimatism, a combination of the words “digital” and “suprematism,” describes his bold abstract assemblages that are created with the help of the computer. This contemporary approach has a historic bend to it by recalling artistic movements from the early […]