Lana Crooks is a textile artist based in Chicago. At first glance, the delicate skulls she creates appear to be real, adorned with flowers and jewels and displayed in bell jars like magical specimens found in the back of a curiosity shop. Look closer, however, and you can see the intricate textures of wool and […]
Category: Animals
Cake Fangs: Sweetly Lethal Sculptures by Scott Hove
Scott Hove is an LA-based artist who turns the ingredients of beauty and violence into colorful, snarling cakes. As part of an ongoing project called “Cakeland,” these sculptures explore “the process of re-integrating light and dark, [moving] from a false dualism to a true whole.” While the juxtaposition of sweetness and savagery may be the […]
Tenderness for the Dead: Sculptures by Berlinde de Bruyckere
The wax sculptures of the Ghent-born artist Berlinde de Bruyckere ask the viewer a question rooted in ethics: What does a subject need to lack in order to be considered a soulless object? They resemble the byproducts of a morgue, a slaughterhouse, or a taxidermist’s table, all of which are thematically linked as platforms of […]
Playfully Dark Surrealist Paintings by Jose Luis Lopez Galvan
The oil paintings of Mexican artist Jose Luis Lopez Galvan are guaranteed to make you look twice—once for shock, and the second time to soak in the potent symbolism. Combining the bizarre eroticism of Hieronymus Bosch with Cassius Marcellus Coolidge’s low-brow critique of class issues, Galvan inserts his own contemporary style to produce a new breed […]
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. […]
Death and Morality in Macabre Paintings by Kikyz1313
Kikyz1313 is a Mexican artist who confronts the viewer with discomforting representations of “the abject.” As developed by Julia Kristeva, the abject is a term that refers to the more unpleasant details of our earthly existences, such as excrement, disease, death, and decay—all of the natural processes that erode our sense of human superiority and […]
10 Best Illustrators of 2016
The field of illustration once had a period of time called “The Golden Age.” This 40-year stretch began in the 1880’s and continued into the 1920’s, coming to fruition because of advances in image reproduction technology. Once the public got a taste of graphic art, there became an insatiable demand for it. American illustrator Howard Pyle was […]
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 […]
There’s Beauty in Everything: An Interview with Peony Yip
Peony Yip, also known as The White Deer, inadvertently focuses her illustrative work on themes that make some people uncomfortable. One of her most popular series called “To Bloom Not Bleed” is described by her as “A series that portrays the fine line between the grotesque and beauty of death.” To Yip, you can find […]
Delicate Rot: Animal Paintings and Drawings by Hannah Ward
Hannah Ward draws and paints animals in opposing states of birth and decay, power and surrender, healing and infection. Deer, foxes, chipmunks, and other woodland creatures are painted in pastel colors that mix with the deep reds and blues of exposed viscera, suspended on the page in a symbolic purgatory that shows both their materiality […]