Warning: Contains nudity. Hybridity is the law of nature in the visceral, organic artworks of Caitlin Hackett. We featured her in 2012, but she has been busy in the years since, producing visionary paintings and illustrations of humans and animals embroiled in rituals of sacrifice and rebirth. As roots and fungus sprout from dying bodies, […]
Category: Birds
Animal Oddities: Dreamy and Dark Sculptures by Erika Sanada
The innocence of Erika Sanada’s animal sculptures is somewhat deceiving. They resemble gentle spirits with glowing white eyes and pale skin, but each one is plagued by dark dramas and terrifying anomalies; canines tear into each other’s flesh, small creatures lie dead, and bodies fuse and mutate. Naming her current body of work “Odd Things,” […]
Creepy Crocheted Animal Skeletons by Caitlin McCormack
Caitlin McCormack is a Philadelphia-based artist who crochets delicate skeletons using cotton string stiffened with glue. Her brittle creations—which include birds, small mammals, and bizarre hybrids—resemble archeological specimens, pressed in the earth and decayed by time. They writhe, unravel, and cluster together, embodying both the despair of extinction and the persistence of memory. Images © […]
10 Artists Who Reimagine the Creative Possibilities of Paper
There are endless possibilities when creating with paper. More than just a surface to draw on, artists manipulate the ancient material into sculptures, collages, and even fashion accessories. The diverseness of paper lends itself to a myriad of stylistic approaches and exploration of themes. Some artists use collage cutouts to create mystical characters, while others […]
10 Rogue Taxidermy Artists Who Create Imaginative Sculptures
The art of taxidermy has been practiced for a long time; the ancient Egyptians embalmed and entombed cats, birds, and other creatures. Over the millennia, animals have been mounted as hunters’ trophies and museum artifacts. It is an odd practice, one that is traditionally pulled between human pride, symbolism, and a desire to memorialize deceased […]
Minimalist Tattoos by Lee Stewart Mimic the Graceful Flow of Ink
Lee Stewart mimics the graceful, flowing lines of a brushstroke in her minimalist body art. Riding a fine line between tattoos and Japanese sumi-ink paintings, she conveys elegant, sweeping marks in seemingly one motion. At times, this abstract imagery celebrates a love of painting, while in other instances, the powerful strokes define animals, birds, and […]
Winter’s Requiem: New Works by Laura Makabresku
Stillness and winter’s chill permeate the newest works of Polish photographer Laura Makabresku. Describing her photos as “screenshots from beautiful but cruel fairy tales,” she often includes animals as symbols of transition and death. There is a sense of beauty, romance, and darkness that weave together to enrapture the imagination. From the woman embracing a […]
Dissected Splendor: Nunzio Paci’s Visionary Anatomy Paintings
Nunzio Paci is an Italian artist who paints aged human bodies caught between evisceration and rebirth. He is interested in mutation and our relationship with nature. Recalling the anatomy illustrations of the Italian Renaissance, Paci reinvests an age-old admiration of the body’s structures with a figurative exploration of mortality and the spirit; as veins and […]
Tales of Love and Despair: Photography by Elena Helfrecht
Note: Contains nudity. The work of German photographer Elena Helfrecht is like emotional alchemy, combining dark symbols to unearth visions of beauty and despair. Inspired by the folklore and forest landscapes of Bavaria, her photos often include sylvan imagery, the moon, nude bodies, shadowed rooms, and the co-relation between life and death, dreams and awakening. […]
10 Best Illustrators of 2015
Illustration encompasses many areas of our visual culture. It’s the picture on your coffee cup and a clever advertisement you see while going to work. Illustration is in books, magazines, and accompanies articles online. With so much illustration in the world, there’s a lot of mediocre images out there. But, the cream rises to the […]