Artists Of The Moment
[ 28 May 2008 ]
I was recently asked about how I found the pictures I use on iCiNG. Mostly I find them on Flickr, probably because I am an obsessive Flickr browser! They make it so easy… I search by keyword & sort by “most interesting”, then look, add to favourites, see the artist’s favourites, keep travelling around… It’s very easy to spend a lot of time there.
On that subject, here are some of my favourite artists. Artists of the moment, let’s say. Most of them I found through Flickr, though not all. Go to their websites, buy their prints, send them adoring emails!
Kris Atomic
Kris is one of my favourite young artists. It’s so exciting to read her blog & watch her grow because potential just shines out of her like a blinding light. You never know what’s she going to try next, & it’s brilliant to see her experiment with new mediums! Fearless art girl, grrrr! Generally, though, she is an illustrator, embroiderer, excellent photographer & shoe lover.
Roxanne M. Carter
I’ve been following what Roxanne does for years — since 1997, I’m sure. I first fell in love with her photographs: a published chronicle of the adventures of her & her friends in Hollywood. Then I discovered her writing, & fell in love again. As she has moved further into academia she has eased up on the photographs, but it is still wonderful to get a peek into her life. The photo album on her site is very worth perusing.
Fawn Gehweiler
Allow me to demonstrate how much I love Fawn’s work. I own one of her original paintings. I own one of her numbered, framed prints. I have a poster on my wall. & the pièce de résistance — I had two of her girls tattooed on me a few years ago. So let’s just say, I dig her. I think she is fabulous! You can also buy her work on all kinds of things, from bags to mirrors to mousepads, so keep your eyes peeled!
Lucia Holm
Dreamy portraits with a definite 60’s & 70’s vibe. Swinging colours, Twiggy tattoos, short skirts & flowers in her hair. Really, I am just a big fan of girls with a strong aesthetic taking lots of pictures of themselves… Can you blame me?
Kalindy lives in rural Australia, & often uses herself as a subject. Her use of white space gives a sense of expansion & loneliness, like we are watching her grow into herself from far away. She is cute & unkempt, with home haircuts & dirty knees, a host of neat props & a great eye for composition.
Audrey Kawasaki
It’s funny when liking an artist becomes so ubiquitous that you almost leave them off the list. I remember a few years ago when everyone & their dog loved Mark Ryden (including me) — now it seems like Audrey is going through a similar exaltation. If you don’t know about her yet, get on it! Her paintings are gentle, erotic & sweet, laden with beautiful colours & a good dose o’ mystery. They would look great above a bed in a very white room, I think.
Aneta Kowalczyk
An excellent photographer who sometimes uses herself as a subject (as above). Her self-portraits are my favourite; she is disarmingly handsome & bold. Her other work isn’t too shabby either — she chooses female subjects who look strong, powerful & unashamed, lights them magnificently & only publishes her very best shots.
Miss Loisy
If I had to describe Miss Loisy’s work, I’d say it’s colourful, creepy & weird, with an unsettling sense of humour. For example, the shots above are from Miss Loisy’s ‘DIY Botox’ series — genius! Her ‘Leaking Lady’ series is similarly disconcerting, & she brings a great sense of fun & excitement to everything she does. (A girl in a balaclava in an H&M dressing room?! Too cool!)
tiger lily & tiny teeth
Dream worlds & gingerbread houses. The relics of a life made beautiful. If you ever have doubts that the world is an amazing, fascinating place, a look through her photographs & drawings will set you right again. I would be very happy living in her pictures. (She also has an infrequently updated but equally lovely journal.)
Nubby Twiglet
The righteous queen of red. The czarina of scarlet. The madam of maroon. You get the picture! Nubby is a mixed-media artist & graphic designer with an eye-popping aesthetic & visual taste so sharp that it aches. (She’s also the iCiNG Treat designer for May!) With Nubby, the art doesn’t stop & start, it’s constant — look at the contents of her purse for proof! I adore her, & can’t wait to meet her in a few weeks time. Squeal!
Tim Walker
Tim Walker is a British photographer, romantic & visionary. He has shot campaigns for everyone from Vogue to Kate Spade, all with fabulous panache. I honestly can’t spot many themes in his work, but can say that everything he does comes with a large spoonful of his surreal medicine, & is a sort of celebration of offbeat femininity. Love it. (There is a huge Flickr set of his work here.)
Francesca Woodman
I was introduced to Francesca Woodman’s work by my photography teacher at school. She had a book of her pictures, which I pored over & adored. While, sadly, she committed suicide in 1981 at age 22, from age 13 onwards she created 10,000 negatives & more than 800 prints. For some reason, only about 120 of those have ever been published. She was a fascinating woman with incredible talent.
Who are your favourite artists? Whose art do you just not ‘get’? What kind of thing would you like to hang on your bedroom wall?
Super-love & cupcakes,
Gala
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what a wonderful post!
i love kris atomic, i’ve been following her blog pretty obsessively for the past few months. she’s studying at art school in london, which is what i’ll be doing in september – here’s hoping i end up having as lovely a life!
francesca woodman is one of my favourite artists ever. her work absolutely astounds me. such a beautiful tragic woman.
my favourite artists are jenny holzer, joel-peter witkin, francesca woodman, salvador dalî and cai guo-qiang, whose name i can never spell right :3
xx
Great post ! I do love the way the internet has opened up the way to unknown talent. Just about anyone can try to showcase their work, and if they have “it”, they get spotted !
Ooh, some fantastic finds there Gala! I knew about some of those lovely creatives, but it’s nice to see some fab new people too.
David LaChapelle & Martin Parr are my two all-time heroes of the photo-world!
Perhaps controversially, I’m not a fan of Frida Kahlo. It’s not that I don’t ‘get’ her. And I appreciate the reasons behind her work & her life… but I just don’t like the way her paintings actually look!
Have to agree on the great post. Kurt Hasley (http://www.kurthalsey.com/work.html) would be one of my favorite artists in the world and I have got to find some way of getting some of his work ahem I adore the art.
lou o’bedlam’s polaroids:
www.flickr.com/photos/louobedl…
whitney’s polaroids:
www.flickr.com/photos/revivify…
I just read an article on Tim Walker in this month’s Vogue barely an hour ago! His stuff is wonderful. Great post! x
These are all great. I also love flickr.com/photos/merkley/ Merkley??? as well. Warning though, most photos NSFW!
Gala, these images are so gorgeous. I love photography and I love that FlickR allows you to favorite pretty pictures. I’ve been trying to use FlickR to give lots of personality to my own blog lately.
What I still haven’t done is uploaded a photo stream of my own… but these pictures are starting to inspire me!
Oh Gala, thanks SO MUCH for including me, how flattering! Haha, I’m in the middle of working on an ad campaign but keep getting distracted by your blog— must get work done!
So looking forward to our adventures with sparklers and raw ice cream. ;)
xoxo
Hey-I totally love this post with being an art student and all.Thanks for the pointers towards these AMAZING new artists-I am totally going to use them as part of my research into my art for my last year. I think you would also love Dame Darcy. She has a website but I cannot remember the URL. I think it is something as simple as damedarcy . com ! I don’t know if you have ever heard of her but she is fabulous!! xxx
Love this post!
I covet Audrey Kawasaki’s work! Her prints sell so, so quickly!
I really love perusing Deviantart!
One of my favorites:
loish.deviantart.com
&I’d love one of Leesa Leva’s gorgeous watercolor portraits!:
www.leesaleva.com/
I reallyyyy am not feeling anything of the scribble style drawings/portraits! I can’t remember what the style was called.. Anyone can scribble something!!
I LOVE James Jean. He does a lot of comic book covers, but also does paintings as well. His website is www.jamesjean.com
I also love the cuteness at www.nutandbee.com.. Annette makes the cutest creations.
woaah, awesome post, thanks a lot girl ;)!
I tend to incline to fantasy-related art, but here’s some artists that I like that do other (amazing) things:
hakanphotography.deviantart.co… —> fashion photography
logan —>surreal photography
bluefley.deviantart.com/ —>cool drawings (fantasy :P)
janaschi.deviantart.com/ —> more awesome drawings
:D
Aneta Kowalczyk is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
I really love all of these artists. They’re fresh. I think I like Miss Loisy the best – I love freaky art.
Although my favourite artist of all time is Alex Grey – psychedelic, spiritual & meaningful.
I’d have to say my favourite artist is Jackson Pollack. His art doesn’t have the aesthetic that many new artists do, but it’s so expressionist and I love it.
I’m in love with comic book art, currently Jamie Hewlett & Naoko Takeiuchi. I also like Caitin Sheers (http://pepperminte.deviantart.com) & Vladlena Shevelova (vladlenas.deviantart.com).
I love everything you posted (knew about much of it already TBH, especially roxanne carter, who i adore).
i wish you’d do a post on musical artists as well!
Zdzislaw Beksinski, in all his creepy, skin-crawling glory, is one of my favorite artists ever. Sadly he was murdered a while back and is no longer producing those wonderfully horrifying paintings of his (which is strange because he was by all accounts a normal, friendly man), but I love them anyways.
www.beksinski.pl/
most of the site is in Polish, but it’s pretty navigable (and really well-designed)!
here’s a couple that I can’t get enough of:
flickr.com/photos/im
flickr.com/photos/merkley/
leskrims.com/
One of my favourite artists is the NZer Colin McCahon!
www.ngv.vic.gov.au/mccahon/
I’m actually working on a series inspired by his text on canvas works :D. So yeah, he’s awesome!
wow what an interesting post. i don’t have the time/patience myself for trawling through flickr, but shall certainly investigate your links, gala.
On, but still slightly off topic, I was wondering if you have heard anything about the Bill Henson furore that’s going on in Australia at the moment – he is a photographer who has taken pictures of nude children on the verge of adolesence and the police raided a gallery due to display his work in Dalinghurst.
K-Rudd has weighed in calling it revolting etc etc etc. I was just wondering what you thought about it(if in fact you had been reading the Aussie news now you are in glorious New York.)
Hi Gala, BEAUTIFUL artists doing amazing works — thanks so much for that list. One of my faves I think you would like is Alissa Christine www.alissachristine.com/ She does cool photography and graphic design. Thanks again, I love hearing about new artists to explore the work of! Gratefully, Jenny
Pretty things… O.O
I spend my days wandering around deviantart instead. I could go on and on for hours about the vector artists who make my heart do a little happy dance, but I’m not going too.
Andy Warhol is probably my favourite artist of all time, and also my one of my largest crushes. I totally wouldn’t mind covering my walls in his print work.
And definitely my dad and my best friend Kenzie. I’m insanely jealous of both of them.
Wow. Thanks for profiling these. Some amazing artists/work that I’d probably never have come across otherwise.
i really love miserys work
Aimee Marie — I love David LaChapelle too, I think he is brilliant! & I hear you on Frida Kahlo. I’m in the same boat :>
Rachael — Kurt Halsey is another one of those artists that everyone is crazy about! I actually saw prints of his at Urban Outfitters in Orlando… !
AFriendlyMonster — Merkley is fantastic! Love him!
Rachel — I used to be obsessed with Dame Darcy! I used to order her comic books & CDs through Ebay because when I was living in NZ there was no other way to get them. I cherished them! & it’s so funny you mention her, because I was at a show last Thursday (I think) that she was MC’ing! It was great to see her in person!
katie — I have know Annette since 1996!!!!! She was one of my first ever internet friends. We connected because we were both on the alt.gothic.fashion newsgroup & both from New Zealand. We used to send each other faxes! OMG!
Ivy — Alex Grey is awesome. Have you ever seen his art up close or been to his gallery, the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors? It is an incredible space, very humbling, just like his work
Meredith — Good idea, cutie!
ally — I barely ever read the news regardless of the country I’m in (most of it is just fear-mongering bullshit & quite frankly, I’m not interested in filling my head with it), but yes, I did hear about the Bill Henson thing. I believe in freedom of artistic expression, & I don’t think he has done anything wrong.
Jelly Bean — Have you ever read Andy Warhol’s journals? They’re so interesting (& self-indulgent). Fascinating stuff!
OMG Lucia Holm! When I saw her picture I was like o_o and then I went over to her flickr and my jaw dropped open. 8D I want to buy all of her pictures and hang them up everywhere like a crazy adoring fangirl.
Trevor Brown!
pileup.com/babyart
Everybody would probably know him by this piece: pileup.com/babyart/pix/happyne… but he has some amazing stuff in his galleries.
Tiffany — She’s pretty great, huh? :D
Cally — I adore Trevor Brown! I haven’t visited his site in ages so I kind of forgot to mention him. Oops! He is fantastic, though!
glad to hear it gala. the daily telegraph is being absolutely disgraceful in their treatment of the whole thing – I am a journalist myself and I am ashamed of the profession when shit like this gets blown up so much.
ally — So much of what gets written is pure schlock, designed to sell copies. Those of us with integrity & passion have to hold onto it with white-knuckled fists!
I adore Francesca Woodman. I found out about her work when I was studying photography so it was a big inspiration :)
I found Audrey Kawasaki’s work about a year ago and I have been showing it to all of my friends ever since! As an aspiring artist she is a real inspiration to me and I love her delicate and fine style.
A few of my other favourites are
Sas Christian – www.hotboxdesigns.com/sas_chri…
Colin Christian (Sas’s Husband!) – www.hotboxdesigns.com/colin_ch…
Tara McPherson – www.taramcpherson.com/
Sylvia Ji – www.sylviaji.com/
David Stoupakis – www.davidstoupakis.com/
and David Choe – www.davidchoe.com/
I never really got into Mark Ryden. A lot of my friends thought he was the best thing since sliced bread but I just didn’t latch onto his stuff like they did.
love this post xxx
oh thank you gala! i’m so flattered to be included among such talented people (i ♥ nubby & audrey, too!) i really think of myself as a writer that does multimedia work… leaning primarily on the writing side, & yes in academia, where there’s love + money for the avant garde.
i second dame darcy, tho you probably know about her (?) if not i am getting rid of my stuff since i’m moving & i cld mail you her comics to nyc if you pass them on to someone else when you leave. let me know!
& adding sophie calle — she does great stuff with text & images!!!
yoko ono
caroline bergval
and on & on.
has anyone mentioned peter Callesen? i just discovered him today, and his work is amazing.
www.petercallesen.com/index.ht…
I love Camille Rose Garcia, Polly Morgan, Kristen Ferrell, Remedios Varo, Natalie Shau :-)
words cannot describe how much i adore lucia holm which i found through flickr a while ago. great to see her work in your lists of fave as well.
Hiromix.
My favourite photographer, hands down.
I have one of her books but it’s really hard to get hold of any more. I think she has about five.
Unfortunately I don’t have any examples to show you and it’s very hard to find much about her on the net.
Ooh, artists!
My favorites are Camille Rose Garcia, SHAG, Glenn Barr, Gil Elvgren, Al Hirschfeld, David LaChapelle, Richard Avedon, Alberto Vargas, Andy Warhol, Richie Fahey, Kirsten Ulve, and then there’s my friends Will Koffman, Matt Adams, and my little sister Dri!
roxi — Oh I love Yoko Ono too, very much in fact, & Yayoi Kusama! Now that it’s a new day I can think of a whole lot of other people I like, haha! Oh, & I would love some Dame Darcy comics… I will email you!
Oh, LOVELY post! Such beauty – it made my day. Love Nubby Twiglet & Kris Atomic – I own Nubby’s shoe tank top (saw it on you last year and just had to have it!) Now I need to educate myself about some of the other artists mentioned here :)
A new find of mine – Annie Galvin – I just bought two of her Wexford Girl paintings and they are wonderful – make me so happy!
you’ve listed lots of artists that i love (tim walker and kris atomic are constant sources of inspiration for me!) but thanks for pointing me in the direction of miss loisy. i couldn’t help but smile looking through her gallery.
and oh gosh, mark ryden! i was one of those people who totally loved him. mainly one of his pictures with a girl with bleeding eyes but i was in my teenage phase of loving anything remotely creepy.
a few from my DA & flickr faves:
zemotion.deviantart.com/ – if you haven’t seen some of her work already, do take a look! she takes some really lovely photos.
flickr.com/photos/yyellowbird/ – some nice, dreamy photography
incredi.deviantart.com/ – some gorgeous photography.
flickr.com/photos/ericsaeter/ – i love his illustrations, so colourful!
One of my Favourite artist is Amy Sol: www.amysol.com
i love the way she paints the animals :)
Oooh, this is really inspiring.
My favorite artist is my mum, actually.
I haven’t really been interested in these kinds of visual arts for a while, so I’m not very in tune with what’s new and exiting. But, now, I am intrigued and will search for my renewed taste in eye candy.
Tiphanie Brooke:
www.antigirl.com/
Like Roxanne, she’s been around forever. Gorgeous collages and books.
www.flickr.com/salsapark
I’m young! I’m an artist!
wow I see how people spend so long browsing on flickr now. I really like Nubby Twiglet’s aesthetic and the way you described it. Zesty language!
ok so this is totally one of my favourite posts EVer!!!
thanks so much for sharing so many beautiful captivating female artistes with us!
you’re so generous with the things you find, every one of them was really lovely like finding little treasures..miss loisy is just so intriguing..cant stop staring at it& feeling slightly disturbed
i agree about aneta kowalcyk..she is stunning. i think i might print out a photo of her and channel some handsome uber female asthetique.
la.xxoo
WONDERFUL POST!!
Thankyou Gala and everybody for the links.
There is so much talent in the world.
Miss Van, Naoto Hattori and Ernesto Muniz are a few of my favorites!
Being a fine artist myself, this was very useful :)
Gala – I’ve been one of your silent stalkers for quite awhile. So I thought I might comment.
I had this Movie Maker project to do this week. I had a plan but unfortunately it didn’t go through. So I was searching for a new synopsis and found myself at your website – I chose to make a little movie of ‘Artists of the Moment’ I wasn’t able to get all the artists in but I had almost all of them in. Also I advertised your website.
I am wondering if you wish to see this movie which you and this awesome post inspired.
Tootles,
Kat
i absolutely anything mark ryden.
“Who are your favourite artists? Whose art do you just not ‘get’? What kind of thing would you like to hang on your bedroom wall?”
I have purchased work from the following:
EGR – www.egrart.com
She’s a fairly well known Toronto graf artist and a super sweet person to boot. I love her work.
Evan B. Harris – www.evanbharris.com
His stuff has a dreamlike/storybook quality to it. He was super accommodating and I could see myself getting more stuff from him in the future!
Downtimer – downtimer.deviantart.com
He is a friend of a friend and he recently had a garage sale of sorts and got rid of a whole bunch of his stuff for a really decent price (like maybe too decent). I especially love his collaborations, YUM!
I also wanted to link you to my fave artists list which is a lot easier for me than listing them all here (it’s almost up to 100 ppl now so lots of stuff to look through!)
underpantsprincess.spaces.live…
Enjoy!
the names emily(:
and i am an aspiring photographer
please take a look for i think you will like what you see
and feel free to use any pictures for your website
infact, if you did
i would be EXTREMELY flattered(:
hope you like them(:
s56.photobucket.com/albums/g19…