Secret Still

I keep trying to look at the work of South Carolinian Hollis Brown Thornton without thinking I’m asleep. But the quality of his work is so dreamlike that I just can’t manage it. There are vague, ambiguous shapes drifting through static points in time, like every dream I’ve ever tried to grab onto while asleep. It’s the shock of grasping something intangible that is constructed from my collected ideas of tangibility. I don’t know how to make that sentence sound any less pretentious. Regardless of me sounding like a complete douchebag, the work of Hollis Brown Thornton is definitely worth a look. Several looks. Just openly stare at it for a while.

Hollis Brown Thornton

Ready to fuck, Ready to die, Ready to help, Ready to cry.

Diesel SWF XXX

Notorious

Project 10¹⁰⁰

Saul Williams - DNA

I don’t want to spend a year talking about how fantastic and clean the work of Australian transplant design couple Mia and Jem is. You can see that for yourself if you aren’t extremely visually impaired. Hell you blind bastards could probably even feel it through your braille interface. I unwittingly stole their bathroom symbols for my own bathroom door at home many years ago. They’re identity work is my favorite. Just so goddamn good. They’re Bay Area locals now, so maybe I should see if they need an intern. I’m a little old, and not in school, but i do make good coffee and like long walks on the beach. Who doesn’t like long walks on the beach? People in wheelchairs probably. Damn, I’ve insulted the visually and physically handicapped in this post. Only ones left now are the retards. Check.</p> <p><a href=” target=”_blank” />Mia and Jem

I found out about New York artist Larissa Bates through Beautiful Decay. They have a great interview with her up on their site. But before I read anything about her I thought “wow, it’s like Neo-French Renaissance or some male obsessed Gainsborough. And then she mentions those influences in her interview. It’s nice to know sometimes that I’m not completely uneducated. What I really thought was that her work looked like Henry Darger trapped in the French Renaissance. There’s the same kind of oddness about her subjects and the way they fit into the background, mostly that they don’t fit at all. Although I can’t pin down why. Of course a lot of her other work doesn’t look like that at all. She’s just a giant enigma wrapped in bacon-y riddle. Figure it out for yourself after reading the interview.

Larissa Bates

Did you know that if you raise kittens in an environment that only contains vertical stripes they won’t be able to see diagonal ones when they’re older? It’s true. Now watch some movies.

New Family

Zoo York: Bomb Down Broadway

Indonesia Anagram Tour

Dot Matrix Revolution

Wario Land: Shake It

Minilogue - Animals

Co-ed duo Pillowhead caught my eye this morning with their fantastic skatedecks. In case you haven’t noticed I have a soft spot for skate related art. You might even call it an addiction. The judge did after the last “incident”. But, upon further inspection, the rest of Pillowhead’s work turned out to be just as spectacular. If Murakami’s Superflat brain exploded all over my favorite comics the result would be close to their epileptic abstractions. Is pop abstraction a genre? If it wasn’t before, it is now. The problem I’m faced with is one I’ve dealt with for years: How can you skate something so beautiful? Sometimes I just have to sacrifice beauty on the alter of skateboarding. The Gods will be pleased.

Pillowhead

I’ve got fuel, twin magics, video breakups, fantasy forests, and the end of mankind as we know it. Not bad for a Monday morning.

Truth in Advertising

Os Gemeos

Goodbye, Mary

Cartoon Forum

Ark

What is up, Takashi Iwasaki, my colorful, Japanese painter friend. I dig your Dalek meets Chagall, bright abstractions, and I’d like to get them tattooed on the insides of my eyes so they can warp my dreams. Like a giant punch in the nightmares from Dr. Seuss. And for some reason your works make me really want a pastrami sandwich. I don’t know what that’s about, but I vowed long ago to report honsetly the entirety of my reactions. Regardless of my cured meat fetish, Iwasaki is tits in my book. He’s the sugar frosted cereal of my balanced art breakfast.

Takashi Iwasaki

It’s Friday, fools. Nothing but skate videos. Now go out and shred.

LRG

Independent 30th Anniversary Tour

es in the UAE

Queens-based artist Brandon Friend has a mixed media style unlike anything I’ve ever encountered. His works consist of a variety of materials pasted onto the canvas, then torn, treated, or removed, then combined with acrylics. The outcome is an amazingly complex and active surface, and a beautiful composition. His Master’s Thesis was the first group of work that I saw, thanks to this video. Just overall incredible work from this recent graduate. Brandon Friend is definitely a name to write down in your little black book under “work I need to buy now while I can still afford it.” Shit, if Damien Hirst can make over $200 mil with his crap, there’s no telling how much Friend can make with work that actually means something.

Brandon Friend

Video: Brandon Friend