Ye Ri Mok

Seoul born photographer now living in L.A, Ye Ri Mok. She has a nice book of work with lots of photos on her site. I tend to like the "details" section but that is just me.

Hellovon

London based illustrator/designer, Von who is influenced heavily by music, fashion and design. He shows in galleries, as well as, has a long list of good clients for his illustration studio.

Never Been and the work of Stuart Kolakovic.

To explore "Never Been" click and drag the story created by Stuart Kolakovic. Be sure to check out his main portfolio also. He has a nice mix of modern style with a folk influence.

S. Britt

kozyndan

kozyndan are Los Angeles based mad scientists. they are working on a secret formula for controlled nuclear fusion, and are creating a line of edible chickens. For fun they like to take long deep breaths and dip their heads into bowls of raspberry jelly and lemon curd. They live indoors and don't paint on walls. the couple also moonlights as freelance illustrators.

Poketo

That's right folks. For the first-time ever, the Poketo Warehouse will open its doors for a massive spring cleaning sale to make room for our new season’s goodies. Just in time for summer, all of your favorite Poketo products, including wallets, t-shirts, plates, stationery, and even some one-off and archived items, will be on sale from $5-10. Join us for cupcakes, tunes and discounted goodies. And for those of you who missed the First Editions Prints Show, here’s your second chance to check it out! Perfect for last minute Mother's Day shopping, too!

What: Poketo $5-$10 Warehouse Sale / Cupcake Social
When: May 10, 2008 10am - 5pm
Where: Poketo Studio - 510 S. Hewitt Street #506 Los Angeles, CA 90013

Plus, some new tees: here.

Rojo Magazine

Rojo is releasing a book of Heiko Muller this May. You can see a preview- of the artworks here.

Sterling Hundley

Sterling Hundley graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1998. While still a student, Sterling received National acclaim through the Society of Illustrators professional show, as well as through their student scholarship competition. During the summers of '98 and '99, Sterling attended the Illustration Academy in Kansas City, Missouri.

Sterling's work has appeared regularly in the pages of the major annuals, including Communication Arts, American Illustration, Print Magazine, LA Society of Illustrators, Step by Step Graphics, Society of Publication Designers, and New York Society of Illustrators. Sterling has been awarded a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators, New York, as well as gold and silver medals from the Illustrators Club in Washington, D.C. Some of Sterling's clients of note include Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Atlantic Monthly, Grammys, GQ, New Yorker, New York Times, LA Times, Harper Collins, Penguin/Putnam, Scholastic, UPS and Virginia Living Magazine.

From 2002- 2003, Sterling served one year as a visiting professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, and is a full-time faculty member of the Academy. Sterling currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. He is represented internationally by Shannon Associates.

Stephanie Brown

Tony Fitzpatrick

Kelie Bowman

Kelie Bowman hails from Florida and lives and works in Brooklyn, far away from her beloved beaches and Grouper fish sandwiches. Kelie Bowman's new paintings address the struggle to keep stability in one's life by way of the community. The idea of home is on her mind, as are the fragile moments of our existence. Subtle humor and violence creep into her soft and warm palate, giving a razor sharp edge to the work's gentle nature. Kelie is co-founder of Cinders, enjoys sushi, dance parties, and swimming outside in far away places. She received a BFA at the University of Florida, was a founding member of the Cloud Seeding Circus, and gave Bike Tours in Munich, Germany one summer.

Kevin Appel

Kevin Appel makes semi-abstract paintings that invoke architectural fragments and stylized scraps of trees and plants. He implies the presence of idealized Modernist buildings through translucent stripes, squares and rectangles in sterile off-white hues, or depicting wood veneer, often rendered perfectly, as if by machine, without any trace of a brushmark. The use of obvious clichéd ‘serious painter’ techniques such masking tape-created edges – and the pointed insertion of blocks of gestural brushwork amongst the slickly perfect geometrics – belies the fact that Appel is playing with the history of Modernist art and design. The fact that his paintings depict the uneasy relationship between architecture and nature in a humorously caricatured manner shows that he’s not an entirely devout follower of Mies van der Rohe et al, he uses his position as someone too young to have witnessed the Modernist heyday first-hand to take a suitably contemporary ironic look at the whole thing.

Text via Wikipedia®

Paul White

Melbourne, Australia painter has about 10 years of his work on his site. I really like the work more like above. The tension is great.

Richard Moon

A British artist living and working in London. Richard is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Arts who exhibits internationally. He has had recent shows in London, New York, Dusseldorf and Vienna.

DvA & BSFA Show-Preview

GROUP EXHIBITION & BOOKSIGNING AT DVA GALLERY CHICAGO

SATURDAY, APRIL 26
Booksigning: 4-6pm
Opening Reception for the Artists: 7-11pm

Including works by (those with asterisk will be present at reception and signing):
Josh SHAG Agle
Paul Barnes
Glenn Barr*
Ana Bagayan*
Scott G. Brooks*
Dave Cooper*
Daniel Martin Diaz*
Bob Dob*
Tony Fitzpatrick
Jason Houchen*
Chris Mars
Liz McGrath & Morgan Slade*
Nathan Ota*
Daniel Peacock
Mark Pilon*
Bonnie Reid*
Martha Rich*
Gary Taxali
Mark Todd
Yosuke Ueno
Esther Pearl Watson

DvA Gallery
2568 N. Lincoln Avenue
Chicago, IL 60614
773 871 4382
www.DVAgallery.com

Lance Letscher

“Trained as a printmaker at the University of Texas, Letscher starts with an intuitive sense of palette and scale. He prospects thrift stores, junk shops, and used bookshelves for old ledgers, notebooks, diaries, handwritten lists, letters, and recipe cards. Boxes of antique papers line his worktable. Sliced into strips, squares, or wedges and embedded in crystalline patterns, they become both shards of memory and the puzzle pieces of new fictional narratives, the clues barely legible. An analogy to quilt making is apt. Hours poring over his wife's collection of quilt blocks and patterns, as well as an eclectic stash of art books, inform both process and image, leading Letscher from one collage to the next. The challenge of breaking up predictable structure erupts in riffs on color, texture, and sheen… . In the collages, the artist often contrasts nuances in thickness and commercial printing, selecting worn record jackets and pulp paperback covers with bent corners or the bright candy colors of children's storybooks.” —Pamela Scheinman, FiberArts Magazine

G. Barnhart-Solo Show and New Site

"Spread Eagle"
May 2-June 1 2008
Leslie's Art Gallery
Luxembourg
contact: lebarnig@pt.lu

-"Barnhart grotesquely renders the teenage pageant cowgirl with a muddled palette of red white and blue, like an American flag dragged through the mud and left to rot. A black motorcycle awkwardly floats in the background, an icon of rebellion and freedom."

Kris Knight

Kris Knight

Born 1980
Works and Lives in Toronto, Canada

“Within my professional practice as a visual artist, I have concentrated on the creation of thematic series of figurative works, with narratives that explore various expressions of duality and test the boundaries of identity. The visual compositions I create examine notions of performance inherit in all constructions of identity, whether sexual or asexual.

My project’s themes have often dealt with ambiguity and androgyny, with an emphasis on the notion of hiding and fronting. The portraits I paint are often a balancing act of concealing identities and desperately wanting to let it go.

My work involves the creation of invented and biographical character-based narratives that attempt to find an awkward balance between pretty and menace - an often sad but spirited personal dichotomy that has always appealed to me as a figurative artist and continues to influence my current artistic endeavors”.

Aesthetic Apparatus-Posters

The guys at AA have been cranking out great posters for years now. I picked up the latest issue of Communication Arts, saw they did the cover and had a 5 spread article on them in it. Cool to see that some talent and ambition can produce some stellar results. Their posters are reasonably priced too. 19x20 for $20.

Jesse Reno

12 new works for April from Mr. Reno.

Michael Deforge

I came across Michael's work years ago when I was doing more gig posters. I have been following it ever since. This is a link to his journal and show a lot of the projects he has been working on. Lots to see.

Fotos Artísticas - Ovejas Telefónicas

MAN MAN-Rabbit Habits Tour

I saw these guys this Sunday and it was truly an unique experience. If they come to your city. Go see them. Good times.

Craig LaRotonda at McCaig-Welles Gallery

The McCaig-Welles Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by the artist Craig LaRotonda titled "Grotesque Beauty." An opening reception will be held Friday April 18th, 2008 from 7pm - 10pm.

Craig LaRotonda has been painting and drawing his whole life. Since childhood, he has been fascinated by the figure, which remains the focus of most of his works. In LaRotonda's paintings, humanity is tethered to the earth through the body, where we are forever seeking to quench the burning passion of the flesh; his paintings explore the struggle of the flesh and the dominance of carnal desire over the spirit.

LaRotonda creates paintings and sculptures, sometimes uniting both forms. The materials vary but the substance is the same. Texture, color, and shape are the elements of his construction. He also finds beauty in found objects, their hidden history and the ways in which they show signs of some other life before he found them. Often LaRotonda puts them in his work; bits of old documents or diagrams find their way into his paintings. Though they may be subtle elements, they carry a lot of weight.

Through images of the figure, LaRotonda explores the ineffable nature of consciousness and the struggles of humanity. He is ever aware that existence is more than what can be perceived with the senses, as they do not always impart the whole story. He is engaged by the liminal, the spaces in between: the passage between life and death plays continuously in his work.

LaRotonda sees his art as transportation for the mind, rooted neither in time nor place.

The exhibition will be on display until Sunday May 12th, 2008.

Submit

If you have some art news or some art you would like to see on The LUMPER™ please shot us an email to: THINKMULE@gmail.com Please include info,description or details with the news you are submitting. We will review it and get back to you if and when it posts. Thanks!

Adam White

Illustrator and Craze One Clothing owner, Adam white has some nice work up on his portfolio site. He also is working a new project with artist John Pound (Garbage Pail Kids). See it here.

Lori Petty

Lori Petty didn't ring a bell with me until I looked up more info on her. She is the actress in such movies as Tank Girl and A League of Their Own. She also writes, produces and paints to keep herself busy.

STOLEN ARTWORK!!! PLEASE DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!!!!

FROM: The Little Chimp Society

STOLEN ARTWORK!!! PLEASE DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!!!!
I was surprised and alarmed to find out today that the book pictured above had been printed in China featuring the work of myself and many other well respected artists. It seems that the Chinese publishing company in question (based out of Hong Kong) has completely plagiarized all of the artist interviews which have appeared over the last couple of years on The Little Chimp Society website out of England (run by Darren Di Lieto) and published all of the images and interviews verbatim. And they're now selling books of the works for $100 a pop!! This kind of shit needs to stop. Below is a link to Darren's blog and the text from his blog discussing this crime.


Last week a British illustrator called Jonathan Edwards informed me that he had come across a book that contained his illustrations along with other illustrators work. He contacted me because the book is also riddled with interviews that he recognized as being the interviews I conducted for the LCS.

Today I received a copy of the book (costing me $100) and to my horror it has plagiarized the art blog. This has left me deeply upset!

Colorful Illustrations 93°C

This has not only hurt me… The book is available online and in book stores and every image in it has been stolen from my community website and the websites of the illustrators featured - with the interviews being the backbone of the publication. Before anyone asks - the internet is publicly accessible not public domain, copyright still applies.

“The worrying thing is all images are included on a CD in the back. This seems to give the impression that all the featured images are clip-art or copyright free which is certainly not the case.” - Jonathan Edwards

The images file-names on the CD have not even been renamed in anyway, so you can see exactly where they were taken from. The interviews are word for word with all the typos and switching between English and American grammar. Also according to the Book the interviews were produced by the Art Director Bernadette • J with no reference to the LCS.

Personally this has hurt me as I’ve spent the last three years building the archive of Artist interviews on the LCS. But what has really made me angry is that all that work included in the book has been stolen from the illustrators involved with some of them even being credited for work that is not their own. I am sure some of them won’t care much, but others will and will want retribution. Someone has made a lot of money from this book and it wasn’t me or the unknowing contributors. So please do not buy it!

If you think you can help here is some additional information.
Art Director/Producer: Bernadette J
Graphic Design: Malcolm Lee
published by Great Creativity organization
ISBN 978-988-98142-0-5
12/F Chinachem Johnston Plaza Wan
178-186 Johnston Road
chia, Hong Kong
T:+85281324106
F:+85281324105

I’m currently in the process of contacting the included illustrators, to let them know they’ve been ripped-off. Please note I’ve already tried to find the publishers via the internet and even called them to find out the number is for a company called Lucky Enterprise Co., Ltd. who make air filters. Also I’ve tried to contact the retailers, but I don’t think any of them will get back to me as they’re all only sales people. Index Book were helpful enough to give me the website of the place they purchased the books from for resale - Azur. But when I’ve tried phoning them on +81-3-3292-7601 I hit a brick wall because I don’t speak Japanese (maybe someone can help me with that).

I’ve been in contact with the AOI to get legal advice, but I think at the end of the day I or the illustrators who have had their copy-stolen will not be able to do much about this situation without major backing or support. So if you’re a major organization or copyright lawyer email me… darren at lcsv4 dot com

Ricky Allman

Shay Church

Wet clay sculpture built on site.


Artist Statement
I grew up next door to an old General Motor's plant in Saginaw, Michigan. When I was a young boy my father would take me fishing on the rivers and lakes that surrounded the city. If it had rained the night before, we would wake up in the dark and I would pick worms out of the ground near our house using a flashlight. If the perch, bass, or walleye weren't biting that day we could always lower the worm to the bottom and catch carp. This seemed to happen often. When the day was done Dad would keep one of the carp. We would plant it next to the bushes and flowers to help them grow.

I believe in the natural cycles of the earth. Within these patterns of life and death is where I can find truth. While cities grow, wars rage, and industry climbs, nature’s heart continues to pound. Migratory paths remain, rivers continue to run downstream, wolves hunt, and insects are hatched. My artwork is an attempt to create a meaningful connection between the natural world and myself. Often this connection seems fleeting. It is based on observation and the physical act of working with material such as clay and wood. This physical relationship also allows me to explore my spiritual, emotional and psychological concerns for the human experience.

In my most recent body of work I am creating imagery that reflects both actual personal experiences and elements of nature that fascinate me. My curiosity lead me to combining these elements together, especially when they share common visual characteristics. For example, a landscape may blend into a wolf head or tree limbs may turn into wiry root systems or discarded antlers. By combining this imagery I am able to reflect connections that are symbiotic and dependent in the natural world. The raw clay and fired ceramic has begun to play a larger role in my work as it adds an element that creates a compassionate and empathetic environment. The visceral nature of clay is something most humans are both consciously and unconsciously connected to.

The clay for my recent installations "Grey Whale", and "Arizona" came from a deposit just south of San Francisco. I dug the clay and transported it to both sites. The environments I create are reflective of my wandering through landscapes, ranging from my home state of Michigan to living in California and traveling abroad. Somehow I feel all these environments are able to relate to each other. The direct interaction I have with clay has become my way of interacting with the natural world.

Automatic Art + Design

I have known of Charles Wilkin for about 12 years now and I still am in awe of his work as much as when I first saw it. From design to illustration to art to font design to doing a whole book of his work, he can do it all and do it well. He has a ton of work up on his site and just added a new section called digital collage. (digital sample above) (traditional collage below)

Raquel Aparicio

Beautiful work by a young illustrator/artist that has a unique quality to it. I really enjoyed the book section of Russian folktales drawings but to be honest it all is good. Raquel also does illustration work for a variety of magazines and has a nice selection of that work available for viewing also.