Surreal Oil Paintings of Animals

Illustrator Chris Buzelli gives new meaning to the saying “birds of a feather flock together.” In his painting entitled Strength In Numbers, the artist depicts a flock of birds forming one large bird that has succeeded in catching its aquatic prey. Buzelli, who is an accomplished illustrator based in New York, painted this piece for an article in PLANSPONSOR magazine that discusses the advantage of businesses joining forces and working with one another. His other works feature similar elements to portray different themes. One common component that can be spotted in just about all of his work is the presence of animals.

Whether they are accurately presented or recreated into a Frankenstein-like amalgamation of beasts, Buzelli is sure to include wildlife in his oil paintings. His aesthetic is often child-friendly with its soft, colorful palette, though more serious, adult themes tend to underly the innocent appearance to accompany an editorial piece. Buzelli doesn’t make light of the articles’ importance, but simply adds visual appeal. Also, his surreal spin on his commissioned work is especially enjoyable. A tiny man dragging a giant snail to clear the snow of a bitter winter to bring on the floral enlightenment of spring is whimsical while expressing the weighing strain of a never-ending season.

(Source: mymodernmet.com)

Photo Adventures in a Miniature World

These photographs by Kurt Moses transport us into the adventures of a small, small world. Un Petit Monde is an intriguing and amusing collection of tiny people arranged in macro lens settings. Moses teams up with his wife Edwige to create the intricate scenes involving characters in everyday life situations—walking the dog or playing in the snow—as well as not-so-everyday scenes—facing the challenge of transporting a gigantic pumpkin or escaping the attack of a giant squid!

These photos contain no tilt-shift or Photoshop tricks, they are actually set up in real world scenarios and Moses depends on natural lighting. He said, “My goal is simple; initiate a storyline and capture an evocative photo that allows the viewer to draw their own conclusions about the scenes they are observing.”

(Source: mymodernmet.com)

Quirky, colorful photos by Linus Lohoff

Linus Lohoff is a communication design student at the University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf, Germany who’s making some really rad work. The photos you see above were created for a project for his photo design class, and I think they’re pretty amazing. He takes a simple concept, like a shoe floating away save for a nail in the lace, photographed on an extremely bright background. The concept was repeated into a series of images which he collected into an A0 sized poster, a great way to collect the images into a cohesive whole. If you’d like to see the rest of the images, click here.

West Coast artist Rachell Sumpter’s paintings are filled with rainbows of color and scenes that feel as if the viewer is peering in from a distance. Her pastel palette of colors is incredibly vibrant and enticing. Using layered gouache and pastel, Sumpter blurs and blends color into a hazy background, which allows the more distinct, heavy figures and objects to stand out in the landscapes.

“There are melting mountain tops and campfires, ghosts and graves, vast monuments and tiny moments that speak to the legacies a generation leaves, and to the promises it makes.” Sumpter creates mysterious world that are filled with wonder, celebration, and discovery. She said, “I love seeing things new, researching, discovering something that I can share with people and let them feel the wonder of it too.”

(Source: mymodernmet.com)

Kulturpark: An Abandoned Amusement Park Becomes a Public Art Space

Hidden in a lush forest along the Spree River in East Berlin sits an abandoned amusement park filled with wild grass, sun-faded dinosaur models, roller coasters frozen in time, a pirate ship, a Ferris Wheel, and a train that still runs after years of disuse.

While it may sound like the golden setting for a dreamy indie flick or horror movie (depending on your tastes), the park that’s been forgotten for 11 years is about to be reopened. This June, a group of creatives based in Berlin plans to revamp and reestablish the newly christened “Kulturpark” as a haven for public art.

The amusement park debuted as “Kulturpark Plänterwald” in 1969 and was reborn as “Spreepark” when it was privatized after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Dwindling attendance led to Spreepark’s financial collapse, and it was closed to the public in 2001. But its out-of-the-way location—once seen as a culprit of its demise—is now Kulturpark’s main draw. Today, it blends into its natural surroundings and has become a breeding ground for rethinking public art space.

Kulturpark’s curatorial team includes George Scheer and Stephanie Sherman, directors of the Elsewhere museum in North Carolina;Spinello Projects founder Anthony Spinello; and Miami-based experimental artist Agustina Woodgate. The team hopes to use the ruins to shed light on Berlin’s cultural history and imagine the city’s future.

A creative camp during June will bring 20 Berlin-born and -based creative thinkers together to brainstorm and create interactive visual works inspired from the park—using light, sound, music, street art, installation, ecological intervation, performance, film, science, cartography, and photography. During the last week of June, the Kultur-Exchange Program will invite between 50 and 100 international participants to discuss topics including public art, creative service, memory, and social architecture. The results of the ideas from the workshops will be displayed in Kulturpark’s public debut starting at the end of the month. After all that brainstorming, the team behind Kulturpark hopes to draw together a proposal for the site’s future.

In its presentation [PDF], the Kulturpark team writes, “These ruins contain reminders and remainders of invention, leisure, and progress. Their memories and collective fantasies create space for new visions for culture and install surpluses and slippages in the passage of public time.”

Funding for the project will come from Kickstarter, the Kultur-Exchange program, scholarships, and concessions. The project also has fostered collaborations with universities and institutions in the United States and Germany.

(Source: GOOD)

donnellpowell:

Students gather to march @ Temple University for Trayvon Martin, a teen killed by an act of fear and racism….Photos by Donnell Powell