The music industry has undergone more drastic changes in the past 25 years then the previous 125 years before. In 1982, the compact disc was introduced to the public and replaced the need for LP’s and cassette tapes. With the introduction of Napster in 1999, music downloading has steadily become the recommended way to obtain music. Consumers no longer have to go to their local record store and buy music; it is now just a mouse click away. Moreover, there is no need to purchase an entire recording as you can now only purchase the tracks you want to listen to. (more…)

What inspired you to become a fine artist?
I enjoy the challenge of making images. I’ve always made images my whole life. It’s not really a choice, more like a “healthy habit”. When I work, I like to juxtapose marks or images and give myself the challenge of seeing how I can make them work together. Some marks are random and serendipitous, (more…)

What inspired you to become a fine artist/designer?
I started relatively young. I saw a movie called, “A Dog of Flanders”, about a young boy who paints and it somehow struck me. So I bought some paints and got started in about 4th grade. I really enjoyed the work of Marc Chagall and Paul Klee. Their paintings were magical and felt truly connected to the universe. In high school I got interested in Illustration. Brad Holland, Maxfield Parrish, Aubrey Beardsley, and Alan Cober were among my favorites. I took classes in painting and received some awards and scholarships towards college. (more…)

The evolution of black-and-white cinematography has officially begun. The shadow-play and etched starkness of two-tone movie-making has always been more of an artistic statement than a reasonable field in which to play out a story told on-screen. Christian Volckman’s 2006 noir-thriller Renaissance dives head-first into the deep end of exploring, and destroying, the probable limitations of filming with 3D motion-capture animation in an exclusively black-and-white setting. The images that he and his team have created over the staggering production span of seven years help to redefine the nature of black-and-white cinema, ushering in new field on which to play.

In 1915, artist Marcel Duchamp presented a new kind of art to the world: Duchamp called his pieces “readymades,” which were nothing more than everyday items – most famously, a toilet – taken out of their ordinary context and placed on display. Seen in their new settings, it was possible to appreciate these readymades as aesthetic pieces rather than merely functional items.

Duchamp was one of the earliest artists to deliberately blur the line between form and function. He was followed by the infamous pop artist Andy Warhol, who notoriously painted multiple perspectives of Campbell’s soup cans. Where Duchamp took something ugly and ordinary and called it art, Warhol used ugly, ordinary objects as an inspiration for his art.

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Teenagers and the Internet are a no-brainer combination, and websites from Facebook to Pitchfork are well aware of this. They know those fickle beasts called “trends” are more than alive and kicking, but they also know that loyalty and honesty can’t be put on the back-burner: they need to be squarely front and center. Martina Fugazzotto, a 25-year-old self-described designer based out of Brooklyn, New York USA, makes sure this happens at gURL.com, a content site and online community aimed at teenage girls, and with her own personal work, which she showcases on her website, MartinaMartina.com. It’s difficult to pin Fugazzotto’s work; some images look like they belong in a lusciously illustrated graphic novel, while others seem to embody a sense of frenzied, rambunctious kitsch. A constant thread found weaving through most of her work, however, is the intricate mix of loud and subtle takes on gender, emotions, and physical development, and the ways in which sexuality, stereotypes and frankness play into those topics. (more…)

Travis Millard is a funny guy. I read an article about him in the LA Times Magazine and was fascinated. He runs a site called Fudge Factory Comics, once worked for Spin Magazine and lives in a weird log cabin with his girlfriend, artist Mel Kadel. Travis has a book coming out sometime this year, by the name of ‘Hey Fudge.’ He is a constant creator of work for Vans, Bueno Skateboards, and Volcom. Millard’s work is dependably witty and irreverent. His pieces are multi layered and repetitive, both quiet and contemplative in form and screaming at you, beating you senselessly over the head until you get the idea, after which you start laughing hysterically.
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Ever wonder where those cheap looking oil reproductions of Starry Night come from? Well, where else but the land of mass-producing of everything, China. In the southern city of Dafen, 60% of the worlds oil reproductions are produced by ‘companies’ or ’sweat shops’ to use the more accurate terminology. Art dealers from all over the world travel to this city of mass art production every year to swallow up paintings in quantities that equal millions of dollars. One company alone ships over 300,000 paintings a year overseas. Even more compelling is how efficient some of these artists have become. Many can churn out 20 -30 classic masterpiece reproductions a day.

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I’m sure many of us have fought temptation to write the words “Wash Me” (or something worse) on the dirty windshield of a parked car. Scott Wade takes that concept to the extreme in his public art exhibitions. Rather than a snide scribble remark, Scott uses his skills to create his versions of the “Mona Lisa” and “Starry Night”.

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