Shai Dahan just wrapped up work on a very large piece painted on the wall which separates Isreal and Palestine.  Dahan has filled his portfolio with many awesome street and gallery works.

A couple of weeks ago (early May) I was invited by a good friend of mine David Freid to come to the Holy Land of Jerusalem. David was there to film a documentary about the art on the wall which separates Israel and Palestine. Knowing the risk involved, I got on a plane and after a few days spent in West Bank in Palestine, I finished this piece below. The piece was based on a photograph which David took of a Jordanian Bedouin.

Shai Dahan, Bethlehem 2012. Photo Credit: Shai Dahan

“State of Decay”. 120 cm X 80 cm. Acrylic and ink. 2011

Shai Dahan in Sweden, 2012

“JUMP” 150cm X 150 cm. Acrylic on plywood 2010

As always, this is only a small sampling and I strongly encourage you to checkout Shai Dahan’s website.

I REALLY wish I had heard Built to Spill before now. But, on the positive side, at least all of their music is new to me now; thanks to the power of the internet.  The video for Conventional Wisdom features epic sounds with some knights in training. 

Checkout builttospill.com to hear and see more about this band.

“Firm. by Kazunori Matsumura” is a collection of his recent design and artwork.

The Voice of Winds

This is a sound device for gather up the nature voice.
The Japanese primitive people recognized the wind as voice of heaven. The people worshiped the wind as sacrament and listened carefully the voice. The people thought that the wind has personality.
“The Voice of Winds” is formed by a number of pipes in the shape of a tree branch. Dispersed white tree branches look like bones of animate beings.The material is earthenware.
When the winds run through in the pipes, the voice of nature break through.
This device is designed to communicate with nature and to get back the primitive conception of nature.
This work was exhibited as in the form of installation with a sound at the Post Design Gallery(MEMPHIS) in Milan. The sound for the installation was picked and made by the designer himself.

Letter to you Letter from you

BOKUSHO

You can see more of his work at firm-mkz.com.

Most of Anna Garforth’s artwork is created from materials not usually selected for making art.  Food, moss, trash, etc. are used to bring her projects to life.  The first work that caught my eye was the moss works, but I also enjoy her other art as well.

I work with a diverse range of materials and skills to create unique and experimental work. So far my artworks have been used for public events, community projects, workshops, campaigns, publications and exhibitions both nationally and internationally.

With a strong background in design and illustration, my nifty fingers work moss into beautiful lettering, cookie dough into edible posters and rubbish into typographic wonder.

Play More

The Big Bang

The Big Bang - Detail

Moss Cross

Edible Poster

See more of her work at crosshatchling.co.uk

I am very much a sucker for art that mixes with science in anyway.  In this piece, Waves, Daniel Palacios uses a string attached to 2 motors to interpret sound detected in the surrounding environment.

The rope stays in constant movement from the rotation of its anchoring points. Depending on the
presence of the public, the frequency of rotation at each end is varied, which causes some visible
and audible alterations in the wave.
When no presence is detected, the installation goes into ‘rest’ mode, disconnecting the engines
which create the waves in the rope and thus creating a line between both modules.
The vibration produced in the rope is amplifi ed as it cuts through the air at high speed, creating the
sound environment depending on the activity of the piece (the movements of the public) as a result.
The more immobile and still we are in front of the piece, the more harmonious the waves and
sounds will be, but when the public moves more, it will create more irregular graphics at the same
time as stronger, more abrupt sounds.

Be sure to checkout Daniel Palacio’s website for more great artwork.

I am loving the sound of  A Mouthful of Thunder!  They are Band of Horses kind of chill with a slightly smoother, more laid back but complex sound.  That would have sounded like a wine description if only I had thrown in the word fruity.  Maybe next time.  Anyway give these guys a listen, I think you will enjoy.

Learn more about this fantastic band on http://www.amouthfulofthunder.com/. And, thank you @justinfarrey for the heads up on these guys!

Jacob Sutton captures beautifully haunting images in his exhibition photography.  Sutton works in color for his commercial work, but sticks to black and white or monochromatic photography for his exhibition work. I would imagine this is an easy way to mentally separate the two, but that is pure speculation on my part.

Please visit Jacob Sutton’s website to see much more.

Johan Rijpma breathes life into ordinary rolls of packing tape by sticking them to the ceiling in various patterns and allowing gravity to take over. He does also lean on some clever video work to add some appeal to the whole thing. This video of the work is fantastic and well worth watching.

Large groups of tape rolls go through a long process of development and degeneration. The extremely slow paced life of these objects is being revealed within an isolated space where everything starts from a symmetric composition. From this orderly state deviations and differences in behaviour slowly become visible through the force of gravity. Resulting in unpredictable shapes and movements that somehow feel familiar.

See more great artwork on Johan Rijpma’s blog5.

Nick Gentry paints portraits of fit, young people onto collections of old discarded floppy disks.  These pieces are interesting to me, with the importance that our popular culture places on the shiny and new.

Nick Gentry is a British artist from London. Much of his artistic output has been generated with the use of contributed artefacts and materials. He states that through this process “contributor, artist and viewer come closer together”. His art is influenced by the development of consumerism, technology and cyberculture in society, with a distinctive focus on obsolete media.

Speed Of Life

The Secret Key

Next Generation

Digital Montage Number 1

Visit the Tugboat printshop if you want to see some awesome looking printmaking.  Artists Paul Roden and Valerie Lueth collaborate to create many of the pieces found on the site but do create solo work as well.

Much of the artwork currently available on this site is collaborative, though we each have our separate pursuits in image-making as well (SEE ARTISTS). Through collaboration, we feel that we have been able to simplify and streamline our message—-taking the best of our abilities and applying them dually to the conception, orchestration, and manufacturing of quality images in print. It is our hope that our prints provide pleasure while also inspiring new ways of thinking about the world that we live in.

Checkout the Tugboat Printshop website to see more great work.