I interviewed award winning New York-based, Japanese illustrator Yuko Shimizu a little while back and asked her whether she missed living in Japan and if she thought her cross-cultural heritage has influenced her artwork? ‘No I don’t. I haven’t gone back to Japan since I moved to New York in 1999. I partially grew up in upstate New York, and after I went back to Japan in the 80s, I couldn’t adjust back to their culture anymore. I was just waiting for the right time to get out, and I did, and I don’t miss it. I have to admit that my genes have an accumulation of Japanese history and culture, and it comes out in my work whether I like it or not. At first, I hated it and tried to get out of it. After a while I decided to admit who I am and just let my work be the way it should be. After that, it became easier to create. Sometimes people think I am drawing and using colour certain ways to stress my Japanese background, but it is not how it is. I don’t even think about it. It just works out that way’. [see also Yuko Shimizu; Deanne Cheuk]
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Also by ZOLTON
The vision of South Korean design consultancy Heerim Architects, the 35 story Hotel Full Moon is being built in Baku, Azerbaijan, on the west coast of the Caspian Sea.
Benjamin Johnson and Vince Agostino
I like the retro colours and subtle detail that permeates the work of Australian illustration and design duo, Benjamin Johnson and Vince Agostino.
Crazy chairs from the Campana brothers
Who said chairs had to be boring? Or practical? This range of chairs from designer brothers, Fernando and Humberto Campana, nicely blurs the line between form and functionality, art and science. Read more
HAVE YOUR SAY
Spelling Change was developed by a group of creative professionals to spread awareness and passion about the Obama campaign. Its goal is to encourage one-to-one communication by creating tools that help people get out the word on issues that are important to them. Artists and designers were asked to create a letter of the alphabet inspired by the Obama campaign. These letters were then printed on t-shirts and distributed to photographers, who shot Obama supporters from all walks of life wearing them. The result is a living alphabet that shows the incredible breadth of Obama’s appeal and a widespread desire for real change in Washington. Read more
Wolf and Cub are back with a brand new single and after listening to it, I feel like I should be out in the streets, warning my neighbours of the apocalypse. The song is huge, forceful, damming and painfully exciting. Joel Byrne’s half-drawl, half-howl proclaims the end, while (in true Wolf and Cub) the drums are epic and unsettling. And then, that moment, the bass against the fading echoes. My heart broke and my brain exploded. It’s too much to take. This band will be the death of me.
Israeli computer scientists recently created a computer program that changes photographs of people’s faces into more attractive images based on an algorithm that determines ideal distances between lips and chins, foreheads and eyes, and distances between eyes.
I’m one of those people who lament the death of analog film as a medium, not because I romanticize the process, but because I love the unpredictable imperfections inherent in non-digital formats. Read more
How many times can we play the same song in different settings? Hmmm, I don’t know. But it is a hell of a song, from a hell of a band, as that uniquely English oddity, Jules Holland would no doubt concur.
On my recent visit to Barcelona, my love for Animal Farm led me to the Plaça de Geroge Orwell. There I discovered Oviso. The tiny café features hand painted walls and low wooden benches, where inhabitants enjoy great coffee for €1 and discuss music, beer, photography and the hordes of tourists that bustle just beyond the quiet square.
Ben Lee upped the label a while back, but Band of Outsiders is still probably the best label you’ve never heard of. Read more
WE'RE RESPECTING
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Japanese designers Keiichi Muramatsu and Noriko Seki founded the Tokyo-based fashion label, Everlasting Sprout, in 2005, based on their mutual interest in knit design. Each intricate creation in their Spring/Summer 2009 range took up to a week for them to construct. Read more
We asked Arizona-based artist Joe Sorren what we would have been if he hadn’t been handed the most ridiculously generous serving of artistic talent: ‘Art historian and conservationalist. Or a botanist. Or I’d work with horses. It would be interesting to be behind the scenes in politics, at least for a while. Or maybe a studio musician, or invent games, or a … I would rather paint’. Ah, we agree.
Chris Ware is my favorite comic book artist. If there’s a new Chris Ware book out, I buy it, no questions asked. He writes the most somber, sad stories about the simplest of people, but they’re written and illustrated with such beauty and elegance. All of the text and graphic design is done by hand. It’s absolutely mind blowing. Read more
When I did the Master Cleanse diet a few years ago — the one where you consume nothing but lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper for ten days — I sat at work looking at pictures of food as if they were porn. Scanwiches would have gotten me hot and bothered like nothing else.
Argentine illustrator Poly Bernatene miraculously creates many of his beautifully textured, painterly images in Photoshop. Despite his twenty-first century method, his illustrations achieve a sort of timelessness that is bound to mesmerize children for years to come. Read more
Legendary pop culture artist and Agit Pop founder Ron English will be a guest compiler of an upcoming issue of our email newsletter, writing about his favorite cultural discoveries. To read Ron’s edition of Lost At E Minor, simply sign up to our weekly newsletter. It’s free, you win!
This beautiful archival pigment print by New York-based illustrator, Fernanda Cohen, is called Fashion Ruined My Life. And it speaks for itself. Just look at her face! We have it for sale for just $75 in the Lost At E Minor online store. Read more
Discuss
- hdacvt on "The Relentless Eye"
- Stomp on "Gutter Twins Announce Sideshows"
- JamieD on "Melbourne Bride Wedding Expo"
- shoebuy on "art in shoes"
- lucebaz on "Freelance Graphic Designer in London"
- lucebaz on "Freelance Graphic Designer in London"
- JaneAbma on "The Grafik Museum"
- teacut on "Illustration vs fine art"
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Margherita said | 23 November, 2006
I love the colour