Illustration / Elizabeth McGrath
Elizabeth McGrath’s art is like something out of An American Werewolf in London or a Tim Burton production. Part-gothic, part-whimsical, Elizabeth draws inspiration from roadside attractions, decaying cities, nature, fashion, architecture, interior design, churches of all kinds, movies, good magazines, folklore, music, literature and poetry. Since her first paid job at the age of eight – tying black ribbons round flower vases for her aunt’s Irish style pub restaurant – Elizabeth joined a band, started a fanzine, and then accidentally fell into making art. ‘Our band was asked to play an art show and party for the magazine Juxtapoz’, she says. ‘When the promoter came to drop off posters, he saw a painting I was working on and invited me to hang it in the show. The piece sold to a gallerist who then included me in several of his group shows and I was later asked to do a solo show at the La Luz de Jesus gallery’. She is currently keeping busy working on a number of projects including an upcoming show (The Incurable Disorder) scheduled to launch this December at the Billy Shire fine arts gallery; a recording with her band Miss Derringer; book projects; toy projects; and a clothing line. With so many things going on, just where does she get her ideas from? ‘I build a cocoon of images in a corner of my studio, and when I can’t think of what to do next I crawl in and it gives me super powers!’
Also by KAREN LEONG
After winning the i-D Styling and Maria Luisa awards at 2007’s International Talent Support (a.k.a. ITS) – an annual event in Trieste supporting young fashion designers and photographers - a shell-shocked Justin Smith threw himself into celebrations. Smith, born in 1978, is the millinery world’s new rising star. His MA show at London’s Royal College of Art was extremely well received. ‘The concept for my show was based all around the performative hat’, he says. ‘I started with the models, found out what they performed with and worked back from there. For example, the burlesque fan dancer wore the fans on her head as part of the hat, and took them off and performed on the catwalk with them. So the main themes were the performative hat inspired by circus, performance and an East End Victorian funeral’. Read more
‘I overdosed on art, psycho-analytic theory and philosophy, and that clogged up my creativity’, says London-based Gordon Cheung of his artistic state in 2001 after graduating from the Royal College of Art. A six-week residency in Pakistan in 2003 changed all that. ‘The combination of being away, seeing some amazingly kitsch decorated trucks, and meeting some very interesting artists, had a huge impact on me’, he says. Read more
YOU'RE SAYING (3)
chu said | 30 August, 2007
NICE!
Crazy_Cat_Lady said | 28 May, 2008
this is pretty sweet. You don’t see this kind of work much. Simply B-E-A-U-TIFUL
HAVE YOUR SAY
Gregory Jacobsen’s grotesque paintings are disturbed reinterpretations of classical themes and compositions, the product of a tortured imagination that smears the distinctions between the sexual and the scatological, the beautiful and the perverse. Read more
Oh man, the work of New York based artist Inka Essenhigh is so good it makes my eyes water. Read more
No, Dorothy would have never come across these shoes in Oz, but she would have at Odin, a smallish men’s store in New York’s East Village. Read more
DJ Spooky — That Subliminal Kid — is just about the deepest crate digger around, trawling the barrels of long-lost record stores for choice vinyl to spin in his wickedly dubby sets. He gave us the inside word last week on his eight favourite songs right now via our sister website, My Secret Playlist. This is what he had to say about Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s Panic in Babylon: ‘If there’s anything that the twenty-first century has told us, it’s that dub is the real original hip-hop. Lee Scratch even had to make it clear in 1965 by adding “Scratch” to his middle name. Take that, Grandmaster Flash!’ Read the rest of DJ Spooky’s Secret Playlist.
‘Lost’ is the most recent film production in the urban art series produced by Tokyo-based art crew Rinpa Eshidan. Read more
It’s only fitting a band of Canadian rootsters like this would tap a mythical figure of folklore for their namesake. Indeed, Ottawa’s The John Henrys understand the power of the familiar. Read more
It seems only fitting that New York’s first eco dining experience, Habana Outpost, is located in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Read more
WE'RE RESPECTING
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Curious what had happened to the band Hail Social earlier this year, I started trawling the internet and excitedly uncovered signs of a Dayve Hawke side project – Weird Tapes. Read more
Download the new Michna album, Magic Monday
The media world is firmly embedded in the twenty-first century digital revolution, so we thought we better keep up with the times. Read more
James Jean on the work of Rob Sato
We asked Californian artist, James Jean, to tell us about an emerging illustrator whose work he loves right now. This is what he had to say: ‘Rob Sato offends me. Read more
Pictures taken at just the right time
You don’t have to be a skilled photographer to take the best snaps: some just appear out of absolutely nowhere. This site has collected together some of the funniest, cruelest, most alarming — yet completely spontaneous — photos circulating the web. Thank god for other people’s suffering! Read more
National Geographic Best Wild Animal Photos of 2008
National Geographic just announced the Best Wild Animal Photos of 2008. They’re all stunning, but I’m particularly fond of the one of a frog refusing to become lunch for a snake. It looks like they’re eating each other. My number two is the black-crested macaque hanging out on a beach. Read more
Warning at Work is a silkscreen mini-print from Sussex based illustrator Andy Smith which comes in a limited edition of just 50. Dimensions are 20cm x 15cm. We have them available through the Lost At E Minor store. Read more
Woohoo! We have five copies of the new Faint album, Fascination [Inertia], to give away to randomly selected Australian-based Lost At E Minor subscribers who leave a message under this post telling us about the last time they, ummm, Fainted.
Recently
- Britain’s poshest squat Francis Andrews
- We’re now stocking your creations Andy
- Sam Weber Zolton
- Torre Bicentenario Snell
- Sky Planter Julia Hennock
- Gravediggaz Gerry Mak
- Super Obama World Gerry Mak
- Michaelene Walsh Ilana Kohn
- Famous Blue Raincoat Zolton
- Jan Vormann Julia Hennock
DISCOVER MORE
SO...
TAGS: acoustic music animals animation Australian bands Australian fashion black and white illustrations blogs Brooklyn Brooklyn artists Brooklyn bands cartoons China collaboration colour colourful artwork colourful illustrations comics electronic music flash games folk music Hip Hop Japan jewellery London Los Angeles magazines Melbourne New York New York artists New York bands New York illustrators pop music portrait portraits prints rock music San Francisco soul music street art surrealism Sydney Sydney bands t-shirts technology UK bands
IMAGES:
POPULAR:
- Marc Collin: My Secret Playlist!' - loved 63 times
- Brittanie Pendleton - loved 50 times
- Elaine Biss's feminine charms - loved 25 times
- Ed Harcourt: 'My Secret Playlist' - loved 22 times
- Prefab House - loved 19 times
- Andreco's brilliant visions - loved 18 times
- I Give Up On T-Shirts - loved 18 times
SEARCH: Can't find what you're looking for? Do a search..
IS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO?
We hope you're enjoying your time on Lost At E Minor, but it’s not over yet. Got something to share? Tell us about it and we'll look to publish it. If you want to have your work featured on the site, we'd love to hear from you. Or if you’d just like to talk amongst yourselves, that’s cool too. Pssst, we also have an online store stocking some of the goodies we feature on the site.
If you're a media agency and want to use this platform to connect with our readership, then drop us a line and tell us about it. Oh yeah, and we do digital consulting for cool brands that want to reach the sort of demographic that visits this site.
natalie said | 21 August, 2007
PERFECTO