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!’
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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
It takes guts to be simple. Overcrowding, overworking and over-thinking are far easier. London-based artist and illustrator James Joyce shows how good color choice, clever concepts, and a keen eye for type can get you work with big clients, such as Wallpaper, Nike and Penguin Books, to name a few. Read more
Located on West Houston, Alphaville is my favorite gift store in Manhattan. It offers a great selection of vintage objects, from Nixon’s campaign buttons, to Sesame Street 80s mobiles, 50s greeting cards and the original Mr. Potato Head and his friends. It’s one of those places I walk into just to look but always end up buying something.
Made from 100 percent organic cotton, pesticide free, and eco-friendly, this super soft tee featuring a unique, bold design celebrates a sinister world of kaleidoscopic colours and ripples of psychedelia, of serenading Queens, of dancing flamingos, of unimaginable euphoria. It’s all the work of Sydney label, Das Monk and it’s available through the Lost At E Minor online store for just US$40. Now, there’s one hell of a Christmas present, even if we do say so ourselves Read more
So I have this recurring dream. Well, not really a dream as such. More a footnote on the thesis on life; a ‘mental meandering’ where my mind flows to a secret place which only I and Paul McCartney can access. Read more
TIME magazine’s annual Person of the Year issue is coming out this week. I illustrated one of the runner-ups, but of course, I have to keep my mouth completely shut. I don’t know who is the winner though. On TIME’s website, you can see all the past covers of this most talked about issue of each year. It’s a good time to look back history and learn from it anyway, don’t you think?
I spent the formative first six years of my life in Wellington, New Zealand, a beautiful windswept city framed by a magnificent harbour in one direction and a stunning collection of green, rolling hills in the other. It was here, on a return visit many years later and deep amongst the clipped accents and ruddy faces of the weather-beaten locals, that I stumbled upon the vast catalogue of the then Dunedin based record label Flying Nun. And what a roster of acts they housed — The Chills, The Bats, The Clean, Tall Dwarfs, The Verlaines, and my favourite guitar-pop band, Straitjacket Fits. Read more
There’s a world-weariness about Two Gallants frontman Adam Stephens. It reveals itself in the Tom Waits-like raspiness that permeates his gin house drawl and in the talkin’ blues narratives that he weaves around his simple acoustic fingerpicking. They are the new superstars of the West Coast scene, majestic showmen in homespun rags.
Listen to the Two Gallants track, The hand that held you down.
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WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
There is not a medium that UK illustrator Lizzy Stewart cannot wrap around her little finger to make the most beautiful, whimsical images. Read more
Yum, yum, cupcakes are fun. These creations are so clever, so arty, so damn bizarre that it would almost be a shame to eat them. Almost! Read more
Check out Mike Stimpson’s Lego reinterpretations of classic photographs. Stimpson’s version of Malcolm Browne’s iconic 1963 photograph of the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc is particularly twisted. Read more
Scanners’ new single Salvation
I love this track by London based rock group, Scanners, which is off their latest album, Submarine. Having toured with acts such as The Horrors, The Wedding Present, The Charlatans, Electric Six, and Juliette & The Licks, Scanners could well blow up in 2010. Figuratively speaking, not literally. No, that wouldn’t be fun.
I live the upbeat, feel good tempo of the new single — A Hundred Hearts — from Philly group, The Swimmers. Off their latest album, People Are Soft, this song is a strangely fitting anthem for the blustery day outside.
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
Originating in Shanghai, the Feiyue sneaker first appeared in the 1920s. Made of light material, the shoe has crossed continents, arriving in Europe in 2006 where it was picked up by a team of French enthusiasts, fascinated by sneakers and urban culture. Read more
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natalie said | 21 August, 2007
PERFECTO