Ian Carpenter

Brendan Monroe and Evah Fan open up

The duo of Brendan Monroe and Evah Fan are one of those creative, powerhouse couples. Though two entirely individual artists, the influence they exert upon one another is subtle yet undeniable. Both create the kind of art that that makes you giddy with pleasure, while the lack of pretension puts you completely at ease. You get the undeniable sense that these are two people who simply live and breathe creativity and love every moment of it. Two amazing artists with a wholly individual take on life and the world around them. I had the pleasure to grill them both. Read more

Sam Friedman’s abstract lines

Brooklyn Illustrator Sam Friedman has the most graceful line quality. In whatever form it takes, from abstract line to bold cursive, it’s this beautiful line quality that is clearly the embodiment of his work. In Friedman’s work, this line is often built up in dense, colorful layers to create the most intense abstract fields, guaranteed make your eyes spin. Punctuated with bold shapes and imagery, with a distinct graffiti influence, Freidman makes it pretty clear that the boundaries for his technique are endless. Read more

The wood art of Cosme Herrera

The work of Brooklyn artist Cosme Herrera is beautiful, subtle and imbued with a deep sense of meaning. ‘As I constantly question man-made constructs, I search for a universal language’, he says. ‘Through this body of work, I seek to define my own logos. Logos are a system of symbols designed for easy and definite recognition. Using a system of logos, I explore my relationship with wood through metaphors and parables. My use of wood is observant of the information trees contain and communicate. Their rings, like an analogical language, tell the story of the tree’s experience through starvation, growth, long winters and wet springs’. Read more

Maths explains the origin of superhero characters

I love the colours and simple reasoning in this clever series by Scottish illustrator Matt Cowen, which uses basic maths equations to explain how certain pop culture icons came to be. Read more

Star Wars Uncut: a fully crowdsourced version of Episode IV

The project of creative technologist, Casey Pugh, this full length version of the George Lucas masterpiece was created from multiple 15 second segments recreated from the original movie and submitted by thousands of Star Wars fans, which were then spliced together by editor Aaron Valdez to form the final product. Genius, as both a commentary on contemporary pop culture trends (there are references to LEGO, stop motion, memes and the like) and on the power of tapping your audience for quality material.

Filmmaker creates LEGO stop motion to propose to girlfriend

Now, this is one for the ages: back in 2010, Atlanta film-maker Walter Thompson created a jaw-dropping LEGO stop motion to propose to Nealey Dozier, his girlfriend of four years. The video took 22 hours of shooting and some 2,600 pictures to splice together, a small sacrifice to pay for years of happiness together. Right? Right! Oh, and she said yes. Bonus.