
Caitlin Kuhwald
San Francisco illustrator Caitlin Kuhwald’s cleanly rendered paintings really hit the figurative spot. It’s so refreshing to come across an illustrator who still gets kicks from beautifully rendering a face, every strand of hair, every wrinkle in their clothing, and then turn around and subvert it all with a big bag of creative tricks.

Tagged: rendered illustration, San Francisco, San Francisco artists
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Described as being ‘familiar, yet horribly unique and fresh’, San Francisco-based artist Matthew Palladino creates portraits of American life that are inspired by current media events. The often raw and violent subject matter is diffused by a flat drawing style that draws upon folk references and early mission school artists. Read more

Liz Hickok’s casts San Francisco out of Jell-O
Artist Liz Hickok has created stunning representations of San Francisco entirely out of Jello-O. ‘I make the landscapes by constructing scale models of the architectural elements which I use to make molds’, she says. ‘I then cast the buildings in Jell-O. Similar to making a movie set, I add backdrops, which I often paint, and elements such as mountains or trees, and then I dramatically light the scenes from the back or underneath. The Jell-O sculptures quickly decay, leaving the photographs and video as the remains’. Read more

San Francisco artist Matthew Palladino’s work is on my obsessive website viewing rotation. His colourful, clean, folksy images have got me, though I must say that I’m not as drawn to some of his more overt examples of political subject matter as I am to his more personal, introverted images. Regardless, Palladino implements the most beautiful patterns and shapes with his watercolors. And I just can’t get enough. Read more
Also by ILANA KOHN

Sixth Pommery Exhibition Sons & Lumieres
How much better can it get than little dollops of contemporary art interspersed throughout the breathtaking setting of Champagne Pommery’s Domaine in Reims, France. The most interesting part here is that this is an ongoing tradition at Champagne Pommery, going all the way back to the 19th century ‘when Madame Pommery commissioned sculptor Gustav Navlet to carve four bas reliefs for the estate and later had the famous cabinet maker and glass artist Emile Gallé create a solid oak Pommery barrel that holds up to 19,816 gallons (100,000 bottles). This barrel was displayed at the 1904 Worlds’ Fair in St. Louis’. The upcoming Sixth Pommery Exhibition, Sons & Lumieres, will be curated by French artist Bertrand Lavier and will include ‘everyday objects often set in difficult spaces’. Read more

Color heaven! Perusing UK illustrator Ben O’Brien’s portfolio feels a lot like wandering the aisles of a giant candy store. I could buy one of everything in sight. Read more

I love it! With the CD now being eclipsed by the MP3, I find myself feeling even more nostalgic for the simple charm of the cassette. Australian artists Andrew Smart and Jared Schmidt create ‘large scale hand-made wooden cassette tapes, routed, sanded, bogged, primed, and painted with a high quality paint finish’. Aha! The perfect way to memorialize my old mix tapes. Read more
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I had the pleasure of meeting painter Maria Calderon a few years back through some mutual friends. Even then her work was stunning. It seemed as though you could stand back and take in everything you thought you could, and if you moved up to a piece, you were pulled in to all the different stories, different landscapes, within a single painting. The vibrant colors and never ending spacial trickery really does it for me.
Just a few days ago, Benjamin Verdoncke climbed out of the human-sized nest he’d been residing in for the past seven days. The Belgian artist took six weeks to build the nest, which hung fifty metres high against a skyscraper in Rotterdam. Read more
I’m super hyped about the Australian Summer lurking around the corner, so I’ve been on the lookout for some new protective sunnies for driving. Surprisingly, I found some uber-lovely Le Specs that look funky yet designer-esque due to the stylish sides. Read more
With its long history in poster design and with a younger generation of artists who grew up with both Eastern and Western European influences, the ‘new Poland’ is booming. I had a blast when I visited Warsaw about a year ago and met all the movers and shakers in design. My friend just sent me a link to Tymek Jezierski’s amazing comic works. They’re so fresh! The only problem I have with them is that I don’t read Polish.
We spoke to Dopepope about his latest Metal Man Project: ‘In the fifth grade, I drew a comic called Metal Man about a humanoid robot that went crazy and pulled knives on people. It’s the most ridiculous thing ever. I was a kid! Anyway, I found the artwork and simply traced the head and the logo exactly as I had them and fell in love with the iconic shapes they’ve created’. Read more
The philosophy of a beginning is to me, a wonderful concept. I really enjoy flicking through the back catalogues of a musician and discovering their origin, then tracing their musical journey to the present. So for American-born, Paris-based sister duo CocoRosie, who released their third album The Adventure of Ghosthouse and Stillborn to much acclaim, making the trip to their beginnings is more than worth the journey: their debut album, Le Maison de Mon Reve (released back in 2004) was a gentle stroll through their pop and classical influences, which melt together seamlessly into a backdrop for their unique and enchanting voices.
Yellow Fever are a great duo from Austin that harkens back to the girl-fronted indie bands of the 90s. At times Breeders-ish, at others referencing garag-y sounds from other eras, their simple and heartfelt songs remind us of why we all thought mismatched Converse and unkempt androgyny was so cool in the first place.
Listen to the Yellow Fever song, Cats and Rats.
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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.

Good thing Kris Kuksi channelled the trauma of growing up with an alcoholic stepfather, his disdain for ‘the typical American life and pop culture’, and his fascination with the macabre into obsessive, baroque assemblages, paintings, and drawings. Read more

Karen Caldicott’s clay head models
British born, New York-based model maker Karen Caldicott has been making clay heads for all major US publications over the last decade. Read more

1970s and 80s Soviet Union buildings
Cambodian born photographer Frederic Chaubin is the editor of French magazine Citizen K. His photo series on bizarre buildings built in the former Soviet Union during the 1970s and 80s is absolutely fascinating. Read more

Our celebrity-saturated culture makes many of us irrationally hateful of the faces we see on our TV screens and magazine pages. Good thing there’s Celebrity PunchOut to let off some of that steam.
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
This cool black unisex t shirt by UK label Client is made in England, printed in Berlin, and beautifully packaged in East Berlin cartonage, especially designed for Client. Read more
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