Life is full of these magical moments with unique characters which can often can be lost because it belonged to a space in time which is quicker than an eye but luckily isn’t quicker than a camera. It’s fascinating to be able to capture these moments and bare witness to them, especially when the world around you talks so grey, as if there is no magic or uniqueness.

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Johnny Two Tone Club is a collaborative project between some folks in Perth and Melbourne who like to do hand-pulled screen prints. International Walkman Day is the second installment in their ongoing Public Holiday Project series, which seeks to celebrate the anniversary of significant cultural events that don’t get the attention they deserve.

The Let’s Colour Project is a global ‘colour movement’ that started earlier this year with the goal of inspiring communities with a splash of colourful paint. Schools, streets, homes and squares across Brazil, France, Turkey the UK and India were the first to receive some colourful inspiration, and we’ll be keeping an eye on the project to see where it goes next. Inspiration through colour – a great initiative.

The crew at hip Australian fashion label Insight have been busy building ramps every summer around the Czech Republic. You’ll notice the typical brash Insight humour and colour running through the installations. A nice initiative to help out with places to skate, and also to show a colourful side to skate culture.

Jörn Kaspuhl was born and raised in Stade in Northern Germany. In 2002, he moved to Hamburg and started the education in illustration at the University of Applied Sciences (expected graduation later this year). He has been working as a freelance illustrator since the summer of 2006.

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I love the vibrant and slightly offbeat artwork of New York-based illustrator Jonathan Bartlett. He cites his influences as being ‘the great outdoors, growing up far away from the cities, Norman Rockwell, pattern, symmetry, faces, music (loud, soft, fast, slow), clever lyrics, a cold drink, exercise, Achille Mauzan, Bo Bartlett, and Claude Monet’.

I’ve known the New York-based artist Jordan Awan for quite a long time now. Since he was in high school in fact. So I have had the privilege of watching his art truly evolve into something amazing. He’s just a great guy and an incredible artist with a profoundly unique voice that is entirely his own. His recent solo show at PEP in Brooklyn was hands down, in my opinion, one of the best shows I have seen this year. I spoke to him recently: Where did you go to school? ‘I went to school at Pratt Institute in the Communications Design department. I majored in illustration’.

What led you to Illustration? ‘My older brother Jashar, who is an incredibly talented illustrator, went to Pratt for illustration. When I was looking at colleges, Jashar spoke very highly of Pratt’s illustration department. The fact that he was so excited about the department convinced me that it was the right place for me. The full disclosure would be that, for myself, I view illustration as a career and not a vocation. Illustration is just a very specific outlet of image-making that I do for practical reasons. I am much more interested in making work without the typical practical reasons, but for the one paramount practical reason: that if I don’t make it, I’ll burst’.

Who and what are your influences?
‘Some painters that always inspire me are Henri Rousseau, Peter Saul, Philip Guston, Jan Van Eyck, Max Ernst, Balthus, Ernst Fuchs, and Hans Memling. In addition to painters, I am equally influenced by filmmakers. Jodorowsky in particular has had a very profound affect on me. There is also Kubrick, Lynch, Bunuel, Bergman, Tarkovsky, and Herzog. I am in many ways more influenced by reading than by visual art. The two authors I read constantly are Nietzsche and William Blake. They are an endless wellspring of inspiration for me. Other authors who have had a big influence on me are Borges, Kafka, Kierkegaard, Calvino, and Heraclitus. Kenneth Smith is a philosopher who I have had the incredible good fortune to meet. His ideas are undeniably powerful and have had a tremendous influence over me and as a direct result, my work. My once-professor and now-friend, Joshua Ray Stephens has also had a big influence on me creatively: he taught me that no powerful work can be made without strict discipline and sincere conviction. He never really said those words to me, it was more his example. Of course, my friend and wife Morgan Elliott has had an incalculable influence on both my work and me. But that goes without saying!’

Californian-based artist and Lost At E Minor contributor, Jenn Porreca, has an exhibition of works showing at Distinction Gallery, in Escondido kicking off on May 10th. Of the exhibition, Porreca says: ‘the show I am in is with Alex Willan and the beautiful Jeni Yang. These pieces, which I began working on last November, are heavily influenced by the silhouette films made by German artist Lotte Reiniger during the early 1900s and are a commentary on the rising ocean levels, the dark yet hopeful political climate we are in, and are a response to my recent trip to my home country of England after eighteen years away’.

Melbourne-based illustrator Sarah Beetson has her second solo exhibition opening on June 6th, featuring Australia’s first Art Vending machine. 50 Bucks: Bring On The Sluts is a collection of 500 moleskine-sized artworks which will be priced at $50 each. Those interested in buying one will be able to make their purchase through a donated Pepsi vending machine, which will be dispensing the artworks in a ‘message in a bottle’ fashion. Should be fun.

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I love the rich color and strong thematic imagery in the artwork of Ronald Llanos.

This artwork by Fariel Shafee hangs in my mind like a wondrous symbol of everything I’ve ever imagined pure hedonism to be. Of the piece, he says: ‘It is, like many of my other pieces, a dream fragment, or a representation of mental image parts, sliced from different frames, and placed together to portray an emotion at a certain time. This, in particular, is a mental landscape, where a person (the semi-transparent figure standing between the hand and the image of the face) finds herself in a composition of chopped up memories and feelings, placed together. The color blue is heavily used to create a dreamlike environment. The large hand and the wall in the back symbolize inhibitions, the lighted up face hopes, and the pink and blue dots at the top reflect the flow of a lifted spirit maintained in a wide world represented by a huge field and a few green trees. In a single frame, all these images are juxtaposed to produce an idea of being or consciousness that contains bits of all these simultaneously’.

The splash page that precedes the illustration work on the website of freelance illustrator Emily Golden is absolutely compelling. So it was a pleasant surprise to find that the illustrations themselves are equally as brilliant. Her portfolio includes work for United Airlines and Urban Outfitters.

The work of London-based illustrator Cristina Guitian is wonderfully vibrant and uplifting, and almost as fun as playing around on her website. Almost!

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Working out of Brooklyn, artist Linda Zacks imbues her paintings with a wonderful richness of colour and detail. Her work is brutally real in places, and somewhat confronting in others, as she takes a peek behind the curtain of the sprawling modern, urban environment.

I love Sam Weber’s illustration of Bjork. It captures the mischievous twinkle that seems omnipresent in her eyes whilst also presenting her in an environment which pays homage to her somewhat mystical musical approach. [more about Sam Weber]

The website of Jemma Robinson is home to a collection of bright, bold and graphic illustrations. A graduate of the UK’s Loughborough University School of Art and Design, Robinson’s work often depicts urban environments and she is regularly inspired by visits to cities around the world. The main feature of her illustrations are the numerous boldly coloured people that tend to populate her images, but she also has a love of typography and looks to incorporate type into her work whenever possible.

Marisa Purcell’s work is absolutely stunning. Her latest series of artworks, Only the Memories are New, ‘represents an even further delve by the artist into unchartered realms of the psyche. Instinctual and unexplained, the paintings invite the viewer to confront dreamlike worlds where inside meets outside and reality is constructed from fragments of memory and time. Floating, drifting, wandering, these strange and beautiful mindscapes offer neither root nor horizon. An ascending sense of gravity defies all familiar notions of perspective. Gentle, optimistic use of colour belies a powerful, seeping loneliness. The worlds are empty, quiet. As though holding their breath as they wait for us to enter. Purcell’s ability to access such gutteral immediacy is what makes her work so confronting. This latest series of paintings, with all its intoxicating beauty is somehow like having your subconscious cracked open and spilled onto the canvas’.

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I’ve known Tiffany Bozic’s work for years, but I think her paintings are now looking better than ever. Her recent paintings, where she departs from figurative work and starts creating abstract patterns and shapes using animals and sea creatures, are just breathtaking.  Unfortunately, I have never seen her work in person. I bet they look even more exceptional. She has a show coming up in the Los Angeles area in May.

I love the bold colours and childlike themes in the illustrations of Atlanta, Georgia-based artist, Jessica Gonacha. It’s like Spring time all year round.

If you’re a New York based illustrator and looking for a little intensive tuition from one of the finest in the biz, Fernanda Cohen is running an illustration course from April 5th through May 31st, every Saturday from 11 am to 2 pm: ‘The course will focus on how to solve illustration assignments, self-promotion, portfolio, contracts, licensing and networking’. The course is targeted at graphic designers and fine artists who want to break into the illustration field. Registration ends on March 31st, so you’d better get in quick!