Creatures from El

Ellen June Jewett’s sculptures turn animals even wilder, transforming their bodies into futuristic mini-masterpieces that balance and burst with motion. A cheetah has front legs just a little too long, and uses the extra length for more spring, his hair thickened like tentacles as they fly back in the wind. Wings erupt from the shoulder blades and turn into white tethered plants with their own thick tentacles, and tiny white birds fly alongside. Each creature is given their own set of intricate detail that springs from somewhere organic, revealing trees, leaves, flowers and birds.

It’s an ultramodern world where animals adapt and fuse with other elements. Some border on surreal: an owl with its wings holding dreamcatchers out wide, and a fox with flags strung between its tail and body.

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Ellen is a Canadian artist with a degree in Biological Anthropology and Art Critique. She began sculpting as a child, and her Etsy page reads,

“To Ellen sculpting has always been about life, biological narratives and cultural statements. The tedious hours of labor act as the mysterious foundation from which each sculptures’ personality springs forth…

When working in her studio Ellen enjoys the company of animals and listens to audio books and podcasts. She finds this immersion in thought and ideas helps create the depth of spontaneity in her sculptural narratives.”

These sculptures are a part of Ellen’s series Creatures from El, the project she’s been working on since 2005.

 

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[/zl_mate_code] See more of Ellen June Jewett’s work on her website.

Source: vainamoinenka.tumblr.com

 

6 Spectral Artworks With Faces Erased

Are faces our identities? Are they what make us different, set us apart? If there are seven billion people alive right now, are there any with identical faces? Or do we embody the people who came before us, wearing the face of a great-grandmother or uncle instead of a new one we think is our very own?      These artworks take away the faces, showing people but hiding what makes them identifiable. It makes each figure more universal but also leaves you with an eerie feeling, like they have something to hide for a reason.

Hover for descriptions!

 1. Bernhard Handick, Fine

  Feathers Make Fine

       Birds (2012)

 

[zl_mate_code name=”Green Dynamic” label=”4″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”Just a black shirt against white, there’s a neck and a hint of chin but his skin blends into the background and his face evaporates in an instant.

All that’s left is the long trunk of a man who’s quickly fading.”]

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[/zl_mate_code] Source: razorshapes.tumblr.com

 

 

2. Thomas Devaux, Les Visages

  et La Main

 

[zl_mate_code name=”Pink Dynamic” label=”1″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”They looks like sisters, but the one turned away holds her hand to the other’s breast unapologetically. Their faces can be seen, but they’re smudged and the eyes are empty. The woman being touched leans her head back at an angle that’s only slightly crooked, and it’s creepy and mysterious, like she’s somehow disturbed.”]

Les visages et la main

[/zl_mate_code] Source: anitaleocadia.tumblr.com

 

 

3. Clare Elsaesser, So

  Much (2013)

 

[zl_mate_code name=”Orange Dynamic” label=”3″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”This girl’s nose peeks through so she has a face, but most of the rest of it is masked by flowers.

She stands against a pale blue background with her arms folded and doesn’t seem to notice the clusters of pink petals smothering her figure.”]

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[/zl_mate_code] Source: this isn’t happiness

 

 

4. Delaney Allen, Hidden

     Self (2012)

 

[zl_mate_code name=”Green Dynamic” label=”4″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”A man standing in the sand faces us head on. We can see everything from his stylish leather shoes to his checkered button-down with the sleeves casually rolled up.

His face is the only part we can’t see – sand streaks across the frame and his head is lost in a cloud of white.”]

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[/zl_mate_code] Source: likeafieldmouse.com

 

 

5. Faceless from The Nightmare   Factory

 

[zl_mate_code name=”Blue Dynamic” label=”2″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”An archaic looking image in black and white, a man turns his face toward the light and it looks like someone took an eraser to the whole thing.

His face is washed out by the light completely, becoming nothing but empty space.”]

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[/zl_mate_code] Source: thelinktoheaven.tumblr.com

 

 

6. Photography from Kyle

  Thompson

 

[zl_mate_code name=”Pink Dynamic” label=”1″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”In this conceptual photograph his face is covered by a long white sheet that spirals out towards the frame, lifting his body as the rest of him hangs straight down.”]

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[/zl_mate_code] Source: beautiful decay

 

JD Hancock’s Trip to iPhoneland

These tiny people in their makeshift worlds are just too adorable. What was a rug and an iPhone for us becomes a whole swimming pool on soft green turf for them – people so small they can’t be bigger than a fingernail.

In his series called iPhoneland, Texas photographer JD Hancock has an iPhone set the stage for four miniature scenes of teeny tiny people doing outdoor activities, all set atop artificial green rug grass.  In this world, nature is fluffy and plush and things shine like they have a backlight – kind of like a utopia where we let technology wash over us and suddenly we’re small in comparison. But we don’t care because it’s not the evil kind of technology, it’s the kind that makes life easier and facilitates progress.

 

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JD Hancock started building websites professionally in 1995, and he’s worked at startups as everything from owner and product manager to web designer and customer support. His career in photography has been just as successful and his work has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, Wired and The Guardian.

You can read more about his life and the fact that he’s an actual cyborg on JD’s website.

 

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[zl_mate_code name=”twitter/facebook” label=”5″ count=”2″ link1=”http://www.twitter.com/share?url=https://thingsworthdescribing.com/2013/04/29/jd-hancock-takes-us-to-iphoneland/” link2=”http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https://thingsworthdescribing.com/2013/04/29/jd-hancock-takes-us-to-iphoneland/”]iphoneland4

[/zl_mate_code]See more from JD Hancock on his Flickr and his website.

Source: Lost at E Minor.

 

Book Sculptures Bringing Stories to Life

Kelly Campbell Berry brings stories to life by turning books into a visualization of what’s within them, creating characters that float before the very text that breathed imagined life into them in the first place. The books open and the centers of their pages are ripped out to create a stage for the dynamic jumbled scenes of collaged settings and characters, whose illustration styles match the style of writing within them. The Wizard of Oz is colorful and young, and The Tales of Shakespeare is reminiscent of the Renaissance and based in realsim. Gulliver’s Travels is the only closed book and the characters seep out of the sides of it like the cover’s illustration is leaking.

The best part about these book sculptures is that they’re for sale at Kelly’s Etsy shop for less than you’d expect, ranging from Arabian Nights at $150 to Peter Pan and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea at $200.

 

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Kelly said,

“I am truly amazed at the ability some people have to arrange words in such a way that we, the readers, can actually ‘see’ into the imagined world of the writer. We relate, feel, and become invested in the characters so deeply that we are pulled into their world for a brief moment of escape. My book sculptures are my way of showing what the words on the pages create in the imagination of the readers.”

 

 

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See more from Kelly Campbell Berry on Etsy and on her Tumblr.

Source: My Modern Met

 

7 Striking Works of Typographic Art

Art that’s made out of words has to walk a thin line between simple and serious, drawing many meanings from a few little letters. By changing how the words are presented, they become more than just letters strung together to mean something – now that meaning is amplified to envelope whole concepts and a lot of them. My favorite works poke fun at their lettered, arbitrary existence. The words only mean something because of identities we’ve assigned them, so seeing those identities get turned on their head can be a lot of fun…

 Hint: Hover!

 

1. Kay Rosen, Blurred (2004)

 

[zl_mate_code name=”Blue Dynamic” label=”2″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”‘BLU’ on one side of the wall and ‘RED’ on the other, each is painted in its corresponding color, and the two words meet at the wall’s corner, a purple ‘R’ joining them together in one word.

Two contrasting sides that don’t seem to have anything in common – you can try to mold them into one cohesive thought but then things get blurry.”]

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Source: Art Ruby

 

 

2. Faried Omara, I’m fine and

 

everything’s OK

[zl_mate_code name=”Green Dynamic” label=”4″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”This sidewalk is one thing that does need fixing.

Irony cuts the words down the middle, drawing attention to the fact that mostly this expression is just used as an excuse to be lazy. How broken does something have to be before it’s worth the time it takes to fix?”]

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Source: fairedesign.tumblr.com

 

3. Farhad Moshiri, Life is

 

 Beautiful (2009)

[zl_mate_code name=”Orange Dynamic” label=”3″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”Knives turned into elegant cursive letters adds a teensy bit of discomfort to the words they spell, since someone had to slam all those sharp things through the wall to make it look that way.

It also makes you wonder… how beautiful can life be if the message comes from a violent place?”]

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Source: razorshapes.tumblr.com

 

4. “Looks Conceptual as Fuck”

[zl_mate_code name=”Pink Dynamic” label=”1″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”Instead of giving you something conceptual to look at so you can come to this conclusion on your own, the words let you work backwards, giving you some hilarious final thoughts about an artwork without showing you the actual thing.

The words slingshot you from the beginning of the art viewing process to the end, without ever really having a beginning at all.”]

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Source: cheesekills.tumblr.com

 

5. Jiri Valoch, Little Poem 

[zl_mate_code name=”Green Dynamic” label=”4″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”The only work on a piece of paper, this little poem assigns meaning to representation, only showing the number of letters that the word itself indicates, counting till a word is whole.

Or maybe we’re spelling something else… What do letters mean anyway when they’re all on their own?”]

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Source: blushingcheekymonkey.tumblr.com

 

6. Gardar Eide Einarsson, In

Taxis, On the Phone, In Clubs 

and Bars, At Football Matches,

 At Home With Friends (2013)

 

[zl_mate_code name=”Blue Dynamic” label=”2″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”A warning against sharing information, the work is a declaration for privacy, even when you’re supposed to trust the people you’re with.”]tumblr_mkngabN7wW1rxxf8eo1_500

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Source: Global Art News

 

7. Wayne White, Ain’t Tellin

 

Ain’t Asking

[zl_mate_code name=”Orange Dynamic” label=”3″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”Two sides of the same scene, with words standing tall in the water. The sun shines bright against ‘Ain’t Tellin’ but ‘Ain’t Askin’ casts shadows on the waves.”]

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Source: Minus Manhattan