Vibrant, joyful, and oh so painstaking all at the same time! This is the work of Sydney based artist Liz Payne. I found her work on Instagram, which is where most of the work above comes from. Her final pieces are insane, but I also really love following along so that I can get a glimpse of her work in progress. Hand painting on fabric, relief printing on paper… and oh so many stitches, so many tiny beads, so much love.

Oooh, lovely oil paintings on wood by Australian artist Lisa Madigan … so much rich/thick paint, gorgeous color palettes, and some of the best titles I’ve heard in a long time: “Kiss Kiss”, “Watermelon & Spearmint”, “Peaches & Green”, “Sunrise Mist”… I want to hang all of these gorgeous copper framed circles on my wall AND buy some new lipgloss, preferably “Watermelon & Spearmint”. Ahhh, fresh.

Sigh. I’m a sucker for weird old paintings. Imagine a place where there was a whole bunch of really good ones all in one spot?! Well…

This is a story about an iconic dish & glassware store in New York called Fishs Eddy, the vintage art that decorates that shop, and the son of the couple that owns the store who wants to start a gallery. Did you follow all of that? Basically, Fishs Eddy has been around for 30 years… they don’t actually sell art, but they do love & collect old pieces that they display all over the shop. Ben Lenovitz is the son of the two owners, and he has literally grown up there. His dream is to create Fishs Eddy Lost & Found Gallery so that he can continue to hunt for these treasures, but he also wants to make these beauties available to anyone that wants to buy them! Sounds like a fabulous idea to me. He’s going to start with a pop-up gallery inside Fishs Eddy, with plans to get a gallery space of his own in the near future. If you’re in New York, pop in there and say hello… and if you want to help Ben with his dream, he’s got a Kickstarter project you can check out here. Good luck, Ben! Hoping I can skip the garage sales and just come straight to you.

Gasp! Can you tell how badly I want spring to be here? These delicate, organic sculptures and striking pastel drawings/ink paintings are the work of German artist Christiane Löhr. Seeds, grasses, and tiny blossoms arranged into perfect little piles of promise – promise that winter will soon be over. Sigh… if you need me before then, my plan is to hide out in Christiane’s lovely, blossom filled, light-drenched studio:

Lovely.

{via Little Paper Planes / final gallery installation view found on protothema}

Oh. My. Stunning compositions, gorgeous color choices, exquisitely cut paper… and don’t even get me started on that gradient paper used as the backdrop for all of that aforementioned amazingness! This is the newest body of work by Austin based artist Rebecca Rothfus. I wrote about some of her drawings in the summer of 2012, and had the pleasure of meeting her in person a year later at Girl Crush Austin. She is a hugely talented artist and one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet… don’t you love it when that happens?

{ps. all of these pieces are 11″x14″ and are only $250 for the originals! If you’d like to buy one you can email Rebecca directly.}

No. I cannot deal with the hilarious, weird, cuteness of these  little “totems”! They are the work of California based artist Laura Johnston. That dinosaur and sloth are killing me, and I have a fat little wiener dog that looks exactly like that fat little wiener dog! She releases new clay totems every Wednesday – hey, that’s today – so pop over and see if there’s anything that speaks to your inner wild lemming. Now, how do you keep your totem with you all day? No problem, Laura also makes these sweet pewter pieces … and I happen to have these four hilarious necklaces for sale in my online gallery! If you want one move quick like a Jackalope because they’re going fast (they’re only $34?!)… I really want that narwhal. Ooh, or the sloth. Ok, and maybe the raptor and his little Velveteen Rabbit friend too.

American artist Titus Kaphar paints gorgeous pieces that remind me of my Art History text books… which he then he cuts up and rearranges into modern masterpieces that tell an entirely new story. I am in awe of this work, and this perfect explanation:

“I’ve always been fascinated by history: art history, American history, world history, individual history – how history is written, recorded, distorted, exploited, reimagined, and understood.  In my work I explore the materiality of reconstructive history.  I paint and I sculpt, often borrowing from the historical canon, and then alter the work in some way.  I cut, crumple, shroud, shred, stitch, tar, twist, bind, erase, break, tear, and turn the paintings and sculptures I create, reconfiguring them into works that nod to hidden narratives and begin to reveal unspoken truths about the nature of history.  Open areas become active absences, walls enter into the portraits, stretcher bars are exposed, and structures that are typically invisible underneath, behind, or inside the canvas are laid bare, revealing the interiors of the work.  In so doing, my aim is to perform what I critique, to reveal something of what has been lost, and to investigate the power of a rewritten history.”

Mission accomplished.

Stunning, crazy, organic, colorful ceramics… that you can wear! These small sculptures {aka rings} are the work of Polish artist Aneta Regel. Oh my goodness, I’m not even sure where to start. Luckily I found these words on her site, describing her work:

… Trees, rocks, fields, river-beds – these and other aspects of landscape are the images through which she seeks to convey her vision. A romantic to the core, she wants not only to capture the forms, energies and rhythms of these natural phenomena but to suggest the emotional response they evoke in her. Growing up in her native northern Poland, she was often confronted by the large stones, smooth round excrescences left behind by glacier action, that abound in the forests and have become the focus of legends, being endowed with anthropomorphic and quasi-magical powers…

Well, I know I’d have some kind of magical powers if I wore one of these beauties. Love.

{via art is a way}

Yep, I’m heading to New York in a couple of weeks, and I’m bringing a whole bunch of art with me! GREAT.LY has a shop at the Architectural Digest Home Show and I’ll be there every day, sellin’ art and signin’ books! Here’s a peek at a few of the pieces that I’m bringing with me:

Yes! Lots of gorgeous art… and a cat planter! I couldn’t resist! {and I may have been pressured into including one of my own collages too}. Design Milk will also be hosting one of the days, as well as the ladies from Cool Mom Picks. Pop by if you can! Oh, and all of these pieces are also available in my online gallery, so no need to worry if you’re not actually in NYC. Click on the images above and they’ll take you right to my shop. Ok, happy weekend! I’ll be working on creativeUNblock no.3 … will you? ; )

If I was going to invite Wes Anderson and Steve Zissou out for an afternoon in Rome, I would absolutely bring them here! This “Tiffany blue” dipped installation, that transformed the Ex Elettrofonica gallery into a strange boat-like space last fall, is the work of London based artist Davide D’Elia. “Antivegetativa” {the name in Italian of anti-fouling paint often used on old ships}, is composed of a LOT of that gorgeous blue paint, a chair, a buoy and nineteen paintings from old cellars, flea markets, antique shops and junkyards of Rome. Here is an abbreviated statement about this installation:

“Anti-fouling paint of the thick variety is normally applied as a coating for the hulls of old ships and is particular in that it seals out plant and animal organisms to the point of eliminating every possible form of life. The result is an acidic and unreal space, immersed in the abysses of the a material that erases everything, including space, time and life. From the process of immersion of the objects in the paint stems a reflection on a stretch of common history, that of things, and this gives rise to another, much deeper one, on what remains beyond the end of material. Through the process of cancellation of natural processes, Antivegetativa is an experiment in halting nature’s physicality, as well as the passing of time.”  If you’d like to read the entire artist’s statement, pop over to Davide’s site.

{via designboom}