I love how German photographer Matthias Heiderich sees the world… color, composition, and clever crops every single time. So. Good. All of these images are from his series titled “Summa”. Kind of perfect what with tomorrow being June 1st, no? Happy Friday.

ps. Follow him on Instagram because, as I’m sure you can imagine, his feed is GORGEOUS.

Clean, vibrant, and kind of odd… perfection. This is a new, and very personal, series by Vancouver based photographer Jackie Dives. I’ll hand it over to Jackie for the beautiful explanation of these strange combinations:

“Patience and Balance” is a series of still life self portrait photographs that explore womanhood and aging as a woman. Earlier this year, while at an artist residency in Mexico City, a birthday of mine passed that left me feeling paralyzed emotionally and creatively. Looking for inspiration, I wandered the market in the local suburb where I was staying, and started to purchase items that I felt a connection to. These were mostly rotting fruit and vegetables. I received some confused looks when I purposely reached for the produce that was damaged, bruised, or rotting. But I thought they were beautiful, they were calling to me.

I brought them back to my studio and started to photograph them. I realized I was creating a version of a self portrait, a personal memento mori. When photography was a new art form and still quite expensive and laborious it was often only in death when a person would be photographed. These post-mortem photos or memento mori, which is Latin for “remember that you will die,” served as treasured keepsakes, valuable remembrances of a deceased loved one.

The process of making these self portraits about aging and death made me feel alive, and I even found humour in them. Through a mourning and celebration of my past self I found a way to heal my present self.

I looooove that she gave herself this assignment… smart and oh so lovely, just like Jackie herself. These pieces (and more) are part of a group show, titled Uncannyland, that opens this Friday, May 31 from 6-9pm at South Main Gallery in Vancouver, and runs until June 14, 2019. Go!

This is the dreamy work of Chinese-Australian artist (based in Melbourne and Sydney) Thomas C. Chung. I wrote about him years ago when his portfolio was full of fiber… but now it’s filled with neon and rainbow-filled skies printed on mirrors! Here is part of his artist statement about this 2018 show at Galerie pompom in Sydney:

“In a world that is in search of Utopia – reaching for such great heights – there is an uncertainty to this pursuit. In being vulnerable we become susceptible, a process which reveals its own limits.

“…It Was Like Seeing A Fallen Rainbow”, is an exhibition connecting the loss of innocence with our reflected self. Continuing my earliest years of research into exploring the childlike psyche, this lifelong narrative is a conceptual fusion mediating my interests in psychology, philosophy and contemporary aesthetics.

Utilising aerial photography, “From Up Above…So It Is” is a vast series of cloudscapes printed upon mirrors. The compositions are in a state of free fall, drifting in the sky, passing through a prism of colour and peering into the sea. Occupying a space between disturbance and the aftermath, a rainbow is a temporary rift formed by the dispersion of light. A moment between moments.

Sitting on a bed of chiselled stone is a text-based installation created in neon. The twisted sentence spelling out the title of the show. Contrasting elements of dense, dark stone the fluorescence of electrified glass is a play on weight and tone, content and tension.”

Beautiful.

Gasp! “SHE COULD HAVE BEEN A COWBOY” … now I want to be a cowboy! This is the most recent series by photographer Anja Niemi. Beautiful, bizarre, and like stills from a movie that I desperately want to see. I can’t find her artist’s statement about this work, so I’ll just have to let my imagination run like wild horses. ps. What makes this blush ‘n gold / American wild west narrative even more fantastic? Anja is from Oslo, Norway.

ps. This series is currently showing in Los Angeles at Galerie XII until June 22, 2019.

“… a fascination with the construction of imaginary worlds that mirror a distorted reality”. Indeed! This is the quiet and surreal work of Canadian photographer Mark Bartkiw. All of these mixed-up photographs are part of his ongoing series, titled “Uncommonplace”. Here are Mark’s words about this project:

“I put together photos taken from different parts of our world to create this alternate reality, one that is similar to our world but with enough difference to create uncertainty. I see these Images as a lucid dream that reflect our own distortions and interpretations of what we see. We make assumptions or judgement based on first glance. This remanufacturing of landscape and architecture results in objects and buildings that float in a slightly skewed space. Reassembling reality based on the experience of multiple places and locations creates new spaces that verge on recognizable, but defy definition. This process of reinterpreting the world is something that I do to feel more at home in the world. But the new world we create puts us on the wrong side of the mirror, looking back at the reflection of our ever-shifting psyches.”

Beautiful and bizarre. Speaking of which, I really want to go to that first beach scene.

Gorgeous styling + Puns = Lizzie Darden. Well, I just fell down the rabbit hole that is Lizzie Darden’s Instagram feed, and I loved every pun-filled second! I think my faves are the macaroknee pads, the prank caller in a prank collar, and those potato wedges!?! I’m going to make you guess the rest over your morning coffee. Be like Lizzie and “take life pun day at a time.”

ps. I think it would be irresponsible of me not to show you these pins from Lizzie’s shop… ‘brain freeze’, ‘cheese cake’, and ‘let’s taco bout it’! Bahahaha!

Okay, I need to touch all of these things… shiny, smooth, spiky, ALL OF IT. These bizarre still-life vignettes are the work of Wang & Söderström, a collaborative duo made up of Swedish spatial and furniture designer Anny Wang and architect Tim Söderström. They do all sorts of fabulous projects together, and strive to “create mind tickling and unexpected experiences through materiality and technology”. Nailed it. Here is a description of one of their still-life series:

“‘Common Odd Things’ is a still life series that aim to stretch the boundaries between the familiar and the unreal. The organic sculptures are created by the artist duo Wang & Söderström through digital data to physical form by 3D printing. They are made in various biodegradable PLA blends, such as wood, stone and glossy plastic, which creates different textures and appearance that is often found in Wang & Söderström 3D rendered work.

The objects have been brought together in different set designs and captured by photographer Mishael Phillip, who focus on boosting the surrealness yet keeping details to reveal the sense of the real world.

The title, ‘Common Odd Things’, invites to explore the work from your own perspective. The contradictory words ’common’ and ‘odd’ is a play of how things can carry familiarities at the same time feel bizarre and alienated. Things can look like an object from your dinner table or a sex toy. Or perhaps a creature, something alive. What makes them common and what makes them odd, is through the individual eyes.”  Photos by Mishael Phillip

Ah, the stunning work of Rome based artist Micaela Lattanzio. All of these images are from her ongoing Fragmenta series, but these ones are extra special because they’re part of her latest solo show. Fragmenta – A Journey Beyond the Body, opens this Friday, March 8th at 6:30pm at Galleria Ca’ d’Oro in New York {179 10th Ave.}. Sigh, can you imagine seeing these fractured beauties in person? Go if you can!

Embroidered plants on vintage photographs. Lovely… but so much more powerful when you read the description of this series, titled ‘Strange Plants’, by American artist Heather Beardsley:

Last winter I visited Pripyat, the ghost town closest to the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, where over the past thirty years nature that was destroyed by human hubris and incompetence has grown up to dominate the abandoned man-made structures.  The series uses this powerful juxtaposition as a lens to look examine the current relationship between mankind and the natural world.  In a time when cities are growing at an unprecedented rate, nuclear tensions are at a post-Cold War high and we are feeling the effects of climate change more every year, these pieces pose questions about what the future holds.​

Although created in an intimate scale and presented in a whimsical fashion, using embroidered floral and plant motifs usually pejoratively ascribed to the realms of “decorative art” or “craft”, on closer examination the implications become more sinister.  As plants seemingly grow uncontrollably through the buildings and streets, people are either absent from or oblivious to the situation.  Viewers are left to wonder about this change in dynamic, what preceded it, and what can prevent it.  The resulting works exist in an ambiguous space: a drastic shift has clearly occurred, but nature has fought back and perhaps a new balance has been reached. 

Um, so these are paintings… on the artist’s face. I know, right? This is the surreal work of South Korean artist Dain Yoon. Confusing, beautiful, and jaw-dropping. I have no idea what else to say, other than, whoa. Follow her on Instagram to see more of her dizzying paintings … ON HER FACE.

*No photoshop was used in the making of this post. For reals.