Tuesday Art Break/Suburban Bliss

If you are in the market for affordable art, Leah Giberson's serene paintings of suburban scenes and mid-century architecture are definitely worth considering. I fell in love with her work instantly finding a comforting familiarity in the paintings as if I had been there before. She begins her pieces with photographs, painting directly on them with a clarity that is visually stunning. You can find her paintings through Sebastian Foster Gallery, Rare Device, and she also sells prints on her Etsy shop.

An Explosion of Color

This series of artwork really caught my eye with it’s graphics and depth of colors but when I found that the artist’s technique was blowing up fireworks on paper, I loved them even more. Rosemarie Fiore’s work is beautiful and dangerous.

Quoted from her site:

"Firework Drawings" These large works on paper are made by exploding and containing live fireworks, resulting in bursts of saturated color that are overlaped and collaged into abstract compositions. Shown above: "Firework Drawing #50", 2008 Lit firework residue on paper, cardboard, collage 30 in x 24 1/2 in

Kicking It

Reebok has released two new tribute sneakers for their Fall collection in honor of the great artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. The Fall 2009 Basquiat Reebok Collection consists of two models, the Ex-O-Fit-Hi and Freestyle Hi and has the artists' imagery from two of his paintings — Untitled (sometimes called Crown or Beatbop), 1983 and Pegasus, 1987. Available from Colette. I LOVE the black high-tops!

The Iron Curtain

I really respond to artists that explore typography as a medium, beyond the canvas or paper. This amazing curtain of type by Jaume Plensa is titled Silent Rain (2003). Constructed of iron in eight parts: with texts by Baudelaire, Blake, Dante, Estelles, Ginsberg, Goethe, Shakespeare and Williams. All I can say is WOW. 

(Via Design Muse)

The Thing Quarterly

The concept behind this fine art subscription service is brilliant—THE THING is a quarterly periodical in the form of an art object. Each year, four artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers are invited by the editors Jonn Herschend and Will Rogan to create an everyday object that somehow incorporates text. If I happen to love a piece of art and it also has some typographic or text element, it’s a bonus for me, being a graphic designer. Above is the latest issue by Anne Walsh that shipped out, it is a doorstop with text from a letter written to Billie Jean King in 1973 just after her victory in the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match. I really don't want it to sit under my door, so it will live happily on the Eames cabinet for now.  

(Yearly subscriptions are $120)