Transcendental Disaster – Acrylic on canvas – 98″ x 62″ 2010

Mars-1‘s latest show entitled “Infinite Tapestry” wraps up today at the Meta Gallery in Toronto, ON. While it is too late to see the works in person, you can check out some nice high-res pictures of his latest pieces, some of which represent a slight departure for the artist. Visit the Meta Gallery’s website and click on the small versions of the works to view them in a full screen viewer.

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Tony Millionaire is a comic artist and illustrator. He’s most famous for his creation of and continued work on the alternative comic Maakies. Maakies is a rarity in that his comics contain a main comic and a subcomic. His comic has been adapted into shorts that appeared sporadically on SNL in the 90’s. Most recently they were adapted into “The Drinky Crow Show” for Adult Swim. Millionaire’s style is different for a comic strip in that regardless of the subject matter, they are very high quality drawings. Now for the subject matter, blue might not even do it justice. It is most of the time vulgar and deplorable. Definitely NSFW, but if you’re willing to get past the shock of it, you’ll find one of the funniest comic minds out there.

If you are interested in obtaining Tony Millionaire’s Maakies back catalog, you can purchase volumes on amazon here and here.

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If your familiarity with the modern tattoo world goes beyond reality television and the ever-present-over-saturated Ed Hardy gear, you may have heard of New York Adorned’s resident Englishman, Thomas Hooper. Hooper’s tattoos are renown for his beautifully stippled ornamental mandalas, an illustrative style that echos both eastern and western traditions, inspiration from masonic and alchemist symbology and a respect for geometry that would make M.C. Escher smile. Most surprising is his painting blog featuring daily abstract mixed media paintings whose color and chaos stand in contrast to his meticulous tattoo work.

If you aren’t ready for permanent body art, he put some great designs on tee-shirts over at Shirts & Destroy and customizable phone cases for Case Mate. Also make sure to check out his store for original paintings and giclee prints.

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Ashley Wood is an Australian illustrator that has worked in comics, video games, movies, and tv. His style mixes oil painting and digital artwork. It is recognizable for having muted colors and a very painterly appearance in comparison to the graphic style of most comic artists. Given the nature of his work, a lot of his pieces are fanciful in nature. Robots, war, and girls. Check out his blog, and his toy store for some really cool work. Warning, some of his portfolio images are NSFW.

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Aidan Hughes is a British commercial artist that specializes in high contrast illustrations. He has been active in the art world for over 30 years now and his style is highly recognizable by thick black lines. He is probably most famous for his album covers for the band KMFDM. A lot of Hughes work uses a black and white color scheme or black and white with accent colors. His primary influence has been stated as Cold War era Russian propaganda. As such, most of his work deals with the idea of violence, oppression, and revolt. For more information,  check out his blog.

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Shepard Fairey has a new gallery exhibition opening May 1 at Deitch Projects in NY. With this new show we are presented with a great deal of new art prints for purchase on May 1. Above, you can see the May Day Flag offset print available at a random time May 1. The print measures 18″x24″ and is a signed and numbered edition of 600 for $35. On May 1st, get yourself over to obeygiant.com and pound your refresh button to snag one.

After the break you can check out the 6 new portrait prints that will be available for purchase at the show opening. Remaining stock will be sold on obeygiant.com at a later date. The portraits are some of the best he’s done in a while and among them we are presented with a second Muhammad Ali and Debbie Harry rendition by the artist. The Iggy Pop and Debbie Harry prints will be signed by the musicians as well as Shepard Fairey.

If you’re lucky enough to live in or near NYC and can make it to this opening, we’d love to have photos of the event. Get in touch with us if you can provide coverage of the event.

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Artist Alexis Mackenzie uses the imagery of biology and botany to create beautiful, carefully cut collages.  The images carry strong typographical weight, moving between fun phrasing and cryptic messages.  A current exhibit of her work is being held in Chicago at  Ebersmoore.  In addition, she has assembled collages for the  book On Wonderland and Waste by Sandy Florian.

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Eric Fortune is an illustrator with fantastic style and motion in his work. His portfolio has a nice selection of client work but a larger selection of personal artwork. Fortune’s blog also offers some behind the scenes stuff worth keeping up on.

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Thomas Bendel is an architect from Berlin who captivated me with his strong, clean lines and use of earthy concrete and wood in his designs. Everything he has created has a physical strength to the look of the design in shape and materials used.  Bendel creates spaces that look like they come from the future yet at the same time could have existed forever. One project that specifically caught my eye was Haus Bold featured above.

His portfolio site doesn’t have an English version but it is fairly easy to navigate. Visit his Projekte section to view galleries of his work.

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Kevin Cyr is an artist that has been popping up a lot lately with paintings of old graffiti-laden vans and other industrial vehicles. In my opinion, his sterile compositions are best when viewed in a large group as seen in his recent show at White Walls Gallery in San Francisco. I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on his website for updates and I’m looking forward to seeing the direction he takes his next body of work. It appears that he may be getting into conceptual sculpture, but time will tell.

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