Monthly Archive for July, 2010

The Mast Brothers

Published on July 29, 2010, in Product and Video. Closed

This is a wonderful short film from The Scout about Rick and Michael Mast, who create beautifully hand crafted and homemade chocolate.

“They began their voyage in their apartment, using a homemade machine to process cacao beans. Over time they cultivated their creation, sourcing beans from family farms in Madagascar, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Ecuador. Each bar is handmade with incredible reverence for the process and history of chocolate. They are bound in ornamental papers and golden foil (sometimes letter-pressed) like a collection of rare books. Each bar offers its own story of flavors, and no two are exactly alike.

The Mast Brothers are now planning to navigate the mighty Atlantic, sailing to the Dominican Republic in search of beans and a deeper connection with the folks who grow them. Before they begin the next chapter, The Scout spent time with Rick and Michael documenting their story.”

Sonic Landscapes

Published on July 29, 2010, in Motion, Music and Video. Closed

Whoah! Since we last featured the work of our friend Alex McLeod, he has taken his sonic landscapes to a whole new level. The Toronto based artist creates 3D landscapes using a number of software programs, three or four in total for each artwork. Some programs are good for sculpting, some for fluid simulation others for rendering.

For any locals, he has two solo shows opening soon on August 26th at Angell Gallery (Toronto) and September 3rd at Anno Domini (San Jose).

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Dancing Pigeons

Published on July 27, 2010, in Art Direction, Film and Music. Closed

This is the latest music video from the Dancing Pigeons, directed by Tomas Mankovsky. Born in Poland in 1979, he moved to Sweden at the age of one and grew up drawing crazy inventions and dreaming up wildcat schemes. When he got older he started working at Ogilvy in Stockholm before attending Beckmans College of Advertising.

Signed to Blink in 2009 Tomas has created a stunningly visual short “Sorry I’m Late” to follow up his heart-wrenching self-produced short “Little Big Love”. Still pushing brain-boundaries at all times Tomas spends his spare time writing film scripts, launching a range of Tetris-shaped bathroom tiles and inventing things, most recently a domino that generates sound.

Square Beard: Alex Allan

Published on July 27, 2010, in Sculpture. Closed

This is the first in a series of artist features about members of the Square Beard collective. In the interest of fairness, each artist will be presented in alphabetical order with the first being the Scottish sculptor, Alex Allan.

Alex graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2009 and currently in 2nd year of a 2 year Masters at the college. His work often flirts with themes of death, man-power, industry, architecture and the associations of social class related to these. Interestingly, many of the works involve a lot of repeated tasks and require a certain degree of man-power to get them off the ground. This similarity between his areas of research and the physical making of the work seems to be extremely important to him. ‘Kiln, Driftwood 1′ (see image above) is a great example of his method; this creation is a kiln made from abandoned bricks and a formation of driftwood made to look like a flowing cascade of water, which have been re-assembled to form a gigantic, single work.

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Joie De Vivre

Published on July 26, 2010, in Fashion and Film. Closed

Stunning little piece called ‘Joie De Vivre’, by Ruth Hogben and via Showstudio, detailing Gareth Pugh‘s A/W 2010 collection, encapsulated in a super stylized ‘Art Deco fantasy projected at breakneck speed into the twenty-first century’, featuring music by Lukid via one of my favorite labels, Werkdiscs. Watch the film here (NSFW)

Review: The Doors ‘When You’re Strange’

Published on July 24, 2010, in Exhibition, Fine Art, Photography and Review. Closed

To coincide with this week’s documentary release ‘The Doors’, Idea Generation’s dramatic photographic exhibition follows the equally dramatic life of this revolutionary and controversial band, through the lenses of four photographers: Henry Diltz, Joel Brodsky, Bobby Klein and Ken Regan.

The Doors were created in 1965 by lead singer Jim Morrison and fellow band member Ray Manzerak. Their first LP ‘The Doors’ shot to the top of the charts, yet concern over their ‘corruption of youth’ made promoters nervous and soon their reputation as bad boys overshadowed their chart success. In fact the Los Angeles quartet continued to relentlessly challenge, confront yet inspire their fans, leaping headfirst into the heart of darkness as opposed to what were the more current popular topics of peace and love.

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James Short

Published on July 24, 2010, in Fine Art, Illustration and Photography. Closed

James Short a.k.a. Argyle Plaids is an artist/designer from Seattle who has spent the last decade developing a method of presenting Photoshop-based artwork in the form of tangible, mixed media art pieces that have the organic look and feel of more traditionally created work.

Derived from his photography, paintings and encaustic work. Finished pieces are constructed from acid-free watercolor paper, archival varnish, lacquer and acrylic on hand-built, finished wood box frames, lifting them out of their humble, pixel-based origins. All images are set as limited editions, yet all retain one-of-a-kind characteristics as they are custom made individually in varying sizes and dimensions.

His work found it’s way to us via our ever growing and popular pool of images found on Flickr.

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Check This!

Published on July 22, 2010, in Art Direction and Illustration. Closed

Been a while since I checked in with Check Morris. A real sense of fun throughout.

Notre Jour Viendra

Published on July 22, 2010, in Film. Closed


Romain Gavras, the director of music videos for M.I.A and Justice, has just released the trailer for his first feature film titled Notre Jour Viendra. Always a slight sense of anarchy in his work. Looks promising (NSFW) and the films poster is also quite special.

Anders Krisár

Published on July 21, 2010, in Fine Art and Sculpture. Closed

Anders Krisár is a Swedish sculptural artist.

The Suburbs (8 Alternative Covers)

Published on July 20, 2010, in Art Direction, Music and Photography. Closed

Gabriel Jones recently photographed Arcade Fire’s most recent album cover entitled The Suburbs. These images where taken during a road trip in various suburbs in Texas followed by a studio shoot in Montreal where the selected suburb images where then projected on a large projection screen. The car and band members where positioned in front of the various suburb landscapes. This series of images are exploring a north American suburb experience and the memory that one can have from their suburban youth.

Gabriel’s images where also used for a postcard which Arcade Fire used to send out to magazines informing them about their upcoming shows and news about the album release. The series was art directed by Vincent Morisset and designed by Caroline Robert.

Thanks for the drop Gabriel.

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Chau Har Lee

Published on July 20, 2010, in Fashion. Closed

I’m in awe of innovative shoe designer, and recent RCA graduate, Chau Har Lee. Her AW ’10 collection is full of seemingly impossible structures, and a few that defy gravity altogether. Though at first glance her shoes might seem utterly futuristic, they also feel slightly nostalgic. Could there be a touch of 60′s sci-fi and a smidge of 70′s furniture design? Only Lee can answer that. Hat’s off to the girl for a great break out into the fashion world.

You can’t get blood out of a stone…

Published on July 19, 2010, in Culture, Film and Music. Closed

You may know be familiar with photographer Shaun Bloodworth through his work with Human Resources favourite and regular cohort Give Up Art, and last week Shaun released the short film ‘Minds Locked Together’ exploring the Electronic music scene in Sheffield. Filmed over a loose two month period, taking in venues from around Sheffield , from organised club nights to underground raves, it features everyone from performers and promoters to the passionate, committed paying audience.

Minds locked Together is a look into the passion and love of club nights and electronic music that is going on not only in Sheffield, but all around the globe. With a style of filming that is very close to Shaun’s still work, be sure to check the 15 short on Shaun’s site here.

Hero of Graphic Design

Published on July 19, 2010, in Graphic Design. Closed

I absolutely love this stripped back identity for Fray featured on the new site of Build that features an abundance of eye candy.