For 16 days straight, from dawn to dusk, five highly determined Montreal-based artists (who make up the artist run collective A’shop) worked on a graffiti mural of a Mother Nature-esque Madonna or a modern-day version of “Our Lady of Grace.” Inspired by Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha, the crew created this breathtakingly beautiful five story mural using 500 cans of spray paint in over 50 different colors.

“We been doing graffiti for a long time but this is our first large project involving the whole team,” Fluke of A’shop told The Montreal Gazette. “We’re always busy with other projects so we’ve never really had time to let [the reactions to] them sink in. But this mural was just so big and also our last of the season. It was challenge, took us out of our comfort zone. We wanted to try something more classic.”

The city gave the group complete control of the project and, luckily, the public ended up loving it. “The main thing that struck us was the public’s reaction while we were painting the mural. Some people gave us the cold shoulder at first, thinking we were painting an ad. Then when they realized we were reviving an old wall with a mural, they were came back to see us everyday. That really fueled us. Within days we had the whole community involved. People invited us for lunch and the Jamaicans at the local barber shop were giving us high-fives!”

Fluke said that he hopes this project will encourage other city boroughs to consider murals of their own. “Our city has way too much gray. So I hope this [mural] kickstarts a mural campaign.”

To really appreciate the time and effort that went into this massive mural, here are some progress shots that were taken over the 16 day period.

What is the idea behind this piece? What does it represent?
The idea was to step out of our comfort zone and show the public what graffiti artists can be capable of. There is an amazing amount of quality work being produced within Montreal’s graffiti scene. Unfortunately, bad press and political strategies often only show the “negative” side of it, creating unneeded friction between citizens and our culture. Graffiti as a form of visual language can be hard to comprehend for most. We thought it would be interesting to paint this mural in a more common language, using imagery that anyone can understand, initiating dialogue and building bridges. For this, we chose to inspire ourselves from Alphonse Mucha, father of Art Nouveau (1860-1939), a style of art that most people know or have seen before. Of course, we gave it our own flavor and used N.D.G as the main theme. The end product being our take on “La Notre-Dame-de-Grâce” or “Our Lady of Grace.”

How did you decide on the “Lady of Grace” subject?
“Our Lady of Grace” English for “Notre-Dame-de-Grâce” (N.D.G) is the name of a residential neighborhood of Montreal located in the city’s west-end, where the mural was painted. We decided to bring this fictional character to life so that this borough could have an iconic symbol of its own.

How much work went into prepping for this mural?
We spent a few weeks figuring out the concept, planning the layout , collecting sponsors and gathering references that represent the neighborhood.

How did you get permission from the city to do this?
Through Help from the City of Montreal and the borough, Prevention N.D.G. – a local not-for-profit that works with the community – the city came up with a budget that was meant to be used in the context of beautifying an area and, though that can be done in many ways, we decided to propose this mural as a means to bringing some color to a gray part of town. After many months of negotiation and preparation, we finally got the ok on our project and got to work.

How do you think the mural turned out? Were you all happy with it?
We’re all very happy with the end result. The crazy part is that we’re more motivated now than ever and realize that this is only the tip of the iceberg for what we have planned for future projects.

Have you participated in any similar projects in Montreal or elsewhere?
We have been painting murals for a long time and most of them for free. Nowadays, we generally get commissioned by the commercial and private sectors. We’ve done similar projects in Europe and in different parts of Canada but this is the first time that we’ve had the opportunity to work on a community project in our own city that allowed us full control over our creation.

Do you think the city should finance more projects like the one in N.D.G? Why?
Absolutely, because it’s a gain for everyone. What better way to regain dead space.

Although graffiti communities are close knit and we often share similar values, the reasons why we do graffiti in the first place are not always the same. Some want their name out there and have little need for the artistic side of it. For others, there is a creative process. If we don’t acknowledge it and support it, we are preventing these people form potentially doing great things as artists.

Via: http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/massive-art-nouveau-inspired-mural-in-montreal

Life-size zombies crawling out of a 1,800-pound giant pumpkin? You have to face it, Halloween carved pumpkins don’t get a lot cooler than that.

A crowd of Halloween fans gathered at the New York Botanical Garden, the other day, to see pumpkin-carving master Ray Villafane work his magic on the world’s biggest pumpkin. Ray, an established artist known also for his incredible toy and sand sculptor, had something special in mind for this year’s event, and it’s safe to say zombie fans were pleased with his idea. He used two of the largest pumpkins from this year’s harvest, one of them a record-holder, to create a creepy scene featuring zombies covered in pumpkin guts crawling out of a giant squash. Ray spent hours painstakingly carving his undead work of art, but his efforts were generously rewarded with cheering and clapping.

Ray Villafane used Brant and Eleanor Bordsen’s 1,693 pound pumpkin to create the zombies, while Kelsey and Jim Bryson’s 1,818.5 pound orange monster was used as the base they’re crawling out of. If you’re in the New York area and love scary pumpkin carvings, be sure to drop by the New York Botanical Garden, where Villafane’s masterpiece will be on display through Halloween.

apple destroyed products by michael tompert and paul fairchild
all photos by michael tompert and paul fairchild

a series of smashed, mangled, shot up and melted apple products are the subject of
a recent photography project by a san francisco-area graphic designer who said he’s
trying to make people think about their relationship with these universally beloved gadgets.

michael tompert said he had spent the last several months purchasing the newest in apple
consumer technology and then creatively destroying the pricey toys. the results, which
he photographed, briefly went on display at a gallery exhibition that ran over the weekend
at the small live worms gallery in san francisco.

tompert said the idea for the project came to him after he gave each of his two sons
an ipod touch for christmas. he said the two boys fought over one of the devices, which
had a certain game on it. fed up with the quarrel, tompert said he grabbed one of the ipods
and smashed it on the ground.

‘they were kind of stunned – the screen was broken and this liquid poured out of it.
I got my camera to shoot it,’ tompert said. ‘my wife told me that i should do something with it.’
in all, tompert created 12 images of destroyed apple products, working with his friend
paul fairchild, a photographer. ‘they had to be a brand-new product,’ tompert said.
‘it’s not about destroying old products. it’s about our relationship with the new.’

his methods of destruction varied by gadget. to destroy an iphone 3g device, he used a
heckler & koch handgun to blow a hole through it. to obliterate a set of ipod nanos,
he placed the devices on a train track so that a locomotive would run over them.

‘two love trees’ by ran hwang, 2009 (buttons, pins, panel)

ran hwang is a korean-born artist working in new york, who creates intricate and poetic installations.
hwang is best known for her wall sculptures that make use of common objects like buttons and crystals
pinned directly onto the wall of the gallery. using each elemnt like a pixel on a scren, hwang creates
oversized murals of birds, trees or chandeliers. her subject matter is often influenced by buddhist theories
and symbolism. hwang’s work has been described as inviting ’the viewer to engage in multiple readings
of emptiness and existence, of attempting to reach the state of enlightenment and fulfillment through the
conscious emptying of one’s mind and spirit’

http://www.ranhwang.com

‘two love trees’ by ran hwang, 2009 (buttons, pins, panel)

‘dreaming of joy’ by ran hwang, 2008 (buttons, pins on wooden panel, stainless steel)

‘dreaming of joy’ by ran hwang, 2008 (buttons, pins on wooden panel, stainless steel)

‘dreaming of joy’ by ran hwang, 2008 (buttons, pins on wooden panel, stainless steel)

‘invisibility is visibility’ by ran hwang, 2004 (buttons, pins)

‘invisibility is visibility’ by ran hwang, 2004 (buttons, pins)

‘garden of light’ by ran hwang, 2007 (pins, glass bowl, video on plexi-glass)

‘garden of light’ by ran hwang, 2007 (pins, glass bowl, video on plexi-glass)

I have to say this is truly amazing!!!! Kudos to the artists!

For the Milan Design Week, Italian studio Carnovsky created a series of wallpapers that react to different coloured lights

The designs were created for the Milan shop of Janelli & Volpi, a noted Italian wallpaper brand. Each features overlapping illustrations, different elements of which are revealed depending on whether a blue, green or red light is shone upon them.

Under red light:

blue light:

green light:

This one features the animal kingdom:

Color est e pluribus unus

RGB is a collection of wallpapers that mutate and interact with different chromatic stimulus.

RGB consists in the overlapping of three different patterns that results in unexpected and disorienting images.
The colors mix up, the lines and shapes entwine becoming oneiric and not completely clear.
Through a filter (a colored light or transparent material) it is possible to see clearly the layers in which the image is composed. Each one of the red, green and blue filters serve to reveal just one of the three patterns, hiding the other two.

We wanted to represent the antique theme of the metamorphosis intended as an unceasing transformation of shapes from a “primigenial chaos”.
For this purpose we have created a sort of catalogue of natural motifs starting with the engravings from natural history’s
great European texts, between the XVI and the XVIII Century, from Aldrovandi to Ruysch, from Linneus to Bonnaterre.
A catalogue – it naturally includes also human – that does not have a taxonomic or scientific aim in the modern sense, but that wants to explore both the real and the fantastic, the true and the verisimilar in the way medieval bestiaries did.

In each image three layers live together, three worlds that could belong to a specific animal kingdom or to an anatomical part, but at the same time connect to a different psychological or emotional status that passes from the clear to the hidden, from the light to the darkness, from the awakeness to the dream in something that could be a sort of exploration of the surface’s deepness.

RGB has been shown during Milan Design Week at Jannelli & Volpi store

Photos By Luca Volpe

Click for bigger photo.

‘In Search of Missing Pieces’ is a series of original sculptures by French artist Bruno Catalono.

Artist Jim Denevan makes large scale art in the sand.