JBR New Signing: Candykiller

Dundee based Candykiller began his creative career in the graphic design and advertising world. After a number of years he made the decision of becoming a full time illustrator and hasn't looked back. Influenced by childhood imagery varying from vintage comics to Pop Art, he set about putting together a portfolio of work, executing his style through both painting and digital means. With a number of toys, prints and merchandise items being sold and constantly created Candykiller has a large following of enthusiasts worldwide. You can see more of his work here:
http://julesrepresents.com/ck/

Audio-Visual: Peter Crawley

Not one to rest on his laurels for long, stitch God Peter Crawley has created this fabulous new self-initiated project entitled 'Audio-Visual.' The inspiration for his latest project was born through his fascination of the different song-waves created by particular songs. There are always specific parts of songs, a big crescendo or a drum crash or fade, for example, that are ingrained in so many people he thought it would be interesting to record these moments. Songs like 'Satisfaction' by the Rolling Stones were not necessarily that striking visually due to a generally even and full sound-wave, whereas many of Dylan's acoustic songs have huge peaks and troughs.
After a careful song selection Pete set about capturing the visual information from a series of well-known sixties songs with intriguing results.

Both prints and originals are for sale, for more info just email!

JBR New Signing: Magnani

Magnani currently resides in Lima, Peru but is just as much at home in Madrid or Italy. Having this tri-nationality affords him a diverse exposure to three different cultures. His ability to illustrate such stylish imagery, focusing on detail, typography and composition enables him to use colour sparingly, with maximum impact. With this and a passion for the aesthetic qualities of mechanical details, coupled with an admirable flair for fashion figures, his work is widely admired across the world.

JBR new signing: Alex Varanese

Alex Varanese is a digital image maker from San Francisco with a huge passion for typography. His original background was in computer science, and after an intensive stint working in Silicon Valley he set about turning his hobby of digital art and illustration into a career. The unusual foundation of engineering, dovetailed with his brief period in the wold of video games had Alex emerge with a rare skill set and a sensibility that combines the futurism and orthogonality of digital technology with the wood-grain lo-fi aesthetic of the 1970's and early 80's. An extensive use of 3D in his work enables Alex to create lifelike depictions of architecture, product design and urban landscapes from scratch without photography. His striking enthusiasm for the colour red has meant that a large majority of his work is created using warm tones and a palette selection that has become a trademark.
You can see more of Alex's work here http://julesrepresents.com/av/

Computer Arts

The highly talented Tom Lane is featured in this months 'Computer Arts Magazine' due to his 'Going Gone Gorilla' project having won a silver and a bronze in the applied graphics and ambient categories at the Fresh Digital Awards!
Tom and his partner in crime Ged Palmer were commissioned by Bristol agency '375' to create a unique life-sized Gorilla that illustrated the threat to the animal from the illegal bushmeat trade. The duo cleverly came up with the idea of dividing the animal into 'cuts' like the traditional butchers posters.
The wonderful artwork was sold in aid of Bristol Zoo's gorilla conservation projects. You can see a film of the creation in action here http://www.julesbeazley.com/artists/tom-lane/gorilla.php
Well done Tom!

The Skylight House, Sydney

A friend of mine moved to Sydney a year ago now and although I was rather disappointed at her leaving she has proven to be a great source of creative tit-bits!
The Skylight House is located in Sydney on a heritage listed street and was lovingly restored by Chenchow Little. It sits a little uncomfortably between its less attractive siblings - the expression 'A rose between two thorns' comes to mind. Not only is this little treasure beautiful on the outside its interior is, well, gorgeous!
Unsurprisingly Chenchow Little won a number of awards for this project, you can check out more about them here - http://www.chenchowlittle.com/

Anthony Gormley: Palm Springs Art Museum

I had the pleasure of experiencing a piece of Anthony Gormley sculpture up close and personal whilst in Palm Springs not so long ago. Gormley grew up in West Yorkshire and attended both Central Saint Martins and Goldsmiths Colleges. He has had and continues to have a long and rich career spanning some 40 years with many well known artworks including 'Angel of the North,' 'Event Horizon' and  'Another Place' to name a few. Awards won during this time include a Turner Prize in 1994, the South Bank Prize for Visual Art in 1999 and the Bernhard Hellinger Award for Sculpture in 2007. Most of his work is figurative and made from a range of materials. Often the moulds for these figures are created from his own body and due to this he says are "the closest experience of matter that I will ever have and the only part of the material world that I live inside."
The particular work that I saw is entitled 'Apart X' 2002. He said that "It was the first time that I had thought about translating the orthogonal geometries of the original lead works into units and about the way that pixelisation of the two-dimensional image could be translated into three dimensions."
Due to the steel blocks that were used to create the figure the effect gave an almost robotic, industrial feel. Gormley's intension was to construct the figures as if they were a building.
His sculpture was one of the highlights of my trip to the Palm Springs Art Museum, it was nice to get so close to his work and understand how it was achieved by getting a close up view of its structure.
You can read more about Anthony Gormley and where you can see his work at: http://www.antonygormley.com/