Bubblegum colors like baby pink and baby blue?
Check.

Images of torture, death, and sadism?
Check.

Leave it to Los Angeles artist Kill Pixie, or Mark Whalen (formerly of Sydney, Australia) to put hooded madmen in settings rife with geometric shapes and patterns. Pieces like Group Sessions (left) and Ill Do Anything (right) might seem nearly like vector art created for posters, but in actuality, are the result of a technique that blends acrylic, ink, and gouache on paper that’s then pasted onto wood panels and coated with resin. The resulting pieces seem to have a sense of smoothness and vividness that make them nearly print-like. His 2009 pieces are a step towards simplicity from his dizzying 2008 pieces, but they remain just as interesting.

www.killpixie.net

Elena Kalis takes photos that look like snapshots into one’s dreams. She has three separate portfolios on her site — a black and white Impressions Gallery, a sparsely colored African-Carribean Gallery, and a hyper-colored Underwater Gallery. All three contain series of perfectly-executed portraits that capture humanity at the height of its potential for whimsy. The attention to detail behind these works must be extraordinary, and her manipulation of the human body never becomes boring. Simply amazing.

www.elenakalisphoto.com

Now at Lo-Fi Gallery is the Artifakt Art Collective‘s July photography show! Of particular interest are the lightwriting works of Inua Blevins and Avail. These long-exposure images are shot in cityscapes and crowded bars, giving a pretty distinct look to what is now a common effect.

Lwww.myspace.com/lofigallery
www.artifaktart.org
www.myspace.com/inua
www.myspace.com/resol

Projection on Buildings from NuFormer Digital Media on Vimeo.

Nuformer, a Dutch multimedia agency, has come out with an interesting video showcasing images projected onto building facades to create the illusion of random events happening, from buildings crumpling to bouncy balls falling from rooftops. An interesting watch, and although everything happening in this video is probably being achieved with special effects, it could be a marker of something exciting that’s to come. (That being said, don’t go to their website expecting other exciting things, because their website is pretty poor, and their other projects pretty boring.)

www.nufromer.nl/en/

The YYYs have put out a request for fans to design the t-shirts for their next tour! View the full details are at http://www.yeahyeahyeahs.com/tshirt/, but here’s what Miss Karen O has to say about it:

“Hey Folks, all us YYYs have been avid collectors of t-shirts over the years, what can we say, WE LIKEY A GOOD T-SHIRT. In our travels many of you have chucked a homemade YYY tee on the stage or what not and all the shirts have always been unique and poured over with loooooove. So it got us thinking: how about giving you the fans a crack at coming up with a fresh new blitzin’ YYY T-shirt design! It’s a natural fact that YYYs have amongst YOU a whole heap of ART STARS! So school’s out for the summer and we want you to spend a hot lazy afternoon throwing something together for us YYYs to REPRESENT! And I got a hunch you’re gonna bring it! And if you do we’ll bring back a little something in return…!! Luv, YYYs”

The winner will get a bunch o’ signed stuff from the band and will have their tshirt printed + sold on the upcoming YYYs tour and online.

Designs must be submitted by July 22nd, 2009.

http://www.yeahyeahyeahs.com/tshirt/

The 1300/Third Gallery in Cleveland will have a pretty cool illustration and photography show coming up, in conjunction with The Steve Brown Gallery. The show will feature resident artists Benjamin Haehn (with his colored pencil and oil piece, Shark Shark, pictured to the right) and Trelawney O’Brien, as well as illustrator Robb Hare.

The Steve Brown Gallery (TBSG) is a floating gallery that essentially showcases works in different parts of Cleveland, Ohio, and they’ve already attained three exciting spaces — one of which is the 1300/Third Gallery. Others include Brigade Clothing and Shoparooni, but all will be available on The Steve Brown Gallery‘s website after the show’s openings. TBSG will offer awesome art, but counseling services and career advice for artists as well, on topics as diverse as finding a quality printer to attaining wholesale distribution. It will no doubt serve as an amazing resource for artists as well as art-lovers.

stevebrowngallery.blogspot.com
www.stevebrowngallery.com
www.benjaminhaehn.com
www.clothingbrigade.com
www.stevebrowngallery.com
www.flickr.com/photos/22518573@N04/