Brandi Stickland

Brandi Sticklandcreates mixed media collages, using fanciful, found imagery. glorious color and sumptuous texture. Many of these works are grouped together, giving each series a narrative quality. Rich in sunny optimism, and fantastical wonder, Ms. Strickland's collages are essential rainy day viewing (or any day, for that matter).

Also, Brandi Stickland on flickr.

Damien Correll

Damien Correll is a regular fixture in the art and design blogosphere, and with good reason. His work is bold and colorful, reinterpreting many forms and styles from 1960s and 70s illustration. As with many of the designers and illustrators featured on this blog, Mr. Correll mixes found imagery and drawing, computer graphics and hand-executed imagery. His excellent work has gained him such clients as Nike, Zoo York, and New York Magazine. Be ready to spend hours perusing his site, blog, and collection of links.

Kathryn Parker Almanas

Photographer Kathryn Parker Almanas culls from a wide variety of sources, including Renaissance religious art, medical imagery, dissection, and food still lifes to create darkly alluring, macabre juxtapositions. When one image might feature a beautifully-lit, cherry-filled pastry, the next might be a revolting Renaissance-era wax cadaver model. Others blur the lines between the two, for example, a pastry, cut open with surgical precision, and oozing red filling. The exact meaning of these associations is enigmatic and a little unnerving. However, the photography is absolutely stunning and brings to mind dark oil paintings.

Julia Guther

Using an eclectic mix of cut paper, watercolor, pencil and computer-aided drawing tools Julia Guther has created a diverse and accomplished body of work. She uses simple shapes, clean lines and delicate colors to create distinctive images, regardless of the medium. Her style and creative process raise her imagery above the commercial nature of many of her projects.

Boo Ritson

I very rarely choose to feature artists whom I have found via a recent entry on another blog. Usually, I like to let them gestate in my bookmarks before choosing them at what I feel is the appropriate time. Boo Ritson is an exception to that rule. Ms. Ritson has taken a rather innovative approach to portrait photography, combining it with painting and performance art. Her subjects become the canvas, as she covers them in layers of thick paint, being sure to include details of shading and highlights. Her colors are bright, and her execution innovative. Not only are her subjects rendered nearly anonymous underneath coats of paint, but they are transformed into various kitschy archetypes. Huzzah for rule breaking!

See more of her work here:
Poppy Sebire Gallery
Saatchi Gallery

Gneborg

Gneborg is an art collective that uses ordinary, household items to create various sculptures and costumes, to ingenious effect. Suddenly, blankets, pillows and cardboard boxes become mountains, elephants, and giant squirrels. It would seem that various companies have noticed the advertising potential of Gneborg's work, as their portfolio includes more commercial applications among their newer works. This, however, does not diminish the brilliance of their work. Whether or not you created blanket forts on your living room, on rainy days, when you were a kid, a visit to Gneborg's site will not go unrewarded.

Aurèle Sack

Aurèle Sack presents some bold, crisp, simple typographic work on his site. Mr. Sack has a keen sense of elegant form and practical function, as he successfully marries the two in his impressive work samples. He also employs an innovative, yet intuitive and functional site navigation. Be sure to give his work a look, and then a second.

Levan Kakabadze

levankakabadze.com

I feel as though I have known Levan for a while, although we are merely flickr friends. Mr. Kakabadze, or tabu as I know him on flickr, approaches his work with such a sensitivity and intimacy, that one might feel as though he and they were lifelong friends as well. Definitely give his work a look.

Emmanuel Polanco

emmanuelpolanco.net

Emmanuel Polanco has a well-crafted body of work full of intriguing, mysterious images. His work covers a wide range of styles, but the technique of assembling tactile materials digitally remains the same. His pieces are all about layers and textures, all the while balancing elements of the past with modern composition.