Cité de l’Océan et du Surf - Ocean Museum in Biarritz, France

New York-based studio Steven Holl Architects and Solange Fabião designed a museum in Biarritz, France dedicated to oceanic issues.

"Entitled ‘Cité de l’Océan et du Surf’, the museum’s design is based on the dual concept of “under the sky” / “under the sea”. Hosting a public plaza and gardens surrounding the museum’s main exhibition space, the complex merges landscape design and architecture, bridging the building to the ocean nearby. Cité de l’Océan et du Surf was named Public Building of the Year by the 2011 Emirates Glass LEAF Awards." via iGNANT

Phygital Art of Ada Sokol

"Ada Sokol sums up her work with two words: “innovation, sleekness”. A chance encounter with the Paris-based, Polish-born artist and 3D designer’s work quickly had us hooked and digging deep into her portfolio rich with commissioned and personal projects. With a flair for 3D rendering which is so photorealistic, it left us wondering where the constructed ended and the real began, Ada is a future talent destined for great things." from It's Nice That interview

View fullsize

Ada Sokol & Etiennne Garachon

View fullsize

Ada Sokol & Etiennne Garachon

Ada Sokol & Etiennne Garachon

Ada Sokol & Maxime Guyon

Ada Sokol & Maxime Guyon

KHADI by Helena Bajaj Larsen

Designer Helena Bajaj Larsen left Paris to move to New York and attended Parsons School of Design. Her focus from the start has been on textile design and the exploration of a surface through print, knit and various other techniques. Outside of school, she tried to develop textile related skills as much as she could through internships (Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna, Mary Katrantzou for Embroidery, Thakoon) and workshops in India.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

For her final terms in Parson she chose the topic of "khadi". Khadi constitutes an Indian homespun cotton cloth often referred to as “the fabric of social change” due to its crucial role in the Indian Independence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi. Her thesis by this very name is a contemporary take on an old story which is both close to her heart as it reflects her family history but also embodies her passionate relationship to textiles.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

“I travelled to many factories and collectives studying how Khadi was made from start to finish (plucking the cotton, to weaving it and then dying it) which helped me better understand the potential of collaboration between craftsmen and designers and when the opportunity presented itself in April, I applied for a design fellowship in Haiti led by Donna Karan and in partnership with Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation. Thankfully I was one of the three students they chose to go to down to Haiti for the summer to develop a range of products with the local artisans at a design training center called D.O.T located in the capital city. It was an incredible experience and ever since I have been trying to think of ways I could keep working on projects of this sort.”

— Helena Bajaj Larsen

View fullsize

Recently, Helena was shortlisted as one of the top 20 finalists for the WGSN X ARTS THREAD Future Creator Award as well as one of the five selected brands (out of 600 applicants) of the Lakmé Gen Next Mumbai Fashion Week competition. Each year they select five young designers to showcase their work among established Indian designers at the country’s largest fashion event.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Photographer: Helena Bajaj Larsen
Model: Neloufar Taheri
Styling Assistant: Mary Raggazino

Nicolas Garner

Nicolas Garner is a visual artist and designer based in Paris. He graduated with a master’s degree in Art Direction at ECAL. His transdisciplinary practice is characterized by a significant interest in the decompartmentalization of the creative mediums and rigorous approach to research and experimentation. He works in the fields of art, image-making and creative direction as part of self-initiated projects or collaborations.

View fullsize

In his series Hyperreality and Genesis 1:27, which have been exhibited as installations, Nicolas treads the thin line between photography and CGI. In both bodies of work he is “challenging our trust of digitally constructed imagery in the context of our post-photographic era.” His glossy images of the human form blur the boundaries between realness and falseness by appearing at once too slick to be photos but also too realistic not to be. “What I find fascinating in the digital representation of the body, is that it is vain by essence. It’s very legitimate to wonder about the relevance of the use of these technologies in the quest for a faithful representation,” he explains.

INTRA

"We don't know yet what is inside a black hole, we know it is a singularity, a point where every rule of physics collapse. One of the possibilities is called "The White Hole Theory", a sort of exit from the black hole, a point where everything is born, including space and time. Some compare it to the Big Bang."

INTRA tells the visual story of this theory, a journey from the black to the white hole, a cosmic tale of death and birth...
As a tribute to Nolan's Interstellar, this second short after NOVAE go deeper into our conception of cosmos, interpreting the unknown to propose a vision of the most extreme celestial object of our Universe...

Directed by Thomas Vanz

Making of

Butterflies on the walls by street artist Mantra

France-based street artist Mantra has been unveiling a series of trompe l’oeil murals that convert the facades of commercial and residential buildings into larger-than-life butterfly display cases in Spain, Austria, France, and Bogota. Seen here are a few pieces from the last year, but you can explore a bit more on Facebook

Scented Cloud

During Paris’s premier contemporary art fair, (the Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain), known as FIAC the luxury brand Cartier chose the shallow reflecting pool outside the Palais de Tokyo, Paris’s most avant-garde art center, to show an installation billed as “OSNI 1- Le Nuage Parfumé,” or “Unidentified Scented Object 1 – Scented Cloud.”

View fullsize

"Visitors were invited to enter the cube and climb up the staircase. Traversing the thick cloud on the landing, they could experience—against a stunning view of the Eiffel Tower—the perceptibly warmer air above the cloud and the enveloping scent of L’Envol, a masculine fragrance created by Cartier’s in-house perfumer, Mathilde Laurent."

People Matching Artworks through the lens of Stefan Draschan

"France-based photographer Stefan Draschan always keeps himself entertained at art galleries by creating his own art projects. One of those projects is “People matching artworks”. Although at first Draschan’s images seem perfectly staged, the secret behind them is actually patience. The photographer enjoys visiting different museums mostly in Paris, Vienna and Berlin where he waits for visitors to suddenly match with a piece of art in a funny way. "

ELYTRE - A permanent installation by Yannick Jacquet

It took 3 years for artist Yannick Jacquet to create Élytre, a forty metres long generative work on display at the foot of the the Alexandre III bridge in Paris. The piece was commissioned as a permanent design feature for Le Flow, a floating building moored along the new pedestrian area on the banks of the Seine.

Yannick Jacquet drew inspiration from the dark mass of the barge between the sky and the river to fine-tune his response to the immediate surroundings, calling on the instability and permanence of the flowing water, the infinitely nuanced shifts of light, and the interplay of transparencies between its large plate-glass windows and the glass dome of the Grand Palais just across the water. Drawing on the barge’s organic, cocoon-like architecture, he came up with a highly sensitive, reactive work in the form of an installation that reverses the overall structural inertia of the barge’s four hundred tons of steel, as if echoing Reyner Banham’s principle of regenerative architecture. The installation is linked up to a battery of sensors so that it varies according to the time of year, season, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, temperature, and so on. It is in a constant state of flux, permanently subject to imperceptible shifts.

Represented by AntiVJ

Reza Bassiri's Fashion Faces

For this Faces series, French Reza Bassiri wanted to illustrate the variety of beauty through these portraits, mixing genders, styles and fashion, with one common trait: beautiful women. 

Pigalle, Ill-Studio and Nike have redesigned the Paris Duperré basketball court

"French design and photography agency Ill-Studio and fashion brand Pigalle have redesigned and repainted the Paris Duperré basketball court, with support from Nike. The court is squeezed between buildings in a Parisian suburb on Rue Duperré, and became internationally renowned in its previous guise, painted in graphical blocks of primary colours."

Cubism design From 2015

First decorated in 2009 by Nike and Pigalle founder Stephane Ashpool, the same year Pigalle launched, the court has been redesigned and redecorated multiple times, working with Ill-Studio since 2014.

Iridescent Loops by Andrei Proko

Paris-based photographer and art director of Courreges Parfums, Andrei Proko, creates small but impressive loops for in-house campaigns

Eight Phases of Illumination by Aramique

From sensory overload to sensory deprivation, "Huit phases de l’illumination" (Palais de Tokyo, Pairs, 2015) is a collaborative mixed-reality audio-visual experiment created by artist Aramique.  Eight physical installations function as a conduit into eight infinite virtual realities. Using abstractions of time, space, sound, colour, form, depth and speed to manipulate the audience's sense of self and connection to the to the present moment we create a forced enlightenment that disconnects the audience from their physical bodies and lets them be one with the virtual universe.

Porcelain busts of Juliette Clovis

Bordeaux-based artist Juliette Clovis is back soon after her latest "Porcelain Eggs" series with new 4 Women Busts «Mechanitis Polymnia»,  «Millipora», «Black Baccara» and «Sternocera». This last piece was made by the artist during a residency program at The Insect Museum of Nedde (France). More than 500 jewel beetles’ wings were necessary to make this stunning piece where the incredible colours of these wings strongly contrast with the pureness of the porcelain biscuit.

P.s. Note that jewel beetles wings are a product of leftovers from Asian restaurants, they sold it on special fairs to artists like Jan Fabre etc.

Conceptual Digital Art by Sergey Kolesov

Senior concept artist at Lyon-based Arkane Studios - Sergey Kolesov shares his latest awesome works done for Dishonored2 computer game

Michael Thorsby

Michael Thorsby is an Art Director and Graphic Designer based in Paris. His work is primarily focused on art direction for fashion businesses and the art world but also for clients in architecture and other aesthetically oriented industries.

Since leaving his native Sweden, more than a decade and a half ago, he has lived and worked in Tokyo, Copenhagen and London before settling in Paris.
The seven years he spent in Tokyo had a profound effect on his work, diversifying his visual expressions and uprooting him from his Scandinavian origins. 

Monumental sculpture ‘Lucie’ by David Mesguich in Poznan

French artist David Mesguich has been pushing the boundaries between street art and fine art by creating monumental geometric sculptures that he puts within urban settings. For his most recent project, the artist created a ten meters high sculpture called ‘Lucie’ representing a little girl drawing a sun in the sky that has been installed in Poznan, Poland. 

Porcelain Easter Eggs by Juliette Clovis

Made by artist Juliette Clovis (previously) at La Manufacture La Seynie - the oldest Limoges porcelain manufacture of France, Easter eggs are currently exhibited at Mondapart gallery in France.

Pierre Kiandjan Art

As Pierre Kiandjan is selecting color mixes, he aims to create illusion of motion, space, and temperature. The challenge consists in gathering simple shapes within complicated blendings. His pieces reveal a clear use of color shades and broken lines. His main influences include futuristic pieces of architecture invented by Mœbius, radiances of light diffracted by Barbara Kasten's mirrors, living compositions sculpted by Jean Arp, and rhythmic gracefulness drawn by Victor Vasarely.

His Parisian studio answers to design needs from clients belonging to a wide spectrum of sectors: Universal Music, Warner Music, Marie Claire magazine, Le Journal de la Maison magazine, Alex Gopher, Morgane Groupe, Album Surf manufacturing company...

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Porcelain Beauty by Juliette Clovis

"French artist Juliette Clovis works primarily with female busts, mutating the forms to adopt animal or floral-based characteristics. Using both the 2D application of paint, and 3D addition of ceramics, she covers the females that she sculpts in horns, quills, and blooms. In some works the natural elements look as if they merge with the bust, while others appear overtaken, such as in the piece Memento mori (2016). In this piece Clovis’ white figure is almost entirely covered in flowers, with minimal elements of her face barely peaking out from its blanket of ceramic blossoms."

Clovis will have a solo exhibition of her work at Gallery Mondapart in Paris titled “Baroque Curiosities” opening March 23 and running through May 4, 2017.