3rd Wave of Inspiration
Since 2003
The Summer after 10th grade Mike spent two solid weeks with horrible horrible migraines, dizziness, blind spots and tunnel vision—he didn’t know what it was… This is the story of his Coke Habit.
Produced and Directed by: Dress Code
Executive Producers: Dan Covert + Andre Andreev
Producer: Tara Rose Stromberg
Production Coordinator: Nick Stromberg
Read full feature on Motiongrapher
Artist Stacy Lovejoy’s newest sculpture series “Super Power Tools” combines vibrant colours and simple shapes, inspiring viewers to harness the carefree and adventurous spirit of childhood. Stacy channels her inner child and love for whimsy to communicate childlike abandon and lust for life through installations, paintings, sculpture and performance art. Her ability to convey the essence of youth through multiple mediums seems driven by her connection to honesty and spontaneity: an artistic expression of the desire to remain forever young.
From her studio in Portland, OR, Stacy creates a variety of art which aligns well with the neo-pop, futurism and contemporary faux naïf genres. Her history includes drawing from a very young age, and continuously seeking new ways in which to artistically express her joy and concurrently inspire others to lie authentically through reigniting the glittering excitement and insatiable curiosity inherent in young children.
“Creating art takes me back to my childhood - that time when you admire water drops which sparkle in a sunny ray; seek funny characters in a rug; giggle over your puddle reflection and smile when a gentle wind tickles your cheeks. A time when you are happy-go-lucky, sensitive, almighty, and sometimes naive, but always genuine. I am an eternal child and art allows me to maintain this state of being”
Through this mindset, Stacy aims to inspire others to create their own reality and utilise their freedom of choice to foster artistic and intellectual curiosity with a penchant for experimentation and adventure.
“Super Power Tools” is composed of 17 pieces fashioned primarily from acrylic on plywood, which exhibit a multitude of influences: mother nature makes a strong appearance, with a repeating theme of foliage and flower petals in variegating color schemes, plumage of winged creatures, and mystical patterns reflecting majestic creatures; conversely, the installations reference to tools shines through in pieces like Programming Book of a Goal Achievement and Fan Spreader of Spontaneity, which tout markings and shapes that call to mind protractors, measuring tapes, and grandfather clocks. This dichotomy of nature and spontaneity, melded with structured implements from the man-made world, seems to explore Stacy’s desire to cultivate a return to the childlike state for those who view her art, urging them to let go of stifling stress and seriousness and breathe in “Super Power Tools” to unleash the silliness and wonderment of youth.
New York artist James Clar exploring the aesthetic behind artificial lights system and creating indoor installations exploring the ways shadows cast in front of us are generated by the systems we create.
New York based designer Nick Misani shares his latest affair with floor mosaics he got in while still working at Louise Fili Studio she founded few decades ago. Formerly senior designer for Herb Lubalin, Louise Fili was art director of Pantheon Books from 1978 to 1989, where she designed close to 2,000 book jackets. The idea to run a small self-initiated project Fauxsaics came to Nick while he was digitally restoring Louise' books. He started to create faux digital mosaic inspired by the piece he saw in London
Robin Antar known for her hyper realistic recreation of American legacy - fast food in stones. Her quality of the work lead to the official letter from U.S Gov saying she cannot copyright her work because it to closely resembles famous products.
Splash
“A month ago I took a photo I had the idea the night before. I imagined a girl being held up by her incredibly long hair—like ridiculously long. Doubtful I’d find a model with hair as long as I envisioned so I just altered the idea to fit the photo shoot I was already doing.
I uploaded the photo and within 5 minutes can tell it was going to do really well. Just not 130,000 likes and 2,000 comments really well. I don’t know what I did or how it happened, but I’m glad.”
Truck Torrence lives in Los Angeles and makes kawaii pop art under the moniker 100% Soft. He is the designer of the official emoji for Star Wars and creator of the Kaiju Kitties. His work has been shown at Gallery 1988, Bottleneck Gallery, Giant Robot, & Spoke Art.
In this new series of paintings, Miami-based artist Jason Seife deftly renders the intricate patterns of old Persian carpets with a mixture of acrylic and ink. While the paintings utilize familiar motifs in rug design like leaves and geometric shapes, Seife introduces colors not normally associated with the heavy textiles, creating his own interpretations that reflect his mood or thoughts while executing the painting.
"Technicolor nebula swirl like cyclones across a sub-atomic realm. An endless stream of geometries sequence through the stratification of an atmospheric order that signals life. This is the primordial inception of a new world, in a preternatural cosmos."
Started as a model and a self-portrait artist Hattie Watson transformed into full-body documentary and portrait photographer ready to take off for the next venture behind the lens of her camera
"John C. Kacere was an American artist. Originally an abstract expressionist, Kacere adopted a photorealist style in 1963. Nearly all of his photorealist paintings depict the midsection of the female body. The kitsch paintings make for pleasurable viewing, not least for the sexually-charged subject matter. John’s incredibly tuned hyperreal style lends itself to the flawless skin of the idealised Caucasian bodies he paints as well as it does to the slippery silk and satin folds of lingerie and bedsheets. As the curve of each woman’s hips builds a terrain across each canvas, the scantily-clad female form becomes a landscape of sexual possibility."
"50 years on, John’s work feels more contemporary than ever: were the paintings the photos they imitate, it’s easy to picture them riding high on fourth-wave feminism Tumblr and Instagram feeds."
Mass is a site specific installation project by Carson Davis Brown about creating visual disruptions in places of mass (to date: big-box stores, super-centers, etcetera.). At an intersection between Street Art and Land Art, installations are made without permission, using found materials within the retail landscape.
The works are made, photographed, then left to be experienced by passersby and ultimately dissembled by location staff. Photo documentation of Mass works are initially exhibited in a consumer landscape. Printed, framed (in unsold frames) and exhibited in-stores; all without permission.
San Francisco- based artist Monica Johnson shares two series of female glitchy portraits and minimal illustrations
Sing-Sing is a collaborative animation, photography, and design studio formed by Adi Goodrich, & Sean Pecknold (previously) They use a lot of vibrant colours and positive energy in creating projects like a lyric video for Fleet Foxes, a few photography and animations works for Headspace, an optical illusion photo series for Sagmeister & Walsh, an Alphabet book and a lot more
"Electronic music composer, producer, drummer and photographer Neil Kryszak believes that all art forms can communicate beautiful aesthetic values, as long as they are visually or audibly pleasing."
"After moving to Los Angeles, he began focusing on photography, inspired by the new surroundings and lifestyle. His pictures are characterized by surreal and exotic aesthetics, showing reflections of multicolored lights saturating the streets, architecture and the distant scenery, all fading into black. Led by intuition and trust, the instantaneous creative release and the ability to provoke through a frozen moment attracted Neil to photography. Especially the night time is very meditative to the artist. When it’s calm, there is a lot to imagine and to work with creatively, intrigued by adventure and mystery. Characterized by experimental and psychedelic art styles, the pictures also feature a 70s, 80s and 90s nostalgia.", text by Sarah Press
For over half a century, the American artist James Turrell has worked directly with light and space to create artworks that engage viewers with the limits and wonder of human perception. Turrell, an avid pilot who has logged over twelve thousand hours flying, considers the sky as his studio, material and canvas. New Yorker critic Calvin Tompkins writes, “His work is not about light, or a record of light; it is light — the physical presence of light made manifest in sensory form.”
“My work is more about your seeing than it is about my seeing, although it is a product of my seeing. I’m also interested in the sense of presence of space; that is space where you feel a presence, almost an entity — that physical feeling and power that space can give.”
Roden Crater, located in the Painted Desert region of Northern Arizona, is an unprecedented large-scale artwork created within a volcanic cinder cone by light and space artist James Turrell. Representing the culmination of the artist’s lifelong research in the field of human visual and psychological perception, Roden Crater is a controlled environment for the experiencing and contemplation of light.
“When I first met Fram Kitagawa, he asked me to make a “meditation house” for the Echigo-Tsumari region. He gave me a book written by Junichiro Tanizaki “In Praise of Shadows.” The condition he gave me was that the house must be raised over 2.7m above the ground because of snow covering in winter. After reading “In Praise of Shadows”, I decided to create a house in the traditional architectural manner of this region. I wished to realize the “ world of shadows we are losing,” as Tanizaki wrote, as a space where one can experience living in light, by relating light inside to light outside.”
Read a review of House of Light on Elizabeth Mueller blog, photograph by Yulia Skogoreva
Turrell creates a similar experience of “Ganzfeld”: a German word to describe the phenomenon of the total loss of depth perception as in the experience of a white-out.
The 14th Factory is a monumental, multiple-media, socially engaged art and documentary experience conceived by the Hong Kong-based British artist Simon Birch. Taking over three acres of an empty industrial warehouse and lot on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles, the location has been transformed into a factory where Birch and his 20 creative collaborators work and manufacture their art, creating an ever-changing immersive environment of 14 interlinked spaces comprised of video, installation, sculpture, paintings and performance.
Presented by Hong-Kong based British artist Simon Birch, the installation features an exact replica of a room from the legendary Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey, a room where 300 pitchforks are hanging from the ceiling above the guests, a room with pieces of a Ferrari that the team crashed and filmed themselves, and a bunch of incredible video installations.
In entering The 14th Factory, the visitor is transformed into a central player in a collaboratively fabricated adventure that engages and unfolds, uniting individuals to the creative process and to each other. The exhibition challenges the current political climate by celebrating creative diversity and unity and to overcome obstacles and challenges as a global society.
British‐born, working class, of Armenian ancestry, Simon Birch dropped out of school early on and worked a variety of jobs, from rave party organizer and rock climbing entrepreneur in Britain and Australia, to construction worker, bouncer and DJ to support his emerging painting habit in Hong Kong. Through these years, he met and worked with a range of artists, filmmakers, designers, musicians, skaters, entrepreneurs, and adventurers, forming a wide‐reaching but close‐knit group of friends and collaborators across cultures and disciplines around the world. The 14th Factory emerged from these connections.
Over the last few years, Birch has ventured into film and installation work culminating in some particularly notable large‐scale projects: Azhanti High Lightning (2007, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore), This Brutal House (April 2008, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery and Annex, Chai Wan) and the 20,000sq ft multimedia installation ‘HOPE & GLORY: A Conceptual Circus’ (April 2010, ArtisTree, TaiKoo Place, Hong Kong). These large multimedia projects included film, paintings, installation, sculpture, and performance housed in specifically configured spaces. Birch’s work has been featured and reviewed in many international publications, including Artforum, The Guardian, The International Herald Tribune, Time Out and the New York Times.
The 14th Factory Foundation is an independent, 501(c)(3) non‐profit global artist collective whose mission is to create large‐scale contemporary art experiences that act as vehicles for social impact.
Watch the movie below
Director & Editor - Stephen Bullen
Dance & Choreography - Jeff Salisbury
Colorist - Chris Brands
Visual Effects - Xuejing Xu
Sound Design & Music - Stephen Bullen
Production Company - Between The Notes Productions
Sarah Sitkin is a Los Angeles based contemporary artist delivering hyper realistic and somewhat provocative art. Her sculptural works are made in wide variety of media including but not limited to silicone, clay, plaster, resin, and latex.
Bradley G Munkowitz best known as epic designer GMUNK shares his new side project and by fact an ongoing series of Infrared Photography. "InfraMunk vs Tracy Arm Fjord" was created during Bradley's trip to Alaska where he toured and photographed the incomparable Tracy Arm Fjord
These photographs were quite unique, as he was equipped with a custom modified Full-Spectrum FujiFilm X-T1 IR, a grip of LifePixel Super-Color Infrared Filters and some Vintage Nikon Manual Focus lenses - together producing some fiercely psychedelic and experimental palettes that portrayed the scenery in an entirely new light
