The Pop Surrealism Of Emmy Lincoln (AKA ItchySoul).

above: In 'The deeply misunderstood friendly Shiphugger', ItchySoul has added a giant octopus and water details atop a found vintage oil painting of a classic clipper ship.

Sweden-born artist Emmy Lincoln, who goes by the artist moniker ItchySoul, creates imaginative lowbrow artwork by up-cycling flea market finds such as old oil paintings, antique photos and old book covers as well as creating her own original acrylic works.


above left: acrylic body art painting upon a 1922 book cover (Snovit) and acrylic demons painted atop a vintage 1917 Budapest photo of a one year old Hungarian boy (Ferike).

Inspired by sci-fi, fairytales, animé, toys and all things kitsch, this is her way of paying tribute to the unknown or forgotten artist. She sees her paintings as "stories yet to be told."

Here are more of her wonderful pieces.

The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, he said (acrylics atop a vintage landscape painting):

Mermaid and Alligator (original acrylic painting in vintage frame):

Neon Menace (painting and wax seal atop an IKEA printed canvas):

Piggy's Big Day Out (acrylics atop an antique landscape oil painting):

When I Was A Young Fawn (acrylics atop a vintage oil painting):

detail:

The Good Girl (spirits in acrylics painted on 1915 Hungarian photograph):

Forest Mushroom Dwellers (acrylics on plywood) and Visiting (acrylics on canvas):

Friends (Acrylic triptych on canvas):


About the artist:


Born in 1980, Emmy grew up as a middle child in the tiny village Dösjebro. She was constantly drawing on things and her friends and family always encouraged her to. Both her grandmother Berit who was a map drawer and painter, and her mom Yvonne who is a ceramic artist, were great inspirations for her growing up.

After finishing high school in 1999 Emmy traveled for a few years and had stray jobs in hospitality in London, Tokyo and Sydney. She ended up studying graphic design at the Enmore Design Center, Sydney. Then followed internships at design studio Campbell Barnett and ad agency Arnold Australia.

Since returning to Sweden in 2005 Emmy is working as a Visual Designer in the mobile phone industry and is currently freelancing under company name ItchySoul AB.

Emmy lives in Malmö with her boyfriend Mattias where they share a cozy music- and art studio. Her debut art exhibition was at the No White Walls 43 gallery in Malmö in May 2013, where her quirky mash-up paintings were very appreciated by the audience.

all images courtesy and copyright of the artist

See more of her fun work here.

Artist Rohitash Rao's Trash Is Most Definitely A Treasure.

If Ralph Steadman, Robert Crumb and Jean-Michel Basquiat ever combined their artistic talents, the result may look something like the whimsical, but edgy illustrative art by California artist Rohitash Rao, known as Ro to his friends.


above: artist Rohitash Rao

Ro is loaded with talent. So much so it was hard to decide what of his I ought to feature on this blog. An art director, film director, animator, illustrator and all around great guy (I speak from personal experience) he has three illustrated children's books to his credit (The fabulous Herbert's Wormhole series ), multiple music videos ( "Speeding to My Death" Official Video by Still Pacific and A Great Big World - "Everyone Is Gay" are must-sees), advertisements for well known brands, his fine art and more. His fabulous 'TRASHart' is what I've chosen to share with you today.




Combining multiple aspects of popular culture - such as the consumption of fast-food, excessive waste, movies, books and cartoon imagery along with graphic design and illustration, Rohitash's work exemplifies the old adage "One man's trash is another man's treasure."  Stomped upon paper cups, crushed cigarette packs, soiled fast food containers, flattened spray paint cans and other garbage serve as the canvases for Ro's illustrated and painted figures, creatures, silhouettes and occasional commentary.






















Since I have the pleasure of knowing Ro personally through both our Alma Mater, Pasadena's Art Center College of Design, and the world of advertising, he graciously offered to answer a few questions about these works for me:

IIHIH: WHEN DID YOU START CREATING THESE?
Ro: Technically I've been painting on stuff I find in the streets since I was kid - mainly because they were free canvases. But I started up again about 6 months when I moved to Venice and discovered all this great trash in the alley behind my studio. The first thing I painted on were these abandoned lottery tickets I found by a dumpster. I painted faces of the people that I imagined angrily chucked them on the ground after obviously not winning. I showed the paintings to a few friends and the response was so positive I did more.

Now i collect trash wherever I go. I was recently in Germany and Malta and I grabbed a few things off the streets while I was there. I am also getting commissions, most recently from Brazil. People are starting to mail me trash from all over the world. I'd love to do series about the geography of trash and collaborate with a litter organization or even someone like Surfrider down the road.

IIHIH: WHAT MEDIA DO YOU USE?
Ro: Everything is a mix of gouache, acrylic and spray paint. It's usually whatever material will work on the different textures. Some fast good cups are plastic coated so water based paints don't adhere to it. It's amazing how much I suddenly know what trash is conducive to what paint product!!!

IIHIH: WHAT OTHER ARTISTS INSPIRE YOU?
Ro: I like gritty, surreal stuff. So I guess the main ones would be Basquiat, R. Crumb, David Shrigley and Francis Bacon.

Let's hope that as long as people continue to make trash, Rohistash Rao continues to turn it into art.

Visit Rohitash Rao's tumblr site to see more.


Buy any of the Herbert's Wormhole Books illustrated by Rohitash Rao here

all images © and courtesy of the artist

Mundane Made Magnificent: Michael Ward Paints The Mystery Of The Ordinary.

A self-taught artist, Michael Ward captures what British-born philosopher Alan Watts called "the mystery of the ordinary" in his acrylic paintings of things we often overlook in our daily lives. Based on photographic images, his neo-realistic interpretations of unspectacular environments and people in the world around us are composed and rendered in such a way as to bring out the beauty in what one might have previously considered mundane, if not ugly.

Here are several of his paintings:





















Biography (courtesy of the artist):
I began my artistic career doing pen and ink renderings of historical architecture. I began painting in 1980, first in gouache, then in acrylics. Artists whose work I admire and draw inspiration from include Edward Hopper, Charles Sheeler, Richard Estes and Vermeer. I am most interested in depicting what Alan Watts called the mystery of the ordinary; the workaday world we live in without seeing until we are forced to focus upon it, as in a painting.

Nearly all my paintings are based on photographs I have taken, primarily of Southern California scenes, over the years. Though it was never my intention to depict nostalgic scenes, many of the images I have painted have disappeared or been radically altered in the ever-changing landscape that is Southern California. Thus nostalgia is thrust upon the works. But what I am really after is bearing witness, and making people stop what they're doing and pay attention, to something they may have never seen before, but that makes them feel “I know this.”

I am currently working on a series of house paintings. These simple, ordinary, unnoticed places have hidden interior lives, though they do not reveal them to us. The houses are from a variety of locations in the United States and Mexico. They are the place you grew up in, a place of nurture, experience, trial, memory and forgetting. They are all a common size, to symbolize our shared experience of being human.

Phyllis Lutjeans, Museum Educator and former curator, has said of my work: “Although Michael Ward may be called a neo-realist painter his work can ultimately be described as abstract realism. The picture image is photographically realistic, but within the context of the painting his compositions are complex and almost abstract. Deciphering the work section by section one sees how a multitiude of individual complete compositions are put together to form the entire work. For me the viewer is confronted by a realistic image that puzzles us and clearly tells the story simultaneously.”

As a painter, I am self-taught.

Michael Ward Art and Design


A book of his works is available here on Blurb

See his paintings at Pasadena's Tirage Gallery

Other galleries that represent Michael Ward:

Mesa Art
789 W. 19th St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627
949.548.3570

Studio Gallery
18001 Skypark Circle, Suite R, Irvine, CA
949.851.9181

Contact the artist directly here.