Myah Bailey

Here are some noir comic book-esque pieces from Denver artist Myah Bailey. Apparently each series is comprised of parts of an ongoing story with intersecting characters/themes. Because I don't know these stories, I'm going to make them up.

Hokay. 

Let's say the first one, The Fortune Teller's Fate, is about when you see that bastard your friend, Jen, is dating at the Beauty Bar with some blonde hoe and all you can do is stare while the crow in your hair, after having pointed in their direction, whispers in your ear, "um, wtf; Johnny is such a douche."

And the second one, Vitality from Poison, is about Lori, dem bitch, who consistently says things like, "stfu, Kate, no one cares" and "that dress makes your ass look fat." Amazingly, every time she says things like this, a shiny spider grows in her hair. 

No? Maybe? 

To see more story-provoking pieces, go to the artist's site myahbailey.com!

Alia Penner

Alia Penner grew up in flower-child village Topango Canyon to become flower child part deux (but the millennial Los Angeles fashionista version). Her paintings, illustrations, and designs are a vintage, dreamlike rampage of color and pattern with a Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club aesthetic. 

Penner's art is stylish and retro and slathered in pop culture references. For instance, the three illustrations below: (1) "Tori Burch Muses," which is like a Renaissance Madonna painting, but with the crucifix swapped with a fashion logo; (2) "Father John Misty," which is a cuh-ray-zee shroom trip (apt, considering the Misty himself recently shroomed his way down the coast and ended up in a self-proclaimed "spider shack" in Laurel Canyon ; (3) and this illustration for Marie Claire of Zooey Deschanel, which is basically a 2D gold Byzantine icon complete with halo (but with extra stars). 

Anyhow, I love her gregarious mashups of color, eras (Byzantine + 2K14), high and lowe brau themes, etcetera. Her art is fantastically fun to look at and I want to be her friend. Don't you? 

Check out more of her stuff on her website, aliapenner.com. 

Mel Kadel

I know she's already had a cover of the New Yorker and all and really doesn't need the press, but I frickin løve Mel Kadel's multi-layered hand-stained paper art. It's intricate and methodical and whimsical and I like the colors and it makes me feel calm. I also want to wear them as shirts because the patterns are bomb digg. See more at melkadel.com.

Ryan Heshka

Canadian Ryan Heshka's paintings look like pages from Kavalier and Clay-era comics or pulp mags -- but ones telling sexier and wonkier stories than you remember. I love all of his paintings, but pulled out the four bold beauties below cuz, well, I wanted to pick at least a couple good'ns. Definitely visit his site, ryanheshka.com, to see more!

Ryan McGinness - Figure Drawings

At Pace Prints hang Ryan McGinness's Figure Drawings: women-shaped neon signs. They're like flat, Matisse-inspired shapes that flicker and buzz in the window of the adult video store. But, in the best way possible. 

I'd luv to visit these sexy women-shaped neon lines in person. For now, I'll just ogle them here, at the Pace Prints' exhibition site. Bzzzzzzt. 

Daniella Garreton - sea creatures and the like on wood canvas

Santiago de Chile-born Daniela Garreton loves the sea. Because I am feeling homesick for the sea right now, I was swept tonight on a salty current toward her seafaring wood prints (resembling American-style sailor bicep tats), which she creates from coastal city, San Sebastián.

She says of her work and mindspace (in her bio), "the sea has continued to imprint itself on her mindscreen." I feel dat.

Which is why tonight I am the tangly-bearded man with the Wes Anderson hat. I am the seagull octopus with the captain's hat. I am the bearded skull with the hat with the fish bone patch. 

To the sea, the sea!

image 1: Gorro Rojo 

image 2: Seagoctopus

image 3: Marino Calavera

Rick Schaier - collage instagrams

Rick Schaier's Instagram handle, victoriancow, is full'a his collages (made with documerica photos?), paintings, and other well-curated mash-ups. He must be a busy dude because he's apparently also in these bands: Miniature Tigers, Alvin Band, and Spooky.

The first image I posted below -- the one with the Poseidon Nasa man -- caught my eye particularly because Mad Men was all about the moon landing last night (which is amazeballs; we have been to the moon: a leap for man(woman)kind, and all that). As for the second one: I love the colors and all the feathered dirty blonde ennui it's got goin' on. 

To see more of Schaier's paintings, collages, etcetera, visit his Instagram account. 

Madelen Foss

Yay for Norwegian artist/illustrator Madelen Foss's neon cottoncandy-hued illustration of a Spock-esque woman and her three-eyed cats! Says Foss: "Colors ... give me energy!" Me too, gurl. Me, too. 

1111 comics - *click*

I like this strip by 1111 (eleven eleven) comics of Thor's morning routine: selfie in bed, breakfast shake, Facebook session, choice to unfriend asshole.

Despite the fact that Thor has been cast from Asgard to live with humans in Midgard (Earth), he seems to fit in just fine. He even uses our excited-endorphin-overload facial expression when he gets a comment on his post directly after God (whom 1111 comics defines as "an entity which is infinitely everything at the same time") just liked said post. (PS: I'm assuming God, in this case, is Odin.) 

Generally, 1111 comics posts SafeForWork, silly, cute comics. If you're into things that are cute, then you can visit 1111 comics website to see more.  

Michelle Robinson - female forms

Continuing in the #girlpower theme from yesterday's post, Michelle Robinson's bold, colorful, rhythmically-patterened paintings also prominently feature the female form. Many of her paintings feature a 2-D warrior-type woman with a colorful, patterned halo staring square at the onlooker.

The first painting, TAVIA, is an example of one of these. In this case the woman who might be Tavia (with her checkerboard halo) supervises a pit of beautiful naked women. I love how she's so unbending and dark while the ladiez behind her are very bendy indeed.

The second, Petal By Petal, is the piece that first caught my eye on Michelle Robinson's instagram. Though the image's Instagram caption, "she's comfortable in her skin...unveiling herself petal by petal" reminded me a bit too much of junior high sex talks with teachers and mothers and such, the composition is very pleasing. It reminds me of a peach and a heart and a keyhole and an iris and other sexy, female symbols.

To see more of Michelle Robinson's female-centric emanations of "self-empowerment, identity, community, sexuality, freedom and the human condition," visit her website, Create-ture.com. Though most of her originals are sold out (go gurl), you can buy prints, etc. 

Solarsisters instagram

I love Solarsisters' Instagram: a vehicle for posts of these austere illustrations, photos, watercolors (many of which are printed on t-shirts for sale) that are perfectly simple and flawed -- like drawings by 8 year-olds (if 8 year-olds could channel the adult sensations of longing and sadness and ennui).

Of the three I posted here, the one with the woman + glass of wine is the only one with a title: Yeah girl me too. Yup. I feel that. In fact, I feel all three. Nice work, lady. 

Mike Bromage - Dust Piggies

Dust Piggies is a collection of silly comics by Mike Bromage about hamsters doing and saying funny things. (Or are they enacting "a deep and searching exploration of the hamster psyche in contemporary culture" as Bromage says on his About page? Hehe. But, seriously. Tao Lin has a thing with hamsters, too, so. Yeah. Who knows.)

Anyhow, I put a couple of my Dust Piggy favorites below. Please see (and purchase!) more of these comics on the Dust Piggies website or Facebook page. Hop to it!  

PS: Mike Bromage also paints art that could, you know, hang in a gallery. So, once you are done chuckling at the hamsters, I suggest you can check that out, too. I recommend his bird series.

Josh Mecouch - Illustrated Twitter

Josh Mecouch is the illustrator/writer of Formal Sweatpants, a hilarious comic feed. I particularly lol'd at the content I discovered in his Illustrated Twitter accounts Tumblr, which is a collection of illustrations based on people's funnyweirdass Tweets. Here are a few of my faves. Please go see more of them.

Huntermadeit

Hunter lives in Florida. He seems to have a lot of fun making silly images in MS paint, labeling holes in the ground, taping plants to things, and the like in his realm of palm tree-ed concrete Peninsula suburbansprawl. Because I kept laughing out loud while looking through his site, I decided to put a few of his images up here.

You can see more at his website on which you can also buy prints. Enjoy! 

quetzalcoatl_toxtli_atl - Pray Don't Prey

quetzalcoatl_toxtli_atl's Instagram feed is full of these posts of photographs layered with groovy universe-scapes, portraits, patterns, and other beautiful images. From Googling #sanjoseblackberet, I discovered that this image seems to be commemorating a sunrise ceremony and walk for peace and solidarity in San Jose, CA, where the walkers ended up at the Mexican Heritage Plaza to observe a pipe ceremony and Mexica (Aztec) dance.

Because I'm an outsider, culturally, I can't and won't comment on the message of quetzalcoatl_toxtli_atl's pieces. I will, however, comment that these pieces are lovely and haunting and mysterious. Don't you agree?

Paul Rizza poems

Among other things, Paul Rizza writes poetry on top of jpgs of art masterpieces you learned about in art history class. On the first one I posted (René Magritte's Golconda), Rizza writes about slipping through the sidewalk into a secret place underground, which I'm almost positive is something every little kid sort of thought about when trying not to "step on cracks." Or was that just me? Anyway, it's beautiful and I love it.

The second one written over Degas's L'Etoile is about accepting yourself as you are with all of your beautiful flaws because you are a beautiful ballerina princess dancing for all the world to see with a cute crooked snaggle tooth that is cute, damnit, and if anyone disagrees about that then, well, they can go fuck themselves! Tra-la-la-da-dee.

Want to see more? Go to his Tumblr.

noclip through the pavement

something just snaps in physics

there is an open world underneath

falling unimpeded toward some

secret place under the ground

inaccessible by conventional means

but miss it by an inch and continue on

dropping to the furious molten core

the nice thing about embracing narcissism:

the flaws you have become assets

as your standard of beauty resembles

more and more your reflection

a single crooked tooth

not only stops being bad,

it’s actually quite cute; don’t you think?

the ideal crooked tooth: mandibular central incisor

mine’s on my right but either’s okay

RT if you’d go gay for yourself

Jacob M. Canfield - i woke up with laser eyes (2011)

I like Jacob Canfield of Hoob Han's comic, "i woke up with laser eyes." The comic is chock full of anxiety and humor -- a mix of bad dreams and lack of sleep and the absurdity of paying tens of thou to live in a dorm room with strangers and read Machiavelli and Proust and the like for four years while worrying about how much dealing with the real world is going to suck (spoiler: it does). Interestingly, "I woke up with laser eyes" is just one of many comics Canfield's written about waking up with laser eyes. 

Though "I woke up with laser eyes" is drawn with lasers that look like lasers, the other laser-eye-themed illustration's lasers are drawn like shards of wood coming out of the characters' eye sockets. This theme disturbed and interested me, so Interneted a psycho-analysis for what lasers + eyes mean in dreams. I found out that, apparently:

• Lasers symbolize clarity and truth
• Impaired eyesight represents uncertainty in choices
• Injured eyes suggest refusal to see the truth
• Bleeding eyes symbolize deep pain and conflicts within your soul

So, there you have it? Dreams of laser eyes = clarity and truth + uncertainty and choices + refusal and truth + deep pain and conflicts. Yes. Thas deep. Lots of truths in there. Thanks, Internet.

Please visit Hoob Han's site to see more of his comics. If you cringe easily, avoid Samantha Back 2011. Or, don't avoid it? It may be good for your truth + uncertainty + refusal issues, or whatever. 

Wayne Chisnall - Painting #9 for Horror Movie, 'Blaze of Gory'

While romping through the Instagrams as I do, I found Wayne Chisnall's cute little monster illustrations and sculptures. When I clicked into his site, I found something much different: this incredibly evocative (uncomfortable?) series of paintings Chisnall is creating for new horror film, Blaze of Gory. This beautiful composition of a skull lined with maps is, apparently, #9. 

So what is Blaze of Gory, you ask? In Chisnall's words, Blaze of Gory is a series of: “short films ... based on the writings of a teenage girl called Blaize-Alix Szanto, who wrote these stories between the ages of 12 and 15 ... The section that [he's] been asked to produce the work for is called "Monster" and is about a young girl locked away in a high-security mental hospital for a series of brutal crimes." 

He uses autopsy photos to help himself create these paintings ("always a pleasant way to spend a relaxing Sunday!"). You don't say ... Yowza. Anyhow, you can check out these gory, vivid, spooky paintings on his portfolio. Good luck! (Enjoy?)

Jim Rugg - Street Fighter Tribute

In this piece Jim Rugg created for UDON's Street Fighter Tribute book (a book full of hundreds of illustrations of Street Fighter characters), a pop art-styled Ryu is beating down a shirtless Street Fighter character I don't recognize. While doing so, he's making that sound that's like: adoooeuukehh, addoouookehh! (Eh? Know what I mean?)

If you like this piece, chyeckkk out Rugg's other work, which includes comic books and zines and stuff. (Disclaimer: depending on the workspace's prudity scale, site possibly NSFW.) Have fun!

MiRon

I like this spinning gif made by Ukrainian artist Yuriy MiRon. It's like the Bowser Boss's circle of hell -- the level where villains must turn and turn and turn and turn around and around again and again for all eternity. Will teach a dude not to mess with Mario, if you ask me. 

See more of MiRon's spinning (and still) creations here. It's particularly fun to open up the archive and look at all of the thumbnails movin' and groovin' at the same time.