Chiho Aoshima

Another one of my favourite artists. She never had an formal art education, but managed to develop her own unique and colourful style. Using computer software she creates a world of ghosts, demons, schoolgirls, all in a very dreamy atmosphere. I love the clear lines and the colours are just fantastic. For the guys in London: you may remember the installation she had in Gloucester Rd tube station a few years back.

Stéphane Delaprée

I came across the gallery of Stéphane Delapree (or 'Stef') while travelling in Cambodia. His brightly coloured paintings often depict scenes of daily life in Cambodia, and his colourful cartoon-like style suits that theme very well. See his work on his site: http://www.happypainting.net/

Murakami in HK!

Fabrik Art gallery in HK stages an exhibition of a couple of works by Takashi Murakami , one of my absolute favourites. Colourful, loud and funny - ticks all the right boxes ;)

Wim Delvoye

There is a lot to say about Belgian artist Wim Delvoye. His projects are very different yet they have one thing in common: a tremendous sense of humour. In line with the Belgian Surrealist tradition, he puts together influences that would clash in any other situation. See below...

The original glass windows of this chapel were destroyed, and for this exhibition Delvoye filled them with his version of stained glass: x-ray images of couples performing all sorts of sexual activities. Brilliant work. Not only does he play on the similar effect of light going to stained glass as light going through x-ray images, he also manages to use a theme that strictly does not belong in a church. Below is one of the images he used.

Another interesting project are his tattooed pigs. This caused a lot of controversy, animal right activists are very much against the whole thing.

Interesting was his Cloaca, basically a machine that digests food and shits in the end. He made 8 versions of this installation alltogether.

A version of this sculpture stands on the market place in Wervik, a village in Belgium. Delvoye put the deer in a typical human copulation pose.

Other works include carved wood concrete mixers, stained glass filled football goals, S&M birdhouses etc. Here's a few examples...

Skull A Day

http://skulladay.blogspot.com/ Dedicated to creat an impage of a skull every day. Regardless of the fact whether you like or dislike the skull motive, you've got to admire the creativity that's been used to create them.

Keichang

Isn't this just the cutest art ever?? :)

More on http://homepage2.nifty.com/kchang/web/contents/top.html

Gino Boccasile

Gino Boccasile, born in Italy in 1901, created many works during the 1930s as advertising for products and travel destinations. As the 1930's came to an end, Boccasile went to work for the fascists creating some of the most startling images of propaganda which are highly sought after today.

After the war, Boccasile set up his own agency.His advertisings are often cheeky, and always beautiful and smooth. This is classic advertising art, and very Italian too :)

More on http://www.posterclassics.com/boccasile-posters1.html

Peter Callesen - paper art

These artworks are all made of paper, mostly out of one single piece of A4 paper. They are delicate, but really beautiful. I really like this, it shows skill and has a great poetic power. Anyone can cut a piece of paper, but just try to copy one of these. It requires patience, practice, 3d vision and a really sharp knife :)

More on http://www.petercallesen.com/

Kino Sekigushi

Great artwork from a Paris based Japanese guy. Very polished and smooth, but strong and beautiful colours.

I used to have one of his pictures (St Sebastian, see below) on the inside of the door of my roon in London, enlarged to fit the size of the door. Shame I don't have a pic of that, looked great.

More on http://www.kinu-sekigushi.com

intro

Kitan On Art

All my favourites - from 16th century Flanders to 21st century New York, from the museums of Paris to the streets of Hong Kong: all on one shelf.