Someone has a lot of time on their hands...

The images below show work by Mario Mariotti (1936-1997), an Italian artist from Florence, famous for his amazing hand paintings. I'm especially impressed by the two football players.














































































Having looked further into the art, I found some quite amazing animal paintings here.

Light House Media Centre, Wolverhampton

The Light House is a museum exhibition centre based in Wolverhampton. I managed to make a quick visit to 'New Perspectives: Photography from China and Mongolia', by Grace Gelder and Laura McCallum last week.

McCallum’s work is a personal account of her experiences with internet dating. After answering personal ads in Beijing men’s lonely heart sites, she recorded her preparation, journeys and meetings, which are exhibited along with extracts from her shooting diary. The project researches the effects of China’s imbalance in the ratio of men to women, which is causing many men to use the internet to broaden their search to find their perfect match.

Gelder's work is delivered through a series of portraits of professional Mongolian women, with the aim of challenging the perception of Mongolia as an under-developed country dominated by a rural nomadic population. I myself was guilty of of this view, when in fact over half of the 2.9 million inhabitants now live in an urban environment, mostly in the capital, Ulanbaataar; and statistics from a recent UN report show that out of 115 countries surveyed, Mongolia came top for women’s participation in the professional and technical workforce. This project shows a variety of roles that women play in Mongolian society by photographing them in their working environment. This exhibition proved to be a real eye-opener and although I didn't expect it to, it has significantly broadened my cultural knowledge.

Creative student ideas

I love the simplicity of some of these, especially the Windex ad. However, the Toblerone design stands out as being particularly off message - does it not run the risk of delivering damaging brand attributes by inadvertently implying that a bar of Toblerone tastes like a block of concrete?














































































Haven't managed to find details for any of these students but the above work is credited to Elke Krause, Janine Mompour, Kristina Möckel, Shawna Laken, Tony Kalathara, Jeongjyn Yi, Peter Delgado, Noah Phillips and Jeseok Yi.

'The Really Good, Really Big, Really Cheap Book Sale'

Via Toxel.com.




































Creative guerilla campaign by the bounce agency to generate awareness and book donations for the Greenville Literacy Association's 'Really Good, Really Big, Really Cheap Book Sale' 2008. More images are available here, as well as a couple of videos here.

More silhouettes

Came across this impressive video on a random blog and thought it followed on nicely from my previous post. Unfortunately I've been unable to get hold of any details, but I will update this post if I manage to find anything.

The bittersweet art of cutting up books

Via Dark Roasted Blend.




















Image: Peggy Dembicer












Image: Georgie Russell

Image: Cara Barer

I'm the type of person who gets irritated when people deface books, if only by writing or annotating inside them (let alone destroying them) but some of these creations are stunning. And I suppose that with the ever-increasing digital saving of printed materials, the deconstruction of books to create such works of art becomes more and more acceptable to me.

Also check out the work of Matthew Hall.

Lego Olympics

As the world watches the Beijing Games, enthusiasts from Hong Kong have unveiled their own Olympics - built entirely from Lego. More than 300,000 Lego bricks and 4,500 Lego people were used to create the display, by the Hong Kong Lego User Group, who said of the project: 'We believe that creations are not limited by resources, but by ideas'. The structure measures 10ft by 26ft and features most of the recognisable venues, including the Birds’ Nest Stadium and the Water Cube swimming centre.

I have no shame in saying at the age of 20 that I still have a bit of a soft spot for Lego!