Common Thread: Modern Embroidery of Victoria Villasana

The Royal Family is all the rage lately, and we recently came across some intriguing artwork of Queen Elizabeth… beautifully woven colorful thread over a simple black and white photo. Upon further investigation, we discovered a treasure trove of incredible works by Mexican textile artist Victoria Villasana. The unexpected can be powerful in art, and…

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Blurred Lines

We always find it interesting when artists figuratively blur the lines of media, and in this case literally. The work of South African artist Philip Barlow appears to be one thing but is actually another, and we are utterly intrigued. What looks like beautifully composed out-of-focus photographs are actually masterfully created oil paintings. Barlow focuses…

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Fauxsiacs

As we’ve mentioned before, we occasionally have a lapse of design envy. It doesn’t happen too often… after all, we are a pretty terrifically creative bunch here at Barbour. But sometimes we encounter work that is just so damn brilliant. So good, in a “why didn’t we think of that?” sort of way, that we…

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Vibrant Natural Visuals by Niaz Uddin

With the majesty of the changing seasons fully upon us, we thought it fitting to look at the stunning work of Los Angeles-based photographer/filmmaker Niaz Uddin. His awe-inspiring photographs of natural landscapes often shot from an aerial perspective, have a beautiful, supersaturated feel that capitalizes on gorgeous colors found in nature. Via niazuddin.com and Instagram…

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Fluid Sculptures of Felix Semper

We’ve seen a lot of intricate artwork fabricated from paper in new and interesting ways, but nothing quite like this. It’s the work of Cuban-born, North Carolina-based artist Felix Semper. While his sculptures resemble traditional stone busts, Semper injects a bit of a twist, literally, into these awesome creations. Rather than a hefty, solid material,…

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Rice Paddy Art That Takes a Village

Autumn is finally upon us, and time for all things pumpkin spice (don’t get us started), as well as corn mazes and such. Which got us thinking… have you ever seen rice paddy art? Originating in Japan, rice paddy art is achieved when people plant rice of various types and colors to create giant pictures…

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Richly Detailed Illustrations of Tatiana Trikoz

With financial matters on the minds of many around the world on the heals of our historic presidential election just one week ago, we thought it fitting to share this project by Georgian illustrator/designer Tatiana Trikoz. Commissioned by Swiss banking group Swissquote, Trikoz created these incredibly intricate currency portraits featuring some of the world’s most…

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Totally Screwed

We’ve featured California-based contemporary artist Andrew Myers before (here), but his awesome work deserves a revisit. Myers amalgamates sculpture and portraiture in some really intriguing ways. Whether intentional or not, on some level Myers’ work bears some resemblance (at least conceptually) to that of the great Chuck Close. Rather than splotchy “pixels” of paint, Myers’…

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Chalk Masterpieces

Chalking has been growing in popularity for years, in part due to the increased visibility of incredible artists like Dana Tanamachi (here) and others (here and here). There seems to be a mini movement in Japan right now involving blackboards and chalk (more here). As the saying goes, “everything old is new again”, blackboards, which…

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Fantastic Fleeting Artwork

We’ve seem many artistic mediums, but never something quite like this. Some of the most recent works by artist Dino Tomic (aka AtomiccircuS) resemble chalk, but its actually… wait for it… ordinary table salt. Based in Norway, by way of Croatia, Tomic painstakingly arranges salt granules in such away that he achieves stunning variations of…

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