Inspiration

There are no words to descibe Patrick Hughes work, it's best to look at it and see for yourself.

Here is a video taken from the basement of the British library in London where one of his paintings hang.

 Garwa Kong photographed another set of images while in Las Vegas.  The focus is on textures and patterns......we love them.  check them out:

TORONTO, Canada — Following our piece on Vancouver’s Digital Olympics earlier this week, it only makes sense that the BoF Spotlight should focus on the Great White North for our monthly inspiration from emerging designers. This month I turned to long-time friends of BoF, Alia and Jamil Juma.

The designer brother-and-sister duo are based in Toronto, not Vancouver, though they have called both cities home. They are of South Asian ancestry via Africa, having grown up tied-at-the-hip all over the world, from Los Angeles to Kinshasa, and even Almaty, Kazakhstan. Indeed, the only time they have lived apart was in university, but still only 5 hours away from each other in Toronto and Montreal. That’s a mouthful of cities to have lived in for a couple of thirtysomethings.

Jamil and Alia are symbiotic sponges of the cities they live in, soaking in inspiration from their surroundings and feeding off of each other, and reflecting the cultural diversity of Toronto. In the suburban neighbourhood of North York, for example, Jamil and Alia found inspiration from the local Hasidim and their characteristic black attire, with a slim and relaxed silhouette that is their signature.

Having spent so much time together building their fledgling business, it’s not inconsequential that Alia has recently moved to New York to give their brand a presence in North America’s only global fashion capital, leaving Jamil in Toronto. Following a characteristically deep research immersion trip that took them to China and Bali at the end of last year, for the first time they are living and designing apart. But with two cities to draw inspiration from, and modern technology to keep the communication lines open, we’re hoping for big things from JUMA.

And so without further ado, sitting in the nexus of business and fashion in our logo this month are JUMA’s dreamy printed scarves. “The scarves are designed in the same spirit of our collections,” Jamil told me via email. “We took images from various inspirations combined with images from our blog to create scarves that reflect our brand personality. The scarves come in either silk twill or silk jersey, and are unisex.” 

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We felt it was important to feature the latest work of contemporary artist, Damien Hirst, whom you most likely are familiar with. Damien Hirst is perhaps best known for his glass tank installments where he preserved dead animals in formaldehyde. He is famous for his exhibition in '92 featuring a piece entitled, Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. The concept behind this piece was to address life and death, and the inevitable mortality of all living things. His work is often direct, provocative, and his sense of irony and wit is intriguing. Most recently, his exhibition entitled, "End of an Era" is hosted by the Gagosian Gallery in New York. The show opened last Saturday (attended by various celebrity guests, namely, Mick Jagger, Bono, James Franco, Takashi Murakami, and Terry Richardson) and will be on display until Mar 6. "The exhibition takes its title from the central sculpture in the exhibition, a severed bull's head with golden horns and crowned with a solid gold disc. Suspended in formaldehyde and encased in a golden vitrine, this totemic sculpture acts as a powerful coda to The Golden Calf (2008). End of an Era proffers a sacrificial head, here dismembered from the majestic body of the earlier sculpture. While The Golden Calf symbolized the worshipping of a false idol, with End of an Era (2009) Hirst demystifies the biblical tale and, by extension, debunks his own myth-making. " - Gagosian press release The exhibition features the latest offerings of Damien Hirst, and marks his departure from a series of notable artwork produced over the past two decades. End of an Era, however, has not been well received. After reading several reviews and critiques, people have argued that his conceptual subject matter about life and death was much more interesting, and that this exhibition is simply a display of his wealth and success. End of an Era "plays out his opulent critique of materialism." His thoughts behind the exhibition was to incorporate money as an element in the composition. He believes in the importance of art addressing the complications and issues of money in our lives. Despite Hirst 's involvement in charitable work, is it really appropriate to feature sculptures and photorealist paintings that fetishize wealth considering the current situation in Haiti? This has been the topic up for discussion among several critics. What are your thoughts?

Photo Credits: Cyana Trendland

The most well known form or paper art that many are familiary with is origami. Origami, originated from Japan, is the creation of objects with paper. It has since evolutionized into a whole new form of pop art with more details and intricacy that shames the paper swan and frog. These real and surreal paper art, created with the use of regular paper, are showcased in museums around the world. The work from the following artists will make you look at paper in a whole different way. Maybe save that scrap piece of paper to create something extrodinary instead of throwing it out next time.

Ever since Empire of the Sun's album, Walking on a Dream, debuted in October 2008, their tracks have continuously been at the top of our playlists. Although their band name may sound familiar to some (might we recall the novel by J.G. Ballard, taken to the big screen by Steven Spielberg in 1984 starring Christian Bale and John Malkovich), their name actually comes from the idea of "traveling the world going to all the places of empires of the civilization where the sun has been the theme of worship." We are not entirely sure if this is true, or if their name actually comes from the title of the book, but what's important is that they deem themselves superheroes, and we agree. Dynamic duo, Luke Steele and Nick Littlemore, otherwise known as Emperor Steele and Lord Littlemore make up electronic synth-pop sensation Empire of the Sun. Their music is similar to to the likes of MGMT, La Roux, and Cut Copy. We've recently discovered that they have done a new version of Without You, which is now their fourth single release of their album. It came out in September 2009 and I'm not sure why we hadn't come across sooner since it is that much better than the original. Let's face it, the dance version is beats the mellow original any day. It reminds us of a modern David Bowie meets New Order. We love the 80s electro-pop sounds of the band. It gives us a sense of nostalgia. Kudos to them for remaking Without You. Another track added to the playlist.

Instead of using traditional mediums like spray paint, or markers, these artists chose masking tape. Aakash Nihalani is New York based artist, who works primarily with rectangles and squares. Buff Diss is Australian based artist who sees the city as canvas. He likes to interact the architecture and city streets with his unique style. Sam Bassett is a New York based artist. He predominantly uses geometric forms and bigger scale works by covering the street by stretching across intersections. Check them out....

We found this quirky architecture quite inspiring so we thought we'd post this...

This series of photos was created by Garwa Kong (contributor) on a recent trip to California during Christmas. We love the fusion of colour and dark imagery.