Ana Montiel

I recently came across Ana Montiel, an artist focused on mainly patterns and graphics. Her designs are shown on many different surfaces, from wallpaper to curtains and even demonstrated on shoes and bikes! The colours and shapes in the patterns are so feminine, and some very detailed, I love them all! Montiel also has a wonderful way of presenting her CV, an interesting way I'd like to look into further... An illustrated timeline of her life, from her first canvas at age 4, when she started her fine art studies at Universidad de Barcelona, to when she began practicing yoga and meditation! So much more personal and intimate than the boring old CV! Here are a few of my favourite pieces, you can see more on her website here, and also buy prints or even her book! Something I'd love to get my hands on (although a little out of my price range unfortunately!).

Click images for a better look! 

Alexandre Farto aka Vhils

Alexandre Farto aka Vhils is a Portugese street artist whose work is a little different to typical street artists, or graffiti artists. Vhils instead carves into existing walls, billboards, creating elegant portraits with a lot more depth and texture. Also working with metal and wood, everything about his art is natural, yet modern and urban. 

 billboards

 billboards

metal

You can see a lot more of his work on his personal website here.  

Labyrinth

Today I came across this installation by Motoi Yamamoto, created on the floors of the Saint Peter Cologne cathedral in Germany. Its a Labyrinth created entirely by salt and made by hand, by Yamamoto alone. He started working with salt after his sister passed away from brain cancer, as salt represents mourning and purification in Japan, and used it as a way of honouring her life. He works his way forward carefully as to not cross over his previous work and destroy it, and at the end of the installation a group of children were asked to collect the salt and put it back into the Rhine River. Yamamoto has a lovely story behind his work and the installation looks beautiful and is an almost cradle to cradle cycle.