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Art

New Swirling Psychedelic Illustrations by James R. Eads

Exploring ideas of human connection and our relationships to nature, illustrator James R. Eads (previously) paints multicolored, psychadelic scenes that seem to pulsate with swirling patterns. Eads says his work is heavily inspired by music, and indeed the LA-based illustrator is constantly cranking out gig posters for the likes of the Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews Band, and Iggy Pop. Seen here is mostly a collection of person work from the last year, some of which are available as art prints. You can also follow him on Instagram.

Illustration

Double Exposure Tattoos by Andrey Lukovnikov

Tattoo artist Andrey Lukovnikov has been producing a series of tattoos reminiscent of multiple exposure photography where several images are superimposed to create a single image—or perhaps the digital equivalent, clipping masks as used in Photoshop or Illustrator. Colorfully lush backdrops of flowers are ‘clipped’ by the outlines of large insects or birds, creating a visual window into another scene. The Wroclaw-based tattooer shares photos and videos of his latest pieces on Facebook.

 

Art

56-Foot-Tall Aluminum Honeycomb Structure Responds to the Buzzing of Bees Within London’s Kew Gardens

Forty-four tons of aluminum was just transported and installed at London’s Kew Gardens, a beehive-inspired structure produced by the artist Wolfgang Buttress in partnership with designer and engineer Tristan Simmonds. “The Hive” was originally built as a centerpiece for the UK Pavilion at the Milan Expo 2015 where it won the gold award for architecture and landscape. The installation both aesthetically and symbolically represents its namesake, aiming to demonstrate to visitors the importance of protecting the honeybee.

Standing nearly 56-feet-tall the work is located just beyond the gardens’ wildflower meadow, drawing visitors into the structure in the same way worker bees might return back to the hive after a long day of pollinating. In addition to being composed of thousands of pieces of metal, “The Hive” is dotted with hundreds of LED lights that coordinate with a soundtrack of buzzing from within the hive. These elements illuminate and hum in response to real bees housed at Kew, giving visitors a peek into the minute-by-minute energy and mood levels of the gardens’ bees.

Berlin-based photographer Dacian Groza was one of the photographers documenting the installation, and took many of the photographs seen here. Educated as an architect, he has a unique eye for the buildings and installations he documents, bringing special attention to timing and composition. You can see more of his architectural images on his website and Instagram.

“The Hive” reopens at the Kew Gardens on June 18, 2016 and will be open to the public through November 2017.

Art

An Explosive New Mural and Paintings by Collin van der Sluijs

From the smallest details expressed on canvas to the cracked facade of a multi-story building, Dutch artist Collin van der Sluijs is comfortable investigating what he refers to as “personal pleasures and struggles in daily life.” Working without sketches or notes, the artist dives into each artwork with spray paint, acrylics, and ink as ideas take hold and images slowly emerge. He frequently examines themes of the natural world such as the cycle of life, the depictions of various species of birds, and the psychology of beings both human and animalistic.

Van der Sluijs was most recently in Chicago where he completed a tremendous mural in the south loop as part of the Wabash Arts Corridor that depicts two endangered Illinois birds amongst an explosion of blooms. He also opened his first solo show in the U.S. titled “Luctor Et Emergo” at Vertical Gallery, featuring a wide range of paintings and drawings. You can follow more of his work on Flickr.

Art Photography

Site-Specific Pinhole Cameras Constructed From Nature Capture the Pacific Northwest

In a meta, Mother Nature-inspired project, artists David Janesko and Adam Donnelly use objects from the earth to photograph the environment from which they are found, often utilizing leaves, logs, dirt, and scattered wood to produce hazy images of the world around them. To date, the pair has made approximately 28 cameras, each with a preexisting lens. Janesko and Donnelly do not create an aperture for the natural cameras by hand, but rather use ones already available in the form of a chewed hole in a leaf or a piece of bark that already has a crack.

The body of the camera is much larger, and like the lens, is only constructed from the material around them, much like a small fort. One of the two will stand outside the camera as a shutter, while the other remains inside with the photographic paper, sometimes for as long as 45 minutes. “We build and photograph with the camera in a single day, we leave the camera as we made it, to fall apart and disappear back into the environment,” Janesko told The Creators Project.

Janesko and Donnelly attempt to capture the physical experience of their cameras in each photograph—producing a muffled and patient image of the lands which they enter. Previously the two had documented the San Francisco Bay Area, but are now heading to the Rio Grande River where their new land cameras will be recorded for an upcoming documentary. You can learn more about the film on their IndieGoGo. (via The Creators Project)

Amazing Science

New Species of Unusual Jellyfish Discovered 2.3 Miles Below the Ocean’s Surface

In what looks more like a scene out of a James Cameron movie, researchers on a NOAA expedition aboard the Okeanos Explorer were filming with the help of an ROV in the Marianas Trench last week when an improbable creature suddenly popped into the frame. With just a few wiry tentacles and a cluster of 8 brightly reflective orbs inside its body, this new jellyfish looks like something from the realm of Photoshop than science. But incredibly, it’s real, living happily at 2.3 miles (~3,700 meters) underwater. From Scientific American:

Scientists believe this animal belongs to the genus Crossota, a group of jellies that does not have a sessile polyp stage; all phases of their lives are ocean drifters. They also believe this animal is an ambush predator – note the posture it had assumed in the first half of the video: its bell motionless with its tentacles outstretched like the struts of a spider’s web, waiting for something to bumble into them. The red canals, they suggest, appear to connect the bright yellow objects, which may be gonads.

You can get more photo and video updates from the Okeanos Explorer here. (via Neatorama, Scientific American)

Update: An earlier version of this article mentioned the jellyfish may be ‘bioluminescent’. While that may be true in some regard, several people with much more impressive scientific credentials than mine have written to suggest the “lights” seen inside the jellyfish in this video are merely reflective. The most likely scenario is that the gonads of this particular species exhibit some form of fluorescence but do not illuminate independently. Thanks, Steven.