Lauren Machen: Elemental.

© Lauren Machen.

The name of Lauren Machen’s premiere art photography series was almost Finally. As in, “I am finally addressing something that is at the very core of my being,” states the artist, who has previously worked in art direction for musicians such as St. Vincent and Rihanna. “Finally because a lot of subtle racism that people of color have had to struggle [with] are bubbling to the surface. People who aren’t of color just simply thought it didn’t exist or we were past that.”

Instead, Machen named the series Elemental, as in, “The very basis of my being. What my soul feels. My truth. Being mixed race, I was left to just sort of float in space because we didn’t really talk about race and ethnicity in my household… This is about peeling the layers away. Taking a moment to identify as I am rather than how others think I am or what I should be.”

Machen cites the 2016 election as a turning point for how she sees her racial identity, and even more specifically, Grey’s Anatomy actor Jesse Williams’s knockout acceptance speech for the BET Humanitarian Award. One of Williams’s most prominent lines from that speech was, “Just because we’re magical doesn’t mean we’re not real,” and its resonance is felt in Machen’s photos that capture surreal insertions of earthly elements into stark, honest portraits of people of color.

“I chose to incorporate the classical elements in the photographs: water, earth, fire, air, and also used falling sand as a symbol of passing time,” Machen explains. “There’s a mystery and magic to these elements, yet they are very real.

© Lauren Machen.

A brilliant series. You can read and see more at The Creators Project and Lauren Machen’s website.

Contra & Castlevania Get Design Facelifts.

Contra and Castlevania are two of the most iconic video games in history, and both recently got brand new poster art and soundtrack LPs from Mondo, a record label and gallery that specializes in collectibles for classic and contemporary movies. As Mondo’s record label manager Mo Shafeek tells Creators, commissioning artworks for standalone screen-printed posters and the soundtracks was refreshing, given that the company has mostly worked on film and television soundtracks for many years. For Mondo, these two new sets of work are designed to appeal to anyone with a special reverence for classic video games from the 80s.

Mondo’s Creative Director Eric Garza tells Creators that the posters came about after he got a sneak peek at the soundtrack art. Garza and Shafeek, who were fans of the artists behind the soundtrack work, Eric Powell and Sachin Teng, felt it was a no-brainer that the art could translate into posters.

You can read and see more at The Creators Project.

Life of A Christian Soul.

I’m afraid the plot is boring. Very boring. These are basically the very old precursors to Chick Tracts, albeit, without the manic melodrama of Jack.

Representation of the inner state of a man, who is a servant of Sin, and suffers the devil to reign within him.

The Peacock represents Pride. The Goat, Unchastity. The Hog represents Voracity and Gluttony. The Toad, Avarice. The Snake, Envy. The Tiger, Anger. The Tortoise, Indolence.

I have a turtle tattoo on my wrist. I guess that means I’m a hopeless slave to the sin of indolence? A lover of laziness? Yeah, okay. Several panels later, we come to:

 

Representation of a person’s inward State who being reconciled with God, will know nothing more than the crucified Jesus.

That certainly goes a long way in explaining the willful ignorance of christians.

Via The Public Domain.

#Pimpmyfactura.

Yacarebaby’s paste ups are a common sight on the Buenos Aires streets. Photo courtesy of PMF.

Gas and electricity bills, and estimates for bricks, paint, toilets, or doors are being turned into canvases—as we speak—by the indie graphic arts scene in Argentina. Through a program called #pimpmyfactura, the underground visual arts scene scene is bailing out three community day cares by transforming their debts into artwork. Top graffiti, paste up, collage and graphic design artists are merging from diverse disciplines towards one common goal: converting those unsettled bills into marketable works of art.

Over 40 artists from Argentina, Spain, Brazil, Uruguay, the Philippines and Colombia answered #pimpmyfactura‘s call and created artworks to be sold for charity for the value of the bill turned canvas.

This Icarus is brought to you by Colombian illustrator Chaparro on a paint store estimate of 1163 Argentine pesos.

The #pimpmyfactura project emerged last year in a contest that linked a foundation involved with low income daycares to TBWA, an advertisement agency that came up with a creative and concrete way of generating funds for the foundation. TBWA copywriter Enzo Ciucci is co-creator of #pimpmyfactura, and drew a bird’s skull on a hardware store estimate.

[…]

All pieces will be on exhibition at Buenos Aires’ Centro Cultural Rojas from August 4th to the 14th. They will be for sale for the amount of the bill they are painted on, and 100% of profit goes to the debts of these daycare centers through the Publicidar foundation.

You can read and see more at The Creators Project.