Brianne Tweddle

Brianne Tweddle is an illustrator from Canada attending Emily Carr University, a highly competitive art school in Vacouver. Main influences on her work include movies like Beetlejuice and The Crow, and artists like Alex Pardee and Camille Rose Garcia. She has many tattoos and body modifications, including a split tongue. My interest in her art is its distinct style. I would definitely cite one influence on her work as the steampunk movement. This movement is a variant of cyberpunk, imagining an era where steam is still used in technology. The fashions that Tweddle dresses her characters in are in keeping with the steampunk style. She produces very detailed work with a generally limited palate or browns and blacks, working in unusual media like coffee and bleach. Her subjects are interesting characters, generally female.

Not only does she do amazing illustrations, but she creates all kinds of interesting crafts as well, which have been sold and used in photoshoots by models like razorcandi, a famous alternative pinup girl.

 "Pirate Queen" 2010, pen

acrylics, 2010

"sister creature" 2010

ink

"molasses" 2010

acrylic, paper, ink, and gold leaf on canvas

Kukula

Kukula was born in a small Israeli village an hour north of Tel Aviv. At the age of eighteen, instead of enlisting in the army as is traditional, she decided to study art. She earned her degree in illustration from Vital-Shenkar in 2003 and moved to San Francisco, where she lives with her husband and splits her time between painting and her clothing line. Growing up surrounded by holocaust survivors is evidenced by the near constant theme of reconciling innocence and vulnerability, dreams and nightmares. The youth of her characters is a part of this theme. Her girls are made jarring by their nudity, the situations that they're in, at times erotic or just disturbing; and the adult expressions on their faces, somewhere on a scale between vacancy and seduction. Her choice to paint on wood also fits--natural yet unnatural, part of the real world but not exactly reality.
Kukula's love of dolls spans from before she entered college and is clearly visible in the oversized heads and tiny bodies of her feminine characters. "The first antique doll I bought...survived two world wars, both the manufacturer and the original owner are gone forever," says Kukula, "So the very immortality of any artifact is always reminiscent of the death of something intimately connected to it."
                Kukula's work is inspired by classical art, the Renaissance and Art Deco, but is also informed by contemporary pop culture. She explores the ideas of immortality, consumption and production of art. "The whole process of painting becomes rather macabre, like writing your own requiem," she says. "Art survives—it carries within traces of its dead producer."

 Sacrifice (The Uniworm) (2009)
Oil on board
19.5 x 24 inches

 At A Stand Still  (2009)
Oil on wood
10 x 12 inches

 Complete Exhaustion (2009)
Oil on wood
5 x 7 inches

Swept Away (2008)
Oil on wood
16 x 12 inches

Last Words (2007)
Acrylic on wood
5 x 7 inches

Carine Brancowitz

Carine Brancowitz is considerably older than the past two artists I’ve written about, and I know much less about her. She’s a French woman who moved to Paris at 16 to study illustration at the Paris school of arts, Ecole Estienne. Her career began in 1996 as the Junior Art Director at a Parisian communications agency specializing in fashion and trends.

            The artists I’m attracted to usually have great control of their lines, strong compositions and draw compelling characters. Brancowitz’ work fits this criteria well. Her art is done in bic pens, mainly in red blue and black to create stark contrast. The content of her work is very commercial and fashionable: beautiful skinny people with cigarettes and chic haircuts, still life of a coffee cup and hip reading material, lipstick and perfume bottles. Her designs have been used in advertisements and printed on tee shirts for mass consumption. However, despite the mainstream content that makes her work all feel like advertisements, her characters have a breadth of emotion that makes them different from other fashion illustrators. Although glamorous, her subjects aren’t models. They have imperfections and potential stories to tell about contemporary European life.

Mia Calderone

I’ve been a great admirer of Mia Calderone since the first time I saw her work. Her mother is American and her father is Puerto Rican and her exposure to these two different cultures has greatly influenced her work. She’s a freshman at Minneapolis College of Art and Design with a major in illustration and has already been featured in 7 exhibitions. 

She has a distinct style and enviable ability to constantly churn out work extremely detailed, sometimes very disturbing, and always interesting, work. Themes in her work include her disgust with men and their view of sexuality paired with understanding the self. Interestingly, she doesn't include a self-portrait in her body of work. A defining trait in her work is her use of oversize hands, which she says she believes is a result of her early introduction to art through Catholicism. 'the first pieces of art that I came into contact with and would stare at for hours were the paintings and sculptures in the church... In catholic paintings, the hands are the most important aspect. All of the emotion is brought forth in them.'

 Sterile Ground, 2009

The Cycle, 2010

Hair and Ribs, 2008

Bei Badgirl

One of my absolute favorite girly artists operates under the pseudonym Bei Badgirl. She began painting with acrylics around the age of 16 and discovered the world of “superflat art”, a postmodern movement in Japanese visual art founded by the artist Takashi Murakami that often takes a critical standing against consumerism and sexual fetishism in Japanese culture. Half Chinese and half Australian, she grew up on a steady diet of both Asian and western pop culture, which has clearly influenced her work. Other influences include graffiti,

At 23 years old and still working on her degree from Sydney College of the Arts, she has already been in art shows across the world.  Her art is very lighthearted and fun, exploring the tensions between love and sex. She studied porn as part of her university degree. “The concept of indulgence…fuels and interests me; indulgence is so sexy and excess is irresistibly exciting,” she says. Her inspiration is “food, sex and excess, everything that sparkles.”  

Her recent work is mostly on wood, board or mdf (medium-density fibreboard). She cuts all of her work out herself.

 

Red Apple Dessert Pie (Sugar Frosted) 2010
Bei Badgirl for Sanrio’s 50th Anniversary Celebration “Small Gift”

Dripping with Cream in Harajuku (2010)
Acrylic and glitter on MDF.

Kitty Kat (2010)
Acrylic, wood.

Cream Filled (2010)
acrylic and glitter on MDF