art « my design fix

The Art of Kevin Dart

September 18, 2009 at 10:06 pm | Posted in art | Leave a comment
Tags: 60's retro, movie posters, Yuki-7

Kevin Dart is a freelance illustrator based in Southern California and is the creator of Secret Agent Yuki-7; the star of one of his most recent projects – a series of retro looking spy movie posters.

“Yuki was the result of a lot of ideas that had been floating around my head for a long time. When I got back from working in London last year I was thinking a lot about this concept of a jet-setting spy girl with impeccable taste in fashion. I love 60’s spy films like Deadlier than the Male, Danger: Diabolik, and of course the James Bond movies. So I wanted to create a fictional series of movies that, had they actually been made, would have been the greatest spy films ever made – filled with awesome chase scenes, amazing costumes and sets, and gorgeous ladies.” – Kevin Dart in an interview at grainedit.com

yuki7_movie2English

As if the above four posters weren’t cool and exotic enough – Kevin has also created four equivalent Japanese and French posters just for good measure:

To accompany the Yuki-7 posters, Kevin has also created a pseudo ‘behind the scenes’ book and an animated film trailer. Check them out in the following blog entries here.

Below are some of my other favourite pieces of artwork from Kevin Dart.

For more illustrations and sketches from Kevin visit his website kevindart.com

All the Yuki-7 posters along with some of his older ones are available at his online store Fleet Street Scandal.

There are also some great interviews with Kevin that give a really good insight into his influences and creative process over at spyvibe and grainedit.

kozyndan

August 3, 2009 at 10:36 pm | Posted in art | 2 Comments
Tags: art, illustration, kozyndan

kozyndan is a Los Angeles-based team of artist/illustrators known for their digitally painted pencil drawings of contemporary urban cityscapes and surreal interior spaces. Comprised of husband and wife Dan and Kozue Kitchens, kozyndan (the joint pseudonym of their first names) creates both fine art and commercial projects, and has been showcased internationally to much critical acclaim.

They recently launched their new website containing art and illustrations that have never appeared on their previous website. There is also a nice blog and other various bits and pieces such as sketchbook drawings and comic strips – a few of which are pretty funny.

Check it out at www.kozyndan.com

Andrew Pommier

June 4, 2009 at 12:02 am | Posted in art | Leave a comment
Tags: andrew pommier, art, skateboard and snowboard culture

Currently residing in Vancouver, Canada, Andrew Pommier is an artist whose paintings and illustrations often depict quirky characters juxtaposed with elements of nature.

“His art mixes the polish and rawness of the creative process. Left exposed are the rough pencil lines referencing sketches from his steadfast companion, his sketchbook. The hurried daily records are then contrasted with deftly polished lines in paint, which contain the result of a darkly humorous reflection of the ironic collision between the constructed world of man and the natural world.” – imperfectarticles.com

I first got into his work after having seen it grace the pages of an issue of Monster Children magazine and since then I have been collecting whatever images of his work I can get my hands on! Now with the recent launch of his new website my life will be made a lot easier.

Check out Andrew’s work at his new website: www.andrewpommier.com

There’s also a cool interview with him at the evogear website here.

I love seeing inside an artist’s sketchbook – being able to see the exploratory sketches and gaining an insight into the process with the faint reference lines. Many of Andrew Pommier’s paintings still have this element of rawness to them too with pencil linework still showing and little sketches surrounding them. (The above Moleskin pages were the index page to Andrew’s website for a while when it was still under construction.)

man down

Josh Agle (aka Shag)

January 29, 2009 at 2:06 pm | Posted in architecture, art, houses | 3 Comments
Tags: art, harry seidler, john lautner, lowbrow, pierre koenig, pop surrealism, robin boyd, Shag

Josh “Shag” Agle is one of my favourite lowbrow artists. Hailing from America, Shag is best known for his flat perspective, vivid colour paintings depicting lounge and tiki-themed scenes.

His paintings are visually influenced by avant-garde animation of the early fifties and sixties and usually have a subtle sense of humour to them leaving the viewer asking the question, “What’s actually going on in this scene?”

To me his paintings have a cool nostalgic feel, depicting the jet-setting high life of the 1950’s. Another great subtle feature in some of his paintings is his reference to classic mid-century modern houses. A number of his paintings have featured the work of Australian and American mid-century architects such as Robin Boyd, Harry Seidler, John Lautner and Pierre Koenig.

For more info visit www.shag.com

Above: Robin Boyd House II – Robin Boyd

Above: Rose Seidler House – Harry Seidler

RoseSeidlerHouseSulmanPrize Above: Rose Seidler House – Harry Seidler

Above: Malin Residence “Chemosphere” – John Lautner

(I’ll put money on it that the photographer in this painting is a nod to the modernist architectural photographer Julius Shulman who famously photographed the Stahl House)Above: Stahl House (Case Study House #22) – Pierre Koenig (Photo – Julius Shulman)