Milwaukee-based artist Cassandra Smith has a portfolio plump with thought-provoking combinations of pattern, hue and unique surfaces. One of my favourite aspects of her work is the use of found objects. I particularly love her ongoing series of rough balls of rope transformed by vibrant paint. A beautiful contrast of colour and texture. I love when they all appear together, natural and bright lines strung from simple hooks. Yep, I would be more than thrilled to have the whole series hanging on my wall…

(images via cassandra smith; spotted on the jealous curator)

I had my passport photo taken today. Yikes. Now, I understand the need for secure (yet boring) images but I can still daydream about what would happen if art and border security mixed. I mean, who hasn’t wanted to apply some bold pigments to their face in war paint fashion?

(photograph by Lara Jade and make-up by Keiko Nakamura)

(image via model mayhem)

Some works of art just make your day. I love these two pieces by Italian artist Andrea Marini. ‘Gemmation’ is a blooming wall of sculptural fibreglass that is both serene and exploding with texture. “Flows” is an installation of mirror waterfalls tumbling from the wall like starched bundles of tinsel. I’m a rather mesmerized by that gorgeous metallic beauty…

(images via andrea marini / saatchi online)

Whoa, today my wee colour blog turns two years old. How did that happen so fast? To mark the occasion, I just had to make Pantone confetti using an outdated book sitting in my art supplies. Perhaps on Plenty of Colour’s third anniversary, there can be a global recycled Pantone guide confetti throw? Hmm…

Also, I want to say thank you to all of the people that pop by this blog, thoughtfully email and tweet me, and support the site in general. The very best aspect of having creating Plenty of Colour has been meeting so many wonderful people from all over the world. I always knew colour lovers were the best of humanity! I am tremendously thankful and grateful for all of the colour love and support you have tossed my way. Cheers to the year ahead and the new features and pops of colour it will bring. Thank you ALL! — Chloé

(pantone confetti and “2″ by chloé douglas for plenty of colour)

“Private Moon” by Russian artist Leonid Tishkov has captivated me for quite some time. The mobile art installation and visual poem tells the story of “a man who met the Moon and stayed with her forever”. Leonid has travelled the world with the piece for ten years, placing the illuminated artificial moon in unexpected places across China, New Zealand, Taiwan, Moscow, Italy, the Arctic, France, Austria and so forth. I love the massive scale and glowing beauty of this work and how it manages to bring a rather inaccessible natural wonder down to earth. A “private moon” indeed. As Leonid puts it, “the moon is a shining point that brings people together from different countries, of different nationalities and cultures. And everyone who gets in its orbit does not forget it ever. It gives fairytale and poetry in our prosy and mercantile world.” Personally, I find it simply magical. Fingers crossed this installation reaches Canada one day very soon. I will be first in line to see it…

(there is a great interview with leonid about this project on his blog. read it here)
(photographs by boris bendikov, po-i chen and marcus williams, all via leonid tishkov) 

British artist Richard Caldicott creates beautiful abstract colour in his series “Chance/Fall”. What could easily be striking geometric paintings are actually layered photographs full of ethereal and filtered light. Oh, the blocks of vibrant colour…

(photographs via galerie f5,6) 

I love this floral installation designed by Paul Hecker and executed by Fleur’s Florist  for The Cool House pop-up boutique in Melbourne. Seriously, how fabulous is that gradient? What a modern showcase of all the dazzling colours nature creates through flowers…

(photograph via the cool hunter)  

In his installation Black Cloud, Mexican artist Carlos Amorales created a world that perfectly fuses downright gorgeous with rather frightening. Carlos crafted 30,000 moths of 36 different variations out of black paper and, with the aid of a team, hand glued them to every surface possible of a gallery space. The images above are of the piece installed at Yvon Lambert in 2007 but it was also re-imagined on the walls of a converted old church in Spain called Espacio AV in 2009. I would love to see this fascinating installation in real life so I can only hope it appears again one day. Meticulous handcrafted detail swarms white walls in strikingly beautiful fashion…

(photographs via yvon lambert; information via philadelphia museum of art)  

I love the aerial photography of Katrin Korfmann and the striking way she highlights the beauty and chaos of people and places. What gorgeous colour madness she captures at Holi in India as thousands of people throw vibrant powder. Katrin layers several recordings of a place into one image so both time progression and the energy of a location can be felt. From example, in the group above, she photographs a graduation at Cambridge University over 2 days, Madison Avenue in New York over 64 minutes, a Hong Kong highway over 40 minutes and people waiting for Julia Roberts on a Berlin red carpet over 30 minutes. Such a fascinating study of time, people, colour and composition. I particularly love Katrin’s image of a busy market in Vrindavan, India. Oh how I’d love to have a print on my wall. It showcases that hot pink really is the navy blue of India…

(check out katrin’s portfolio where you can zoom into each image and see every little detail. captivating!)

(photographs via katrin korfmann; spotted on design boom )

I’ve posted about the fascinating embroidery design of Evelin Kasikov before (whoa CMYK colour chart) and I love her latest work “Analogue/Digital”. In it, four paper objects represent print and screen formats where “pixels and dots, single elements of digital and printed image, become physical using hand embroidery”. RGB pixels stitched on a tablet screen, CMYK typography highlighting the print process, stitched TV signal bars enveloping a book and a 7 colour GIF bursting across a hardcover – it is a gorgeous exploration of the analogue and digital themes that dominate our lives. Oh how I would love one of these striking books on my shelf. Have you ever seen a pixel look more beautiful?

(photographs via evelin kasikov)  

Partners for Mental Health installation, by Blok Design (Toronto, 2012)

Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery installation, by Rethink (Vancouver, 2005)

I love public art installations, especially when they are thought-provoking, colourful and initiate public interaction. A great example? The button wall at top created by Blok Design for the Partners for Mental Health campaign “Not Myself Today”. The identity, which uses different emotions and their corresponding colours, was turned into a wall of “mood pins” in a heavily travelled section of Toronto. It reminded me of a similar installation I saw in Vancouver a few years ago. Created for the Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery, Rethink Communications printed 50,000 buttons with a single word representing one of a hundred possible responses to contemporary art. Both walls use colour and pattern in different yet equally compelling ways. They also serve as striking interactive public art that draws attention to important topics and sparks dialogue. Oh and they add rather fabulous colour to streetscapes and collars…

(photographs via rethink and blok design)  

When I spied this project on The Artful Desperado yesterday, my head exploded with colour happiness and I had to share. Alex Brewer, otherwise known as HENSE, is an artist from Atlanta with a colourful, abstract, graffiti-inspired contemporary style. In short: wow-inducing. He was recently hired to create a massive mural on a historic but derelict church in a waterfront neighbourhood of Washington, D.C. Fittingly, the installation is directly across the street from a planned 20,000 sq.ft. museum (making the up and coming area officially smashing). I am often in favour of preserving great old architecture and returning buildings to their former glory. This project gave me pause. It would have been easy for abstract/graffiti style to clash horribly with this vintage church and make it look a blight of soulless, messy tags. But in the hands of HENSE, it remains heavenly. Vibrancy, detail, gestural abstraction – the mural retains the integrity of the historical structure yet creates a completely modern, artful wash of colour. And all using just latex paint and talent. History is given a new, colourful layer and in effect, brings glory back to what was long forgotten…

(p.s. anyone know what this building is set to become? I’ve been trying to figure it out!)

(photographs via HENSE, spotted on the artful desperado)

A few months ago, I posted a striking carpet design made out of clothespins created by Dutch art collective We Make Carpets. On a visit to the collective’s website yesterday, their three newest carpet pieces more than grabbed my attention. Created out of cocktail picks (love the side view), chocolate bars and disposable cups/utensils, they are truly beautiful modern tapestries. Oh and proof positive that with incredible attention to form and colour, one can craft a complex and richly textured pattern out of any material…

(photographs via we make carpets)

A fluttering swirl of origami butterflies, I love this fusion of design installation and styling by Elixr and Dream Interiors. Created for annual design event Saturday in Design, the butterflies make a striking piece of art but also highlight the clean lines of Dream Interiors’ white furniture collection and Kiki K’s storage boxes. Neutral yet lushly vibrant, it’s a match made in styling heaven…

(photographs by adrian koh, via elixr and ad week)

HOT+TEA, also known as Eric Rieger, is an American street artist who uses vibrant yarn as his medium of choice. I love so many of his installations including this marvelous piece called Lost+Found. HOT+TEA spotted a vacant Minneapolis tennis court with no net for the locals to use (a lost space). He decided to create a net using nothing but neon yarn so the court could be returned to its original purpose (found). I love how it mixes vibrant art with something that enhances a community and brings people together…

(photographs via / screencaps created from a video on unurth )  

The portfolio of artists Ronnie Yarisal and Katja Kublitz is plump with wonderfully thought-provoking work but it was these sculptures that really caught my eye today. Both titled ‘Totem’, the structures are beautiful in their strong angles and mixture of colours. To me, the deeper meaning comes when one considers that totem poles often reflect extraordinary legends, notable figures, history, story and artistic beauty. Sounds like the perfect description of what lies between the covers of a book too…

(photographs via yarisal & kublitz; spotted via present & correct)