By trade, Tim Biskup was a draftsman working in animation across the States. Since hitting the fine art world, he has honed his craft creating fascinating, dark images delving into different areas of what he interprets as ‘baroque modernism’.

Check out Tim’s site here for more information.

Who is BNE and what do the BNE stickers represent?

Apparently this question has been on many a tongue for some time now, but in a similar style to Banksy, this graffiti artist has now added traditional exhibits to his guerilla methods. Check it out at the New York Times.

Doze Green is a member of the Barnstormers art collective. A highly talented artist, Doze is reputed to have an element of premonition in his pieces; a foresight of things to come.

The Barnstormers are a collective of New York/Tokyo-based artists who create large-scale collaborative paintings, films and performances. The group formed in 1999 after a pilgrimage to the rural town of Cameron, North Carolina. During the trip, twenty-five artists painted dozens of barns, tractor-trailers, shacks and farm equipment. Consequently, the tiny tobacco farming community became the unlikely Mecca for the urban collective.

Read more about Doze here, and check out the Barnstormers here.

Skineart is a site dedicated to the collection of sketches, doodles, illustrations and fully-fledged fine art pieces rendered beautifully in Moleskine notebooks.

The piece above, by an artist with the handle MattiasA, is a great example of what inspirational designs can come from spending time with a pen and pad.

But to what extent is the author inspired by the history of the Moleskine itself? Picasso is often cited as a Moleskine adopter; does this link with a master of art inspire all moleskine users to produce feets of design to the best of their ability?

Liu Bolin is a master of artistic disguise. Placing himself in day-to-day scene, Liu merges himself into the background imagery using drawn and painted camouflage.

Check out some more of his work on the Guardian site here.

Having discovered the above necklace at the Diana Porter Contemporary Jewellery shop in Bristol, and shortly after, purchasing, I thought it was necessary to branch this blog out into jewellery as an important strand of contemporary design.

Justin Duance is a contemporary jewellery designer based in Newlyn, Cornwall. Operating from a small workshop, the pieces created by Justin and his team are organic, textural, and highly tactile. With wooden elements adding an all important differentiator, in commercial terms, in an overly metallic an disposable age, Justin’s pieces offer a feeling of longevity and natural disposition, something quite appealing to city slickers and countryside dwellers alike.

Read more about Justin Duance here.

Kate Atkin is a young, talented artist from Odstock, Wiltshire with an absolute flair for detailed, abstract drawing.

Her pieces are combinations, splicings of different scenes and objects drawn with chaotic intricacy.

Read more about Kate in this recent interview and check out her online portfolio here: www.kateatkin.net

In his own words, Andy Kehoe “…was the son of a sea merchant that was killed by pirates when he was just three years old.” Regardless of this hoaxsome tragedy, Kehoe has gone on to become an eminent player in the contemporary US art scene.

This month, Kehoe is exhibiting for the second time at the Thinkspace Gallery in LA. The show, titled The World Unseen and Those In Between, is Kehoe’s second exhibition at Thinkspace. He describes the show…

“The World Unseen is a place where the spirits of the dead, the never living and the yet to be all reside. This world lies unnoticed to the living yet each world shapes the other. The thinnest of curtains separate the worlds and they perpetually intertwine and overlap. Some live between both worlds and are neither living nor dead, but something more fantastic and in some cases all the more horrible.”

The pieces themselves feature stark yet gracefully realised landscapes, with an element of characterisation, unease and foreboding present in each. To preview the pieces, and find out more info, visit www.thinkspacegallery.com or check out Andy’s site here.

This poster entitled SUGOI! by the two person studio, TADO, is really very cool. Based in Sheffield, UK, the pair, Mike and Katie, dedicate their days to creating cool characters and rich, sumptious illustrations for customers and cool people alike.

The SUGOI! poster originally began life as a commission for Virgin Atlantic, and following the success of the design, the pair decided to remix it into something a bit more personal, and use sales of the print to benefit the charity, Western Part Hospital Cancer. Great design, great cause.

Check out TADO here.

Doug Wilson is a master of the traditional printing press. A multi-disciplinary designer from Missouri, Doug’s work is currently on sale at the Keep Calm Gallery.

Based in East Dulwich, London, Keep Calm is the brainchild of Lucas Lepola and Hayley Thwaites. The site’s founders state that it was born as follows:

“…out of our passion for typography in poster design, British heritage and the medium of screen printing.”

The product range certainly conveys this, with Doug Wilson’s work epitomising the statement further.

Check out the gallery here and Doug’s website here.