Lifestyle

Art is typically appreciated in its final form. The process to get to that mark, however, remains one of the real points of enjoyment for the artist themselves as they create magic from one sketch to another. Behind the curtain of film and television, concept art has always played an essential role at the literal act of world-building — from Ralph McQuarrie‘s iconic work for Star Wars to the countless Marvel and DC Comics cel-animations. Fans of Batman: The Animated Series from the 1990s, now is your chance to own original concept art from the 82 episode collection. There is a wealth of artwork to choose from, containing some of the comics most cherished heroes and villains — Robin, Nightwing, and Batgirl, to The Joker, Two-Face and Penguin. Prices vary from roughly $300 to $450 USD for th...

Joani Tremblay is a French-Canadian artist who creates ethereal landscape paintings that are partially inspired by picture-perfect advertisements, postcards and images displayed across social media. Based between Montreal and Brooklyn, Tremblay has been compared as a modern-day Georgia O’Keeffe and is collected at various institutions, including The Mint Museum, Charlotte, Montreal Municipal Art Collection, Montreal and RBC Corporate Collection, Toronto. Later this month, Tremblay will present a new body of work at Harper’s gallery in New York. Although it’s a tall-task for any emerging artist to measure up to a legend like O’Keeffe, there lies a similar approach to abstraction and sensuality when viewing both artists work. Tremblay, as did O’Keeffe, attributes this aesthetic to her memori...

Brooklyn-based artist Julia Chiang will be opening up her solo exhibition, Julia Chiang: Salt on Our Skin at Nicola Vassell Gallery later this month. Chiang is known for her extensive portfolio of paintings, installations, and sculptures, out of which her abstract paintings featuring petal-like and biomorphic shapes are the most recognizable. Speaking on the theme for this exhibit, Chiang shared a recollection of her childhood where nothing was ever truly thrown away, as her father often upcycle old and worn-out items by giving them “a new life.” This regular practice had Chiang ponder the concept of transformation, which the artist related to her multicultural identity and art-making processes. In a press release, the artist explained that her inspiration also came from poetry, specifical...

BEYOND THE STREETS is currently playing host to the most comprehensive Beastie Boys exhibition to date at their new CONTROL Gallery space in Los Angeles. To complement the event, the art collective has released five new books that encompass the vast array of objects and ephemera that have subtly defined the legacy of the Beastie Boys. While the first entry in the collection encompasses the group’s tenure with Def Jam Records, books two to five are all dubbed by album — from Pauls Boutique and Check Your Head, to ILL Communication and Hello Nasty. Together, the collection is a real treasure trove for Beastie Boys die-hards, offering an archival look at photographs, instruments, event programs and more. Each book is an edition of 500, retails for $25 USD and spans roughly 100 to 200 pages in...

During an unpublicized trip to Ukraine last year, Banksy painted seven new murals in the city of Hostomel, near the capital of Kyiv, amidst the country’s ongoing conflict with Russia. One of the seven works depicts a curly-haired woman who’s dressed in a gas mask and gown while holding a fire extinguisher. The spray-painted mural is pasted on the yellow exterior walls of a house destroyed by Russian shelling. This particular work became the target of an orchestrated heist as a group of men chiseled the painting from the wall while pretending to be representatives of a French charity. While on the scene, the group of thieves was confronted by a local who raised his suspicions to the authorities. Police later arrived at the scene, arresting five men and recovering the graffiti mural in good ...