Beautiful/Decay

By Chelsey Dever

Golden Hour on Fire by Justin Battles

Eyes closed tight by Adam Taylor

Sun peeks through the slot canyon by Ron Risman

It’s once again time to submit your most brilliant photograph to the Weather Channel’s third Annual “It’s Amazing Out There” photo contest. You have until August 1st to enter your best photograph of nature, adventure and weather for a chance to win big! The grand prize is a whopping $15,000 with second place receiving $5,000 and third place getting $2,500. With prizes like that you have no excuse not to enter your spectacular photograph for a chance at fame and fortune.

There is no fee to enter and all amateur and professional photographers are urged to participate. Visit the Weather Channel’s contest site for more information at: http://ift.tt/29RBkJ6

Jetstar by Matt Clark

Jetstar by Matt Clark

Rockhopper Penguins storm the beach by Rick Beldegreen

Scramble by Valerie Hawks

The post Enter The Weather Channel’s Third Annual Photo Contest appeared first on Beautiful/Decay.

Jackie K. Seo, “Secret Shame”

Jackie K. Seo, “Man and Rope”

Jamie Salmon, “Chris”

Jamie Salmon, “Self Portrait”

In a blog post published last week, The Creators Project composed a stunning list of eight artists who sculpt hyperrealistic depictions of the body: Marc Sijan, Xooang Choi, Sarah Sitkin, Jackie K. Seo, Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, Jamie Salmon, Felix Deac, and Trent Taft. From states of beauty, intimacy, deformity, and death, the artists approach flesh as a figurative storyboard for human experience; whether it’s the stale sadness of Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s “Old People’s Home,” or the life-like, slow-burning intensity of Salmon’s “Chris,” each work accentuates the details and imperfections of the skin to convey a much deeper message.

To some, the purpose of hyperrealistic art may seem uncertain; why reproduce reality in such painstaking detail, when we are confronted by each other’s flesh every day? Of course, some of the sculptures have disturbing and surreal aspects, which makes their illusory qualities more clear. Like rats’ tails and hairless cats, these sculptures may make many of us strangely uncomfortable, for they unconsciously remind us of our own mortal fleshiness. Beyond this initial repulsion, however, they also mimic and accentuate reality to confront the viewer with meanings they may never see otherwise: human vulnerability, and the skin as a shallow edifice that distracts us from another’s internal experience. In each of these “simulations” of real life, an intuitive (and often unsettling) truth is revealed.

To read more, check out The Creators Project blog post. More images after the jump. (Via The Creators Project)

Marc Sijan, “Cornered”

Marc Sijan, “Man”

Xooang Choi

Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, “Old People’s Home”

Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, “If I Died”

Sarah Sitkin, “Sssleep at Night”

Sarah Sitkin

Trent Taft, “Prop head”

Trent Taft, “Deformed”

Felix Deac, “Eidetic 1″

Felix Deac, “For Some”

  The post Eight Artists Who Sculpt Mind-Bending, Hyperrealistic Depictions Of The Human Body appeared first on Beautiful/Decay.

Business cards have massive potential to keep your audience engaged. When used properly, they act as avenues that drive people to your social media presence, personalize your company and dramatically extend your brand’s footprint.

Of course, creating a great design is critical, but so is putting in the effort afterwards. Fortunately, we’ve come up with a few tried and tested methods for getting more from your legwork. 1. Make Sharing Your Cards Worthwhile Giving people incentives for distributing your cards is a must. For instance, if your cards include exclusive discounts on services and products, patrons are much more likely to share them of their own accord. While this may require printing a few card designs, the business you’ll bring back with referral programs and similar offerings is well worth it.

2. Don’t Hide Your Company’s Value The back of a business card is also a great place to remind people why they ought to make full use of your services. A simple tag line or brief collection of key selling points is way more interesting to most audiences than a drab list of your specializations.

3. Shape Is Important, So Mix It Up The world is littered with business cards that lack visual impact. Make yours retain relevancy by standing out from the crowd. Aesthetic flairs like squared or circular outlines, different paper stock or contoured die cut profiles might be just what you need to make a unique, lasting impression.

4. Keep Tabs on Your Progress The only way to improve the outcomes associated with handing out cards is to measure their impact. Quantify your outreach ROI using techniques like:

Track QR codes. Different codes printed on cards can refer people to shortened links that redirect them to your site and report back to Google Analytics and similar tools along the way.

Use varied promo codes for different campaign drives.

Include unique phone numbers for select cards to track calls.

5. Package Your Cards to Foster Repeat Business Your customers love tearing into fresh packages they receive in the mail, but they’re unlikely to save the labels, invoices and receipts that go with them. Make your business easier to remember by throwing a few of your cards in every shipment.

6. Never Forget Your Brand’s Image Your card represents your brand, so make a strong impression from the start. Identify the key visual elements of your web presence, logotype and other branding, and be certain to replicate them in some form. Repetition fosters remembrance, so establish something recognizable, and keep building on the theme.

7. Show It Off Finally, remember to showcase your card as much as possible. If your card boasts a truly-inspired design that sets a lofty new bar in branding, ask a design blogger to write about it and feature it on their site. Take to social media to garner opinions about your latest campaign package, or just share tasty images of your freshly printed cards on crisp stock. In addition to revealing public sentiment, these are great ways to further your brand’s reach.

The post Brand Creativity: Getting The Most Out Of Your Business Cards appeared first on Beautiful/Decay.

Jiyong Lee is an artist and educator based in Carbondale, Illinois, who works in the medium of glass art. In a series titled Segmentation, Lee has created fascinating, geometric glass blocks that metaphorically examine life science. Mirroring the processes of cell division and growth, each sculpture is divided into fragments that represent “cells, embryos, biological and molecular structures—each symbolizing the building blocks of life, as well as the starting point of life” (Source). As a whole, they are firm structures, much like the proverbial “building blocks”; but internally, they are irregular and segmented, symbolizing the varying growth rates and beautiful asymmetry of organic life.

The glass Lee has chosen to work with varies in its translucency, which is significant to his theme. Sometimes the fragments are see-through; in other places they are dense and clouded. For Lee, these conditions of visibility represent “what is known and unknown about life science” (Source), for although modern science seeks to fully comprehend the workings of life, there will always be an unreachable mystery within. The internal haze also represents an unknown future for cells as they live and continue to change.

Visit Lee’s website to view more.

    The post Jiyong Lee Carves Fragmented, Geometric Glass Blocks That Represent Cell Division And Growth appeared first on Beautiful/Decay.

Kunihiko Nohara creates lofty sculptures whose subjects hover between the earth and sky. Using a single piece of wood for each of his pieces, Nohara replaces clothing with clouds making his figures seem ready to take flight in a hot air balloon.

Nohara’s works have earned him the name “The Cloud Man” in Taiwan. But while this name visibly connects him with his works, the clouds also mean something else to Nohara. In interviews he says that clouds are emblematic of his practice in that he often feels “blurry” within his own thoughts. Dealing with this space of fuzziness between thoughts and dream, he further says that his “creations are not necessarily based on fantasy, but neither are they overly grounded in reality – they’re just reflections of my experiences of the world.”

Despite the delicacy and softness of these sculptures, Nohara works entirely in wood and, more notably, only uses one piece for each work. His preference for wood emerged in school but he also believes the use of material aligns his work with Japan’s propensity towards wooden objects, like houses and furniture.

Nohara’s works were recently shown at “Laissez Faire,” a group show presented by Gallery UG at the Luxe Art Museum in Singapore. His sculptures were included with works from 17 other Japanese artists.

Quotes from: expatliving.sg

The post Kunihiko Nohara Creates Sculptures That Hang Between The Earth And Sky appeared first on Beautiful/Decay.

Brooklyn based multimedia artist Emily McMaster has created a provocative video series featuring one shot scenes of masochism. Her work invites us into intimate and unsettling moments that provoke questions of power dynamics. Each work is a test for the squeamish, a pit of anxiety, and a platform for confusion and quandary. When entering the work, it remains unclear whether these acts are that of pleasure or torture. It remains unclear who is empowered and and who is dominated. Within her piece Steeple, McMaster sews her fingers together in a gesture from a childhood hand game. She struggles to break the ties, only to be unsuccessful and greeted with blood. Perhaps this piece speak of the disfunction within power structures, the loss of innocence, the impurity of self destruction. Baby’s Breath begins with the act of a masculine arms covering the head of the topless, red lip stick stained artist with a plastic bag. Again, the question of pleasure versus pain, power versus abuse, and in this particular video, female subjection. Her work is powerful, allusive, and perfectly hard to watch.

The following is her artist statement;

“Emily McMaster is a Brooklyn based artist who studied Printmaking at Bard College and The University of New Mexico. Her work, whether solo or in collaboration, focuses on delicacy, remarks on femininity, draws from fetish, and values playfulness above all else. She couldn’t put an x-acto knife down for a decade, but has recently swapped it out for a video camera. Baby’s Breath and Steeple are recent examples of this transition. With this new work Emily explores her endurance by confronting specific physical challenges. In this process she showcases texture, vulnerability, and masochism.”

    The post Emily McMaster’s Unsettling Videos Explore Notions Of Masochism And Femininity appeared first on Beautiful/Decay.

Last year, we featured the work of Dutch artist Patrick Bergsma. Featured today is a selection of his newer works, which demonstrate his endless creativity in sculpting floating, post-apocalyptic homes. Appearing to defy gravity, old ramshackle buildings painted in rustic shades meld with rock formations and elaborate root systems. Bonsai trees sprout from the top, creating darkly beautiful habitats for tiny, marooned people; a helicopter lands perilously atop one, and on another, a girl kneels pensively amongst the roots of a dead tree.

Aside from being objects of imagination and extreme detail, many themes seem to be occurring throughout Bergsma’s sculptures, such as the reclaiming power of nature; trees appear to be taking over the ruined buildings, returning the small, blasted fragments of earth into a more natural state. There are also dual feelings of sorrowful entrapment and isolated simplicity; the inhabitants appear lonely, but their quaint living spaces are also beautiful and calming, referring to a simpler way of life. Whatever your response to Bergsma’s sculptures is, they each tell a story that will pique your curiosity.

Visit Bergsma’s website and Pinterest to see more.

    The post Nature Meets Urban Decay In Patrick Bergsma’s Magical, Gravity-Defying Landscape Sculptures appeared first on Beautiful/Decay.