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Nail-Bitingly Brilliant Fingernail Art

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Like so many nervous nellies, 24-year-old Media student Kayleigh O’Connor would routinely chew her fingernails almost to the bone. “I bit [them] so badly that they looked like something out of a horror film,” she says on her DeviantArt page. To compensate, the Birmingham-born nail-biter glues on false nails, but not the kind you can buy at your local pharmacy for $4.50 – they’re ones which Miss O’Connor skillfully sculpts and paints to create ingenious designs. These fingernails, you wouldn’t wanna gnaw at them.

Her designs, which are painstakingly detailed, are inspired by several different sources, from movies to television, music to arcade games, and nature to food. For some time, she would proudly display them in front of only friends and family, but now she photographs them and posts them on her blog for our viewing pleasure. Check out some of O’Connor’s weird and wonderful designs below, where, if you’re cultured enough, you may recognise a few familiar faces. [Read more…]

Wire Wonderland: Woodland Critters of Twisted Steel

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You ever bend a paperclip out of shape and bend it into another, much more fun shape? I know I’ve done it a few times in the past, mostly when I was bored and on my lonesome and felt no need to bind several sheets of paper together. Most of my creations were cats and people or, to be more specific, disfigured felines (which for some reason looked like canines) and short-legged, big-headed hunchbacks, like the bell-ringer of Notre Dame. I wasn’t exactly Van Gogh with a paperclip – I was always more of a Picasso.

Hayley Dix, however, is a much better bender of bits of steel wire than I ever was, as shown in her remarkable new art project, “Wire Wonderland.” In it, the Middlesex University graduate creates deceptively simple but utterly stunning wireframes of woodland critters – birds and foxes, etc. – perched on and crawling across real-life fallen branches. And it looks marvelous.

As stated on Dix’s official website, “Almost as if to reincarnate the wood each piece displays a fragment of a story which is directly inspired by the environment in which it was found.” Below, you can check out images from “Wire Wonderland,” which has been selected for display at the 2012 New Designers One Year On exhibition in London. [Read more…]

You Are Not Banksy: Street Art Turns Real-Life

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You may know of Banksy, a British street artist of unknown identity. Based mostly in England, where he has gained much fame and infamy, Banksy specialises in darkly comic satire, both social and political, which he presents through pieces of graffiti crafted with a technique involving spray paint and stensils. His work, which has appeared on brick walls and the sides of bridges, as well as in his very own public exhibitions, is often deeply subversive and highly comical: a piece depicting a pair of canoodling policemen and another displaying a flower-lobbing hooligan are among his most famous works.

If you enjoy Banksy’s work (if not, seek help), then you may be interested in British photographer Nick Stern’s new series, entitled “You Are Not Banksy.” The project sees Stern meticulously recreating a handful of Banksy’s masterpieces using real-life models and photographing their mimicking poses. The results are extraordinary. Stern himself is a fan of the elusive guerilla street artist: “I have always admired Banksy – I love his cheek and humour,” said the London-born photographer. “Much of art is a recreation or interpretation of real life, but this is the other way round – I wanted real life to recreate art. I hope he likes what I’ve done.”

Below is Stern’s series, along with Banksy’s iconic originals for comparison. [Read more…]

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