Michael Brennan-Wood is internationally regarded as one of the most innovative artists working in textiles today. Exploring and understanding textile techniques through the past, his work persists to surprise and delight in it’s layers of embroidery, pattern, lace and intriguing floral imagery.
Filip Hodas is a 3D illustrator based in Prague. In 2015 he started doing daily renders to improve his 3D workflow and explore possibilities of Cinema 4D, Octane render and bunch of other tools. These are the amazing fruits of his daily renders. He has prints available on Society 6 and his Instagram account can found here.
Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto or Vhils as he is known in the graffiti world, carves portraits in the urban environment – from stencil painting to wall carvings and a variety of other mediums and techniques his unique approach has been gaining critical acclaim all over the world. Check out more here on his Instagram page.
Diane Itter was an American fibre artist working in the early 1970’s creating small-scale works from fine, vividly coloured threads. Inspired by historical textiles from Peru, Japan and Africa, her work took on a very different approach to other fibre artists of the time, who were producing large scale hangings and woven sculptures using natural, undyed fibres and unevenly tied knots. Studying at the University of Pittsburg, she was encouraged by the artist William Itter (her future husband) to experiment with hand-tied knots rather than loom-woven fabrics. A game changer of her time, Itter led to the next wave of experimental fibre artists such as Lia Cook and Helena Hernmarck. Sadly she died in 1989 at just age 43 but her beautiful work can still be seen in museum collections around the world.
Patternbank are loving Zak Ové’s celebration of African and Trinidadian culture, where he pays tribute to both spiritual and artistic African identity. Born in London he now lives and works in both London and Trinidad. Zak works in sculpture, film, painting and photography, often collaging antique and found materials, where he is interested in reinterpreting lost culture and mythology. We particular love these wonderful collaged works, a carnival of decoration and pattern! Check out his Instagram page here for more inspiring work.
David McLeod’s work experiments with colour, form and texture in a truly modern way, pushing the boundaries to produce surreal, organic animations and compositions of curious, abstract shapes. His series “Colourflow” can be viewed on Vimeo as hypnotic displays of moving particles, not unlike a Starling Murmuration: where they form a fantastic acrobatic mass before roosting. Another playful side to his work are his typography explorations into different hair characteristics through a bad pun. Originally from Australia, he now lives and works in New York City, go check out more of his recent work on Instagram where you can find visual inspiration interspersed by wonderful natural images.
Josh Blackwell transforms the humble carrier bag into these elaborate and colourful pieces of artwork, where he considers their previous life and easy throw away nature. Instead their degraded status is brought to life with beautiful, colourful stitching in geometric patterns where references to a past life can be made. Discover more of his art objects and installations that explore and challenge the purpose and use of everyday items at joshblackwell.com
Igor is a neurobiologist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and uses a confocal laser-scanning microscope to capture the incredible beauty and complexity of mantises, chameleons, butterflies, moths, stag beetles, geckos, frogs, caterpillars, snakes and any other form of creepy crawlie. Check out more of Igor’s incredible microscopy photography here.
With such a mix of creative expression and exploration happening at the moment, we love stumbling across new forms that twist old or found elements together. These amazing pattern enhanced paper cut art statements are the work of American artist Elise Wehle. Elise Wehle studied art at Brigham Young University in Utah, but it wasn’t until she took a break from school and lived in Spain for a year that she understood what type of art she wanted to create. Surrounded by the patterns that cover Andalucía, Wehle began using similar patterns within her own work. Yet, it was the Alhambra, a Moorish palace covered in intricate, hand carved patterns, that influenced Wehle the most. She states, “My mind can hardly comprehend how men achieved such intricacy with a simple chisel. Although paper is very different from stone, that’s what paper cutting is like for me. It’s tedious, time-intensive, and at times both mind-numbing as well as finger-numbing, but the evidence of my commitment and passion for my art imbues itself into each cut out shape.” See more of Elise Wehle’s stunning paper cut artworks here.
This is the awesome work of Matt Mills. A multi-disciplined digital artist and designer from Austin, Texas. His creative journey has been long and strange taking him from 3D modeling to graphic design to motion graphics to web design to abstract art. Stock & Render is a project Matt created as a place to explore his artistic ideas. You can buy prints and t-shirts from his store or follow him on Instagram.
These strangely captivating images are the photomontage project of Paris based photographer Seb Janiak. Named Minessis, which is a Greek word for imitation. To create each artwork Janiak scours antique stores and taxidermist shops to find examples of wings which he then photographs at extremely high resolution. The pieces are digitally edited and pieced together into flower-like forms (a sort of meta mimic of a mimic) which are then output as chromogenic prints measuring nearly 6 feet square. The Patternbank team are loving the beautiful irregular textures and colour patterns created in these amazing art pieces. See more of Seb Janiak’s inspirational work here.
Aaron is a talented artist born in Arizona who now works in California, he’s represented by Acme Gallery in Los Angeles. These beautiful paintings remind us of the Japanese woodblock printing of Hokusai mixed with an overall feeling that something has gone horribly wrong on planet Earth. You can see more of his thought provoking paintings over on the Acme Gallery site here.
Patternbank are loving these poetic and pastel musings by visual artist and illustrator Milica Golubović. Inspired by nature and the sea Golubović loves to apply a poetic and often metaphorical language to her work, mixing textures in calming and dreamy compositions where fiction and reality meet. Discover more of her poetic language on her website and Instagram feed.
To round off the year the Patternbank team revisited our inspiring posts and have selected some of our favourites from 2016. We wish all our readers, designers and customers a very happy & inspiring 2017. We have loads of new innovative features and developments lined up for 2017 so stay tuned over the upcoming months.
Patternbank were excited to hear about a new exhibition exploring the work of designer and artist Josef Frank, due to take place at London’s Fashion and Textile Museum from 27th January – 7th May 2017. This will be the first ever UK exhibition showcasing the designers work, which will include furniture, glassware, lighting and interior design. Born in Austria Josef Frank moved to Sweden in 1933, where he developed his colourful brand of modernism, working with Estrid Ericson on a number of interior design ideas, together redefining what is regarded as Swedish Modern. The exhibition in association with Millesgarden, Stockholm highlights Frank’s vibrant designs for Svenskt Tenn alongside a number of his previously unknown watercolours. The museum is also holding a one day event before the exhibition opens to the public, where you will be able to meet the exhibition curator and team, a fantastic opportunity to learn more about what promises to be a wonderful insight into the work of Josef Frank.
Categories: Womenswear, Floral, Abstract, Tropical, Giftware/Stationery, Nature
Patternbank is the world’s leading online textile design studio for print, pattern and trend forecasting and each month or so we highlight our favourite designs from the many designs that get uploaded by our talented designers. You can now shop over 30k+ designs online, all painstakingly curated into Categories, Trend Stories and Tags which makes finding the designs you’re looking for super simple and quick. Here are 21 highlights from our Editors’ Picks.
Patternbank love Gail Kellet’s linocut studies of the Australian flora and fauna where she lives on the Fleurieu Peninsula, Southern Australia. Kelley enhances the main image in her work with bold elements in both the foreground and background including large areas of black and white, giving the plants centre stage. Check out more of her work here.
