How do you know when a cake belongs in a gallery instead of a bakery? When the recipe list reads as follows: pink foam, plaster, polyurethane spray foam, modeling paste, found objects. Mmm, found objects… one of my favorite ingredients! And I’m not alone. Clearly American artist Lauren Brescia considers them an important part of any pastry / fabulously gooey mixed media sculpture, or she wouldn’t have tucked them into a large illuminated hole in the side of that 7′ cake.

{This Friday night, don’t miss the closing event of her exhibition, “One Art Please”, at one of the Pop-up art galleries from the Chicago Loop Alliance – 208 S Wabash. Fabulous art, champagne, and actual cupcakes! Yum.}

Ahh, I do love a little collage first thing on a Monday morning! Yes, this is going to be a good week thanks to American artist Lisa Eisenbrey and her steak knives, cougar infested picnics, and that can of Manwich™ being sized up by a fluffy white poodle… every Monday really should start this way.

{via Escape Into Life… and today just happens to be my first weekly contribution to their ‘Artist Watch’ series! I featured one of my faves, Aris Moore, and I’ll be back there every Monday morning with a new artist. Yay!}

I have to admit, trying to understand exactly how and why camera obscura works makes my head hurt just a little bit… thankfully these stunning photographs, by Cuban-born artist Abelardo Morell, make the pain totally worth it!  Apparently all it takes is a darkened room, a pin-hole with a fabulous view on the other side of it, and voila…  a vertigo-inducing marriage of the outside & inside like you’ve never seen before. But how? How?! It’s just a pin hole? There’s no mirror?! Ok, I still totally don’t get it.

{via Yellowtrace}

Computer nerds. You gotta love ’em… right down to their tinted glasses! Inspired by class photos of computer science majors from the 1970’s, American artist Jonathan Viner uses oil paintings to pay homage to these “prophets of Computer Science”. We should all thank them, really. If it weren’t for these graduates, and their transition lenses, we wouldn’t be able to blog, facebook, or tweet. Oh my… I can’t even think about that.

{I added the ornate gold frames to these paintings – it seemed only fitting, what with them being prophets and all. Thanks to Junkculture for the link!}

I love it {and when I say love, I mean LOVE} when sweet images from childhood storybooks have been rearranged ever so slightly to be, well… really wrong. Guns, smoking, and booze? Yep, Dick and Jane are living it up now, thanks to London based artist Ceal Warnants. I love {and when I say love, I mean LOVE} her Stories for Bedtime series, and I want all of them displayed on my bedside table… you know, right beside my gun rack, ash tray, and half empty bottle of vino.

{I found Ceal’s work through London’s Jealous Gallery, when I wrote about them last week.}

Now this brings a whole new twist to landscape photography… a yellow & hot pink cotton candy kind o’ twist! I would love to be up in the mountains watching one of Italian artist Filippo Minelli‘s brightly-hued clouds float by, wouldn’t you? Sigh… gorgeous.

{My “curated collection” at sfgirlbybay today is all about landscapes… also with a bit of a twist! Pop over and have a look!}

I am a huge fan of mixed media work, so clearly I have no choice but to be a huge fan of Tristram Mason, a student at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London {yes, I said student!?} What I absolutely love about his work, is that he experiments with so many techniques and materials – screenprint on paper, screenprint on canvas, a little embroidery here, a little embroidery there, and even ink on leather. Love, love, love!

{via Not Paper, an amazing blog dedicated to collage work… so, so good.}

Hello Jealous Gallery, it’s me, The Jealous Curator… um, I think we might be made for each other. Just sayin’.

Seriously, how did I not know about these guys? Jealous Gallery in London is filled with some amazing work, by an amazing roster of artists. They produce, and sell, limited edition prints {by both emerging and established artists}, and also curate bi-monthly exhibitions of original work. Am I jealous? Uh… yep.

{1. Charming Baker 2. Pam Glew 3. T.WAT 4. Ceal Warnants}

Drawings? Screenprints? Ok, I know absolutely nothing about these fantastic portrait hankies by Marseille based artist/designer/illustrator Mothi Limbu… well, other than that I love them more than a person should probably love a hankie.

{via Design for Mankind}

Ooh, that was fun! I just spent the better part of an hour going through the loose, muted painting portfolio of San Francisco based artist Jennie Ottinger playing an artsy version of  “finish your own adventure”. Quite the little story I’ve managed to put together, wouldn’t you say? RV’s, guns, a random hazmat guy, a race to the hospital, and of course, a jury to decide how the whole thing should turn out… hmm, or maybe I can decide how it turns out by visiting her portfolio one more time. Gotta go!

{Thanks to Kate, from Art Hound, for pointing me to Jennie’s work!}