INVURT

ATom1746 is a relatively new artist on our radar, but his interwoven pop-art stencilist styled pieces works for us. Perusing his gallery, we were really impressed by the range of pieces he put out last year.

"ATom1746 is an urban artist from Christchurch, New Zealand. Originally inspired by American pop art, he soon became heavily involved in the genre of urban art with his pieces quickly becoming a blend of the two styles."

Sure, you’ve seen this brand of minimalist stencilling before, but this just feels fresh. With a great blend between minimalism and high detail,  if he keeps on this path, we expect his name to get out there even further this year.

(Images via http://www.atom1746.com/)

Hope you enjoy the work of todays Artist To Watch as much as we do, its pretty hard not to! Ghstie is one artists website that we especially love seeing updated – this New Zealand artist has the goods. The walls we’ve seen him do are second to none, yet his painting work on canvas, or illustrations on paper are impeccably grand also.

He was one of the many artists who painted up at last years Graffiato at Taupo – which we wish we’d been able to go to! He has also been featured in the premier issue of Knock Knock magazine and we’re hoping he’ll also be in the upcoming Dregs documentary.

Ghsties work is a perfect example of New Zealand street art at its finest.

(All images via Ghsties blog)

What can we say about Rad11? Every piece we see him do is better than the last, and he just keeps getting better and better – no bullshit.

We always look forward to seeing his work as it goes up on the streets (and we’re really lucky to have a lot of opportunities to do so as we get to paint with him a bit) and, furthermore, his recent exploration with oil painting has also started to produce some really beautiful and intriguing surrealistic pieces. Illustration wise? The man is brilliant.

Not having exhibited all that much in the past, we’re really looking forward to seeing his work up in some galleries, we have it on good authority that he’ll be in a few group shows coming up – fuckin-a.

So much more amazing recent work over at his website, Also, check out this cool profile from last year over at T-Squat!

The first image above is by the talented James Watkins, who has documented a lot of Rad11s work and is one of our favourite photographers, hands down! The remained are all via the Rad11 website and our own archives.

The crew at Street Advent told us that they thought "Rone is killing it since his solo show, and I think we will see him continue to do so in 2012." In addition to his solo show, he also displayed work in the seminal Young & Free exhibition, and did an amazing tour across the world late in 2011.

Right now, Rone is off in Hawai’i, to paint a bunch of walls at the amazing Pow Wow art event, along with other Everfresh members Phibs and Meggs. What he has planned for over there, we don’t know, but what we do know is that this Everfresh crew member is on fire – we’re looking forward to seeing even more of his iconic women this year.

Check out the interview we did with Rone here and check out a bunch of the photos from his tour at the end of last year

(images via Rones website)

We kind of stumbled over Meghan Gelizas work via our friend Cleo Barnett, and we instantly loved what we saw. Having produced a great bunch of work last year, 2011 culminated in her and a whole slew of other artists travelling over to Cambodia for the Little Lotus project – seriously check this out if you haven’t already!

"Meghan Geliza is a self-taught Pop Surrealist painter living in Auckland. Her large-scale paintings on wood are of surreal worlds swirling in intense and explosive colour, in an environment of myths, old literature and basic human emotions, inextricably blended in its own ether. Using a cacophony of colours and congealed imagery, Meghan weaves elaborate painted tapestries that comment on dual concepts such as union-dissolution, stability-change, and constraint-transcendence.

She’s been exhibiting in group shows around New Zealand these past couple of years and has recently come out of her first solo exhibit, Adieu False Heart at Te Karanga Gallery. She recently curated and showed work in Beauty Meets the Bizarre Art Show at the Depot Artspace Main Gallery."

Meghans use of colour was the first thing that caught our eye. As we fell into the detail of her work, we found ourselves chasing a rabbit down a hole of pop sensibilities mixed with the tones of modern surrealism – looking at her work evokes the same responses in us as when we’re reading the words of Andre Breton, and for us thats a fkn grand thing.

Well definitely be watching out for more of this ladys work in the future.
 

(All images via http://www.meghangeliza.com/)

There’s no way this list couldn’t contain him, and he was mentioned several times whilst we compiled it. According to Arty Graffarti, Itch is "Already quite the established graffiti writer, street artist, digital artist and a whole swag of all things creative, its about time Itch got some [if not, more] recognition and I’m hoping that in 2012 we get to see a lot more from this art machine."

Itch is a definite favourite of ours here, his work both solo and as a part of the AWOL crew is second to none. Like Arty Graffarti, we’re really looking forward to seeing what he does this year.

(Images via Itch’s blog) 

Next up in our daily Artists to Watch column is Brisbane based artist, Steven Rhodes. The team at Strutten suggested this great artist as someone who they think will be doing great things in 2012, and we have to agree. Steven Rhodes is an ".. illustrator and graphic designer creating quirky and playful images."

I mean, combining aliens with cats with beards, and fish with urban scenery? Pure genius. His previous life incarnation as a landscape architecture also feels like it comes through in some of his imagery,  and we think that’s kinda beautiful.

(All images via http://www.stevenrhodes.com.au/)

Yesterday we bought you the crazy cool skills of BMD, and the new Artists To Watch column is up and rolling. This is our daily dose of artistic talent that we think is rockin it in 2012 and beyond – up today is an artist suggested to us by the Street Advent team, Juan Mcarb.

Juan Mcarb is a new find for us, but we’re more than happy to include him on this list. Pop derived work with a slightly edged twist, his pieces are a gorgeous blend of the new and familiar. There are many artists working within this format, but Mcarb has found a nice melding that just sits well with us.

“Juan Mcarb (Tom Adair) began as a graffiti artist on the streets of Melbourne, Australia. Nowadays he has altered his medium of choice and works with a multitude of materials ranging from paint, vinyl, aerosol, paint filled fire extinguishers, acid etched mirrors, glass, neon light, acrylic, metal, and found objects.”

Mcarb is an emerging artist with a hell of a lot of promise – we’re looking forward to seeing him pushing his work, as well as producing more of it, this year.

(Images via Juan Mcarbs facebook page)

You can also check out Juans Mcarbs website here for a heap more images and information on the artist.