john stezaker.

John Stezaker has just proved to me – and the world – that great collage doesn’t need to be complicated, just clever.

And a little bit odd.

Relish his archive here. 

gered mankowitz.

Gered Mankowitz opened his first studio on Masons Yard in London when he was 17 years old. He took these and hundreds of other portraits of rock and roll nubiles throughout the 1960s. He's still at it.

Check out his wonderful new exhibition, now on at Snap Galleries in Picadilly Arcade (not all that far from his original studio).

Read my full review here!

And enjoy Gered's full back catalogue here.

claire brewster.

Joy of jellied gum drops! Sing of springtime sunshine! Perchance these little ditties will put a smile on your face? These winged wonders were snipped from a tea-stained atlas by the hand of Lincolnshire-born artist Claire Brewster.  Behold: magpies from Australia, starlings from Manhattan, hummingbirds from Putney - what light and lovely scissors must have trimmed away the excess to give life to such diaphanous characters!

Enjoy Claire’s work and other good things over at the London Transport Museum, whose new show Mind the Map: inspiring art, design and cartography is on until 28^th October.

Claire’s website here.

robin gibb.

Dear Robin Gibb,

You and your brothers were so silly, and so wonderful. I'll miss you.

Big love,

 TSG

gideon mendel: drowning world.

Photographer Gideon Mendel has spent the past five years traveling through and photographing post-flood countries, including Bangladesh, Thailand, Australia and the UK. 

A new show currently at the Somerset House showcases this strange and beautiful series - Drowning World. (on until 5th June)

Read my full review here!

Some other very interesting projects from Gideon here.

camille.

Camille is a French musician gaining ground not only for her siren’s song vocals and gently melting lyrical melodies, but also her unique style of percussion (often involving her body). Tout Dit couldn't sum it up better - longing, bare, and impressive. Watch as she plays her voice like the strings of a harp.

Her website here. 

just a thought. [bernard cohen]

"A storyteller and a creator of pictorial theatre", he calls himself. 

 Visit Bernard's website here.

the eagleman stag.

Joy of joys! What a brilliant little film. The Eagleman Stag is a brief musing on the passage of time, sardonically narrated by a disillusioned man named Peter. Following a midlife crisis during a fishing trip with his son, Peter decides to become a biologist. I can relate.

This wonderful, gloriously strange (and highly awarded) bit of animation is the product of Mikey Please and "some strange white stuff, found in the back of a stress cushion". Enjoy a short making-of video here. Do, do watch.

www.theeaglemanstag.com

guido mocafico.

Guido Mocafico is an Italian photographer, living in Switzerland, and working in Paris. He is also one seriously committed dude. His latest undertaking, Stilleven, saw him painstakingly reconstruct classical oil paintings from Dutch and German masters, recreating their suptuous scenes of floral opulence and tabletop butchery with an inspired, almost maniacal reverence for minutia. 

But the result, however exhaustive, are these photographs - exceptional works that retain an everyday-objects-gone-ominous, claustrophobic fruity darkness that would have made Giuseppe Arcimboldo proud. It’s an ethos of perfectionism and clean composition that he’s applied with relish to a number of studies including snakes, clocks, hand guns and thousanddollar bills. Props, Mr. Mocafico. 

Devour his website here.