Mike Stilkey's painted book sculptures

I've been a fan of Mike Stilkey for quite a while now. I first came across his work in 2013 when he came here, to the Philippines, to install his 24-foot-high book sculpture in Fully Booked, Bonifacio High Street.

Mike is a Los Angeles-based painter, illustrator and sculptor who creates fabulous animal and human characters directly on stacks of books. He heads to local libraries to find books that are about to be thrown out, then he stacks them on top of one another and uses them as canvas for his vibrant paintings. The artist's melancholic and at times a whimsical scenes and portraits are created in his signature style, and he forms them using a mix of ink, colored pencil, paint, and lacquer.

A lover of books himself, Mike quit his job as a picture framer and sold his car to get money so he could become a full-time artist. In an interview with the LA Times, he said: "The books are dying. There are so many that go to the garbage. It's crazy. If I can paint on them, I'm giving them a second chance."

In the video, embedded below, Mike discusses his childhood, skateboarding, graffiti, and his path to becoming the artist that he is today.

Comments

Enigmatic Shapes and Psychedelic Patterns

To say that I love Sanagi 's work is an understatement. Looking at her art feels sort of therapeutic, and I find her drawings refreshingly intricate. They're trippy, psychedelic, and resemble something that you might see under a microscope. Not much is Googleable about Sanagi, but that's fine. There aren't many artists these days that still pull off the whole mysterious vibe, so I commend her for that. By the way... they're all hand-drawn with pen and ink.

Kidlat de Guia's woven art

Kidlat De Guia is a photographer and filmmaker who lives and works in the Philippines. He is best known for a body of work that mixes different media as well as traditional with contemporary art-making techniques. The selected images in this post were part of his Woven into Being exhibition, which took place a fews weeks ago at the Galeria Duemila in Pasay City. This series of portraits deals with the idea of blending modern photography with the indigenous art of weaving to produce geometric tapestries with tile-like look. Working with his stock of photos taken during trips and fieldwork around the Philippines, Kidlat creates double vistas through the cutting, splicing, and weaving of the pictures. The results are rivetingly composite and texturized layers of photographic images that disclose an alternate reality.

James DeRosso's ceramic monsters

I really like these whimsical ceramic creatures by James DeRosso. Yes, they have bulging eyes and toothy grins, but they're not scary at all. The Portland-based artist started making cute monsters while he was a student to jokingly create gargoyle-like guardians for the kiln. After other students kept taking his quirky little figures, he realized there was a market for them. "I'm enjoying the whole monster making niche," James says. "It's amazingly gratifying to be doing ceramics full time and especially to be a teacher introducing kids to the joy of clay." Be sure to visit his website and like his Facebook page for the latest monster news.

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