Area Environments Wallcoverings

Regular readers may recall I am an interior designer by trade, and I have found a new wallcovering company I am eager to use for clients. Area Environments makes mural-type products that are sized to your wall and space. Look at how painterly and unique they are!

https://www.areaenvironments.com/

Musée National Pablo Picasso, La Guerre et la Paix

All photos by JEF

Banksy's Ukraine Stamp

To mark the grim first anniversary of Russia's attempted invasion and ongoing war, Ukraine has issued a postage stamp featuring an image of a Banksy mural the artist created on a demolished wall in the battered city of Borodyanka, northwest of Kyiv. The mural depicts a David and Goliath moment: a young boy uses a Judo flip on a larger, older man who resembles a certain leader...and in fact, the Cyrillic on the stamp translates as "FCK PTN."

Keep flippin' 'em Ukraine, the world stands with you, waiting for the tyrant to fall.

As far as I can understand, the stamps are available for purchase on the Ukraine postal service site. All proceeds go to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
https://www.ukrposhta.ua/en

BEAUTY: Interior Design--Lolita Eipprova Café & Patisserie

Andrej Mercina, director of the Slovenian architectural firm TRIIIJE has created an arresting, immersive project in the town of Ljubljana. In collaboration with visual artist Jaša Mrevlje-Pollak, Lolita Eipprova Café & Patisserie is a hymn to age, texture, recycled materials, and a sense of the hand-drawn and handmade. The team left exposed the masonry walls full of cracks, stains, peeling plastering and chipped corners and added original tiles that were found in the basement of the building along with extra parquet flooring on the walls and mirrors sourced from other construction sites. The team even shopped at flea markets and thrift stores to find vintage plates and tea cups. Dead stock textiles were used for drapery panels and upholstery on minimal banquettes. And vintage bentwood Thonet chairs were sourced in a variety of stains. I really love the heavily plastered and striated walls in the hallway to the cave-like restrooms. But the most beautiful element in the entire project is the wall treatment, looking as if an artist sketched all over with pastels and charcoal, doodling florals, plants, and meaningful phrases in a beautiful natural color palette. The result is like sitting inside a life-sized version of an artist's sketchbook. Just lovely.

https://www.kaval-group.si/lolita-eipprova
https://www.triiije.com/
http://www.jasha.org/

Mark Rothko's Seagram Murals: Great Art Explained

The marvelous series "Great Art Explained," created and produced by gallerist and art historian James Payne, covers Mark Rothko's Seagram Murals.

 
On the 25th February 1970, the Tate gallery in London received nine Mark Rothko canvasses, a generous donation from the artist himself.

A few hours later, Rothko was found dead in his studio on East 69th Street in Manhattan. The 66-year-old painter had taken his own life.

His suicide would change everything and shape the way we respond to his work.

Rothko was aware that people often burst into tears when confronted with his painting. “I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions, tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on” he said.

Consider supporting "Great Art Explained" through Patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/user?u=53686503

FEATHER Wallcoverings

Regular readers may recall my main profession is interior design and one of my favorite aspects of my career is being exposed to so many new, innovative, and unique products.

And I must profess my love for the Finnish wallcovering company FEATHER, founded by friends Tom, Anne, and Oli. I'm itching to find a client who will love these patterns as much as I do.

Their company creates amazing wallpapers and murals like this gorgeous watercolor series by LA artist Stacy Solodkin.

Artist Magnus Gjoen has created several marvelous wallcoverings for FEATHER that riff on the ideas of Neo-Classical, Georgian, and Victorian wallcoverings but with a wry, modern twist.

His "Flower Bomb" paper looks like a typical design featuring a spray of flowers but when studied closely, that spray is in the shape of a missile.

Gjoen's incredibly realistic trompe-l'œil paper "Victory Over Ignorance" is startling in its depth. The red stripes actually seem to hover over the antique black and white botanical etchings below.

And finally, what self respecting Victorian would not love this florid, Flemish-flowered paper with hidden skulls.

The papers from their regular lines are just as wonderful. I love the Art Deco vibe of this design called "Ember."

The mash up of graffiti and oil paint is exciting in "Glowing Shards Blue."

Take a look at the tranquility of "Ornament," "Oslo," and "Raindrops."

And "Superabstract" is a fun homage to the graphics of the 60s and 70s while "Utopia" is pure 1980s Memphis style!

https://www.feathr.com/