We’ve been BLU fans for some time now, but after watching this animated film, we think we may be in love.
One of the most talented artists around, BLU is an Italian with a passion for street art. BLU has hit up more spots across the globe than we can even count, but we’ve never seen an animated version of his street creatures come to life like this before!
Trust us, you won’t be able to take your eyes off the screen, so make sure you have a solid seven minutes to sit back and be amazed by this animated film from BLU.

Always on the move, Juxtapoz has been traveling the globe in an effort to keep you updated with the world’s best contemporary and urban art. Erin, one of our beloved Juxtapoz staff members, hit the streets of London this week and came across a posh new gallery called Artichokeltd. Originally, Artichokeltd began solely as an online art dealer/gallery, but recently upgraded to a real gallery space in London’s pop culture hotbed, Convent Garden.
The two-story space currently hosts limited edition works by up and coming street artist Prefab, while downstairs the basement gallery is showing art from the likes of Jef Aerosol (shown holding his Spare A Dime print,) Oliver Harud, Alex Hearn, Seamo, Remi/Rough, and Mateusz Odrobny. Take a glance at some of the art our British friends are currently diggin’ right this way…

Watch painter Joshua Petker as he prepares for his second solo show at the Shooting Gallery in this video from our friends at VIMBY. Petker creates bold and beautiful paintings of women that ooze confidence by layering paint in an almost graffiti-like fashion.
See more of Petker’s work at www.joshuapetker.com.

Fine artist, and up-and-coming star, Saelee Oh (Juxtapoz issue #82) has a fantastical new show coming up called Tangled Tales. Opening this Saturday, May 17th at Hollywood’s Tinlark Gallery, Oh will present a new collection of paintings and sculptural explorations of the sorrows and hopes brought on by love.
Oh invents rich imaginary worlds ruled by mythic creatures and flora, as experienced from the eyes of a female protagonist. Each piece is a whimsical vignette– the adventures of a magic ghost cat, a subterranean rendezvous, and a bundle of letters delivered via moth– fanciful, romantic, but also complex in emotion.
Inspired by folk arts, organic forms, and vintage children’s books, Saelee Oh creates multi-layered works by integrating traditional painting and drawing with three-dimensional paper cutouts.
Learn more on Tangled Tales at www.tinlark.com.

Caleb Neelon’s highly anticipated solo show, Caleb Neelon Is Working On It, opened this past Saturday at Los Angeles’ Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art.
Full of brightly colored paintings and installations, Neelon’s exhibit attracted some fellow legends (yes, that’s the artist with Shepard Fairey and the Carmichael’s) that came out to show Neelon some well-deserved love. Take a look at more opening night pictures this way…

The talented Nathan Spoor has taken it upon himself to extend his abilities beyond creating artwork to that of curator, working on curating a new show in Rome titled The New Mythology.
The New Mythology is an exhibition of paintings representing a cross- section of a moving and powerful talent base of artists working individually toward a stronger sense of personal integrity in their works. Artists participating include: Lola, Travis Louie, Dan May, Michael Page, Naoto Hattori, Colin Johnson, Kevin Peterson, Chris Ryniak, Ken Keirns, Joe Vaux, and Nathan Spoor (Plume shown.)
Spoor is also currently finishing up an exhibit book, which will available for online purchase May 30th. Check out The New Mythology book preview right here.
The New Mythology show opens Friday, May 16th at Rome's Dorothy Circus Gallery, but if Italy is a bit out of the way for you this weekend, take a shorter trip to check out a preview of works in the show right over here…

TITLE: The Hunter
ARTIST: Double Parlour
More here…

Mode, the three-person exhibit at Distinction Gallery, opened its doors this past Saturday, May 10th. Featuring new works from Jeni Yang, Jenn Porreca, and Alex Willan, Mode totally came through for eager art lovers! The show remains on view thru June 7th, but take a look-see through some opening night flicks over here…

Edwin Ushiro plans to take project:gallery by storm with his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, opening July 12th. Titled While Tides Guide You Back Home, this show will include Ushiro’s first integrated installation.
The concept for While Tides Guide You Back Home is inspired by Ushiro’s feelings of regret after leaving his native Hawaii. Often wondering how life would have been different had he remained on Maui, he creates a body of work evoking childhood memories, both real and imagined. He portrays these moments through dreamlike sequences in multimedia paintings where he re-writes and re-interprets his own childhood memories in a fusion of traditional and digital artistic techniques.
Learn more about While Tides Guide You Back Home at projectgalleryLA.com and www.mrushiro.com.

Space Monkey fans rejoice! The king of vector-based artwork, James Marshall, better known as Dalek (Juxtapoz April 2008 cover) hits Irvine Contemporary in his only 2008 solo exhibition, Overweight. Opening Saturday, May 17th, Dalek himself will be present for the reception of Overweight! As if that weren’t enough, a new limited edition print (Untitled 2008, shown) published by Irvine Contemporary will accompany the exhibition!
After many years of thinking about American culture, high and low, Dalek has developed what he considers his most ambitious series of new works. His new body of work revels in a profusion and hyper-abundance of color and planes of space: the familiar lines and iconic “Space Monkey” references that defined his earlier work are only a starting point for a new series of meditations on the push and pull of forces he sees in contemporary life.
Working largely intuitively and organically, he allows each painting to become a new discovery, and the ongoing series of discoveries that defined his career have now led him far beyond his beginnings when, right out of art school, he found a new way to merge street art, cartoons, Japanese pop, and the energy of the urban punk scene. A major turning point in Dalek's studio practice was working as Takashi Murakami's assistant in 2001 (as if you couldn’t see the influence!) He now goes beyond Murakami's “superflat” to a kaleidoscopic play of space and color that embodies the competing and conflicting forces in today's world.
Dalek's new fusion of styles and ideas invite comparisons with the direction of the work of his friend, Ryan McGinness, and the dazzling psychedelic compositions of Fred Tomaselli. In an era when abundance and profusion have become the subject of artworld critique, Dalek presents a counter argument for plenitude and a generosity of spirit, qualities that all who know him have recognized as his real trademark.
Learn more about Overweight at www.irvinecontemporary.com.

Sean Christopher’s Vanity Bonfire (man, we just love that name!) recently opened to an eager crowd at Los Angeles’ Corey Helford Gallery. Full of innocent-looking delicacies like cakes, flowers, and shoes, Christopher’s exhibit explored a deceptively candy-coated world through the use of oil and mixed media on panel.
Take a trip to the opening of Vanity Bonfire in our photos right this way…

Quickly becoming one of our favorite emerging artists, Justin Lee Williams is an Australian talent we’ve been keeping an eye on. An illustrator and designer with an eye for detail and simple beauty, Williams spends his days in his new(ish) studio tucked away in the forest.
“I’m doing these real large-scale works at the moment using a small pencil. It’s kind of like torture, in a strange therapeutic way,” Williams told us. He kindly sent over some shots of the unfinished work he’s currently finishing up. You can’t see how large and detailed his new buffalo piece is from this photo, but trust us- the animal’s face alone is almost a foot tall! Make sure to visit the gorgeous world of Williams at www.justinleewilliams.blogspot.com.

Joshua Liner Gallery presents Compounded (in Gallery II,) an exhibition of new work by the Seattle-based artist Robert Hardgrave. This is Hardgrave’s debut exhibition in New York and his first solo show with Joshua Liner, which opens Saturday, May 17th.
In twenty-three works, ranging from large acrylic-on-canvas paintings to small ink-on-paper drawings, Hardgrave depicts phantasmagoric figures existing in painterly environments. Described by the artist as “countenances of spirits,” these images are built up from basic, expressive mark-making and complex shapes. See more of Hardgrave’s work, and read more on Compounded, right this way…

Joshua Liner Gallery presents Après la Pluie ("After the Rain") an exhibition of new work by the French artist Koralie. This is Koralie’s debut exhibition in New York and her first solo show with the gallery.
With a brightly colored palette and voracious eye for catchy, decorative flourish, Koralie borrows liberally from the visual traditions of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Her multi-tract practice migrates freely between painting, installations, web projects, graffiti wheatpasting, and fashion and graphic design.
Après la Pluie opens this Saturday, May 17th, at the Joshua Liner Gallery in New York City, and will remain on view thru June 14th. Learn more about Après la Pluie, and even sneak a peek at some of Koralie’s new work, right this way…

Okay, we know the Los Angeles debut of the epic photo show Heroes & Villains was a bit ago, but this show is so awesome, we thought we’d revisit its opening at Corey Helford Gallery. The exhibit will soon be traveling to other cities across the nation, with a book project in development as well as a new chapter of portraits to come!
Showcasing photographs of some of the biggest names in contemporary art (like David Choe and Saber, shown) by Tatiana Wills and Roman Cho, Heroes & Villains drew a crowd worthy of its own “Pop Life” section! Check out more flicks this way…

Dragon has teamed up with Mike Giant (Juxtapoz September 2007 cover) for the next phase of their Dragon Artist Project (DAP) with eyewear. Sweet shades adorned with Giant’s signature tattoo-inspired imagery? Hells yes! This Thursday, May 15th, Dragon will release 2500 limited edition Mike Giant Calavera sunglasses to limited retailers; you can cop a pair at Karmaloop.

This Saturday, May 17th, Fred Harper and Christopher Conte will grace Last Rites Gallery with Cyberdine, a show of these two artists exploring the boundaries between man and machine.
Fred Harper and Christopher Conte are two prolific, artistic virtuosos with a dark, cyberpunk aesthetic, which they express in wildly different ways.
Born in Norway, Conte's background is in making prosthetic limbs for amputees. He now turns his sculptural talents towards mechanized skulls- coils growing like cancer; and predatory, robotic insects poised to strike. His work has been seen in Wired, Popular Science, Make Magazine, and the Discovery Channel.
Harper, meanwhile, honed his skills as an illustrator and comics artist. His paintings (If I Had My Gloves On, I'd Pick It Up shown) alternately moody and violent, are a classically painted savagery of the human form. Nude sirens with metal and amputated limbs populate a nightmare vision of New York. Harper's work has appeared in New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Playboy, and Time Magazine, and he's created the key art for Ozzfest.
Check out www.lastritesgallery.com for more information and preview images of Cyberdine. 

Colin and Sas Christian’s opening at New York’s Opera Gallery this weekend was a smash hit, attracting some heavy hitters (yes, that’s Tommy Hilfiger with the pair) to check out their sci-fi inspired artistry. Colin’s sculptures and Sas’s paintings explore similar futuristic-looking female forms, saturated in sexuality with a hint of humor. Check out some opening shots this way…

Keeping you updated on the news of Scottish graffiti writer Gary Shields, aka DAZE, we’re happy to announce that DAZE was released yesterday after being sentenced to 28 months for causing "£270,000 of damage by spray painting graffiti on trains and public property.”
DAZE was released May 12th on ‘intern liberation’ meaning he will be jail-free until his appeal goes through. If his appeal is unsuccessful, DAZE will be bounced back into the slammer, but hopefully considering the global outrage over this situation, DAZE won’t be seeing the inside of a cell ever again.
Thanks to all those who took the time to join the Free Daze Facebook and Myspace groups, and signed one of the various petitions to set DAZE free! See what can happen when people get organized? Keep updated on DAZE’s appeal www.freedaze.co.uk.

Sami Pennanen decided to try something “real” in his fourth solo exhibition, Sami Pennanen Or Something at Galleria Huuto Helsinki Finland. Pennanen, a Finnish artist, created an intriguing mix of an installation, a cluster of fragmented imagery, juxtaposed styles, cross-referencing paintings, drawings, and photos. He states, “The works draw on a range of influences, as they have been made with a range of methods, to fulfill a range of intents.” Learn more on Pennanen’s work at www.galleriahuuto.net and see more photos here.