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Math Bass

Math Bass is a Los Angeles-based artist who works across performance, sculpture and video art, but its her super-stylised, flat gouache paintings that really stand out for us. With their constantly recurring motifs - matches, crocodiles, cigarettes, the number eight (or is it binoculars?!) and the occasional flower - these paintings are like some indecipherable private heiroglyphic code. The series, started in 2012 and still ongoing, is called 'Newz', a word that can be spelled out from elements in nearly all the paintings if you look closely enough (and stretch your imagination). There's something beguiling about this continuous experimentation with the same elements, seeing where they can be pushed and what results she can achieve within this baffling private world.

All images © Math Bass

Charlotte Wales

Whatever the people behind Blogger did to the page design templates, they really screwed it up, so now everything is off and awkward, and its almost impossible to align text and images. Which is really bad. The work of young photographer Charlotte Wales is also awkward and strange, but really good. Really, really good. Her models stretching and contorted, there's a real energy and strangeness to her work but also a new type of beauty. An awkward beauty. 

Its a similar aesthetic to that being explored by Harley Weir, another fascinating young female photographer working in London. The colour palette Charlotte tends to work with feels predominantly Seventies, like outtakes from that seminal fashion film The Eyes Of Laura Mars, and her choice of models really key (through choice or necessity we don't know). Right now Charlotte is really pushing what a contemporary fashion image can be, which makes for great viewing. 

 

All images © Charlotte Wales

Matthew Craven

 

Brooklyn-based artist Matthew Craven (b.1981) creates bold, enigmatic work that suggests imagined histories and lost civilisations. Working with vintage textbooks and imagery he creates searing, repeated patterns around collaged historical images of masks, tools, pots and statues. Represented by DCKT Contemporary in New York, Craven has had numerous solo shows across the USA and was one of the standout artists from this year’s Volta art shows in New York and Basel. 

We recently collaborated with him on a series of looks for London-based menswear designer A.Sauvage, which can be seen at the bottom, below the examples of Matthew's work. A print campaign will follow later this year when the SS2015 collection goes on sale.