Kirsty Whiten has been working since 2000, exhibiting her distinctive drawings and paintings internationally. In collaboration with other artists and in street settings, Whiten has used paste-up techniques to enlarge her characters and work them into public murals.

She is known for her warped large-scale portrait paintings and highly detailed photo-realistic drawings, often containing powerfully subversive content and irreverent humour. Her work has been featured in magazines such as Juxtopoz and Hi-fructose, and art-blogs worldwide. Whiten’s work is about people; human behaviour, history, family, society, sexuality and culture.  Her take on her subjects is quirky and unsettling.

I built a house with my partner, Ben Seal, a couple of years ago. We moved out of Edinburgh and into a small village in Fife. We designed a passive house; that is one which requires little or no heating, and it has a sound studio for him and a painting studio for me. It’s by far the best studio I have ever had – in the past I was always in a semi-derelict building with mice and frost. I still can’t really believe it every time I walk in – I love it.  Because I got to design it from scratch, it has good north light and a skylight to the east for morning sun.

If I am painting I work at the easel and make a mess everywhere, other times I sit at a drawing board to work on paper and try to be precise. I have images and little bits of text all over the walls, and I find my brain makes good and odd connections out of these in it’s own time, when I am not concentrating too hard. I have to keep refreshing this pin-board to keep ideas flowing. I also have a few images of favourite artists around – Paula Rego, Charles Avery, Frida Kahlo, Dorethea Tanning – just to remind me where to aim I guess.

I bring people into the studio to photograph them and dress-up and play – it is essential to have this neutral, creative work space – everyone behaves differently in there, quieter, more focused and sort-of free.

I’m working on a set of rituals and rites just now – I have an exhibition in Austria in July and I have a lot of work to make – so I am collecting little fetish power objects and photographing and drawing different people in costume, dancing and freaking out.

From time to time I work outside because I can make my work public and monumental by enlarging the drawings into paste-ups. I really like the public aspect of it – it is the antithesis of the gallery where it all has to be clean and crisp and the feedback is very civilized. It is highly glamorous work, often balancing on commercial bins and chatting to various tramps and passersby in an alley like a wind tunnel.

More: Website | Flickr | Facebook

//////

‘Where I Make’ invites readers behind the scenes of artists from many disciplines to share photographs and a little insight about where they create their masterpieces. See more from the series here.

Ashcroft has painted live worldwide from Los Angeles to Hong Kong and Osaka. His work is held in private and public collections including The New Art Gallery, Walsall and the Royal Mail. In 2005 he was commissioned by the British Film Institute to create the film poster and DVD for the UK cinematic release of the original uncutGodzilla (1954). In 2010 Ashcroft painted with the Scrawl Collective in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall as part of Tate Modern’s 10th anniversary event No Soul For Sale.

Since 1998 my studio has been located in the former Deptford Library in New Cross, an Edwardian building opened in 1914 and now home to an independent co-operative of about 50 artists.

My studio is located on the top floor, with a glass ceiling which allows plenty of light. In the winter the studio is often freezing, during the summer it’s like a greenhouse.

This is where I can experiment with the process of painting, free from interruption.

If I work late at night to early morning I’m usually the only person left in the building. I’ve been told of ghosts but as yet only heard mice scattering amongst the empty studios. I try not to hang around when it comes to locking up.

Ashcroft’s first monograph Solar System Parameters is published by Gamma Proforma in October 2013 and is available to order here.

More: Website | Tumblr | Facebook | Twitter

All photos (excluding the book) © Joe Plommer

//////

‘Where I Make’ invites readers behind the scenes of artists from many disciplines to share photographs and a little insight about where they create their masterpieces. See more from the series here.

Fuzzy Memory by Berlin based Irish artist, Enda O’Donoghue.

Behance | Website | Tumblr | Twitter

//////

Discover more work by creatives we’ve featured, here.
If you have a Flickr, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Behance or Cargo account connect with us.

Bread Collective is a creative collective based in East London, made up of illustrators, graphic designers, art directors, set designers, photographers and filmmakers. We have four core members: Luke James, Owen Phillips, Victoria Walmsley and Jo Lee, regularly collaborating with a wider network of creatives.

The Walls Have Ears Murals

The Walls Have Ears Murals

Having worked with each other in the past, we began as a group of friends discussing how we could stretch ourselves creatively and work on more ambitious projects by combining our different skills. We chose the name Bread, as we liked the idea ‘to break bread’, meaning the idea of a friendly social interaction where something is shared.

Golden Moments Art Direction

Bread was officially established in 2012 after we were awarded funding by the London Legacy Development Corporation for a community project to improve the area where we all live in Hackney Wick, just outside the Olympic park. The project was enthusiastically received by local residents and attracted media attention by the Guardian, the BBC and a list of top design magazines and blogs, such as Creative Review.

Carhartt Installation

As the year has progressed, we have been extremely lucky to work with a variety of great clients, including: Carhartt, Maharishi, Monkstone Knitwear, Samsung, Beck’s, Lovebox Festival and Cnwd.

Monkstone AW12 Video Lookbook

Where possible, we strive to work on worthy projects that we believe in, and we’ve enjoyed running workshops with the public. This has led us to work on inspirational projects such as the Do Lectures, and Kaleidoscope Festival which launches at the Barbican in November.

Monkstone AW12 Video Lookbook

We’re always keen to hear from people who would like to collaborate with or commission us, so please feel free to give us a shout at:
Website | Blog | Vimeo | Facebook | Twitter

//////

See more arts collectives we’ve featured on the site. Think we should feature your collective? Get in touch.

Grotta Zine is a brand new art-zine, a 36-page bi-weekly magazine featuring exciting artists from Iceland. Grotta is edited, published and produced by Frosti Gnarr Studio, a newly formed creative design-studio at Grótta, Iceland. Grotta Zine is as said published twice a month, each time featuring only one artist and his offerings to the issue. Emphasis is put on interdisciplinary artists that we at the studio feel need to be seen. This handmade art zine is photocopied at our studio, with the cover sheet hand sprayed for a unique artist signature. Only 500 copies will be made of each issue.

Frosti Gnarr Studio Staff

The first artist featured was Sigurður Angantýsson Hólm, an introverted artist obsessed with the combination of symbolism and nature. Before the release Sigurður spent three weeks in the studio library, drawing his brains out, choosing and developing the artwork for his issue. This is something we implemented from the start, having the artist over at the studio for at least a week to work and develop some kind of ideology, style or concept. The profit of each issue is shared fairly to everyone involved.

Artist Sigurður Angantýsson Hólm

Inside Grotta Zine Issue 1

The second artist we chose to feature is Hellcat, a photographer that documents the dark sides of the Reykjavík nightlife. Extremely graphic at times, these moments tell a story, not only of the subject but also of the photographer. Famed for the sincerity of his images, Hellcat shoots with analog film cameras from the corners of nightclubs, afterparties and other generally shady circumstances. Issue #2 of Grotta Zine glimpses into Hellcats darkroom and his life right now.

Grotta Zine Issue 2

Frosti Gnarr Studio is the brainchild of Frosti Gnarr, a graphic/editorial designer that recently made his return to Iceland after a few years study in the Netherlands, where he got his MA in Editorial Design at the HKU in Utrecht. Previously he got his BA from the Iceland Academy of the Arts.

Inside Grotta Zine Issue 2

In the beginning, the studio bought a copier. That’s it. They found an excellent 15 year old Konica-Minolta, about 70 km away in the next town to Reykjavík. A few days later, Grotta Zine was born, and they were already making tests to see how they could play around with this printing technique. It really sparked a great interest in this medium.

In the next months Grotta have lined up collaborations with a lot of great artists from different fields such as photographers, painters, musicians and filmmakers to create versatile and unique issues of Grotta.

Find out more about Grotta Zine:
Website | Facebook |Twitter

Find out more about Frosti Gnarr Studio:
Website | Facebook

//////

Find more zines we’ve featured here.

We took the quiet roads

What’s in the blog:
Stewart’s Studio is a blog by Edinburgh based painter Stewart Bremner. Bremner writes religiously every Friday about his painting.

Why we like it:
Stewart tells it like it is and does not gloss over his hardships. Take a look at his post It’s Not All Plain Sailing where he describes how he overcame ‘painter’s block’.

Hidden treasure:
We’re loving Bremner’s font series where he mixes collage with his abstract works. See them here.

Where to find out more:
Website | Facebook | Google+

//////

Want to take a look at more suggested blogs by artists? Look here.