Grotesque collages by Igor Skaletsky

Bonne Bouche by Jane Howarth

Meet Jane Howarth. She takes the "dirty animals" (species that are often overlooked, discarded, unvalued) and costume jewelry and creates strange creatures that are deemed museum worthy. There is this great dichotomy going on here of beauty and ugliness, desire and repulsion, tenderness and the face of death. I think these are some important and gorgeous works to see! The birds are part of her Bonne Bouche collection of '1930's Sea Birds', who have feasted on a picnic of leather gloves, pearl necklaces and other delightful items left abandoned on the sand.

I have a curious mind that searches into, and appreciates, the corners of life and death that others may find ugly and grotesque. I enjoy exploring a world that challenges our perceptions of beauty and verges on the macabre.
My work is, among other things, an attempt to transform dead animals into strangely beautiful museum pieces. I have become a cosmetic taxidermist, playing with both seduction and repulsion.

Marko Mitanovski S/S 2010

Halloween special: Marko Mitanovski's "Lady Macbeth"

Halloween Special: Tim Burton's Magical Fashion

Filmmaker Tim Burton had joined forces with photographer Tim Walker to re-imagine A/W 2009's dark delights for Harper's Bazaar. Dark and grotesque yet full of charm. Might serve well as a Halloween inspiration.

Nicola Samori's Paintings

La Storia, 2009

Italian artist, Nicola Samori, depicts the subject of deconstruction of beauty, framed in dark, post-modern grotesque. Her haunting baroque style paintings are situated in a somewhat surreal past tense. The subjects are like echos of their former selves, any distinguishing features are blurred or melting away as if they are torn between two worlds. The feeling of combined daunt and mystery makes them particularly interesting. We would love to see these on the walls of some creepy chateau!

“My works are planes of temporal accumulation and push the image towards its dissolution. My attention is focused on the last moments of a work when a form of exhausted, at-the-limit beauty is impressed in it. I like taking the image to a breaking point, putting its form into danger.”

We find it comforting to see there are still some interesting painters out there; in times overruled by photography, works like these makes us hope for the better future of paintings in whole, as an art form.

L’oro galleggia, 2011

Ogni Estasi è Indecente, 2011

Hans Holbein – écorché (estasi), 2010

J.R.S.G. (del nascondimento), 2010

Simonia (Gambassi), 2008

J.V., 2009

Simonia (S.G.M.), 2008

Lucrezia, 2010

Rapture, 2010

Manto minimo, 2011

Rossy de Palma

Rossy de Palma is a Spanish actress. After starring in Pedro Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown in 1988, she became a model and was claimed a muse of designers like Jean-Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler. Her status as an iconic fashion character was further cemented with her role in Robert Altman’s 1994 satirical fashion film Prêt-à-Porter. Today, she is a theater actress, charity spokesperson and the face of luxury ad campaigns.