Samantha Miller
How can anyone forget that stunning dress Beyoncé wore at the 2014 Grammy Awards? She looked absolutely gorgeous in her white lace mermaid styled dress. Her dress had a simple flower design that simultaneously added a layer of sexy to her look by exposing her back and elegantly showing off her beautiful complexion and curvaceous shape. It wasn’t a look that most of us could pull off and it wasn’t a gown that just any designer could put together. This one-of-a-kind look is the work of designer and child prodigy, Michael Costello.
Costello was a contestant on season 8 of the popular design competition show, Project Runway. He was also a finalist on Project Runway’s All-Star Season. Unlike most contestants of competition shows, Costello’s fame has exceeded past 15 minutes. Costello is making his mark in the fashion industry and within the next 10 years it wouldn’t be a surprise if he is ranked with fashion kings such as Donatella Versace, Michael Kors and Giorgio Armani.
There are some street artists that have the ability to paint such magnificent murals that you couldn’t imagine the building looking any other way. A mural titled “Mirandas en Transito” which is outside of the museum Instituto de Investigaciones Culturales Museo in Mexicali, is the work of an artist who has such artistic capabilities. This mural features shapes that have the ability to flow with the edges of the building. Fernando Corona possesses a talent where he is able to utilize the shape of the building to animate his murals and give them a natural flow that can’t be found in most two-dimensional art. The mural also features several pairs of black-and-white eyes looking in different directions. The simple color choices in the eyes are contrasted with several yellow, green, purple and orange triangles, which gives the mural a geometric sharpness balanced by the soft lines of the eyes throughout the mural.
If this brilliant Detroit photographer never laid eyes on the exhibit of the legendary French photographer Henri Cartier- Bresson, photography as we know it would be much different. Bill Rauhauser is known for his classic black-and-white photographs that captured the significant beauty and simple elegance of Detroit throughout several decades. Prior to seeing Cartier-Bresson exhibit, Rauhauser had no idea that his hobby of taking photographs could turn into a full blown career.
His photographs over the decades depict the simple moments in Detroit life. Whether it is a photo of a woman gazing off to the side as she enjoys a cigarette on an outside Detroit plaza while wearing a lavish peacoat and string of pearls, or a photo of pedestrians walking across a street with their heads intently focused on what’s in front of them as a young boy accompanies them with a balloon in his hand, Rauhauser’s photographs show us that, as a society, we often don’t notice simple moments the world presents to us.
Her work is complex and has multiple meanings and even some contradictions that hold truth. Her means are peculiar. Rather than a paint brush and a canvas, she uses magazines, pornography and even animal skins to create elaborate collages. Wangechi Mutu’s style is nearly impossible to define. It resembles the work of Pablo Picasso with the way her designs play on abstraction while simultaneously referencing surrealism with her darker themes. Mutu is primarily known for her perspective of women’s bodies, especially African women. She critiques the manner in which society objectifies women by using the very tools that society utilizes to sexualize women in the first place such as magazines and pornography, which are two mediums that are known to objectify women and their bodies.
