We are enjoying the paintings and drawings of Los Angeles-based artist Alex Gardner this morning.  

This past weekend we stopped by Blum & Poe for the opening of Takashi Murakami’s latest solo exhibition “Arhat.” This is the first time Mr Murakami has shown in the United States since his travelling survey from 2007-09,  and what we saw was a fantastic series of new paintings and sculptures that remind us of the playful nature of the Japanese artist's work. Definitely a must see if you are in the Los Angeles area. Photos and more after the jump…  

Born in 1987, Eric Pfeiffer is an illustrator and cartoonist currently based out of Richmond, VA. While attending VCU, Pfeiffer began freelancing for small publications as well as ESPN The Magazine. He also directed and published the local comic anthology "The RV Anthology" in 2010 and is the creator behind Kid Havoc, an industries mashup of comics and fashion that utilizes the unique storytelling abilities of both mediums.

You may remember that we traveled to Singapore with Mary Iverson and Chandran Gallery earlier this year, and Iverson is now back in the States with a new series of works at Shooting Gallery in San Francisco. In Tangle, the Seattle-area based artist features new works plus a gigantic 8' x 14' mural on canvas. Because we became huge fans of her work through the murals, its great to see her bring this back for the new show. 

Today, Iron and Wine has released a new LP, Ghost on Ghost, via Nonesuch Recoreds, and we have this great new animated video from Hayley Morris for the track "Joy" to show you. Colors transform, things grow, and there is fantastic treatment throughout by Morris and all the artists involved. Watch after the jump... 

The Irish painter and muralist, Conor Harrington, quickly painted this monochromatic, colonial style portrait in London, UK the other day. Great stuff as usual.

Spanish artist Yago Partal has composed a series of portraits that, in our opinion, perfectly match fashion styles with the look and vibe of various Zoo animals, effectively depicting what each animal's human counterpart might wear.

  Using layers of translucent packing tape on clear, backlit Plexiglas panels, Ukrainian artist Mark Khaisman transforms a commonplace material into a fine art medium. He says, 'By superimposing layers of translucent tape, I play on degrees of opacity that produces transparencies highlighted by the color, shading, and embossment.'  

  Artist David Bowen created an acrylic sphere containing a keyboard, a collection of houseflies, and various instruments that detect the flies landing on a particular key. The corresponding character is then entered into a twitter text box and when the 140-character limit is reached 'ENTER' is triggered and the tweet is broadcasted in real time. Watch a video after the jump...  

We weren't quite sure what was going on here until we saw a few different angles of Japanese design studio YOY's latest 'canvas,' two-dimensional-looking hanging furniture pieces. Each piece is constructed out of wood and aluminum and then covered with screen-printed elastic fabric. The 'canvas' is then leaned against a wall and stretches when weight is applied to accommodate the user.